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2a9a1256-3b0f-11eb-a672-d3a63b5949eb	How Mindfulness Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-mindfulness-works	What has become a buzz word for corporate retreats and a way to get a discount on your health insurance is, at its core, a powerful, centuries-old Buddhist method of moving through life and dealing with the suffering that inevitably comes along with it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	What has become a buzz word for corporate retreats and a way to get a discount on your health insurance is, at its core, a powerful, centuries-old Buddhist method of moving through life and dealing with the suffering that inevitably comes along with it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Thu, 24 Feb 2022 14:49:30 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=24, tm_hour=14, tm_min=49, tm_sec=30, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=55, tm_isdst=0)	50509604	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's hereish. And this is stuff you should know. This is full on stuff. You should know. Charles. I remember that point. I feel like it was about eight to ten years ago where everyone was just saying ish on the end of things instead of saying finding the real word that they were looking for. So, like an approximation of the word or the thing they were describing. So, like I'm saying I'm 40 ish no, not even that when there's like a real word that could be used and they would just throwish on another word. I don't know what you're talking about. No, yeah, it was a thing. It swept the nation. When was it? Or maybe I'm thinking of the Macarena. That's what you're thinking. Okay. All right. Man, I really did sweep the nation. Remember that? Who let the dogs out? It was like a one time let the dogs out. Did they ever find that out? No, I think it was a rhetorical question. Ish it's the kind of rhetorical question you could ask yourself, Chuck, while you're meditating? Yeah, but first, thanks, but I'm going to step all over the segue, because before we get started, Chuck, I want to do, if you allow me, another shout out for my little niece Mila's movie, big time movie called no Exit that's coming out as far as when this episode drops tomorrow. So February 21, 2022. No matter when you hear this, just immediately go on to Hulu subscribe if you haven't yet, and check out my niece Mila in no Exit because she sent me the trailer. Amazing. What do you think? It looks like a taught thriller. She looks fantastic. From what you can tell from a trailer. I know. You just saved all the bad parts for the movie. I don't think they did. I was reading an interview with the director, and he was saying, like, she was doing such an amazing job of being terrified and freaked out, and everything that in between takes, the other cast members would be like, Are you okay? And she'd be like, yeah, are you okay? You know I'm acting, right? Yeah, exactly. She's like, it's acting like John. Love it. Yeah. So on. Hulu no exit. February 25. My niece Mila just kills it. There you go. Can't wait. Thanks again for that, Chuck. So let's get started. Thank you for not passing judgment on that. Either way, you're reseguing because we're talking judgment means I'm not being mindful, because a big part of mindfulness. Huge. Just to not judge. Yeah. So this is one of those ones, you know, those episodes where we just start talking about the thing without defining it. This is not going to be one of those episodes because I think it would be kind of rough otherwise. Yeah. And I guess if you're going to define mindfulness, you need to kind of go back in time. I guess we could hop in the wayback machine. We haven't done that in a while. Yeah, it's been a while. Pull the old cover off. It's quite dusty in here. And a little bit of mildew. Little mildew. There's some old crystals boxes. Those are yours. Remember, you had them accidentally delivered to your house. Right. And then we went back to the Old West to celebrate. You're thinking of Back to the Future three. Oh, right. I called Mary Steen Virgin, meaning I get to play her, not date her or anything. Oh, date Mayor Steen virgin. I was a big crush on her. Isn't that really that's Ted Danson's old squeeze, right? That's his current squeeze. I'm not going to fight him for are they still together? Yeah, I think so. Gosh, they've been together for a while. Yeah. Good couple. Okay. Great stuff. So who knew we were going to be talking about Ted dancing at the beginning of mine? Not me. I could have been with Richard Gear. But Ted dancing is a big surprise. If we get in the way back machine and go back in time to sort of the beginning of Buddhism, you'd have to look at the language poli, and the word sati. Pali is P-A-L-I sati is S-A-T-I. There are a lot of different words for mindfulness, but the one that we kind of identify with is kind of been used most from poly, which is a middle Indo Aryan liturgical language from the early branches of Buddhism. Yeah. I want to take in the reason that poly is so important is because they say that it was the language of the Buddha, and at the very least, it was the first language that the Buddha's words, which have been passed down orally, were written down in. So it's like legit, old school Buddhist thinking and teachings. And one of the basic parts of that is, like you said, sati, which has been translated to mindfulness. But it was translated by a British colonial administrator, wasn't it? That's right. And it kind of more accurately is translated as memory of the present, which I think is really kind of a cool way to look at mindfulness. Yeah, absolutely. It really kind of reveals what's going on, especially once you kind of learn a little more about it. You're like, that actually works about as perfectly as can be. But it got translated into the word mindfulness, SATY into mindfulness by a British colonial administrator in Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka, back in the 1880s. So it was some British guy who said SATY means mindfulness, and actually kind of gave it to us today, although there was a long period where it had been forgotten. But I think you can't really talk about mindfulness even though it's changed so dramatically, especially in the last decade or so, without kind of describing what it was originally meant to describe, what it still describes if you're a practicing Buddhist. And that is that you are not only paying attention to the moment and experiencing this moment without letting your thoughts wander to the past or the future or anything like that, but that whatever you're experiencing in the moment, no matter what it is you're experiencing with equanimity, which means that you're not passing judgment on it as good or bad or anything else. It just is. And it sounds easy to describe, but if you've ever tried it, it's one of the hardest things a human being can ever set out to do. Yeah, I mean, I think it's very, very natural for a human to seek out and contemplate and think about the things that feel good and please them and to try and stuff down and get rid of and avoid things that either hurt, literally hurt or emotionally hurt, or things that are painful or unpleasant. And boy, that is a tough thing to overcome, my friend. The condition of being human makes it very difficult, but yeah, and you just nailed it on the head not once, but twice, Chuck, when you said that it's a very human condition. And part of sati, the point of sati as far as Buddhists are concerned, is that it's a step that you take on the path to enlightenment, to free yourself from the cycle of like, life and death and rebirth and to become like a truly enlightened being that's freed from all of that. And so you have to free yourself from that human condition. And a big part of that is to free yourself from yearning, from wanting, because yearning and wanting or being repelled by something and wanting to get away from it, they're two sides of the same coin as far as SATY is concerned, which is you are wishing that something is different or was different than it actually is. And that's the basis of suffering. And suffering is the thing that keeps you in that cycle of life and death and rebirth. So meditating to become mindful and non judgmental about your present experience is one step toward relieving yourself with suffering and then freeing yourself from that shackle of being born and reborn and reborn again. Well, you, my friend, have just spoken about the Noble Truths, in part because craving is the cause of suffering. It's the second noble truth. And to cease that craving, we'll bring about the ceasing of that suffering, which is the third noble truth. And basically experiencing the moment, everything about the moment without judgment is sort of the goal. And for modern, we're going to talk a lot about sort of the beginnings of mindfulness and kind of how it's become kind of a hip thing to do here in the United States starting in about the especially today. But we're kind of talking in American modern terms about stress and distressing. And the Buddhists have a term for that, which is duka. Dukkha. And that is, again, to avoid or destroy something that we don't like. And what we usually don't like is something that's going to put a stress on us. Right? Exactly. And they're saying, like, dude, this is part of the point of life. I'm reading this really amazing book by Tic Nat Han right now, rereading it, actually. It's one of those ones you just kind of go back and reread. Very easy, slim volume. It's called no mud, no Lotus. And it basically says, without suffering, you can't have happiness and vice versa. Pretty basic stuff. But he really gets into explaining how to confront suffering and understand that it's just part of life. And that's a huge part of the Buddhist approach to mindfulness. It's not to get away from suffering, it's to recognize it as it is, and also simultaneously not make a bigger deal out of it than it is. Because suffering is enough. It's bad enough as it is. But another part of the human condition is to make it way worse by anticipating it, worrying about it, like focusing on it after it happens. There's a lot of stuff we do to our own suffering that explodes it. And part of mindfulness training is to stop doing that as well, too. You ain't kidding. And the lack of judgment is a big, big part of all of this. And we're going to talk quite a bit here and there about John Cabot Zen, who is easy, far and away the sort of leader of the modern American mindfulness movement in a lot of different ways. And we'll get to him in more detail later. But he says that awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose, and that's another big part of it. It's a very purposeful practice, but not meditation, which will get to that as well, because meditation is a true physical practice in mental practice, whereas mindfulness is more of a state of being that you're trying to get to. Right. But he says on purpose, in the present moment and non judgmentally, they always have to kind of hammer home the lack of judgment being a key part. Right, exactly. And he's a proponent and kind of one of the founders of what you can refer to as secular mindfulness, which is the current incarnation of mindfulness that's sweeping the west. It's like you said, hip, that's been kind of like removed deliberately, as we'll see, removed from its Buddhist roots and Buddhist context to make it more palatable and scientific seeming. Yeah, secular. Secular. Strip it of all the religion and maybe we can sell it to Americans. Exactly. In an app. Yeah. The upshot of all this, though, Chuck, is that no matter who you are, where you're coming from, if you're talking about mindfulness, you're talking about paying attention to the present moment and doing the best you can at not judging anything that's going on in that present experience and just taking it on its face value and engaging in it fully. That's mindfulness in a nutshell. Yeah. And it's not anything that the Buddhists had a corner on. They just probably did it better because all different kinds of religions throughout antiquity had chanting or some kind of mindfulness practice, maybe prayers or through songs or dance. That kind of thing has been around as long as people have been practicing religion. So the Buddhist didn't invent it, but I think they got it fairly right. So let's talk a little more about how we got here today, historically speaking, after a break. What do you think about that? Sounds great. I'm going to breathe. In the meantime. Hey, let me teach you something I've been using that ticknot. Han taught me, not personally, but through his writing in a book that was published that I purchased with money. Smash your hand with a hammer. Yeah. He said. Try to focus on anything else. Jump. Right. There's a bunch of different mantras you can say, and I'm not even sure that's the right word, but one that I keep using is and it's just striking what taking a breath and deliberately focusing on that breath. Just breathing in once and breathing out once can do to just suck you right out of wherever your mind is in the past or the future. It's really striking how it can do that. But his was breathing in. I noticed that I'm alive and then breathing out. I'm happy to be alive, and just doing it once immediately brings me back into the present moment. And it's really cool. I like it. It's all very new for me, but I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, there's a lot of value there. And you can practice something like this in those breathing techniques. It's not exclusive to mindfulness or meditation or Buddhism. That's a great technique if you have kids. I found that if my daughter is having a bad time, just kind of get her to slow down and take a couple of good deep breaths. Always a good thing to do. And Emily someone who has a lot of anxieties in her life as a struggling small business owner, we will do this thing where we have hug breathing, where I will go up to her and we will have a good tight bear hug embrace and we'll breathe in together, and it sort of like, doubles the power of it. Well, that's neat. Chuck, is that your own? Did you come up with that? Yeah. I didn't get it from anywhere, but I'm sure I didn't invent that it sounds like a Viking mindfulness. Like Hells Angels. Sure. Yeah. It's the Hills Angels technique you came up with. You can call it whatever you want. It's your invention. It's a good one. Yeah. There's something about breathing together that close. Physically, it's pretty powerful. So if you went back a few hundred years, a couple of hundred years even, and you spoke to any Buddhist around the world and said, hey, how often do you do mindfulness meditation? They would look at you like they had no idea what you're talking about. And if you said, you know, SATY, they'd say, oh, that's not for us. That's for like the monks and the nuns up in the caves and mountains. We don't do that kind of stuff. We're super Buddhist, we care about morality and we worship local deities and all that stuff. But that's kind of advanced it's more than the average Buddhist does. And it wasn't until, I think, the late 19th century in Burma that that was finally kind of broken up and meditation and mindfulness together were kind of introduced for the first time to lay Buddhists, like just the normal, everyday, average Buddhist living their life. Yeah, this is pretty cool. I know. We love it when we can kind of pinpoint when things happen or when things change. And this is one of them. On November 28 and 1885, this is when the British Imperial Army conquered Burma and said, king, we're going to mispronounce some of these civile. Maybe. I think that's right, you're out of here. And that king was promoting mindfulness and promoting Buddhist institutions throughout the nation. The Brits, of course, said, no, we're not going to really do that. So it fell to the lay people to get organized, to find new places to meet, to find their own gathering grounds. And a lot of times these were monasteries and it would go through monks, but it basically went to them to kind of figure it out because it wasn't I don't want to say state sponsored, but it kind of state sponsored. Yeah. Or state supported or something like that. Yeah. So rather than being like, oh, well, I don't know, I guess we're not Buddhists anymore, they took it by the horns and they did something with it. But one of the outcroppings of that was that these monks who used to just go meditate out in the mountains or the hills or in the woods now had audiences of everyday people who are practicing Buddhists that they were teaching this stuff to. And it was one of these guys, letty sayadow, who was a Buddhist monk, who said, you know what, this isn't just for us. This is for everybody. And closely in ladysayadow's footsteps came Mingen Seyo. S-A-Y-A-W sayyow? I think that's right. And that monk was the first one to actually teach mindfulness and meditation to regular people, I think around 1911. Yeah, I mean, it's cool stuff. Like, I love the idea that, letty saya, Dow kind of put forth, which was, you don't have to go to a monastery even like, we've set these up for you and you can you don't have to retreat to a cave. You don't even have to go into a deep meditative state or anything. Like just momentary bits of mindfulness are very helpful, and that's a good way to reach regular laypeople. And I think through practice is when SCILL came along and said, hey, that all sounds great, and buddy, I'm going to teach it. Right. So the people in what is now Myanmar are the ones who kind of broke mindfulness and meditation out of its little slumber sure. Cage or something like that, all right. And democratized it a little bit. But as far as the people in the west are concerned, it was the Japanese. And there's the development of Zen Buddhism that we have to thank because you can pretty much trace a direct line between the mindfulness and the meditation and the approach to Buddhism in the west today, back to the 20th century, Japan, and specifically a guy named Dicetsu Teitaro, DT. Suzuki was kind of what's called a Buddhist modernist thinker who said, there's different things we can do. This approach is a little more rationally, a little less dogmatically, and open it up to people like our friends in what soon to be Myanmar. And not only that, let's start relating to the west a little more. And DT. Suzuki actually kind of carried this message, this idea of Zen Buddhism with him over to America and Europe, and it just started to catch on like wildfire. Yes. I think it's really interesting, too, that it was another act of war that led to, you know, that helped give rise to someone like Suzuki. Just like when the Brits over through Burma, when the US navy attacked Tokyo Harbor in 1853, basically, Japan was like, you know, we got to start relating to the west a little bit more and sort of modernize. And this was known as the Meiji Restoration. And part of that was saying, hey, Shinto is going to be our religion, our main religion, and not Buddhism, which led the Buddhists to say, hey, maybe we should modernize our religion as well so we don't get left by the wayside. And that gave rise to someone like DT. Suzuki. Right. So it was from that modernization that Buddhist modernism came about. And it's basically what you would recognize as Buddhism today. Like, very thoughtful, very interior dwelling, the idea that the universe is all connected, all these were like Buddhist thoughts before, but it was Buddhism allowing itself to be influenced by modernism and by other groups like the Romantics and the Transcendentalists. Right. They jumped on it big time. It was pretty it was like a confluence of perfect timing as far as coming to the United States and the counterculture ready for this. But in a weird way, it was like the United States unbeknownst to the counterculture beats. And then later the hippies, their predecessors, like the Transcendentalists, had pre influenced what was coming back to them. So it was already in a very palatable form for Americans who were open to the idea of mind expansion and taking acid and meditating and we're just open to the ideas of other cultures, of becoming more in tune with the universe. They were just waiting for it, and it came to them in the briefcase, I guess, of DT, Suzuki, and it just kind of took off from there. So that's the idea. Everything we understand about mindfulness and meditation, you can trace back to, like, DT, Suzuki and those beats. Absolutely. And there were three people in particular in the practicing this joseph Goldstein, Jack Cornfield, and Sharon Salzburg, who were not together, but they studied separately meditation in Burma, and in the mid 70s, founded the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, which became sort of the center of the Vipasana meditation movement here in the United States. And they're still around. They're still doing their thing. Right. So it was from that same group. There was actually a time where John Cabot Zinn, the guy we mentioned earlier zi, by the way, not Z-E-N. That would be too far on the nose. Wait. What if his name was spelled Z-E-N? Oh, I got you, boy. I was not particularly the current experience very well. I'm sorry. That's okay. That'd be like a boxer being named Boxer. Yeah, it would be differently. Right? For some reason, I was going more toward the Cabernets Inn play on. Because he's known as the godfather of modern mindfulness, according to The Guardian, at least, which is a pretty legit newspaper. And by the way, thank you also to Livia for helping us out with this one. Chuck, this is a tough one to wrangle. A great job. She did. She did. But John Cabot Zen was among those people. Jack Cornfield great name, sharon Salzburg and Joseph Goldstein, he actually taught at their Insight Meditation Society, and he was a big time practitioner of Zen Buddhism, and he was on, I guess, a meditation retreat. And he had a bit of insight, I guess an epiphany is probably what you'd call it, that he was meant to help apply Buddhist techniques to help people who were in pain. He had either a microbiology or molecular biology degree, and he ended up applying it to medicine and figuring out how to join Buddhist practices in medicine to help people in the it really started to take off from there. Yeah. I mean, he sort of had the same idea as previous cultures, which was, hey, and not sell for money. But if we want to popularize this, we should get a little bit away from the religion part, this sort of hippy dippy, new Agey part. And he really wanted to start talking in concrete terms about things that everyone worried about, which was stress. And, like, if you want to make your life less stressful, here's a way to do it and more on mindfulness and less on meditation, which was still a tough sell to mainstream America and still is today, I think. Yeah, but it's gotten less and less I feel like he finally overcame the threshold that was keeping it back in the last 510 years and achieved what he was looking for. I mean, think about mindfulness is everywhere today, and it is almost totally divorced from any kind of religious connotations. It seems like a neuroscience tool more than anything, the way that it's treated in the west. And that was his goal. He was trying to get it to the most people possible, study it scientifically, and then apply it to help people. And specifically, again, he was initially looking at how it can help people with pain, and he came up with mindfulness based stress reduction MBSR, which is still very much in use today. And then there was an offshoot to Chuck mindfulness based cognitive therapy, and that takes CBT, which is a proven type of talk therapy used extensively in psychology and applies John Cabott Zinn's approach to mindfulness to it. Right. Yeah. And I think one of the big tenants here is to interrupt automatic thoughts and the automatic thoughts that can lead to an automatic behavior. So the automatic thought might just be your propensity to feel that stress and reach for a drink immediately and not even think, like, oh, boy, I need a drink because I'm stressed out. And that'll help out. Right. It becomes this automatic thing. And he was all about and the practice of mindfulness is all about disruption and disrupting that flow without judgment. Yeah. Because one of the big things in cognitive behavioral therapy is that you have a thought, your thought leads to a feeling, and your feeling leads to a behavior. And oftentimes it's like you said, it's very destructive, and you don't even realize it's going on until your life is kind of falling apart or it's certainly not as good as it could be. And it doesn't even have to be a drink. It could be a donut. It could be yelling at a cashier at a grocery store, like all sorts of different things, and you are totally out of control of it. The idea behind this mindfulness adding mindfulness to cognitive behavioral therapy is that you are training yourself to detach yourself from all thoughts and emotions so that you can evaluate them clearly, so that none of them can jump out of nowhere, pounce on you, and the next thing you know, you've eaten a dozen donuts and had six gotchas, and you have no idea why. You do have the idea why, and you probably haven't gotten to that point because you stopped the whole process by recognizing it the moment it began. Ideally, theoretically, on paper, that's the purpose of using mindfulness to help, especially with mental health. Yeah. There's a journalist named Robert Wright, and he kind of put it in a way that I kind of like, which was to think of your thoughts and emotions as transient. So it's not like that kind of goes back to the no judgment thing. You can have these bad feelings and bad emotions and bad tendencies, but if you allow them to just flow through you, they become transient. They don't stick around the same sort of ideas. That why worry about things that you can't control. Right. But not in an office poster kind of way. You know what I mean? Sure. It runs a bit deeper than that. It's not like a Pollyanna thing. No. And as a matter of fact, if you want to trace it all the way back to its original Buddhist roots, it's that we have very little, if any, control over life, and that recognizing that will free us from all of our desires and the idea that we have to have things and we want to hang on to it. It just lets you let things flow by, and you can enjoy them and experience them as they come, rather than hoping for the next one, meeting the next doughnut, or fearing the next loss. You just experience life as it comes. That's kind of the point of that, of understanding that everything is transient and impermanent, including your own life. Like, you're going to die one day. There's ultimately the big bingo number. That's ultimately what it's the big one is you're going to die. You yourself are impermanent. And so understanding that through getting there, through meditation, daily meditative practice is kind of the goal. Yeah. And it's interesting. They found that even though something like MBSR is more rooted in that sort of neuroscience thing and not spirituality or religion, they found it's sort of a chicken and the egg deal, where once you do participate in MBSR, you may become more spiritual as a result, even though you weren't going in. But I think the reason why is because even if these people don't know it, even if they're at a corporate mindfulness retreat, they're engaging in a deeply spiritual practice that they're kind of doing it wrong, as we'll see. But it's still part of this very long established tradition that actually has, like, legs. It's not mumbo jumbo like, it actually has a pronounced effect on the human brain, the human psyche, the outlook that we have on life. And so, depending on the context, you're doing it, and it can be very useful, it can be harmful, or it can be totally useless in some cases, too, but it is a spiritual act, so it makes sense that it would make you more interested in spirituality. Well, I say we take our second break, if that's good. Okay. And because we're stuff you should know, we have to talk about whether or not this works, and if there have been studies that tell us one way or the other. So we'll get into that right after this. All right. It's fun to sit around and talk about mindfulness. So fun, and to just sort of Zen out and lose ourselves, become one with each other through these headphones. Yeah. Man, you sound like Rory Cochrane. And dad confused. Martha new man. What was his name? Slater. Was he Slater? Maybe? Slater, you hippie. Give me drugs, man. Yeah, Slater, you're right. Get some from your mother, man. It's funny. I've seen him, and he's been in a bunch of stuff since then. It's always impossible to see him as anyone other than Slater. He was on CSI Miami, I think, for years and years. You're just waiting for him to whip out of doobie. Yes. And he's all clean cut and everything. You still can't not see it. I totally agree with you. He's not fooling anybody. All right, so does this stuff work? There have been plenty of studies, of course, and there is a lot of evidence that mindfulness programs can help people through emotional problems, through mental problems. They've done controlled trials of MBSR programs and clinical settings and non clinical settings, and they generally found that they do. And this is self reported stuff, obviously, but they reduce self reported anxiety, depression and stress and increase well being, as opposed to people who got no treatment at all. Yeah. So, yes, it does seem to be effective. So especially with self reporting, that seems to be like the big one, that if you look at studies where they're using self reporting, it has the most pronounced effect. Objective tests there does seem to register some sort of effect, like on the objective experience of, say, like, pain or something like that. But social psychology has jumped all over this. It's like, we're going to study this. And there was this one study from 2021, which I have to give a hat tip to, you mean, because she turned this one up. But it was a study of white people, some of whom received mindfulness training, and a control group who received sham mindfulness training, which is hilarious. And the effect that it had on their willingness to help black people, that they saw who they saw in need and not like you need, like, homeless or something like that, they would be subjected to a test unwittingly, where they'd be in a room and a black person would come in and drop their papers. Their willingness to help that person pick up the papers, or if a black person entered the room and they were on crutches, their willingness to give up their seat. Apparently, black people tend to help black people more. White people tend to help white people more. Hispanic people tend to help Hispanic people more. People help their in group more. But this mindfulness group actually kind of crossed lines way more than was expected, right? Yeah, I think that kind of says it all. You do help your in group more. But the people that receive the real mindfulness training were definitely far and away more willing to step outside their in group and help someone of another race. There's something to be said for that. Yeah. And I mean, it was significant. Three times more is really significant, statistically speaking, for a study. And it seems like it was a pretty good study. Like the fact that they had Sham mindfulness training ruled out the possibility that the group that got mindfulness training was behaving a certain way because they thought that's what was going to be the result of it. Almost like a placebo effect. So the group that received sham training thought they were getting mindfulness training. That's what I want to know. I would love to know what Sham mindfulness right? It's like breathe in, really concentrate on all the anger, really feel it. Or they'd let them in like a lamb's breathing where they're like, I don't think that's right. It doesn't feel right. They started to float away. It's really funny. And shout out to Cal State, San Marcos and Professor Daniel Barry. And I guess Yuumi for all that. Yeah, sure. The trifecta. Yeah, sure. What's? Cal State San Marcos mascot. Oh jeez. I'm going to bet $5 on the Lobos. That sounds good. Okay, let's go with that. All right. Yeah, that's the band list. Lobo, sister Matt, and not coincidentally, they're half time entertainment as well. But we do need to say that there's another school of thought and it's not a competing school of thought. It's just to be aware that it's not always great for everyone. There's this one article you sent about people that experience trauma in their lives that have buried it and it sits in their body as unconscious trauma, that mindfulness practices and meditation practices can dredge that stuff up. And so they found that when these people, they're studying them and they're doing these mindfulness practice, they're experiencing rage and anxiety. And it's like, this is the opposite of where we're supposed to be headed here. And I think they have figured out in a lot of these cases it's people that are uncovering these buried traumas. Yeah, and here's where we reach like the first initial part where the west has kind of screwed this up because it is unexpected when somebody in America goes to a meditation retreat and tries to become more mindful and they're confronted with trauma or they're confronted with rage or self hatred or something like that and they're not expecting it. If you went and talked to an actual Buddhist monk, they'd be like, well, somebody probably should have told you that. That's a real possibility. Right. It's like an acid trip. It's not always like flowers and sunshine. Sometimes it's like the darkest thing you'll ever be confronted with kind of thing. Same thing. The good thing about mindfulness meditation is that you can stop immediately. But suppose that in some retreats, in some situations they're like, no, you got to press through, you got to press through. And people are kind of enticed or forced into staying in really uncomfortable trauma experiences way beyond their comfort zone. And it can actually be damaging and it's very rare, from what I can tell, for there be, like, lasting harm. But there are reports of people having to go to therapy for years after having gone on basically a bad trip at a meditation retreat for years of therapy. So it can happen. And I think, Chuck, there's a 2019 study that found, like, 20% to 25% of people who meditate reported experiencing unwanted effects. Right. Like negative effects that they were not planning for. And that's the big problem. There's no or very little warnings about this stuff. It's all treated in a very Pollyannaish naive manner, as if, like, America and Europe got its hands on the secret. The cube from hellraiser. Just like, this is awesome. Let's figure out how to be more productive using this thing. That's kind of what's going on. Yeah. And I think another thing that can happen is it can lead to a spiral of anxiety if you're not able to get to that place that you think you should be getting to by practicing it. Yeah. So it becomes like this cycle where you're thinking, like, when practicing this meditation doesn't seem to be doing anything for me. Why can I not even do this right? And all of a sudden that is building upon itself and creating anxieties because you feel like you're supposed to reach this sort of moment of floaty bliss that's really hard to maintain. Yes. Not maintain, but like, even touch. Even reach. Sure. And it's been packaged like that. It's been marketed as something that you will just reach some floaty bliss with. And yeah, I can totally see being stressed out because you don't reach it because it hasn't been explained to you, even what you're doing. Right. So it's a good little short read. It's called mindfulness meditation and trauma. Proceed With Caution. I found it on GoodTherapy.org, and it doesn't say, like, don't do this even if you know your trauma. Don't meditate. Don't try to become mindful. It says, make sure you find, like, a good coach, a good guide, a good teacher who understands how to deal with trauma and can prepare you for it and can pull you back and be like, don't forget, life's actually good. You're good. Now let's try a little more and just kind of, little by little, expose yourself to it rather than ripping your shirt off and standing in front of the baseball pitching machine. When it comes to physical pain, that's a pretty interesting area as far as the studies have been concerned. Like the idea that can it actually help reduce physical pain or at least the subjective experience of pain. And in some studies, in some cases, the people who practice meditation do report lower subjective experience of pain or what they call pain unpleasantness. So this might be a little bit of a mind over matter, like, the actual pain is still there, but I've gotten my mind in such a place that the unpleasantness or the anticipation of that unpleasantness isn't as great as it would be if I weren't able to practice that mindfulness. Yeah. Which ties very closely into a Buddhist tenant of the first arrow of suffering, which is where everyone has to experience that. Let's say you're bitten by an ant, it's not a very pleasant sensation, and everybody's going to experience it roughly the same. But there's also a second arrow where you can be worried about being bitten by an ant. It makes the first arrow ten times worse. Not just twice as bad, but ten times worse. And the idea is that if you're mindful, if you practice SATY, you won't really experience the second arrow, just the first arrow. And that's the best you can hope for in this life. That's right. Mr. Troy, you said I was just crack up. Every time I think of an arrow hitting a human body, I only think of Monty Python when that guy takes the arrow message for you. There was one study, though, in 2019, a review of studies, actually, that found that MBSR can reduce severity of chronic pain or improve daily functioning and depression about associated with that pain, which is there's something to be said for that? I don't think it should only be looked at as some sort of hippy dippy thing. Like if you have real physical pain, it could possibly help. Yeah, for sure. That's kind of like one of the outcomes of it being exposed to Westernization is that it's being studied and it's actually holding up in studies. And boy, is it being exposed, because if you work for a big corporation, if you especially work in Silicon Valley, chances are there are mindfulness retreats, maybe mindfulness rooms in the offices where they say, hey, we know we work you to death and it's not fair. Why don't we set up this little room that used to be a room for your kids to come to work? But we don't let that happen anymore. It used to be the nursery, but we'll put you in here and you can Zen out and be cool. And here's one of the criticisms. As long as you come back and you get all that work done, we think it's a great tool for you. Right, exactly. And not just corporations, but the military is using mindfulness schools. Little kids are being taught mindfulness and to meditate prisons, and there's an enormous amount of like just out there in the culture. It's gotten really popular, I guess, in 2012, just over 4% of Americans meditated. Five years later, it was up to 14%. That's a pretty big increase in just five years. And I would propose it's probably more than that now in 2022. So it's everywhere, but it's also really kind of lost its way, I guess, once they hit America, and corporate America in particular, mindfulness kind of got perverted, I think is the way you could put it. Yeah. I mean, that critique is really valid. It's great that a company might take Mindfulness into consideration of something beneficial for their employees, but to ignore the root cause, which is you're working too many hours a week and you're overworked and you can't possibly get done what you should get done. And that's where this anxiety is rooted. Here's a mindfulness room, so you can help correct all that. It totally puts the onus on the employee to sort of self adjust to what's probably way too much work, instead of saying, hey, maybe people wouldn't be in this position to begin with if they didn't have to work 60 hours in a week. Right. And the same thing goes for social movements as well. Like, some people say, hey, you know how a lot of us are mentally ill these days? That's because society is screwed up. So rather than putting the onus again on the individual person, just kind of suck it up and deal with it in a mindful manner. Why don't we focus instead on these social problems that are causing all these other social problems so we don't have to do that? And those are really valid criticisms of Westernized mindfulness in Two thousand and twenty S. And there's actually a term for it that a guy named Miles Neil coined and another guy named Ronald Purser wrote a book using that name. It's Perfect McMindfulness. Yeah, I love that word. And they're basically saying, like, hey, you guys have so completely detached this from ethics and morals and religion and kind of co opted something that had its roots there that, yeah, there needs to be a term for that. You've mixed it. Yeah, you've screwed it up. You've mixed it up. You mixed it. I like that. And that you can't ignore the theological roots and have it be the same thing, and HR reps across the country say, oh yes we can, and look what happens. We're really screwing people up. That's right. There's a couple of quotes I found that I really feel like trying to get to the heart of what happened when Mindfulness came over here and got picked up by corporate America and the military and these other surprising groups and maybe put to not the best uses. There's a really good New York Times article from back in 2015 that was kind of a meditation on the idea of mindfulness, or the word mindfulness and what it means by Virginia Heffernan. And she says that what commercial mindfulness may have lost from the most rigorous Buddhist tenants that it replaced is the implication that suffering cannot be escaped but must be faced. And that's that mis packaging, that mis marketing that we talked about, the idea that if you meditate and you're mindful, it's going to free you from all your problems, make you less stressed and more productive and just happier. And that's not necessarily the case because we in the west tend to really like to like you said, avoid all of the stuff that really stinks and just get as much of the stuff that we like, and that's not what that's meant for. I think it's from the same article about mindful fracking. Could that be next? Putting a neuroscience halo around a byword for both uppers productivity and downers relaxation to ensure a more compliant workforce in a more prosperous C suite? Right, there it is. And there's another one too. The Dalai Lama apparently pointed out that even a suicide bomber would likely have to cultivate some sort of mindfulness. It's not inherently ethical. And if it's not inherently ethical, then that means that you could conceivably use it to nefarious ends. And the way that Buddhists for thousands of years kept it from being used to nefarious ends is by encasing it in wholesomeness, like mindfulness. Specifically, what's called right mindfulness by the Buddhist is it's a wholesome approach in separating wholesome thoughts from unwholesome thoughts. And if you just take the mindfulness practice out of that context, you have a problem. You want to read that quote from Andrew Olinsky? True mindfulness is deeply and inextricably embedded in the notion of wholesomeness. Just as a tree removed from the forest is no longer a tree but a piece of lumber, so also the caring attentiveness of mindfulness extracted from its matrix of wholesome colorizing factors denigrates into mere attention. Yeah, that's the best you can hope for, is it just integrates into mere attention and not something harmful? Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's wonderful that people want this and they're seeking it out and they're trying it. I think the people who are selling it to everybody needs to just package it more transparently and explain the true purpose of it and stop using it for productivity. Agreed. If you want to know more about mindfulness, go research it and see if it's for you and give it a shot and go into it with right eyes, right vision. I can't remember. And since I said I can't remember, of course that means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this tribute to Ziggy Bombach from his son Michael. We got a great email, and I've been conversing with Michael for the past couple of weeks on this good dude, and his dad was a good dude. Hey, guys. Longtime listener, recently lost my father, and I'm going through a great deal of grief. My dad was at high risk for catching covet, so I made sure it was my priority to keep them safe. And since being social wasn't an option, over the past couple of years, we turned to nature during the pandemic and rekindled our love for the great outdoors. Though he never had to rekindle his. He was born in Poland and immigrated to the States in the was only ever comfortable in his gardener in the woods. He was a simple but passionate man, so we started driving out to western north New Jersey to Stoke Forest to get spring water and go fishing. It's a gorgeous part of the state. It was about 50 minutes each way. Perfect. To introduce him to my favorite podcast. Stuff you should know. Even though I had to describe to him what a podcast was, he was instantly enthralled and I can still hear him quietly asking in the car if Chuck and Josh were going to be broadcasting today. It's just adorable. Like me, he adored your ability to convey something complex and tough information. Such a sweet and a conversational way. He would always come home and tell my mom what he had learned. With so much isolation the past few years, it was warming to hear him happy about all these new subjects that he was learning about. You gave him that happiness and made his life that much better of the last couple of years of his life. I can't thank you enough for everything that you continue to do. There's so much bad in this world right now and people are hardly operating at their best, but you continue to do something worthwhile and worth making something worth learning. So thank you for making the life of Ziggy Bombach a little brighter towards his end. And that is from Mike. And he sent me a picture of Ziggy and I read the obituary, I looked it up and Ziggy seemed like a great guy and I had to Zen out to reading this so I wouldn't cry, cried every time. That's a really amazing email. Thank you so much. It's impossible to not pass judgment on that one. I'm going to say I feel very proud, Chuck. That's right. In this case, great judgment. And Rip Ziggy sounds like a great guy. Yes, Rip Ziggy. And thank you, Mike. I'm glad we could help bring you and your dad together. That's pretty amazing stuff. If you want to be like Mike and get in touch with us and write us the email of the century, we are willing to read it. You can send it to us at stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. STUFFYou Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
919c7ead-ee8d-4850-bee5-ae8c00146205	Marcus Garvey: Black Moses	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/marcus-garvey-black-moses	One of the more controversial black leaders, Marcus Garvey divided black and white Americans with his assertion of black pride, and sowed division in the black community as well. Yet, possibly no one has had more global impact on black lives than him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	One of the more controversial black leaders, Marcus Garvey divided black and white Americans with his assertion of black pride, and sowed division in the black community as well. Yet, possibly no one has had more global impact on black lives than him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Thu, 05 May 2022 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=125, tm_isdst=0)	52672548	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And here is Jerry. And this is stuff you should know. And over there, the ghost of Marcus Garvey. Yes. If you are, say, not black or you are black and you weren't raised to know your black history, you may still be familiar with that name if you're even tangentially interested in reggae music, because he pops up a lot. Yeah, there's a great Burning Spear song called Marcus Garvey that shined O'Connor covered it's not that good. And then there's also a great well, not only him, but also his teachings pop up a lot in reggae, like in the Peter Torsong African. It's 100% based on the ideas of Marcus Garvey, as we'll see, had a big impact on rosterianism. Yes. So as we'll talk about later, he's basically considered a profit of Rostafarianism. Like, he basically is thought of among Rostafari as predicting the rise of Rostofarianism ten years before it happened. So very prophetic. And he did a lot of stuff, a huge amount of stuff. And in fact, Chuck, I didn't realize because I'd heard of him before, because I do like Peter Toss and Burnspeare. Sure. I had no idea that you could put him up as possibly the most impactful black activist in world history. He's up there in the top three easily. Yeah. I was reading essay by one professor that said when he starts his teachings on garbage, he said he tries to get the students attention by saying, this man started a movement that dwarfed the civil rights movement in number. And students were like, who. And he's a very polarizing figure. So depending on who you talk to, everyone will agree that he was a great orator and rallier of people. But depending on who you talk to, you might find both black and white. Historians say that he was PT. Barnamesque charlatan and a bit pompous and full of himself. And other people might say, no, he was the real deal. And he was a great leader of men and very forward thinking, progressive views on women at a time where especially black women were not thought of as much beyond domestic workers. Right. I noticed that about him, too. Yeah. And he propped them up. And he was a teetotaler. He didn't believe in alcohol. He was a lot of things. Yeah, I saw it put very succinctly. He was complicated. He had a lot of views that even if you agreed with his general outlook, you probably view as abhorrent. And you said he was polarizing. He wasn't just polarizing between the black community and the white community in America, in South America, in the Caribbean, in Africa. He was polarizing within the black community as well. He made enemies out of a lot of people, including some really prominent black thinkers and eventual civil rights leaders. And one of the reasons why. If you're stepping back as like. A person living decades and decades after Marcus Garvey lived. And there was this transition between blacks under enslavement in America. And then like. Black people transitioning into free citizens and having to go through the Jim Crow gauntlet and eventually get to civil rights. Living decades and decades after that. It's really easy to see the black community in America the turn of the last century or the last last century up to the 20s or 30s times. We're talking about as like this homogenous group that all basically subscribed and thought about the same things. But Marcus Garvey is a really great instruction in the fact that you can't paint any one group of people with one brush, and Marcus Garvey represents that and that he was very conservative and he represented a conservative way of thinking and a philosophy of how black Americans could move forward in a conservative way. And that put them at odds with progressive thinkers like W. B. Du Bois, who had different ideas for how black people could rise up and raise themselves in America as well. So there's just so much wrapped up in his story that I think it's just going to be difficult to get it all into one episode. Yeah. And I guess we should say off the bat that the main lightning ride and his style of radicalism and why he went up against a lot of leaders in the black community was while they were saying. Like. Hey. We need to find a way to work within the politics of white America. And we need to have white America assist us with these things so we can pick ourselves up by the bootstraps. He was saying. No. We should go back to Africa and we need our own space and we shouldn't try to fit into white America and white society. And this was a radical thing, and we'll talk about all this in detail, but to do something like, hey, I'd like to meet with a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta, because we have similar views on going back to Africa in the back to Africa movement. And that did not sit well within a lot of people in the black community, for obvious reasons. But he was a radical thinker, and every time I thought they should make a movie about him, like, we are always saying, I finally found one where they are making a movie. Oh, that's good. Who's playing them? Do you know? I believe it's the guy that was in Black Panther and US. I can't remember his name. He'd be great. I think he would because Garby was sort of a large fellow, and I think that it's going to focus on something we'll talk about later in the episode, which were the years that why am I completely blanking on the worst American in history? Hoover. Okay, yeah. J graver. J edgar Hoover's planting of spies. Within his own organization. So I think it focuses on those years. I can't wait to see it, because that was a pretty insidious set of years for Marcus Garvey. For sure. Who's the worst American? He's one of them. He's up there with kissinger. And, boy, I could go on, but every time we do an episode where Hoover pops up, it's just like and here's this awful thing he did. Yeah. I wish we could just paddle him once in a while. Sure. Just bring him back and give him a spanking, because I know it's not cool, but we're talking about juhover gear. Okay. Should we just start with sort of the nuts and bolts of who he was and where he was born and raised and all that good stuff? He came from Jamaica, and he lived in Jamaica while it was still under British colonial rule. It was under colonial rule for 307 years, and he was born relatively toward the end of it, but still full squarely in it. And he was born to Marcus Garvey Senior, who was a stonemason, and his mom, Sarah Jane Richards, who was a household servant. He was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, which sounds like an idyllic place, in 1887. And although he wasn't born to wealthy parents, he was educated at a colonial school, and he knew how to read, and he was kind of bitten by the reading bug from a very early age, and that helped develop him starting pretty young. Yeah. And the fact that he was Jamaican is one thing that turned a lot of African Americans off. Like some of the African American leaders would point out later in life. It was just Jamaican guy even like, what does he know about the American experience? Because it's not like he moved to the United States when he was five years old or something like that. He was born and raised Jamaican. Right. I don't think he moved to the US. Until he was in his late 20s, maybe. Yeah. So that was sort of a bit of a knock against him in the eyes of some African American leaders at the time. But he was one of many kids, but the only one who survived into adulthood and moved to Kingston at 14. And he would get a job in a print shop there, which is I guess he learned the trade pretty well because this was the kind of work that he did off and on over the years to support himself, working in different print shops. He always considered himself a journalist. I read he started his own paper. Yeah. Many of them in magazines. And he was a very sharp dude, as demonstrated by that first print shop job, because he started out with no experience whatsoever, and within two years, he was the foreman of the printing shop. So he was a quick learner, and at some point, he decided to start traveling abroad. And during some formative years. He ended up in Costa Rica because apparently Costa Rica, Panama, these were places that people in the Americas kind of freely traveled to and moved to, from what I can tell at the time. Much the same way that Europeans move around the EU today. So he moves to Costa Rica. Yes. He had at least an uncle there, right? I think so, yeah. And he got a job on a banana plantation as a time keeper. And while he was carrying out this work, like basically making sure people were moving as fast as possible to keep everything nice and efficient, he was witnessing and learning at the same time that these banana plantations owned by American and European corporate interests were having a direct, deeply negative impact on individual black, Caribbean, West Indian people's lives. Central American people's lives too. He was in Costa Rica that he just traced a line directly between that. It was a very eye opening experience. And so we founded a paper there in Costa Rica and started basically railing against the evils of this stuff and made a pretty bad name for himself among the authorities there quickly. And that's where his uncle stepped in and was like, you need to get out of Costa Rica right now. Yeah. And he did. He went to London one of few different times. He would live in London throughout his life. And this was in 119 thousand twelve. I don't think we actually said that he was born in 1887, so I think I did this really frames were kind of the time period that he was learning all this stuff. He studied law and philosophy at Burbeck College under the University of London and again started working for a newspaper there. And this is where he started to sort of learn about Pan Africanism a little bit more because the newspaper was one that just sort of championed that idea. And that is just sort of the notion of bringing together people of African descent from all over the world under one cultural identity. And there's a lot to it, but that's sort of a simplified way to say it. Yeah. Like a lot of times you hear it referred to as the African Diaspora. Black Africans who moved from Africa, who were forcibly removed from Africa to become enslaved in the Caribbean, in America, in Canada even. And that over time, these people just grew more and more separate. Pan Africanism was an idea, bringing them back together at the very least, intellectually, emotionally, as a nation, among other nations, but spread out, or as Garvey would later really kind of take up this idea, like you were saying earlier, of actually moving everybody back to Africa and being like, okay, Africa is black Europe. America. You guys can have your white continents. This is the black continent, but we're ruling the world with you. That's just how it is. That was his ultimate dream and that was kind of what Pan Africanism envisioned in Garvey's eyes, at least. Yeah. And that would become sort of the basis of his entire movement as far as just a cultural idea. So then he goes back to Jamaica. He got married to a woman named Amy Ashwood. It was a pretty rough marriage. They were separated just after a few months, I think, in his mind, legally divorced a few years later. But she always held onto the notion that the divorce was not legal. And so she went to her grave saying that she was like the true wife of Marcus Garvey. But it got pretty ugly. They accused one another of infidelity. He accused her of being an alcoholic. And like I said, as a teetotaler, it was something that he did not believe in at all. But I think it's just something about him and his ideas that regardless of this sort of nasty divorce, she stayed and worked with his group. He founded, along with her, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League of the World. But the Universal Negro Improvement Association Union is the one that really stuck and is even still around today. And she stayed and even, as we'll see later, tried to protect him when there was an attempt on his life taken. Yeah. And probably did save his life, from what I read, by putting herself in between him and his assassin's bullets. So, yeah, she definitely did a lot of the early work that he became very well known for, because once he started to take off his name and his ideas Garveyism is what it's called, just shot off like a rocket. And she was there for most of the groundwork of it. And then they split up shortly after that, so I could see how she'd be a little bitter about that. Yeah. And then in short order, he kind of gave her something else to be unhappy about, and that was he married Amy Jacks, spelled like Jacques, who was a Kingston native and was his personal secretary, but also was Amy Ashwood's close friend and made of honor at their wedding. Yeah. Awkward. So I think that's one reason why Amy Ashwood was a little upset about the whole thing, in addition to doing a lot of the groundwork that he later got so much credit for and still does today. But his and Amy Jack's marriage lasted, I believe, until his death. Correct. Until 1940. Yeah. I mean, they married in 1919, and I didn't see anywhere that they were split up. No, I think that they did. And they had two sons marcus Mosaic Garvey III and Julius Winston Garvey. And Amy Jackson was very accomplished in her own right. She came from an aristocratic Kingston family. I think her father, her grandfather was mayor of Kingston. And she was very well educated, very well read, very intelligent. And as we'll see, she helped continue Marcus Garvey's work while he was otherwise occupied for a while in the led to a little bit of a really good documentary from PBS experience. Those are always really good. Yes. And apparently that caused a little bit of internal stripe within UNIA was when they eventually found it, I think it was pretty much their most popular newspaper, the Negro World. He had a page dedicated to women, and she ran that page, and she ran it like somebody should run their own page in a newspaper and apparently caused a little bit of strife within the organization, because as much as he had these progressive ideas about women and propping them up, not everyone at the time, even within UNIA, had those same ideas. I think he tried to sort of spread that message, but there were some men in the organization still that were a little bit like, who is this lady? Yeah, sure. Good thing that's over and done with. Yeah, right. Solved. You want to take a break and then come back and talk a little more about Uni? Yes, let's do it. Okay. Stuff you should know. Josh and Chuck. Stuff you should know. All right, Chuck. So we're talking about UNIA, the United Negro Improvement Association, which was the brainchild of Marcus Garvey, and something he attempted first in Kingston, I believe, in 1916 or something like that, maybe 1915, and it did not quite take off. He had been inspired by Booker T. Washington Tuskegee Institute, and in fact, he was kind of like the intellectual and probably cultural heir to Booker T. Washington's ideas because Washington was a conservative. He believed in black self enterprise, black selfsufficiency, and that black Americans working hard and creating a life of their own amidst white Americans, would show white Americans that blacks weren't inferior. They just wouldn't be able to ignore it anymore. And then thus, white Americans, black Americans would treat one another equally, and the issue of bringing black America out of enslavement from under Jim Crow would be solved once and for all. That was a very conservative view of Booker T. Washington, and that inspired Marcus Garvey so much that he started corresponding with Booker T. He was invited to America by Washington, but he arrived about a year after Washington died, never got to meet him. But he was deeply inspired by him and in a lot of ways carried on his work. Yeah. So he was a little bit late, and his intention was definitely to meet with Washington. But this was 1916 when he moved to New York. So it's not like it is, say, like you can't just catch a flight up there real quick if someone's not doing too well health wise. So he missed his opportunity there, but he had those same ideas, and he basically would ask himself, and this is a quote where's the black man's government? And he came to the conclusion that there was none. They had no representation, basically. And so he went on to say, I will help make them. And that was his aim with UNIA. And like he said, it did not go over too well in Jamaica. But when he got to the US. It really started to spread pretty quickly. I think the first US. Chapter was in 1917. They only had 17 members in a basement in Harlem. But he would eventually go on to buy a building in Harlem that hosted like 6000 people at a time. And at the peak of his movement, he would claim that there were 6 million members. It's tough to give a direct count. People in history said that he had a knack for just sort of and this is the PC barnum side, sort of over inflating everything. So they say it probably wasn't 6 million, but I definitely saw it numbered in the millions worldwide, like, over the course of the movement. Yeah, because to say that his message resonated with people is the understatement of the year. He came to New York at a time where in America there was a real discord and unhappiness and uneasiness going on with black Americans, a number of whom who had just returned from fighting in World War One for America. They thought it would be a big turning point. Yes, huge. Rightfully so. They served for their country and were rewarded with more racism than ever, including race riots and massacres at the hands of white neighbors who we talked about the Tulsa Massacre and plenty of others in several of our episodes. This is the time that this was going on. And so I think I have the impression that black Americans were getting more despondent after losing hope so suddenly and violently and also more upset at that idea. And so Marcus Garvey came along also at a time where the scientific community was saying, like, oh, by the way, if you're black, you're genetically inferior to white people. Sorry, that's just science. And Marcus Garvey came along and said, you know what, these people could not be wronger. But the one thing about Garvey was and this is what kind of separated him from some of his peers that were highly educated and sort of a little more of the like. The initial back to Africa movement was started by the first African American millionaire. So a lot of times these people had money and they were sort of in a higher financial class. But he really championed the working class. That's where he came up. And his whole thing was the women that were working in domestics, which his mother did. And I think that had a big impact on his views of progressive ideas toward women. But then the men, they were working class men. And he said that their official seal for UNIA should be a wash tub, a frying pan, a bail hook and a mop. Right. So these were the people he was speaking to. Yeah. Ultimately, he created this idea, this concept that's referred to as Garveyism in a nutshell, is basically taking America's faith and the ability to succeed through hard work and enterprise and ingenuity and self respect and combined it with the yearning of black Americans, black Caribbean, black Africans, to be treated as equals, to live free from oppression and mix those two things together. And that's what Garvyism was. And again, it rang all over the world. And one of the ways that it kind of drew people in is he created almost like a shadow culture in Harlem at UNIA, where you would go to these meetings. He had nightly meetings, right? But they were also like larger, bigger, almost conferences. And then there were huge conferences. But the smaller conferences might be like a day long thing where the whole family comes and you have meals there. And you see like a vaudeville show there and there's like a fashion show. And you split off into breakout sessions to use horrific corporate BuzzFeed where you would learn like. A trade or maybe be like. Drilled in military techniques. Or you would learn nursing and then be sent off to aid in natural disasters. You would learn stuff that the rest of society had shut you out from. This is where you could go learn it and lift yourself up and in turn, lift the whole culture up as everyone collectively was doing this. Yeah, the idea is really cool, I think, in that you wouldn't just go to a meeting. And while there were foreshore debates and Marcus Garvey just speaking about things, I think he wanted to make it more interesting and inclusive. And that's where they would have concerts and fashion shows and stuff like that. The Black Cross Nurses was a big part of this progressive idea for black women that he had. And obviously, with a lot of the as you'll see the naming conventions for things he did, it was a play on something that white people had done. So they had the Red Cross. He started the Black Cross Nurses, and they were a large organization that did so much good work, and there was a lot of pride within that movement of the Black Cross Nurses. They had their own slogans, they had their own songs that they wrote. He had his very famous phrase, uphumidy race, and I think he nailed it on the head. It wasn't just a culture within a culture, almost like he was starting the years that he was doing this in. 1920s, I think, just makes it all that more impressive, what he was able to do. Absolutely. And another thing that he's credited with is if not, I don't know if he invented it, but he certainly popularized what's called the pan African flag. Usually it's three bars or three stripes. Good looking flag. Yeah. Red, green and black. I love those colors together in high school when I go by the stores, something about those colors being together just spoke to me. I was like, man, that's really a nice color combo. You'd be like, Could I pull it off? No, I can't go there. But I just always liked those colors together. I always loved looking into those stores. So, with the Pan African flag, it's also called the African Liberation Flag, and it's also the colors of Kwanza that would later be founded in 1966. The red represented blood, the blood that united everybody of African ancestry, but also blood that had been spilled through enslavement, war, colonization. The Black represented Black people as a whole nation, and the green was for the natural wealth of Africa. And that was a really big, important point that I think Garvey tried to educate Black Caribbeans, Black Americans, and even Black Africans, but probably to a lesser extent about that was like, this is our homeland, and it's probably the most naturally wealthy continent on Earth, and we're all being treated like second class human beings, and yet this is our homeland. What are we doing here? We have to right this wrong, basically. And I think that was also, like, a big driver for why they were saying, we all need to go back to Africa and basically just say, thank you for caring for this land. It's ours again now. Right? He authored the paper Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, which was ratified with 20,000 people in attendance at Madison Square Garden in 1920, which is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself. And this is where he was bestowed the title of Provisional President of Africa. And I don't think we've said yet. One of the cool things about Marcus Scarfy was the way he would dress. And he would outfit himself in this sort of military regalia with these hats, with ostrich plumes, big ostrich plumes. And he was a big guy. So this imposing figure comes in wearing this huge ostrich plume. Like, this was a part of sort of the PT. Barnum side, which was to come into a room and grab everyone's attention and to make a statement and try and ignore me, basically, was what he put forward with how he carried himself. Right. But at the same time, it also made him a really easy target of ridicule among his rivals in the Black cultural leadership. Because, I mean, WB. Du Bois wasn't wearing ostrich bloom. Now, a lot of them called him a balloon and said it was an embarrassment that he would dress up like that. But he was rocking his style. He totally was. And I'm with you. I respect that style as well. But again, it did make him a target, and so did things like being named the Provisional President of Africa. Yeah. Uni convention in Madison Square Gardens. These were things that people could, like, pick on him for. But his idea was so strong because it was appealing to while he was a polarizing figure, his ideas were unifying. They could take all different kinds of black concepts and black thoughts and black thinkers and black leaders and bring them all together and basically say, yes, despite our differences, we are all in agreement. This is a great way to lift people up. We might not agree with going back to Africa or not, but yes, we can come together as a culture and lift ourselves up. That like his ideas were unifying while he himself was polarizing. Should we go ahead and talk a little bit about the origins of the back to Africa movement? Yeah, let's do that. All right, so this goes back. He is far from the first person to have this idea. And like I mentioned earlier, one of the first people was the first African American billionaire. His name was Paul or Cuffe. C-U-F-F-E-E. He was a mixed race Massachusetts sea captain, and his father was an enslaved African. And he had this idea that in fact did so he actually returned at least several dozen African Americans to Africa, to Sierra Leone, and this was an 1815, and then later and I think we should totally do a whole podcast on Liberia, because the more I read about it, just the more interesting it is. But in 1816, the American Colonization Society, which Andrew Jackson and James Monroe members, they worked with West African leaders to basically say, let's establish this colony. It would eventually be Liberia. And over the course of about 40 years, I saw anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 free black Americans moved back to Africa yes. And lived in this new country that was granted to them, Liberia. And so you could totally get crusty, musty old racist, like 19th century Andrew Jackson and his crohn. He's being like, yeah, let's set up a country in Africa and send black people back there. But this also appealed to, like you said, I mean, 12,000 free black Americans said, I'm out of here. So there was definitely again, it's so strange to look at, but there was agreement between racist white people and some black people who were like, we just don't even want to be around you anymore. Let's just live separately. While there was also, I would say, much stronger threat in the black community is like, I'm a 10th generation American. Even though a lot of those ancestors of mine were enslaved, I was still born and raised in America. So my parents and my grandparents, I really don't have any connection to Africa aside from my further back ancestors having been enslaved there and brought over here, I don't really have any interest in going back to Africa. Can I support the idea of rising up as a black community, as a culture, without having to go back to Africa? And Garvey was like, not really, no. We need to go to Africa. The races should not be intermingled. And that makes them a very polarizing figure, not just among. The black community, among the white community as well. Yeah. And I think Liberia definitely deserves its own episode because I was reading into it was just really interesting sort of the ups and downs and what happens when you have 20,000 African Americans moving to Africa with their cultural identity that's somewhat confused and melding with the locals there. Because it was just really interesting to see what happened over the years. Like. Through the mid 2000s in Liberia. So I'm going to put that one on the list. Okay. Is officially on the list. On the list. You made the sound and everything. I did. Should we take another break before we talk about the Black Star Line and then some troubles? Yeah. Things get really interesting here after the break, so stick around. Stuff you should know, josh and Shawn. Stuff you should know. All right, so you mentioned the Black Star Line, and if you're listening, you might think, doesn't Josh mean the White Star Line? No, he didn't, because this is the naming convention that I talked about, the White Star Lines. It was the Titanic, right? It was part of the White Star lines. Yeah. Kunar and so Garbage said, you know what? We need our own industry. We need our own business. We need our own shipping. We need to be able to get people to Africa. So I'm going to start the Black Star Line in 1919, which was a steamship shipping company to facilitate shipping goods around the African diaspora and to literally transport. The ideal was to transport black Americans back to Africa. Sadly, they never made it back to Africa. On those ships, there were a host of problems, including the fact that the ships that he ended up buying were almost all in pretty bad state of repair, like former World War I ships. So he was working with the money that he had, which he raised selling $5 shares at a time at meetings and then getting into trouble selling them through the mail. Yes. So with that $5 share, that was a big deal because that was a low enough price, about $81 in 2021 money. Thank you, West Egg, that a working class black family could afford to buy a share in the Black Star Line, and they were buying a share in this actual enterprise that had the legs to knit black people around the world together economically and physically, ferry everybody around and around and again, like you said, ultimately help everyone move back to Africa. But this is even at a time that the average weekly wage earned by the vast majority of black Americans in northern cities was less than $5 a week. So it wasn't an easy $5 share to buy. But you can imagine how many families that were in UNIA that scraped together the money or saved up for it to buy a share in the Black Star Line. And nothing I've read seems like the Black Star line was ever meant to be anything but what it was stated to be. It's just that things went south because one of the things Marcus Garvey wasn't, by all accounts, is a shrewd businessman. He is not Abyss whiz by any stretch of the imagination. And that, from what I understand, is ultimately what brought along the Black Star Lines downfall. Yeah, I mean, there was mismanagement. I read one story where when they were doing some because they were trying to make money with this as a shipping company, too, so where a huge shipment of coconuts had gone rotten because he insisted on making these sort of high profile political stops along the route. Whereas I guess the sea captains were saying and these were completely operated by African Americans, captained and crude by African Americans. And they were like, if you want these coconuts to be sold and to actually profit in this company, we need to go straight there. And he insisted on stopping at different places along the way, and things like that would happen kind of time and time again. It seems. Like I said, these ships were in disrepair. The first one he bought was the Yarmouth, I think the Frederick Douglass, and it was a 30 year old ship. One was called this shady side. You end up buying two more. It eventually sank from a leak because of storm damage from an ice storm. But they had some successes, I think I saw. In the end, it ended up in modern dollars being like a $20 million outfit. It just didn't succeed financially. But that's a lot of dough. So it wasn't like something he went into lightly. No, I mean, it just goes to show you what an enormous enterprise it was that making $20 million couldn't even allow them to break even. In addition to the Black Star Line, he also helped found the Negro Factories Corporation, which created grocery stores, restaurant moving vans, publishing house, obviously, and all sorts of other blackowned businesses that not only were run directly from the Negro Factories Corporation, but also were just affiliated with it. And so part of the trouble that Marcus Garvey ran into was and that demonstrates he wasn't a very good businessman he was shuffling money from one enterprise to another to keep them all afloat. And some are doing better than others, from what I understand. Like, the grocery store was doing really well, but say the restaurant wasn't. So he had to move money from the grocery store to the restaurant and then maybe from the restaurant to the Black Star Line. And there was nothing that was so monumentally successful it could keep everything else going. And so even knowing that, like, the Black Star Line was in serious financial trouble, he would stop on those coconut runs to try to sell shares. It's one of the reasons why he was stopping with Russell up membership in union and membership in union subscriptions to the Negro world. And appearances by him also kind of came with pitches for buying shares in the Black Star Line, and that's ultimately what got him in trouble. He's continuing to sell shares in an enterprise that he may or may not have thought was in jeopardy. And the Feds, who have been trying to get him for years at this point, finally said, I think we can get them now. Yeah. What they got him for ultimately was mail fraud. And what I saw was it was specifically the fact that he was sending mailers for donations, or not donations, but investment opportunities that featured ships that they did not yet own. So there was one ship in particular that he was trying to buy, but the deal wasn't closed, but it was prominently featured. And they said, Wait a minute, this is mail fraud. You're misrepresenting the company, essentially by having a ship on there that you don't have yet, and we've got you. And he ended up serving how many years? Just a few. Right. He was sentenced to five, but I believe he served two. Right. And his sentence was commuted and he was deported back to Jamaica. We're still going to talk about other stuff before this, but he ultimately ended up back in Jamaica. But when you were just talking a second ago, I think one of the things that is pretty clear was that he wasn't the best businessman, but he was also a victim of being overly ambitious because he had health problems through his whole life. He had pneumonia quite a few times, and I think he had asthma. And I think he had a feeling maybe that he was not long for this world. So that's why he said, let's start theaters and let's start grocery stores and let's start restaurants and let's start a shipping line. I think he was overly ambitious and tried to move a little too fast, maybe. Whereas if he might have slowed down and put his efforts into fewer things, he might have been a little bit more successful. Yes. But also imagine being like, okay, we really need to make up for lost time, and then feeling like your time on earth was going to be shortened. Not at all. He did his time in Atlanta Federal Penn, which is at the end of Grant Park now, which is one of the scariest buildings you can ever drive past, is so imposing. Oh, my goodness. Like he said, he thought his time in this world was going to be fairly short, and he actually wrote a letter from prison saying that he basically expected to die in prison, and if he did die, then he was going to come back. He said, look for me in the Whirlwind. He was going to bring with him the souls of all the dead Africans who died enslaved and basically right all the wrongs, if you know what I mean. That was the name of the PBS documentary, by the way. Yeah. I like our title more Black Moses. I think that's such an amazing name for him. It's so awesome. Yeah, it's good he didn't die in prison. He got out. Like you said. Calvin Coolidge under tremendous pressure from UNIA members, and his wife Amy Jackson finally said, okay, fine, he can come out, but he's going to Jamaica, and that's where he went. And when he went to prison, I mean, that was just not a good look. Like this guy who was leading the movement to prop up and raise up the black community. Going to prison, it just made him an even easier target, not just among the black community, but also among white observers now, too, like, look, you went to jail. This is your leader. Come on, give me a break. But we haven't really kind of explained it enough. There's a whole other podcast we could do just on this. But suffice to say, he was very much the victim of government harassment, again at the hands of J. Hoover, who somebody said once that he became so fixated on Garvey, it became basically a vendetta. He just wanted to get rid of Marcus Garvey and tried for years to do it. And the government sabotaged Black Star Line fuel supplies so the ships would break down. He was harassed. He had every reason to feel persecuted and then finally put in prison on a pretty weak charge to begin with because of his ideas and because he represented a threat to white dominance in America and elsewhere. Yeah. In 1919, Hoover hired and by the way, I thought you were going to quote me a second ago when you said, someone once said about Hoover, I thought you were going to say he was the worst American. Right. It's like, wow, that would have been quoted. That would have been the most boss referential joke we've ever pulled off. So in 1919, Hoover hired the Bureau's first black agent, james Wormley Jones. And you might think, oh, great, he's being progressive. No, he hired him specifically to be a mole and infiltrate garbage movement. And I think he was the one that actually poisoned the fuel lines, and he had other moles that he would install within the organization. And it wasn't just I mean, it's bad enough if you're doing that just to keep tabs and report back, but he sent people in there to agitate and to cause disruption. And I remember reading one story where there was something about letters being sent back and forth between different union offices in different cities, like, pretty far apart, and they were agitating one another and with these letters. And it turned out that they were all written by Hoover or Hoovers Cronies. Yeah, that's a playbook that little putts would be using for decades to come. He did that to the Black Panthers. He tried to do it to the civil rights leaders. Yeah, he wouldn't put moles in just to listen and report back. He was like he put them in there to destroy them from within, which is just reprehensible. Man what a snake. Yes. And also, don't write in. I know what the word putts means and I meant it with J. Ed. We should mention the attempt on his life that we kind of referenced earlier. This was back in 1919 and October. He had by this time, this was kind of I guess Hoover was sort of already getting involved. But the New York DA. Edwin P. Kilro, started investigating union at first. In October of 1919, a man named George Tyler showed up, basically kicked in the door downstairs and demanded to speak with Garvey. Garvey came out to see what was going on. He opened fire. You mentioned that Amy Ashwood got between him and the bullets, but Garvey was hit three times, I think once in the scalp and twice in the legs. And the rumor was, and this is I think what Garvey believe was that Tyler was sent by the DA. That was never proven. There were also people that said, no, this was a guy who had restaurant dealings with him that was angry about how that business went down. So I don't think we'll ever know for sure what happened, but there was an assassination attempt. So, like I was saying before, when he went to prison, it was not a proud day for UNIA. And UNIA membership started to drop off fairly precipitously. Amy Jackson's wife was trying to keep things going, publishing his letters, like giving speeches on his behalf, lobbying Calvin Coolidge to let him out of prison. But it's just like the death blow was kind of struck. Although that's not to say there's still UNIA today. And Marcus Garvey's views and Garveyism and a lot of his teachings and writings and thoughts are still very much espoused and followed computer tosh right and not just in the reggae world, but he basically spent the rest of his life, and his life was relatively short. He died at age 52 in 1940. He moved back to Jamaica, where he was deported. He decided to move back to London. I could not find what kind of connection he had to London to live there twice, but that's where he lived out the rest of his days. Maybe because he schooled there, maybe well, no, I knew he had an actual connection to London, but I meant, like, on an emotional level, like what drew him back to London the second time. But he died there, and he died just kind of like a bit of an outcast. And one of the things that really didn't help, he was kind of losing a lot of followers and adherence because he went to prison. And then later on, he criticized Haley Salasi after he was deposed by Mussolini. And he also looked up to Mussolini for being a strong, authoritarian leader. But the thing that really kind of, like, sealed his fate among the black cultural leaders is what you mentioned earlier, the Bonkers meeting between him and the leader of the KKK, right? Yeah. Talk about a radical idea for him just to sit down with the leader of the clan in Atlanta and exchange views of agreement on the fact that they each thought that black Americans should belong in Africa. To say that did not sit well within the leaders of the black community is a pretty big understatement. Yeah. So that was probably the biggest thing of Marcus Garvey's downfall. But because of that, his image really kind of he died as an outcast in London. Over the years, though, he seems to have been first picked up and rehabilitated by the Rossafarians, who said, like, hey, no, this guy had some amazing ideas. This guy was speaking truth. Like, his teachings were important and they kind of picked up his image and dusted him off and rehabilitated him. And people have kind of taken a closer look at him again and been like, yes, this guy was one of the most important black activists in the history of the world. Yes. I think in the PBS documentary, they put it like this, that he in the early 1009 hundreds provided a template for everybody that came after basically, whether it was Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr. The Rosafarianism the Nation of Islam. There were so many organizations and people that sort of used his life and his cultural ideas as that template that it's hard to believe that this is something and we say this all the time, of course, especially about black history, but I don't think I ever heard the words Marcus Garvey in a high school or college history class. Not unless Peter Tosha was teaching. Oh, man, we had this great radio station called Album 88 Atlanta, the Georgia State radio station. Every Sunday morning they had like, the best reggae show ever, and they weren't like, oh, let's play Redemption Song by Bob Marley. Great song, but it's where you could hear all the early Scott, like Lee Perry and the upsetters. Oh, man, it's so good. And now when we go to the lake on Sunday mornings, we just dial up a good fifty s and sixty s. Playlist nice. In honor of what once was at Georgia State. I think we still stream it online, but it was a big deal. They shut it down, basically, and said, let's have two NPR stations in Atlanta playing the exact same thing at the same time. It was a terrible decision that I hope one day they reversed because I hope maybe it was so good. That was the More Fire show, by the way. Yeah. That just opened my eyes to so much good reggae when absolutely, I was in college and there was a lot of bad reggae and then that was Saturday, I guess. You said that was Saturday around noon. And before that, in the mornings, they would have a Saturday morning cartoon music show where they play like, Strawberry Shortcake songs and just like the most random stuff that they would get off the kids records. But it was great. And then the night before that, I don't know if you remember. Atom Bomb. Do you remember? Yes. Oh, my goodness. Album 88 had it going on Dash. That was like trance and all that. And then The Ring in the Years was sort of for the old white folks. I don't remember, but it was really good. Deep cuts of classic rock. So it's not like here's Boston's more than a Feeling. It's like, here's this deep cut from Stephen Still's second solo album, right? Exactly. Yeah. That was album 88, man. R-I-P album eight. Dare we do one on Rostafarianism at some point? Absolutely. Because of my list. It's a tough one, I think. Yes, I think so, too. But it's suffice to say that Marcus Garvey was a prophet of Rastafarianism because he predicted the rise of Halifaacei, who became the god of Rastafarianism. And we'll talk more about that in a different now. How about that? It's good stuff. I look forward. I believe it's amazon is making the Marcus Garvey movie. But definitely see if you can find the PBS experience, american Experience, I think it is. Yeah. On Marcus Garvey. It's good stuff. And the guy who's going to play Marcus Garvey, that was Winston Duke. You were right. The Duke from US. Yeah, and Black Panther, too. Well, if you want to know more about Winston Duke, go check them out on IMDb. But if you want to know more about Marcus Garvey yeah, like you said, check out the American Experience on them. But there's so much stuff and great articles and interesting scholarship to read about Marcus Garvey and his legacy. So go check it out because it's pretty interesting. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this short and sweet because this is a longer episode. So this is perfect. Smart. When we did the episode on the church choir that didn't explode, we felt bad because we could not find Reverend Kimpel's wife's first name. And wouldn't you know it, the stuff you should know, army comes through for us. Hey, guys. Love the show. I've been listening for years. I heard the episode on the church choir. It didn't explode. And you said you couldn't find Reverend Kemp's wife in her first name. And I was excited because I knew that the 1950 census had just been released on April 1. So I guess in our defense, we recorded that before April 1, right? Absolutely. I went and searched and they were listed in the census. Walter's wife's name. Can we get a drum roll here? Is unis. J. Climple. We probably could have guessed. In the 1950s, units was probably a top five name. Yes. Or Evelyn in Beatrice, Nebraska, for sure. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's them. Right county, right profession, and the only Walter Clemple without an el. It's got to be it. Keep up the good work. And that was from a couple of people sending in, but this was from sue. Thanks a lot, sue. Yeah, I did notice a couple of people wrote in, so it's pretty sharp. The 19 $0.50 just come out, and sue sat bolt upright in bed and said, I got to look. Love it. And that makes sue an official research assistant. So if you want to be like sue and send us some unpaid research, we thought that that would be great, especially if it's accurate. You can put it in an email and send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my HeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, you."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1222112991297hsw-sysk-quitting-smoking.mp3	Is quitting smoking contagious?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/is-quitting-smoking-contagious	Everyone knows it's tough to quit smoking -- but did you know quitting can be contagious? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about smoking.	Everyone knows it's tough to quit smoking -- but did you know quitting can be contagious? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about smoking.	Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=23, tm_hour=12, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=267, tm_isdst=0)	18910228	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Chuck Bryant's here. I'm here, Josh, as always. And I'm Josh Clark. So thank you for joining us. How are you doing, Chef? I'm doing good, man. I'm kind of calling out of my skin a little bit. I can tell. And I know why. Yeah. I could really go for a smoke, actually. I hate to admit it, but yeah, I'm a smoker. I'm a big time, heavy, heavy smoker. I have been doing it for many years. That's what gives me this thick, lustrous voice. Right. Made for radio. Yeah. As Chuck and most of the other people in the office know, if I could smoke in my cubicle, I would do so constantly. Right. Like it's a 1950s. Exactly. Oh, I wish it was the 50s. Yeah, you thrived. Yeah. Because not only could I smoke, I could also drink at work as well, which is great. Yeah. It'd be like Mad Men, as you've mentioned. You like, right, great. So since I can't smoke in my cubicle, I have to pop downstairs seven, eight times an hour, which I understand people in the airline industry have to do as well. Now, the FAA banned the use of this smoking cessation drug called Verenaclein, better known as shanty. Shanty. Yes. I always call it shaved for some reason. I don't know if you knew that. And basically, if you're an air traffic controller or a pilot, you are doomed to a life as a smoker, because at the very least, you can't use veronica reports started trickling in that some people were suffering psychotic breaks, epilepsy seizures. I've heard it can make you suicidal. Suicidal thoughts. And I got to tell you, this is linked. It hasn't been proven, obviously. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Right. But the last thing you want in an airline pilot is suicidal tendencies, because if you're going to go down, you might as well take the whole plane with you. As you know, that's my worst way to die, right. Plane crash. So everybody in the airline industry that's either controlling planes or driving them is not allowed to take very client anymore. And so they're investigating it because it's a brand new class of drugs. It's not like any other drug on the market. Right. And it targets these nicotine receptors, which are, like, really sensitive on the brain and they basically amplify other neurotransmitters. So if you are drinking an alcoholic beverage, you want to smoke. Absolutely. Right. The reason why is there a Kansas State study that just came out that suggests that because nicotine, you're not so much addicted to the direct effects that nicotine has on you, you're addicted to the accompanying effects it has. It turns up the pleasure that you get. Right. Which actually provides a lot of foundation for Newport's Alive With Pleasure ad campaign. Right. I wonder if they knew that back then, or else if they were just shooting in the dark and just happened to hit the target. Well, smoking definitely makes you feel better to a certain degree, right? It does. We should probably tell everybody how smoking works, right? Yeah. Watch me go. I've been writing a lot about smoking lately, so I've got smoking on the brain, for sure. Okay, well, that's funny, because that's where smoking has its effect, right. The nicotine receptors. Yeah. Well, the nicotine receptors, but also in a very standard way, what we know about smoking is that it activates what, the cholinergic pathway. That's the best way I can say it. You know, Doctor colinergic. We're going to go with Colinergic. Sure. If you know the correct pronunciation words, keep it to yourself. So nicotine activates this, and it's a pathway that transmits acetylcholine. Right. Which is responsible for the parasympathetic nervous system. Which does what, Chuck? The opposite of what you knew it was going to come to the sooner or later. It always aesthetic system, our favorite thing, the key to the universe, the theory of everything. So basically, this stuff makes you sharper, right. Makes you feel focused, but also calm as well. Right. So that's one effect. The problem is that when you have these pathways damaged, it can lead to Alzheimer's, because this stuff is in charge of memory and other cognitive functions. Right, exactly. So smoking by proxy could arguably lead to Alzheimer's, since it would overuse these pathways. Same thing goes with dopamine. Right. Dopamine is in the reward pathways of your brain, and they reinforce things to help you survive. Like you want to eat, you want to sleep. Yeah. That's how we learn behavior. Right, right. And basically, it just stimulates pleasant feelings. I'm glad we don't have a punishment system in our brain. I'll bet that would hurt. Yeah. Punishment pathway. Yeah, exactly. Catholicism. Yeah, exactly. I've got that going on. Mine is highly acute and well developed. Yeah. It also increases endorphins. And you know a little something about endorphins. I want to tell you about endorphins, Chuck. Basically, they're the body's painkiller, right? Natural painkiller, and it's triggered by stress or pain. Also, sex actually triggers the release of endorphins. Right. And when you have a rush of them, you get kind of high. You get euphoric. This is what's responsible for the runners high, which I can tell you, as a smoker, I've never achieved. I have no clue what the runner's high feels like. Right. Yeah. I start to wheeze very quickly before I ever even get close. You have a runner's low? Pretty much. It's more like a runners like, drag myself across the floor type of thing. It's kind of like you get this, from what I understand, the endorphins attached to the opiate receptors. Right. So all of a sudden, it's like taking a giant hit of smack right in the old left arm. And there you go. The weird thing is that endorphin is released in different doses depending on the individual. It's unique to each person. Right? So you and I could bang the same knee, each of our knees on the same coffee table with the same force and we get different doses of endorphins released. So I didn't realize that apparently endorphins are one of the few neurotransmitters that happen like that. So basically smoking gets you going in all these ways. Right. And nicotine we know, is highly addictive substance, naturally occurring substance. Was that ever proven? Because I got to tell you, the big tobacco guys are telling me that's not really true, man. Is it true? Those guys are evil incarnate, buddy. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm very sure. I've been doing a lot of smoking research and not only is nicotine really addictive, but cigarette companies have gone out of their way to add all sorts of stuff to make it even more addictive to increase that rush of endorphins. It's unreal, man, when you start reading about this thing look, I saw the insider too, but I mean, really, I've got some facts for you. Let's hear. Well, there's 4000 chemicals in a cigarette and 599 ingredients in each and every cigarette. So that's value, I mean, how much is a cigarette? It's nothing. That's when we look at it. Okay, you're getting methane and butane and rocket fuel and ammonia and cadmium. Where else am I going to get this in my daily life? Yeah, right. Okay. You don't need that stuff, man. The body doesn't need cadmium. No, your body doesn't. Your cell phone battery does. I should probably stop taking my cadmium supplements. Yeah, you should. Got you here's another smoking stat you might like. A pack a day smoker ingest a full cup of tear every year into their lungs. What about a two pack a day smoker? Would that be two cups? Two cups of tar. It's a one to one ratio there. Wow. So that's a full cup of tar on your lawns. And one reason I used to kind of scoff at people who when the cigarette company started getting sued, like everyone knows they're bad for you. How can you sue the cigarette company? Sure. I don't feel that way anymore doing this research because I don't know about you as a smoker, but a lot of smokers, when they wake up, they have a pretty bad cough. 80% of smokers have that first cigarette in the first ten minutes of their day and it makes them stop coughing. So throw yourself back to the 1950s before all these surgeon general's warnings and things when the Surgeon General was actually smoking. Right, exactly. You would wake up and cough and feel really bad. You have a cigarette and it makes you feel better. So you keep smoking. Right. What's going on there is inside your body, inside your lungs. And your bronchial tubes and everything are little silly little hairs that are like little street sweepers that just kind of swing back and forth, and they clean out the bad debris and the particles, and they get to work. Smoking kills those guys. Numbs them or kills them. So where they stop sweeping? So you collect all the gook down in there, and then when you don't smoke overnight, they wake back up again and start sweeping again. So when you wake up as a smoker, you have all this mucus and stuff built up, so you want to cough it out, take that first cigarette, and it kills the cilia again. They stop working, you stop coughing, you think you feel better. That's nuts. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. It's biology, man. Wow. Here's something else for you. You know what free bass nicotine is? I know what free basing is. Well, it's kind of the same thing as crack cocaine, honestly. Basically, it's nicotine that's missing a hydrogen ion. Okay. It's molecular structure. It's missing one hydrogen ion, and without it, it turns into a gas easier. And if it's turned into a gas easier, it goes to your brain quicker. And things that go to your brain quicker is quicker to make you addictive, it hits your brain faster. Quicker reaction. Same as crack cocaine. It's quicker reaction. It gets you high quicker. Got it. So it's missing a hydrogen ion. Yes. Is it still packed with cadmium? Oh, yeah, they're still the cadmium. So what they found out is a lot of these major brand of cigarettes have, like, ten to 20 times the amount of rebates nicotine that they thought. So they are doing this on purpose. Well, not only that, they put it in the first end of the cigarette. So your first few puffs get you off quicker and get you that nicotine hit quicker. Wow. So it's all very deliberate. It's all on purpose because they like to sell smokes. They're making a lot of money on it. They really are. Yeah. So much so that there's another startling set. 50% of people that have had surgery for lung cancer start smoking again after the surgery. Yeah, I've known a couple of people who not lung cancer, but, like, heart attacks, major coronary bypass surgery right. Who still smoke. And I guess that is kind of that's either a testament to their stupidity or the addictiveness of smoking, the power smoking. So this is kind of a downer for you, probably. And others. Well, what am I supposed to do, Chuck? Well, you're supposed to quit, so maybe we should talk about that. All right, I guess we can. I got a couple of minutes. This brings us to the article I wrote is quitting smoking contagious? And it turns out it sort of is. By contagious, we mean it's much easier to stop if you do it with a partner. Okay. All right, so let's talk about that. All right, let's do there's a few little stats here. We can talk about two men generally have a 7% higher likelihood of quitting smoking than women. Why you've got that on your side, they don't really know. They think one reason might be because a lot of times there's a weight gain associated with quitting and that women might be a little more bashful about putting on some pounds than men are. I got you. And a lot of it has to do with genetics, too. You're talking about the nicotine receptors in your brain. There's a receptor gene called this is exciting. It's called CHR five, of course. And if you have this gene in your body, you're born with it, you're more likely to enjoy that very first cigarette you ever have. Oh, really? Yeah, you're more likely than, by extension, to be addicted. Yeah, and to continue smoking, basically. Got it. Genetics are involved. Your sex is involved. Mental illness. This is kind of interesting. 75% to 90% of schizophrenics or smokers. Really? Well, that's funny because they were hoping to use Chevy to treat schizophrenia. Yeah, that's okay. Thanks. That is interesting because bipolar disorder, 60% to 70% and alcoholics. 80% of alcoholics smoke, too. Again, though, that falls in line with that case state study that it's smoking and drinking alcohol. Smoking and drinking coffee, smoking and food. We derive pleasure from all these. And it's like putting the whipped cream on the ice cream, right? When you have a cigarette, it's just eating vanilla ice cream. But then, hey, you've got the whipped cream on top. It's even better. Kind of like that. So what they've learned is that there's this big study. I know that you love this study, the Farmington Heart Study. I love the study. It's enormous. It's sweeping. This is what a study should be like 21 years. What? 12,000. 12,000 residents in Farmington, Massachusetts, were studied over a 32 year period. You're talking about some really good database, significant data. Yeah, yeah. It's really cool. So they studied all these people, and it's a heart studies. So it wasn't just for smoking. It's just about the heart in general. Okay. But about 5000 out of these 12,000 are smokers, which they define by smoking more than one cigarette every day. Yes. Which is a little high. Actually, only about 24% of the population in the United States smokes now. Really? Yeah, it's on the high side. I'm part of a dying breed, aren't I? Yeah, you are. Yeah. Very literally. Literally. So they studied these folks and they found that what they basically did was they researched friends and family members and co workers to get a subset of connection, basically people who are connected to each other. Right. What they found was that people that quit smoking, whose spouse quit smoking, you're 67% less likely to smoke if your spouse quit. Now, I can understand that because you're living with somebody, but in quite the opposite, you can intimidate your mate of smoking if they know they're going to get in trouble. There's that kind of exactly. Fear based. Yes, exactly. And it extended even further than that. Coworkers were 34% less likely to continued smoking. Because I know a lot of times you have your smoke buddies you don't have your smoke with. Sure. I'm not naming names, though. No names being named. But if that person were to quit, then you're 34% less likely to continue smoking. Don't you think that's a significant drop? I mean, that's 67% to 34%. Well, hopefully that's kind of a good ratio from your spouse to a coworker. I guess. Yeah. Close friends, you have a 36% chance of continuing smoke. Right. Siblings is 25%. Sure. So they definitely established a link that if you quit smoking with somebody else, big significant chance that you're going to quit smoking as well. What I found super interesting in this article was that you said that the six degrees of separation rule actually applies. Right? Kevin Bacon rule. Exactly. Yeah. And if you put it there's, subject A, B and C and subject A, no. Subject B and Subject B. No. Subject C. Is everyone following this so far? Yes. Okay. If subject A quit smoking, then subject C is more likely to quit smoking as well. Even though they don't know each other. Yeah. I don't know. I don't understand that. Subject B, just by knowing subject A carry the triumph of quitting with him or her to subject C or what? Maybe. So. I don't think that can be explained, but it's in the data. I mean, 29% less likely to continue smoking. Subject C is if subject A quits, even if they don't know each other. Got you. And subject D, it extends even farther. 11% chance. That's crazy. So that's four people, three people away. There's a statistical link. They're just not entirely certain what that link is. No, I get it. They're not sure what that link is. But what they do know from the study is that just as you enable each other when you smoke, smokers form clusters, usually. And when that cluster starts to break up, you'll either be a part of the non smoking cluster, or you'll go off and form a new cluster with new smoking friends. Right. And I can totally understand that. Just down in the courtyard, I know people who I don't see at all anymore because they quit smoking where they died. One of the two down around. I hadn't considered that. But the good news is you need to buddy up with somebody. Not you, of course I'd like you to quit, but you out there who are smokers. Buddy up with someone. If it's your wife, try it together. You might want to kill each other at first, but it turns out it's much easier when you have some support around you. So, Chuck, thanks for all this. Sure. As a smoker, my R1 takeaway from this is don't bother smoking anything but the first third of the cigarette, because that's where the pop is. I'm glad that was your takeaway. It was. I'm going to actually go puff over this whole thing. Right. Chew over it. Sorry. I'm going to go for a jog. Yeah, well, don't you go anywhere. Don't smoke or anything like that. Just stick around for a second to find out which article in practice Chuck fix is ridiculous. I honestly don't know what it is. Chuck, what article do you think is ridiculous? And what practice? I should say, what practice? It's called noodling. And what is noodling? Noodling is the best way to say this. Rural folks will go out into a lake, they will get into the water. They will reach down underwater with their hands into mud holes and let a catfish bite onto their arm and pull this thing out attached to their limb. Okay, I actually have heard of that, but I've heard it called stumping, I think, or something like that. Well, by any other name is also a rose. I have no idea. But it's called noodling in this article and it's ridiculous to me. So why, if you can catch a fish without having to spend the money on hook or bait or anything, why not? I know we're going to get complaints from newlers all over the country. I agree. Well, I'm going to go ahead and say that catfish is delicious no matter how you get it. Yeah, it's frightening. Maybe more than anything. It reminds me of the scene in Flash Gordon where Timothy Dalton is reaching into that hole. I have no idea what you're talking about. It's a good movie. You should see it. All right, well, go see Flash Gordon, apparently. And be sure to read How Doodling Works on howstephorcs.com Chuck command you. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcasts@housetopworks.com brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
87607b3e-3b0e-11eb-9699-37e889b63913	Unsung Heroes of the Court	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/unsung-heroes-of-the-court	Attorneys and judges get all the press. What about bailiffs, court reporters and sketch artists? Yeah, let's give them their due.	Attorneys and judges get all the press. What about bailiffs, court reporters and sketch artists? Yeah, let's give them their due.	Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=362, tm_isdst=0)	44773119	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hello, everybody. It's your old pals Josh and Chuck. And you will have the chance to see us live in person for the first time in two years. Friday, January 21, in San Francisco. Right, Chuck? That's right. We're returning to the stage at Sketchfest Th. We are very excited about it. We can't wait to see everyone. It is a Vax only show. Bring your vax card. It is a mask only show. Bring that mask. Can't wait to see a third of your faces. That's right. You can get tickets@sfsketchfest.com. And again. Friday, January, sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, California. We will see you there. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Cherry is over there. And this is stuff you should know. Let's get to it, friend. Yeah, that's right. But hey, we have a bit of an announcement that I'm excited about. Me, too. We have added a new writer to the stable, Livia Gershon, and this is Libya's first effort and how we're doing it, because we've never really onboarded people, because Dave and Edward, colleagues of ours from the House of Works Days. Right. So we thought maybe we'd give someone an article. Not I mean, sort of as a try out, but just to make sure that it was a good fit. And Lydia killed it right out of the block. And she's super talented as a writer and obviously very smart and great at research. I know, speaking for both of us, we're just very excited to have Livia on board. So thanks, Livia, and welcome to the family. Welcome aboard. Livia, if you went to high school with Libya, now would be a good time to email her and say, hey, I didn't know you were writing for Stuff you should know. She'd be like, oh, that yes. But this is a kind of fun one, I think is the first assignment, too, for her, because it's a little different in that it wasn't just one really deep dive on one single thing. Right. She's going to bomb that when we give her that next one. But this is actually three things in one. I had the idea of court stenography, but then I was like, you know what? Maybe that's not quite enough. But I didn't want to do it as a shorty, so I thought, let's just expand it and talk about bailiffs, court stenography and court sketch artist. The triumvirate. Yeah, what we're calling the unsung heroes of the courtroom. Because they're there, but you're not really. Ideally, if they're doing their job right and they're not a celebrity bailiff, you're not even going to know they're there. Yes, that's pretty much true. They're kind of meant to kind of blend into the background. It's the judge who wants all the attention, usually. Sometimes the lawyers, occasionally sometimes the lawyers please. Even a bailiff that's super busy doing things they're not showboating, you know what I'm saying? No, they're not like twirling their gun or anything or being like, hurry up, this is boring. That would be bad. But they look like they are the least exciting though, so I think we should start with them. Okay. So Bayless, it turns out, find their heritage goes back many, many centuries, actually, and they apparently originally started out in the UK as kind of legal overseers of a manor house for a feudal lord, basically. Yeah, kind of property managers. They could collect rent, they would sometimes do some accounting, they could collect fines. I think a little later on is when they were brought into the court system, but it was still sort of doing like sheriff's things. Right. So that I saw Chuck, was the Bailey in France where they were much more involved in courts and they actually have more power. They were more of a government official than just like somebody who served a feudal lord. Okay. It's weird, it's almost like between medieval England and medieval France, between these two interpretations of what a bailiff was, it got all mixed together, shaken up, some stuff fell off and some stuff stick around and then you said, okay, now we have the bailiff as we understand it today, right. Which is kind of what we're going to concentrate on is the good old fashioned American bailiff sitting in the corner eating apple pie and ready to jump in there and crack someone's skull open or hand the judge a key piece of evidence or arrest somebody. Yeah, because a bailiff today, as far as people in America, and if you're in the UK, you're like, oh, I know what a bailiff is. It's somebody who there's a water bailiff or there's an eviction bailiff who deals with travelers who won't leave. That's not really our understanding of bailiff in the United States. In the United States, we think of them almost exclusively as an officer of the court who is, in most people's opinion, the security for the court. Like they wear a gun, they wear a badge, they're very frequently like a sheriff's deputy or a federal marshal or something like that. But apparently there's way more to their job than just that. I had no idea about I really thought they were just there to stand up and look menacing. That was their purpose. Yeah, there's about 18,000 and change in the United States. Interestingly, it's not an official title, it's just sort of, as Libya says, like a colloquial term for someone who does this job. But you don't get titled bailiff. They just call you bailiff. Like, you can be a part time bailiff in a small town, but also be a marshal or a sheriff's deputy as your main job. Yes, I think even in big cities that can be the case as well. But yeah, I think you're definitely in a smaller area, more rural area, where there's, say, less court activity. They're going to be like, this is not big enough of a job for you. You need to do more. You need to pull your weight more than this. That's right. So go back to and be a veterinary assistant, all right? Deliver the paper, do a little bailiffing, and don't forget to be a mayor. That's right. So some of the other jobs that a bailiff has that I wasn't aware of, you said something about them handling evidence. If you are dealing with evidence in the court, you do not just hand it to the judge. You hand it to the bailiff, and the bailiff handed it to the judge. That was a big one. I didn't realize. Yeah, you present the murder weapon and you run at the judge with it isn't how you do it. Right. And then bailiff says, go ahead. Yeah, exactly. Another one that I did know but didn't realize I knew, is that the bailiff is usually the person who swears in a witness, making them swear an oath on the Bible or the constitution or something like that, depending on whether you're in a red state or a blue state, you know what I mean? Yeah. They're going to assure the jury in and out. They're going to assure the prisoners in and out. A lot of times with these big trials, they'll have a few bailiffs working in the room. They tell people to not smoke. They screen people when they come into the courtroom. You can't yell out loud. You can't do that, not in this court. Like, the judge is going to admonish them, but then the judge is going to look over at the bailiff, and the bailiff's going to say, I know what that look means. Right? Yeah. I was going to say a good bailiff doesn't even need to wag their finger like the Cambridge Matoma. They can just shoot a look and you know exactly what you're not supposed to be doing anymore. So Livia did some research on a website that kind of broke down, like, what makes for a good bailiff if you're looking to do this as a job? And they classified it as highly social with constant contact with others, including unpleasant and angry people and physically aggressive people. So you're not just the muscle, but you're definitely the muscle. Exactly. Which means you're also providing security, too, not just to the courtroom, but for functions of the court. So if the jury is sequestered, your job is bailiff is to be one of the people guarding them. You're also kind of in charge of guarding the jury against themselves. So if the jury is not supposed to be discussing the case, at some point, you're supposed to be there making sure that they don't discuss the case. Get that look. Yeah, that look. You're just basically making sure everybody's following the rules as much as possible. That's right. And I thought this is pretty interesting. Kind of going back to the feudal lord time. Bailey still in the United States can be responsible for evicting people, not just in England. I saw that was Michigan and Ohio and I think Washington state all use Baylift still, whereas other places use sheriff's deputies. But then, confusingly, in some places, a bailiff is a sheriff's deputy. What do you get paid for doing this? 100 grand easy? Not quite. It depends. State governments pay much more. There's a median of almost 69 grand a year, which is not bad if you're on a local level. Maybe 42 grand for being a bailiff. What I didn't understand and I didn't get a chance to look up is if that's on top of your salary as a marshal or a sheriff's deputy or something like that, it wouldn't surprise me if you part time to bailiff if it might be more of an hourly thing. I see. But I don't know. I'm just guessing there. But it's not a bad scratch for a high school graduate or to get your GED, because it's a very good living. You can have a degree in criminal justice. I saw where and we'll talk about celebrity velocity here in a SEC. But Judge Judy's bayliff petrie. Is it petrie, hawkins bird or petri? I have never watched the second of Judge Judy. I have a point of pride in my life, so I don't know. But I'm going with Hawkins bird. He has a criminal justice degree, so he's legit. Right? Well, I mean, let's talk about celebrity Bayless, because there's basically two that come to mind, and one of them is Petri and Petri Hawkins Bird, who has never seen it either. Judge Judy's bailiff for 25 seasons of Judge Judy, and I read a really sad little article, so apparently Judge Judy ran her course on CBS, got canceled, and said, I'm going over to Imbtv or IMDbTV. Yeah. Which I didn't know was the thing. No, I don't think anybody did. So everybody's like, good move, shudge Judy. But she didn't ask her bailiff of 25 years to come to her show and apparently didn't talk about it at all. And she had announced that she was doing this show before the end of the 25th season, so they filmed the entire 25th season together and she just never mentioned it, that she was starting this other show and he wasn't invited. So his feelings were definitely hurting. I think he was a little bewildered and sad and I think felt a little betrayed by that. Yeah, I saw that, too. I saw that the reason she gave was that they can't afford your salary. And he said, well, no one even talked to me about it. I probably would have taken less, but it wasn't offered. And he also said that in 25 years, she never invited me to one celebrity shindig or one social lunch. Oh, is that right? Yeah, but he said, But I wish her well. And he didn't want to drag her through the money. Yeah, no, he was the class. He basically was just saying, like, we were professional colleagues, we weren't friends. And she was just like, I'm just moving on with a new cast, and it is what it is. Like I said, I never watched it. But I did watch a lot as a ten to twelve year old was the People's Court. Yeah, I don't know why I love that show. I guess it was on right after school, and I watched me a lot of Judge Wapner and a lot of Rusty Burrell, his bailiff. And Rusty Burrell is the first celebrity bailiff and by far the most prolific celebrity bailiff of all time. Oh, yeah. He actually was a real bailiff in court for Los Angeles County. So it was Bird. Oh, yeah, you're right. He was from Manhattan. That's how he judge Judy was. They worked in an actual court together before she had a TV show. Rusty Burrell worked in La County Courts. He actually guarded the courtroom during the Manson trial. He was legit. But he became the celebrity bailiff on divorce court first from 1957 and 1969. And it just so happened that he worked with a lawyer by the last name of Wapner during that time on that show. And that lawyer, Wapner would go on to have a son named Judge Joseph A. Wapner, who would become the People's Court judge, right? That's right. And they work together on People's Court. And then Judge Wapner's Animal Court. And he said most prolific. I was doing the math real quick because Bird was in there 25 years, but it looks like 26 years for Rusty. Oh, wow, that was close. Twelve on divorce court, twelve on People's Court. And that animal Court that pushed them over the edge, was that the shark that got jumped? I don't know. I mean, it was two years. I bet it wasn't very good, but they count as two more years. So one more year than Bird. Yeah. And apparently Wartner, at one point in an interview, said when they were originally doing the People's Court casting, that the executive producer said he wanted to sexy give me a sexy girl as the bailiff. But Wagner was like, no, let's use this real bailiff who my dad worked with. Yeah. And he did. And the rest is history. Should we take a break? We should. We're going to take a break, everybody, and not keep you in suspense. We're going to come back and talk about court reporters. All right, Chuck. So court reporters are you said that bailiffs were the least interesting. So court reporters are the most interesting to you? I think court reporters and sketch artists are definitely interesting to me, but boy, I love this court reporting section. I thought it was super interesting, the machinery and the history and the fact that they play a real civic duty in recording history and that's one of the first points Libya makes. In neo Babylonian Mesopotamia, they kept legal records on clay tablets. And these weren't just like, so we'll know what happened in this court case. It was but it was recording history. Like, it was recording precedent. And all that stuff was really important from the beginning. Yeah. For the Mesopotamians, the Babylonians, they weren't saying, like, we got to preserve this amazing verdict about this land dispute for posterity on this clay tablet was how somebody could prove that, no, my family owns this land. It was decided back in 555 BCE. And my family owns this land. Look at the cuneiform tablet. Let me get a hand truck and I'll be right back. Right, exactly. But it just turned out that they kept such meticulous records and they survived. And we figured out how to read cuneiform, that we learned a lot about the Babylonians and how they dealt with law and agriculture and land disputes and traditions and customs and all that, thanks to writing that down through legal documents. And we actually understand a lot about a lot of things based on court documents. Do you remember we were talking about the Salem witch trials in that episode? And we were saying that we understand it very much because it was extensively documented, but it was documented through court cases. And there's just certain ways that you preserve facts and information when you're documenting it through a court record that's just not the same. It doesn't give you the full picture compared to rounding out with journals and diaries and stuff like that, but it's still way better than nothing. But what struck me as weird, Chuck, is that the idea of recording stuff like that, which seems like, of course you're going to do that, it got lost for a while. Yeah. Here in the United States during the colonial period, like you mentioned, diaries and stuff, that's kind of what they relied on was whenever a lawyer or a judge might happen to keep personal notebooks about stuff, they would use that, but they didn't officially decree, like, this is something we need to do. I think it was the early 1018 hundreds that they said, no, this is a problem, and we can't just rely on whoever happens to want to take notes and save them. Judges, you need to start writing your verdicts down on paper at least, and not just say them out loud. And the judges were like, probably because judges didn't really feel like doing that. Is gave rise to actual court reporting. Yes. Think about this, Chuck. You know how emphatic like older men are when they just know they're right. Think about the cluster that would arise when some judge just knew he remembered a verdict correctly and totally wrong. That was the state of the early American court system before they finally said, like, the beginning of the 19th century, when they finally said, no, we need to write this down. Like, if you put yourself in that situation, I can't imagine how many terrible outcomes there were from that. Yeah. I think it was 18. Four. When Massachusetts finally enacted a law that said the governor has the authority to appoint someone, quote, learned in the law to obtain true and authentic reports of the decisions. In 1817 was when Congress finally passed a law saying the Supreme Court at the very least has to have an official court reporter. Right. I said, yeah, supreme Court. You get on that, too. Something I didn't realize I thought was pretty interesting is that before that, people did document court reports is particularly of the Supreme Court, but they were just like freelance schmoes who showed up and sat there and documented it themselves to turn around and sell to whoever wanted that kind of information. So it was willy nilly, I think is the term for that. And you might ask, who would want to buy that? Law schools attorneys. Yeah. Bobby's Constables. Bayless. Bayless. Bay leaves. So finally, at the end of the 19th century, everybody's like, all right, we're on board with this idea about actually recording the decisions of the court. And let's go a little further. Let's record every single minute detail down to gestures, down to somebody sitting quietly when asked a question. And that's where court reporting was actually born within the end of the 19th century. Yeah. 1899 was when the National Shorthand Reporters Association was formed. And I think this is one of the reason they spoke to me a little bit, because I took a course in high school called speed writing. Oh, well, there we go. Speed writing. And I can't remember the third thing. It's one of those classes that you spent time doing three different things. Home equals a checkbook that was in there. I don't know if that was that class. Anyway, speedwriting was no, but I did take homeack. I did, too. It wasn't official shorthand as we're about to talk about. It was a kind of shorthand, though. And the funniest thing I remember from that class I don't think I should say her name is my old friend. She would probably think it's funny and wouldn't care, but I won't say her name. But she sat next to me in class and we used to always cut up. She learned the shorthand, but not such that she could take the test, which was basically a teacher would just dictate things. You would write it in shorthand and then transcribe it back in long form. But she was really fast at writing, so she would write it all in regular long hand and then take the time to transcribe it to shorthand. Wow. And then turn them in in reverse order. That is once an A. No. She got busted, though, and that was technically cheating and always felt bad for my unnamed friend. Yeah, really fast. Doesn't that count for something? Yeah, I mean, she should have gotten an A for effort at least. But yeah, if she went back and transcribed it using a book, that's cheating. Chuck oh no, she's a book. Well, then she should have gotten an A. She just needed more time. It's like if you were in a German class and you had to just write down in English what they were saying in German, writing the German first and then taking your time to transcribe it. Yeah, no, I got what you're saying for sure and I dispute the teacher having an book involved, but shorthand is fascinating to me and it has a very long history. Going back to Cicero's, enslaved servant Marcus Julius Tiro in 63 BCE developed a Latin shorthand, became known as Tyronian notes. And these were symbols, they were like 4000 symbols and it was basically the earliest version of shorthand. Yeah, and apparently medieval monks got a hold of it and turned it into 13,000 symbols. Of course they did. Yeah, because they had a lot of time on their hands. Plenty of time. There's like a real value in developing shorthand. So there are all sorts of shorthand systems that were developed over the time. But as far as court reporting goes, it wasn't until a guy named John Robert Greg got into the mix in the late 19th century and he developed a Greg method of shorthand writing that was so useful and so popular, he actually opened schools around the country. I saw him described as a tycoon where basically if you were a secretary, if you were involved in anything that involved transcribing or taking dictation or any job like that, you basically could not get the job until you had a grade certificate. And so you had to go pay to take those classes and be trained. It was just the way it was. And then along came Myles Bartholomew who basically ruined everything for John Robert Greg and his heirs. No, not so. You would think that court reporter Miles Bartholomew by inventing the first steno type machine would have made speedwriting and shorthand go the way of the dodo. But that did not happen. And Libya points out very astutely that today there are still some court reporters who do pen and paper shorthand. And ostensibly because as we'll see, it's really hard to learn how to master that machine. And if you're really good at shorthand and you can write 200 words a minute using shorthand, then just have plenty of pens and paper and go at it. Yeah, if you can write 200 words a minute, you're probably generally keeping up. But from the stenography machines or the steno is what they're called machine shorthand. Like if you know what you're doing, you can do 300 words a minute and that's when you're doing some high quality court reporting work. Yeah, I get a feeling that the pen and paper might be some of these small town courts that you know what I mean? Yeah. Their bailiff is doing all sorts of other jobs. The court reporters just have pen and paper. That's a giant mess, basically, in these small maybe, but it makes sense. And before we move on to the Steno, we do need to shout out that weird gas mask looking thing that you see sometimes, the Steno mask. And that's the thing that you speak into, but they can't hear you speaking and it records you saying the real words. Yeah, I think my issue with that is not even the shape or the look of the mask. It's the color of the material they use. It's always this weird clinical, medical tan color. It's like, have you heard of yellow or blue? This is a job that I thought would might be fun as a retirement job for me. Yeah. But I would not be able to do it without my own commentary. So it would just be a very low voice, like and this attorney objects. God, this guy again, he thinks he's all that. Oh, man, the judge is mad. Yeah, I don't think you can do that. I think you just need to say what people are saying. Well, that's a talent in and of itself. It depends. So I was looking into those Stenomasks and I was like, so how does this work? So when you're wearing that mask, it's part muffler, part silence, or the people around you can't hear you. That's why that mask is so big. But all you're doing is restating what the people are you're doing vocal commentary on what's going on. Okay, that makes sense. But then you're like, oh, wait a minute. Are there, like, transcriptions? Yes. That means that you have to go back, listen to what you recorded, type it up as you're listening, and turn it into a clean transcript. So you're basically doubling the work with the Steno mask. I thought it was a machine that just did it for you. Now it does. But when Boris Wells invented that thing in World War II, it did not have that machine. So it was a really Kludy process that took a lot of time. But the reason they did it is because it was so highly accurate and it could produce so many comments and details and observations that you might just miss if you were typing or writing shorthand. Right. So it was a lot of effort, but it seemed to be worth the effort. Libya found a court reporter from Cleveland named Toddle Peterson who wrote some stuff. I think his name sorry, it's Person. Oh. Does it say Peterson? It's person with two S's. Yeah, but he said basically, if you're just talking about a regular person, they speak at about 180 words a minute. But then you have multiple people speaking. You have people talking over each other, people interrupting each other. It can get up to 300 actual words a minute. And if you're one of the best typists around. You max out in the low 100s, basically. And you also have to say who is speaking to the name of the person. You're in there for eight to 10 hours at a time. And it's a brutal job. This machine is a crazy piece of machinery because it's not like a little tiny typewriter. It is 22 blank keys and a blank number bar, and you are playing it like a piano, basically. You're not spelling out words one letter at a time. You're doing it all at the same time. And it's just a miracle how anyone ever learns how to use this thing. Yeah, that 110 word a minute typist is using a quarter keyboard like you and I use on our computers. And apparently, because the rate of speech is 180 words per minute, that means that if you're typing on a normal keyboard, you start to fall behind after the first 10 seconds and you just get further behind. Right. You can't do it with that machine. You're talking about the stenography machine with just 22 keys in that blank number bar. The way that it's set up is you've got the beginning consonant sounds that are being worked on the left hand, the left side on your right hand. On the right side are the ending consonant sounds and in the middle are the syllables or the vowels that you use your thumb to type that go in the middle of the words. So that means because of the placement of the keys, you compress all these keys at once and compose a word all at once rather than one letter at a time. No matter how fast you're typing on Aquarius keyboard, you're still ultimately typing one letter at a time. With a stenography machine. You're typing an entire word all at once? Basically, yes. And that's why in a courtroom they can ask for the stenographer to read back the court reporter to read back something that's just been said, which has been used in countless TV comedies and movie comedies throughout history. It's always a great gag when something dumb happens in court. And the court reporter, a very monotone, reads back what has just happened. Yeah, like airplane. Airplane? Two. I can't remember what the joke was, but I know there was one. Did they do it in that? I'm sure they did. It's a trope. It's been in a million movies. It's one of the great jokes. So one of the things that they've done is they said, okay, the stenography machine is amazing. And the people who use these things and can type 300 plus words a minute are magical human beings. They are. But we now have technology that can make these things even more outstanding. And that is that while you're typing and apparently, by the way, people who are typing, who are masters of a stenography machine, they type with like 99% accuracy at 300 words a minute. So it's. Just fantastic. So they have these things plugged in now to a computer that's basically adding timestamps, putting the person's name after next to who's speaking at any given point, and then they take that and transfer it. They send it out to a real time live feed to the judge's computer, the lawyer's computers, so that everybody who needs one in the courtroom sees the transcript as it's happening basically almost entirely in real time. Pretty cool. It is pretty cool. And then the one last technology I saw, Chuck, is that they have speech to text now. So that now, finally, those steno masks are actually a valuable tool. And I believe they're starting to come back. Yeah. Those on your phone. Yeah, basically. But you just need a muffler silencer mass to attach to your phone and you'd be right there. For a court reporter. Yeah, those are remarkably accurate on the phone, I found. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. But there are some things where they kind of lack, like if you weren't using just the court report, apparently some courts have said, let's just set up some microphones in the court and have an AI transcribe this and just not take the court reporter out of the whole thing. And the Steno mask, get rid of that ugly Steno mask. And they found that the AI can't do things like understand accents, especially if it's a thick accent when people talk over each other, it just throws its hands up. If you ask an AI to read it back, that can be a problem. Or the AI can't ask you to repeat yourself. That's another one, too. So if you are a court reporter, you're going to be making should be $300,000 a year. Should be if you ask me to learn that machine, because it takes I guess it depends on how fast of a learning you are. But Mr. Person says six months to learn those keystrokes and another couple of years to really get good at it. I buy that. That's a lot of time put in. I think the median pay is about 61 as of May 2020. You can also get a little side hustle going, doing deposits, maybe, although I think most of those are usually video recorded because my friend does that for a living. Oh, yeah. But 61 grand should be more. That's all I'm saying. I'll bet they do both. I'll bet they video record them. But I'm sure they have transcripts just because it's so much easier to scan a transcript to find what you're looking for. Most of his are just video. There's no court reporter in there. That's interesting. It probably depends on, again, the size of the case and how much money you can throw at it. Right. Because it costs dough. Yeah. I can imagine there is one person we should mention that I kind of feel bad, but there is one part of this I did find funny. There was New York State Supreme Court court reporter let's say this. We don't even name them, okay. Who had a drinking problem and screwed up pretty big at a few trials. And it's not funny because he had a drinking problem. The only funny part is I can imagine them reading the transcript back at some point when he just repeatedly typed, I hate my job, I hate my job, over and over and over. Yeah. And apparently, like, he did this on some really important trials. Like he just didn't take notes for a couple of days and some of them and so now some guilty verdicts have been up for grabs. And Chuck, they had reconstruction hearings where the judge brought the lawyers and the defendants and everybody back in and said, okay, who remembers what about this? Because we're missing some really important parts of the record and we need to try to recreate it. Wow. And the thing that stuck me, too, was in a New York Post article on it, they interviewed his ex wife and she said it was that job that caused him to start drinking in the first place. And I'm like, amen. Because I got to tell you, I can't think of too many more stressful jobs that don't involve an actual human life in your hands, like, say, like a heart surgeon or something than a court reporter. You think? Yeah, man, the pressure to get everything right, not miss anything, not fall behind and stay like that for 8 hours at a stretch every day that you're working. That sounds like a very high pressure job. I don't know. I think from that thing, that account you sent, it was another insider account. It seemed a little more Zen to me than that because what he talked about was hearing but not listening. Yeah. So you kind of have to go into this fugue state almost, where you're hearing words, but you're not listening as if you're in a conversation with someone because then you're investing even if you're not trying to. You're probably investing emotionally and that'll get you out of your rhythm. You just have to hear and let the words flow through your fingers. Yeah. Pretty interesting, I think. Yeah, it is like a Zen thing. It takes a certain kind of person, for sure. Yeah. And I'm sure not all of them can do it, but yeah, that would probably be the ideal way to do it, for sure. All right, let's take our last break and we're going to come back and talk about those scrappy little sketch artists right after this. Alright. Sketch artists are maybe the most unsung because there aren't many of them. I was starting to think about court sketch artists and you don't have them for every trial. It's not like a bailiff or a stenographer. You only get a sketch artist in there when it's something the media is interested in. Right. Yeah. And there's only so many of those trials. There's only so many big cities where those trials might be taking place. So there aren't that many court sketch artists anymore that are working? No, the sketches that are produced, they're not ordered by the court. They're not part of the court record. They exist for the media to have some sort of visual information to accompany reports of, like, court cases, which makes sense, but I never really thought about that before. Yeah. And that's it. And it started because there weren't cameras. In 1859, it was John Brown's trial in Virginia, and there was a national magazine that sent illustrators to cover this. And that was kind of where the whole thing started. When cameras did come around, they put them in the courtroom. And the trial of the century, the first trial of the century, the Lindberg baby kidnapping with Bruno Hauteman in 1935 was chaos with those huge cameras and flashbulbs and court reporter and photographers just, like, apparently climbing on tables to get good shots. It was a zoo in there. So he said he couldn't even get a fair trial because of these camera people. And even though that argument didn't work, the Aba said, you know what? No more cameras in the courtrooms. Generally. This is the American Bar Association, so they can't lay down the law. Right. But usually some are televised, and sometimes there are cameras. I know we all watch the OJ trial, but most times you're going to see a sketch come out on the 05:00 news. Yeah. I mean, because the Aba said there shouldn't be cameras in the courtroom. A lot of states and the federal government said, yeah, you're absolutely right. And so that actually was one of those rare instances where, like, the predecessor came back in style. And I guess in the 60s, TV news was not a huge thing until the civil rights era, until the assassination of JFK and the ensuing assassination of Jack Ruby. The 60s is kind of supercharged the reason for there to be TV news. And the people who are doing the news needed, like, if they couldn't get cameras in the courtroom, they still needed some visual. And so that gave a real boost to courtroom sketch artists as well. Yeah. I think the Jack Ruby trial is a man named Howard Brody very famously sketched that one. And he went on to do RFK and MLK's assassinations. Then there was a man named Bill Robles who's done some pretty famous ones. I like his stuff. He did the Manson trial, and if you look at those sketches online, he kind of has a Ralph Steadman quality to him. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool stuff. Is that the guy who did the Manson leaping at the judge? Yes. Yeah. I think there are courtroom sketch artists that have kind of made names for themselves, especially among the media. But what they will do is sit there and draw the scene in a court. Believe it or not. That's what these sketch artists are doing all day. They sit around and draw. But it's harder than it sounds because very frequently there's not a lot of visual action going on in the courtroom. It's not rare necessarily, but it's not happening every moment. You can't count on Charles Manson to always be jumping over a table. Exactly. So the court sketch artist has to basically have a real eye for nuance and facial expression and to figure out how to capture visually a subtle exchange that can maybe change the momentum of a court case or something like that and then present it. Then they have to do it in a way that looks good and they have to do it quickly. And then when they're done, they have to run out. Up until probably the last few decades, they had to run outside and the TV news crews would film the sketches that they made for that day for the evening news. Yeah. And they don't have a special chair like the Stenographer does, or a special place to stand. I mean, I think in some courts they accommodate them as best they can. Sure. I think there was this one article from Mental Floss where one of the court reporters, Vicky Ellen Behringer, said that they would give her a place to sit sometimes in the jury box if there was room. But sometimes you're just out there with everyone else and you might have somebody with a big giant head in front of you. You got to really work on the fly. And like you said, work fast. I mentioned it's. Not a whole lot of people doing it. I think Robots was interviewed like three or four years ago and said he's working a lot, but he's just one of two in Los Angeles. And I thought that just sounded astounding. But again, if you think about the media covered trials, there just aren't that many of them. So you don't need hundreds and thousands of sketch artists around the country. Yeah. Just to pick up work. Sketch artists are becoming bailiffs. The bailiffs got the gun in one hand and sketching on the other. It's tough, man. It's tough out there. So one of the places you can get work if you're a reliable schedule artist is by drawing the Supreme Court, because you just aren't going to get a camera in there. Like anybody who listens to NPR News is familiar with Nina Totenberg's play by play of Supreme Court arguments and discussions, and she's kind of like a verbal sketch artist. But the point is, there's not any media allowed in the Supreme Court chamber. Yes, just today with the abortion proceedings, I was looking at pictures, I saw some last night of the sketch artist, and it was probably done by Arthur Lean. Arthur may be the only person to him for the Supreme Court, but I know that he does the SCOTUS blog and for NBC so maybe they probably let more than one in for something this big. But apparently it's court reporters. I'm sorry. Sketch artists have roundly said that it's a lot easier to draw someone like Charles Manson than it is to draw some just sort of normal looking normal normal. I don't know, like Tom Brady or something like that. Yeah. That was very famous. Jane Rosenberg sketched. Tom Brady almost a Tom Barringer during the deflate gate proceedings. Tom Brady is traditionally a handsome person, and he looked a little bit like Lurch. Yeah. And it became a meme, and it was pretty funny. The best one I saw the best meme I saw was that sketch of Tom Brady photoshopped onto the Hunchback from Hunchback at Notre Dame, the Disney movie. Really perfect. He got a lot of press out of that. She did. The other best one I saw was that sketch of Tom Brady's head on the potato jesus meme. Right. They fit pretty well, too. The final little thing here that Livia found, which I thought was pretty great, in a testament to how good of work that she's doing for so far, but she found that sometimes attorneys, and this doesn't surprise me, they will buy some of these sketches, I guess, sometimes either if it's a famous case or early in their career and have it framed. So I think it's just sort of a symbolic thing, because even though they have different styles, you can always tell a courtroom sketch. I think to have a framed a courtroom sketch of yourself when you finally make it as an attorney is probably a pretty big deal. Yes. Especially if you're standing and pointing at the accused. Is it really dramatic like that? Sure. I've always wanted the Wall Street Journal to do a piece on us so we could get a drawing of us like that. That's a really easily recognizable type of drawing, too. Yeah, totally. Come on. Wall street or Mad Magazine, maybe. It's defunct, Chuck. I know, but this guy still draw. Bring him out of retirement. Mort Drucker. I think he passed away, but got to be drawn by more drucker. That would be pretty amazing. Or I take Jack Davis, too. He did the UGA football guy in the 70s. That's right. I got that Coke bottle on my bar still. There you go. Maybe someday. Chuck commemorative coke bottle. Well, since Chuck said commemorative Coke bottle, I think that's it. Which means it's time for listener mail, everybody. I'm going to call this another dentistry email. This is from Kayla. Hey, guys. I really enjoyed your episode about dentistry. I'm currently a fourth year dental student in the US, graduating in May. And I want to add a couple of things here. Green black was one of the fathers of dentistry that you mentioned, but you didn't say much about them. Green black, commonly known as GV black in the dental realm, invented the pedal driven dental drill and also outlined the best way to prepare tooth for cavity filling, which is still the method used today. And secondly, since you focus on the history of dentistry, I wanted to mention Saint Apollonia, the patron saint of dentistry. In the year 249, Apalonia, a deaconness was beaten for refusing to renounce her faith, and the beating caused all of her teeth to shatter and fall out. She then elected to be burned alive instead of renounce her faith and even jumped into the fire herself. After her death, she was made the paint and saved the dentistry and toothaches. And there's even a painting of her in the Louvre. And this is from Kayla, who was just introduced to the show last year by her brother, and now he's a big fan. Nice. Thanks, Kayla. Good luck with cool. Yeah, for sure. That's one of those examples. I knew both of those. They just didn't make it in the show. And it's just so excruciating to be called out about those later on. It's okay to miss things. Well, thanks a lot, Kayla, and good luck with dental school. And thank you for writing in. And welcome to the show. Right, Chuck? That's right. Well, if you want to be like Kayla, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My HeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-cockroaches.mp3	How Cockroaches Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-cockroaches-work	You've seen them in your home and probably squealed in terror, but now it's time to learn all about cockroaches. From their ability to run incredibly fast to the appendage that alerts them when you're about to whack them with your shoe, cockroaches are fa	You've seen them in your home and probably squealed in terror, but now it's time to learn all about cockroaches. From their ability to run incredibly fast to the appendage that alerts them when you're about to whack them with your shoe, cockroaches are fa	Thu, 15 Aug 2013 14:32:48 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=14, tm_min=32, tm_sec=48, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=227, tm_isdst=0)	41483356	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant is with me. He's got his glasses on, he's got his hair shorn, fingernails are chewed down to the quick. He's ready to go. I was hoping we could open the show with Lakukaracha playing in the background. Go ahead. Well, yes, we can't. I don't know if we can or not. Well, we probably can't. No, there's no way we can't. Well, hold on. Let's hum it. We could probably do that. Right? That's lame. People just imagine in your heads that you're sipping a margarita and some Marriott band is playing with Kukaracha right now. Not to be confused with tequila. No. Which is similar. No. I always confuse the two really? Well, not when I hear them. But if I think of La Cukaracha, I often think of Pee Wee dancing on the bar. Then I'm like, oh, yeah, this tequila. Right. But you know what Lakaracha is about. I assumed cockroaches, but probably not. No. Cockroach who's lost one of his legs and is having a hard time. Oh, really? Yeah. I just found that out today. I did not know that. Look at me. I didn't either until, like, just a few hours ago. Chuck, I was once like, you naive to the way of Lakukarata. Right. All right, so we talked about lacquerrates, as you'd hoped. You feel good? Yeah. Have you ever seen the X Files episode with the cockroaches? I don't know. Oh, it is perfect. It's one of the top five. And it's not even, like, part of part of the bigger picture once. It's like its own thing. Yeah. They have the name for those episodes. I can't remember what it's called. But, like, when it's just about a shape shifter and it has nothing to do with the overarching conspiracy. Yeah, it's one of those. Yeah. And it's just about cockroaches, and a cockroach infestation it may or may not exist, but at one point, it's getting really like the cockroaches are everywhere and everybody's starting to go a little crazy and all that. And they digitize the cockroach crawling across your TV screen, obviously not part of the scene. And it looks like it was on your screen. Wow. It looks like there's a cockroach in your house. Oh, that's awesome. It's a good episode. Yeah. I was late on the X Files. I didn't watch it when it was out. And then when I moved to New Jersey, they started doing reruns. And Justin I was living at the time was like you never watched X Files. I was like, no. And then it was on every night. Yeah, I watched the crap out of it. Did you see the Charles Nelson Riley one where he's like an artist? It's Jose Chung from outer space. I don't remember that. Where, like Jesse the body venture and Alex Trebecker in it. Really? I must not have seen them all because I was catching them in reruns. You didn't see, like, some of the best ones. All right, go watch those two. I know you have access to them. All right. Okay, done. So we're talking cockroaches here and apparently also jesse the body of Vendura. Did you know, Chuck, the cockroaches are extremely clean insects? Well, we said the same thing about vultures. They are personally clean. Apparently. They do track a lot of germs spread disease. They apparently leave a trail of fecal material everywhere they go because it's like a bit of breadcrumbs for them to follow back. Yeah, they spread bacteria, of course, yeah. In that fecal material, there are proteins that set off up to 60% of allergy sufferers. Allergies? Yes. They'll eat garbage and waste. They'll crawl on poop that your dog lay down in the yard and eat it, if your dog doesn't eat it first. And yet a cockroach itself is very clean because they're extremely intense groomers. Oh, really? First of all, they keep their antenna clean because they have a fatty secretion or some sort of secretion that if they don't clean it off, will block their antenna from sensing things. So they constantly clean their antenna. But apparently they also clean their feet and everything. And I read about a study. It was almost anecdotal it was so outside of the scientific method. But they took a swab from a guy's hands who hadn't washed his hands for 2 hours. And they took a swab off of the foot. Or tarsus. I should say. Of a cockroach who had been walking through garbage. And then 2 hours later. They took a swab and they put it in culture. And the guy grew way more bacteria than the cockroaches culture did. Don't care. Which means that that man is dirtier than a cockroach. I don't care. They proved it. I would still smash the cockroach with my flip flop. See, I don't believe there's a sect out there, and I don't know if it's Hinduism or Jainism. It's one of those two where the monks of the sect carry little brooms, hand brooms, to kind of brush everything off wherever they sit so they don't accidentally kill even the tiniest thing. That's great, and I kind of agree with that. I think everything is a right to life. Now, you have been on record on this very show talking about killing cockroaches because of the way they skitter. No, not cockroaches. I am down with killing mosquitoes and ticks. No, you talked about cockroaches. I don't kill cockroaches. You talk very much about how fast they are and how they skitter and how that freaks you out. I don't kill them. No. I don't kill roaches. I'm telling you. I defy you to find the timestamp. All right, somebody please help me. Okay, I will kill the crap out of a mosquito, a cockroach, and I will generally shoe a fly. No, kill flies. I generally won't kill a fly because they're not a big problem. You don't have flies around you all the time? No. Like me. No. But mosquitoes and cockroaches I will kill. And that's about it. Yeah. Everything else right. To life. Cockroaches, you must die. So cockroaches are I guess they understand that Chuck wants them to die. Many people do. They're very disliked. Right, yeah. Which has possibly accounted for them evolving to be really difficult to kill. For one, they're nocturnal, so they're hiding away from us when we're up because we're diurnal. Sure. It's just the opposite of nocturnal. Yeah. They have sensors, little sensors in there. Yeah, we'll get to that. Okay. That's a spoiler. They run really fast. They do. They reproduce extremely quickly. Yeah. And there's more than 4000 species of cockroach. So you would think the whole world would be infested with cockroaches, but not true. It's actually mainly just one species, the German cockroach, that is accountable for most infestations in homes around the world. That's right. That is one of the four main species that you might see. The German, the American, aka palmetto bug, which they can get big. Oh, yeah, man. Creepy. There's one man, like in South America, it's like as big as your hand, six inches long, 1ft wing diameter wing span. The brown banded cockroach and the oriental cockroach are the four that you're likely to come across in your life. And the German cockroach and American are the ones you're going to see here in the United States. And they have been brought here by you because they're not obviously going to fly from continent to continent. They hit rides on airplanes and boats and get in chipping containers in your mouth, moving boxes and grocery bags. And they are ubiquitous. And like all insects, or most insects, they do a service. Most of them are going to be out in the woods, like chewing stuff and pooping it out and being a part of the ecosystem. Yeah, but it's the ones in the home that really freak people out. Right. And Chuck, I think one of the more fascinating things and by the way, rough has turned out to be pretty fascinating even more than I expected. I just thought there were a few things that were fascinating. Were you creeped out like reading this? Or do you no, it's not like that. You just hate them. Yeah. Like you previously talked about that you deny it's. The way they move and how fast they are is what creeps me out. And like there's no greater fear than laying in bed and seeing one on the ceiling above you just waiting for it to fall into your mouth. Yeah, but apparently they are pretty good at not falling off of the ceiling. That's true. And they've had a long time to practice this kind of stuff. They've been around for about 320,000,000 years. What, longer than dinosaurs? Way longer than dinosaurs. They survived that extinction event they did, and well, let's talk about it, Chuck. Just how much of an extinction event can a cockroach survive? Can they survive a nuclear fallout, a nuclear war that would kill all humans? Could a cockroach survive as they are rumored to? Maybe. Sadly, it's like we don't know because that hasn't happened. Not sadly. Thankfully that hasn't happened. But the answer is some people say maybe. Some people say maybe not. What we definitely know is they probably could not survive the nuclear winter because they like warm, moist places. Right. Nuclear winter would not be good for cockroaches. Apparently, they're less susceptible to radiation poisoning than humans are, but more than most insects. So as far as insects goes, they might not be the best candidate. Right, yeah. So maybe, but probably not. Okay. I'm kind of on that side that they probably wouldn't survive a nuclear war. So we're talking about radiation, though, not like the blast, obviously. That would kill everything. Sure. All right. So they survived the dinosaurs extinction event. They have been around for 320,000,000 years. They are very hearty little insects. Let's talk a little bit about their bodies. They're creepy little crunchy bodies. So most of them are between half an inch and two inches long. They're brown or black, usually, and that length is minus their antenna. This is just their body size. Sure. You don't count the antenna and their heads point downward, like, as Tracy Wilson, who wrote this article points out, almost as if they're built for ramming. Yeah. Or just searching for stuff. That's another way to look at it. The males are the ones that have wings. Females may have wings, but they're vestigial wings. They can't fly with them. Males can fly not very well, though, which makes them even more horrific when the palmetto bug, a big one, is flying at your face because he knows he has no control. Right, exactly. Yeah. Oh, man. It's sort of like the cicada. I don't think their wings were made for flying, but if they jump off of something high, they can help them a little bit to glide, perhaps, and not hit the ground as hard. Right. Short distances, basically. And they're insects, which means that they have three main body regions the head, the thorax and the abdomen. They have an exoskeleton that they molt as they grow, and they mold a number of times, depending on the cockroach species, over the course of a couple of weeks or over the course of a couple of years. And their lifespans also are in step with that molting schedule. But a cockroach will mold several times over its life before it becomes an adult. Yes. And when they molt, it's the same thing as when they're born. They're going to look white, and that's probably kind of creepy looking. I've never seen a molted cockroach. It's like a skinless cockroach. It's like the lady in hellraiser before she fully gets all of her skin right. And they're pretty susceptible to injury and death. Obviously, after they've molted before bursicon, which is a hormone, makes their exoskeleton hard and dark once again. Then they have their little armor, which is no match for a flip flop, by the way. They can regrow lost limbs when it molds, which is pretty cool. And they can even put molting off for a little while in order to regrow a lost limb right in their head. Let's go over their head. They have eyes and their antenna, which we've talked about, which we'll get into more specifically. And Tracy loves saying mouth parts. Yeah. She writes a lot of these articles. Yeah, she will never just say mouth. It's always mouth parts. Yeah, it's not a true mouth, apparently. It's a mouth part. Yeah. They do have brains, by the way, and they are the brain is in the head, but the brain is not like a human or a mammal brain. It's like it's not connected to a big central nervous system or anything like that. Right. There is a central nervous system, but it's not in the head. There's some sort of ganglia that allows the ropes to continue living for up to a week after it loses its head. Yeah, this is a pretty good roach fact. Okay. I think. Okay, so you can cut a roach's head off, and it will live for a week and do all the normal things that a roach does for a week, and then when it finally dies, it dies because of thirst? Yeah, because they actually breathe. They don't breathe through the nose and mouth. They breathe through their sides. There are little holes in their side called sphericals, and trachea tubes deliver the oxygen to the organs and tissues through their side. So there's cut off the head, and it just dies at Thirst, which is my new favorite game, actually, that's not true, because that's like, future serial killer stuff. It is like you torture cockroaches and you torture animals and you torture humans. Yeah. Once you've moved on to chipmunks, it's probably beyond the point of no return. You're a bad person. Jeffrey Dahmer tortured animals. Oh, yeah. He would lay down he would come across a dead deer in the forest and lay down with it and spoon with it. It's like Johnny Depp and Dead Man. Did he do that? He did the exact same thing. Well, maybe he was a serial killer. I don't think he was. He was a killer, but not a serial killer. That just shows how messed up Dahmer was, though, man. Yeah, that was a connection to him, was like holding this dead animal. All right, back to cockroaches. So that's the head. Yeah. Let's talk about their eyes. Their eyes are compound eyes, so they see the world in a mosaic. Like a fly. Like a fly. All right, so we talked about their eyes. I actually asked Tracy today. I was like, you wrote a bunch of insect articles. Yeah. Didn't you ever get sick about talking about the head, the abdomen, the thorax parts, mouth parts, the legs? They're all the same for insects. What did you say? Oh, no, they're not. They're all the same, but they all have different little adaptations that make them different. I was like, how did you not get tired of it? She said she was fascinated the whole time. She said, xanax nitra. That's Tracy of stuff you missed in history class, by the way. Yeah. Plug. Plug. Xanax. So we talked about the antenna. They are movable, and they are known as antenna flagella. And they're actually tiny little hair covered segments. And it's thicker where it attaches to the head, and it gets thinner and thinner and thinner until it's just like a human hair almost at the end. Yeah. And these things send they smell sort of right? Yeah. They basically, I guess, sense pheromones. Yeah. There you have it. They send pheromones. They pick up odors. I think they're pretty finely attuned to the environment. Yeah. But that's like, really how they're getting around. Yeah. Right. Even though they have eyes, isn't the antenna really the secret? I believe so. Okay, Chuck, you want to talk about mouth parts? Yes. They are a lot different than mammals, as Tracy points out. But they do have parts that sort of are akin to how mammals mouths work. For instance, there's a labrum and labium, and they form the lips. Right. Mandibles, there are two of those. And they cut and grind things like your teeth might, which is very important because roaches eat literally anything, and sometimes that's like wood and other stuff that they shouldn't be able to eat, but they can. That's right. Go ahead. Thanks to the mandibles and some other things that we'll get to. Right. And then they have a stop, and then there's a couple of maxilla, and they basically manipulate the food. Squirrel, squirrels. Arms or hands. Yeah. Or a dung beetle. Yeah. The thorax, which is one of the body parts, one of the three pieces of the body, and that has the three pairs of legs and the wings. And the legs are so named after the part of the thorax that they're attached to. Right. So you get the pro, the meso and the meta. Yeah. So the pro is closest to the head. Meso metal. Yeah. The pro are like the brakes, apparently. Right. They just do stopping. Yeah. The middle ones can make the ropes go forward or backward. So that's the mesothoracic legs, then the meta thoracic legs, the ones in the rear are the ones that propel the roach forward. Yeah. And here's another good roach fact. You take this one, man, it is awesome. They can move about 50 body lengths in a second, which is up to 3 miles an hour. Sounds very slow to us. Yeah. But think about this in roach terms. That's right. If that were a human being, that would mean we would be running 200 miles an hour. Yeah. That's why they look so fast. It's because they are. They are fast. Like, to us, 3 miles an hour is not that much, but very slow walk. That equals 200 miles an hour in reality for us. Yeah. And part two of that roach fact, which I think is just horrifying, when a roach runs really fast, sometimes it gets air and just is basically running on its back legs only. But the other legs are still moving. So that's just like my worst nightmare. Yeah, they're coming after you. Exactly. Man so the three pairs are all built the exact same. They all have the same parts, but they are different lengths. They function slightly differently, but they all move the same way. It just depends on what the roach wants to do. Like we said, the pro thoracic legs act as breaks. The mesothorastic can move it forward or back, and then the meta push it forward and they apparently move, like pogo sticks, up and down and back and forth and then back and forth, too. And they work in conjunction to allow the roach to kind of walk over just about anything. So when the pro and meta thoracic legs on one side are moving the mesothoracic leg, the middle one on the other side is moving. Yeah, that's how they move, which apparently is a little ATV. It's like a four x four. Yeah. Look at that. She also points out that there are the parts of the leg you can sort of approximate as if it were a human. They have a tricanter that's like our knees, femur and tibia resemble Arthur and Shins. And then they have the tarsus, which is the ankle and foot. Right. And the tarsus is hooked in a roach, which allows it to walk on the ceiling over your head. Most frightening thing ever. And on walls. Sure. And when a roach is on the ground, it runs very quickly, but when it's on a ceiling, it moves much more methodically because it doesn't want to follow them upside down. Yeah. If 3 miles an hour equals 200 miles an hour to us, imagine what a ten foot drop equals to a poor little roach. Well, not enough, because it lands, flips itself over and then runs away again. But it's humiliated. That's true. 27 times per second, these legs can move back and forth. So these are fast little bookers, which is why you previously talked about hating them, because they were so fast. I'm going to find it. Okay. I'll bet I didn't say I kill them. I've long advocated for roaches rights. All right, so now we're the abdomen. They do have a heart. It is a tube like in structure and does move blood along, but it does not carry oxygen around. So, A, the blood is not red, and B, they move oxygen and blood around in other ways, right. Through basically empty spaces called hemicoles. Yeah, it's pretty much the absence of a fact there. Yeah. Well, the aorta carries blood around to the organs, but yeah, she says the blood just travels through these spaces usually. And then rather than having to worry about like a spare tire or something like that like a fat belly. Right. They have an actual fat body and it's just this little area where they store all the fat in their body. Very smart. I have that same place. It's between my chin and my waist. Yes. I guess they do have to worry about a spare tire, but it's a very specific one. Yeah, that's true. Okay, so let's talk about digestion. The digestive system is in the abdomen, and it's really not super unlike. It's just like a simplified version of our own or any mammals digestive system. But like you said, they can eat things and digest things like wood and cellulose. So they do need some help from specialized parts, one of which is called a crop. Right. It basically holds the food while apart. Behind it a toothy section in the digestive tract. No, gross. That is gross. And it's equal to like, an octopus having a beak crushing beak. They're squishy. They're not supposed to have a hard beak in the middle. It's crazy. Yeah, it's called a proventriculus on the roach. And that just pulverizes the stuff, like wood or whatever. It's tough to digest. And then it pushes it back, this pulverized part to the gastric cassia, which houses enzymes, microbes, things that break it down even further. And all this is just preliminary stuff. This is like what we do in our mouth. All this is going through this process in a roach before it even gets to the part where it starts to digest. Yeah, this is sort of gross. Like the digestion one was we haven't said the word bolus yet. No. Well, we just did. And then the cersei that we talked about earlier, it sort of looks like short little antenna sticking out from the butt area on each side. And this is what allows the roach to not get like whenever you go to get that flip flop and you rear back and go to hit the roach. And as you're coming in, it just darts out of the way. You're like, how did it know? How did it know? It's because the cersei, they pick up on air flow and they can actually feel and sense that shoe coming. So if you're into killing roaches like me, you have to be swift and stealthy. Come at it hard and with vigor and with, I guess, a paddle that has holes in it, cut down air. Hey, maybe drag. You might be on to something there. Oh, no. You invented sharknado. The roach pedal. That's a roach. That's the roaches body. Let's talk about reproduction. Hey. Because they do reproduce depending on the species. I believe the German roach can produce something in the order of, like, 80,000 offspring. Is that correct? No, way more than that. The German cockroach and its offspring will eventually produce about 300,000 per year. So a mother and her kids yeah, like the family tree from that one cockroach will eventually number 300,000 in a year. Right, but think about this. Then one of those kids and then her offspring will be another $300,000. No, I think that counts. I think that's the whole okay, well, then one of those 300,000 will have more kids and another $300,000, it goes exponentially kicks in somewhere. Exponentiality kicks in at some point. Yeah. An American cockroaches only produce about 800 babies a year. So I got something from believe it or not, the Orkin website has a lot of really good scientific information. I saw that. Did you go look at it? And they talked about female courtship. They begin courtship, it says, by raising their wings and exposing their internal membranes and expanding their genital chamber. Hey, boys, check out my internal membrane. Exactly. My genital chamber is wide open and ready. I'm going to release a pheromone. Hey, man, this is science. This is science. They release the pheromones to attract males, and that's the calling position. And then the males that pick up on these pheromones approach the female. They flap their wings a little bit to say, hey, I like what you got cooking there. And then mating commences. It says when a male cockroach backs into a female cockroach and deposits sperm, it's from the rear to the rear. You know what I'm saying? Let's go back to reproduction. Yeah. We used to be really good at stuff like this, by the way, wasps will actually this is just a side note. Wasps will actually sting cockroaches and lay eggs inside of a cockroach. Yeah, like baby wasps can be born out of a cockroach body. Right. They incubate in the roach and I guess probably eat it alive from the inside out. There's a movie I'm just going to start saying that about everything. So there's a couple of ways that a mother roach, once her eggs are fertilized, can produce offspring, and a couple of them involve something with one of the worst words ever, in my opinion, the uthika. O-O-T-H-E-C-A yeah, the uthaca You've never been to Uthika? Nice. I prefer uthika. Upstate uthika. So that's basically just like an egg sac that the eggs develop in. And it can either be inside the mom, which makes her ovoviva paris. Seriously? That's the word? Yeah. Ovovav paris. Or it can be on the outside of her, which makes her over Paris. And if it's over Paris, then she can just kind of, like, abandon the sack, cover it up with some newspaper or something like that sometimes. Good luck. Or some of them. It depends on the species. Carry that around with them, and then actually care for the young after they're born, like a good mom should. And then there's Viva Paris, which is basically like eggs developing in fluid, like in a human in the uterus and in Ovoviva paris and ovivapiris. I'm sorry, Vivaparis. Yeah. Are you confused yet? No. Imagine following along with just your ear. I know, I'm looking at word. So it helps the eggs are born or the young come out alive. Yeah. They actually give birth to little baby cockroaches. Right. So like we said, the German cockroach can produce 3000 offspring. The German cockroach and her offspring can produce 3000 cockroaches in a year. And then the Americans 800. Yes. Not many. And we talked about nymphs. Apparently the nymph, when it's born is fleck of dust size maybe. Oh, really? Very small. And there's a bunch of them, don't forget. Yeah. And they're white. They're waiting to molt. They're very easy to kill. Yes. And if you're a common centipede, you love to eat these things. Imagine seeing that on a microscopic level. A centipede eating baby cockroaches. Yes. There's a movie for you also. Here's another good roach. Fact is some mothers that care for their offspring after birth, some of them just either dump the uthika or they just have the babies and leave. But some actually raise their little babies. And scientists believe that the offspring actually recognize the mother. Yeah. I don't understand why that's so hard to believe. Well, because it's an insect man. It just seems like a very mammalian, or not even mammalian, it doesn't seem like something from the insect world. It gives them a heart that I previously didn't believe. I know. Up with cockroaches. I don't know. It just puts a face on them that I never really considered as I smashed them. Right, because you can't see their face. That's right. And cockroaches, if you want to make them a little more humanlike, a little more personable okay. Little hat and a cane. They're social. Oh, yeah. They're related to termites, it turns out. And actually, I've read a fascinating fact. I read one of the best magazine articles I've ever read in my life. And I've read a lot of magazine articles in the most recent issue, I believe it was, of Harper's and it's about ten ways to satisfy your man. No, it's an article about the early mycologists who discovered westerners, I should say, who discovered making air quotes like magic mushrooms. And in between that time and the time they became outlawed, and then what happened after they became outlawed and how they were all these outlaw fungal experts who all had PhDs and doctorates, but we're also might as well have just been bikers growing these huge crops of mushrooms. And there's a murder involved and all that. But it's an awesome article. Check it out. Right, but there's this one fact in there that there's a type of fungus that has evolved to mimic termite eggs so perfectly. That it can fool a termite into thinking it's her own eggs. And termites salivate on their eggs to keep them moist constantly. And the fungus needs to be kept moist so it'll be kept moist by a termite that thinks this fungus is one of her eggs. Does that fungus then later on kill the termite? Probably. Okay. Because that would be, I believe that's irony. Yeah. Even though we've been told we misuse that word. Yeah. Thanks for the ride, lady. Well, we should do one of termites. Okay. Well, I say that because apparently rotates need to be kept moist as well. Yes, they do. Do they regurgitate on them to do so. Okay. They salivate on them. Well, another way they're related to termites, they like to hang out together. They like to live in groups. Where they differ is termites actually have sort of, like, bees that have very specific roles in their colonies and a social structure that's very organized. Cockroaches aren't like that. They don't like that. But they still like to hang out with one another, and they actually make decisions, like, collectively together on where they want to boost. Right. Which is an emergent system, right? I think so. Is that what it's called? Yeah. They've done studies where they found, like, big, large numbers of cockroaches, if they don't have enough space, actually divide up evenly yeah. Into, like, the smallest number of spaces they can go, like, well, there's 200 of us, so let's divide up into three groups and go to three different places. Right. And you guys go there, we'll go there, and we'll go here. Right. And there's always one dude cockroach out. Like, what about me? That would be a Pixar movie. Yeah, that's a good one. They're also social in that they follow one another, although not necessarily a leader, but I guess whoever they think has the best idea. Collective conscious. Yes. And there was a group of scientists that created something called Inspot, and it is a robotic cockroach, and they coated it with cockroach pheromones and introduced it to a colony of roaches that accepted it. And then they started to mess with the roaches. Of course, they had in Spot leave them out into daylight so that they abandon their nocturnality. They would wander out in the open following this thing. He got them to move, and he brought them fire. Oh, really? Man, I was like, this is getting good. That reminds me of the I know. I talk about Arrow Morris ad nausei, but fast, cheap and out of control is the robot scientist makes robots that mimic cockroaches and other small bugs. That's really neat. And he said one potential application one day is to have to imagine thousands of these that clean things, like these robot bugs that you own. You just hit a button, and, like, 200 of them will dust your television and then go back to their little place. That's pretty neat. It's like scrubbing bubbles? Yes. Or like the x files when it went across the TV. Yes. That road wasn't cleaning anything, though. What's scrubbing bubbles? It's like a type of cleaner. It is? Yeah. All right. Is that a plug? I don't think so. Okay. It was just a free association. All right, so let's say you're like me and not like Josh, and you don't want roaches in your home. I don't want roaches in my home. It's just when I see a roach, I will gingerly pick it up with a paper towel and toss it outside. I'm sure that doesn't injure that at all. It doesn't. Okay. No, I don't squeeze it at all. Just very gently. All right. What happens if that roach gets free and crawls up your arm, up your ropes, but hopefully I'm doing it outside. All right. I just want to see where it stops. I'm trying to get a feel out your position fully. If it's injured, if I accidentally injured it, I'll go ahead and kill it. Okay, well, that's really you're quite a humanitarian. Or insectarian. I'm an insectarian. So let's say you don't want roaches in your house, which is pretty much everybody. They say the first thing to do is try and seal it off. Good luck with that, because roaches can fit into cracks that are as small as one 16th of an inch. 1.5. Just show me a house that doesn't have or at least maybe some new houses. You might have some luck. But if you live in an old house like me, there's always cracks. Sure. Like, animals can get through these cracks. So if you realize you've got a bunch of cracks, seal them up as best you can. Yeah, but if that's still not doing the trick, they say that you want to go with a bait trap rather than a spray, because when you use a bait trap, you become, like, a pioneer tracker. Sure, you can put the trap somewhere, and if it's not attracting roaches, even though you know you have roaches, then you need to move your trap. And when you move your trap and start attracting roaches, then you can tell where they're coming from. Then you can seal up those cracks. That's right. You come to know the roaches using the traps with the spray. It's just like you're just spraying blindly. Can we do one on fleas or just ticks? Just ticks. We need to do fleas, too, because I have battled fleas. Okay. They say don't waste your money on those sound devices. They say they don't work that emit, like, some sound that only approach can hear. Right. You want to keep your house clean. Yeah, keep your house clean. Anyway, Tracy, if you've ever seen the Simpsons where Marge and Homer lose the kids and have to go take a parenting class, that's what this paragraph reminds me of. Pop up after every meal. Exactly. Clean and seal all of your food or cover and seal it. Wipe down counters and tables. After eating, sweeper, mop your floor. After cooking, eat only in your dining area. I guess if you eat over your sink, run the water afterwards to clean out any crumbs that may have dropped out of your mouth. Yeah. And as a last resort, you could use poisons. But I would never recommend that. Putting poisons in your household. You can always call your friendly neighborhood exterminator, and they'll take care of it for you. Sure. Or you can call in in Spot, and he can lead all the cockroaches. Is that like The Pied Piper? There are a few natural things, though. Yeah, some things have been shown to work. Yeah. NEPA tallock tone. It's in two forms of catnip. So if you have a cat, you might just kill two birds with 1 st. Here a cineole, also known as eucalyptol, and that is in bay leaf, and then osage, orange oil. And they don't know what in that is the magic potion, but apparently that works. Yeah. So if you're into natural, you could try some of those things. Just put bay leaves and catnip all over the place and see what happens. And orange oil, and you'll never have a roach again. Or you can just clean up your house. I don't see many roaches. It's good. I mean, I'm surprised with the amount of moisture and how old my house is, and the fact that I eat all over my house and spill things everywhere, garbage laying around there's like gum stuck to your floor. Yeah, but I don't see roach as much. When I do, I have my friend the flip flop. I'm sure you do. And coming soon, the roach paddle. Yeah, see, I don't feel as bad because especially after I saw those reproductive figures, I'm not putting a dent in the roach population. Yeah, I can tell you the ones that you're killing care. I don't know. It's hard to tell with their brains smashed on the bottom of my cheek. Well, if you want to learn more about cockroaches, you can type that word in the search bar@housetofworks.com, and it'll bring up this fine article. And I said, search bar, which means it's time for message break. This is from an Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain. Self experimenter, though, when I was a kid, guys about 18, actually, I noticed that when you get water up your nose, the effect is all consuming. You can't seem to think about anything, feel anything, or do anything except think about that water that you just sniffed up your hooter. He's English. I had a similar thought about what happens to you, both psychologically and physically, when you get soap in your eye, because that stinging sensation and the resulting fevered knuckling of the optic cavity is, for a short time, the only thing in the universe. So while playing in the bathtub with the refracted sunlight sparkling through the red tint of my closed eyes. Contemplating this phenomena, I decided to run my own experiment. I want to know which of these all powerful sensations would eclipse the other. So I got a nice big chunk of soap on one finger and simultaneously rubbed it vigorously into my eye and ducked under the water, sniffing in deeply. Jesus. The result was, as you can imagine, quite horrific. I must have looked like I was being fatally electrocuted. I thrashed and rubbed and coughed and cried. My final conclusion Are you dying to know what happened? Was that, unbelievably, both experiences behaved in some sort of quantum mechanical way, where I was all consumed by two separate, all consuming events at the same time. So, basically, it sucked really bad. If you share this information with the world, however, no one else will ever have to suffer this hitherto undocumented facet of reality. All right? Because the guy did that. Kind regards, James Holmes. Not the maniac version. Did he say that underneath? I'll bet he does have that signature. That was parenthetical. Yeah, from Manchester, England. So, James, I don't know why you do such a thing, sir, but I raise a pint to you. Okay. And thanks. Yeah. Isn't there like a whole movement, like N plus one or N equals one? The N equals one movement. What's that? It's like self experimentation. N is the study population, and so if N equals one, there's just one person yourself. Yeah. I don't know about sniffing water and putting soap in your eyes, but he was a kid. He was only 18. Right, James? Right. Yeah. James. Not the maniac version. Thanks, James. If you anyone else out there, have a cool self experiment that you've done, we want to hear about that all the time. Cockroach story, too. Sure, let us know. You can tweet to us at SYSK podcast, you can join us on Facebook.com stuffiesto, and you can join us at our home, on the web, our website, stuffyoushenknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-09-02-sysk-shrunken-heads.mp3	SYSK Selects: How Shrunken Heads Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-shrunken-heads-work	In this week's SYSK Select episode, although U.S. museum collections are rife with counterfeits, shrunken heads are far from fiction. The Shuar tribe of Ecuador has shrunken heads for centuries. Learn the methodical process of shrinking a head and how the	In this week's SYSK Select episode, although U.S. museum collections are rife with counterfeits, shrunken heads are far from fiction. The Shuar tribe of Ecuador has shrunken heads for centuries. Learn the methodical process of shrinking a head and how the	Sat, 02 Sep 2017 19:53:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=2, tm_hour=19, tm_min=53, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=245, tm_isdst=0)	53038273	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. And for this week's SYSK selects I've chosen Shrunken heads. One of the alltime great stuff you should know episodes. It originally ran in June of 2011, and although it will teach you STEPBYSTEP by step how to shrink a human head, you should not try this at home. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, as Charles W, Chuck Bryant. And that makes this stuff you should know the podcast. Indeed. Not the radio show, though. No, not yet. It probably will be eventually. This one. Yeah, I bet you they'll speed this one through, man. You know what's crazy is we could say right now, hello, WFMU listeners, so that when this is repurposed into our radio show in WFMU, it'll blow their mind. What you're speaking of is we're on WFMU in New York. If you live in New York, New Jersey area 91.1, you can hear us Fridays from seven to 08:00. P.m.. Now that's not at all what I was speaking of. Or Hudson Valley at 901. You got the call signs all over the place, don't you? Two stations tattooed on your triceps. I might do that. Yeah. They're going to rush this one, too. I'm not even going to say the topic, even though people already know because they clicked on it, but they're going to see that and go, we need to get this on the air. Yeah, Chuck, remember we also did one on cannibalism before. Yes. And this is related. Well, I relate the two in the introduction of this article in chunk of heads, those two things really probably are equated with precisely iced barbarism savagery more than anything else. Right? Agreed. And this is just as gruesome. We should point out that's our little warning done. But with Cannibalism, there's a lot of dispute over exactly how and when it was practiced. We do know there is evidence that people have eaten other people in the past, but we're starting to think that it was never in any kind of ritual form where basically it was like we're enduring some horrible climate change in famine. And so we're going to figure out how to justify this through, like, warring with neighbors and then feeding ourselves with their dead bodies for nutrition. But the jury still out as to whether or not cannibalism was ever practiced in any real mass form by any culture. That's not the case with head shrinking. Head shrinking is this weird little cultural trait, I guess, that is specific to one culture, as far as we know. And we know that culture because we could go down to Ecuador right now and meet some of them. The Shuar culture. Yeah, I got a few tribes that did it, but they're the main daddies. What you're talking about is there's evidence that other tribes did practice it in pre or pericolombian contact. Yeah. And the evidence is like it's shown in tapestries or that tribe art or something. There's only one tribe that's documented as having done it, and that's the shoe are and only one that did it really, really well. Yes. They're pretty good at it. If you're going to look up shoe are and you run across Javarro shoe are, it's the same people as you are members of the Javarro language group. Yeah. And that's apparently that's a kind of a slam. The word juara. It's like a corruption of that what Shuar those people. Yeah. I think it meant, like, uncivilized or something. Like Eskimo. Yeah. Maybe clubber eaters member. Yeah. And the Nazis may have done it, too. May have named the shore. No. May have shrunken heads. Oh, really? Yeah, they found some at Buckenhald and even presented that at the Nuremberg trials as like, hey, look what these guys did. Yeah. They did all sorts of mess up stuff. There's a borrow soap in Canada that supposedly made from the fat of concentration camp. Really? Victims, I should say it's alleged, though they never pinpointed and said the shrunken head came from Jews, from Buckingham, all of it. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, there's very few incredibly strange, exotic things that a culture has done that we can say. Yes, definitively. These people did do this. Right. It hasn't been blown up by Hollywood or anything like that. This is legitimate, and shrunken heads are that kind of thing. And the reason why the shoe were able to shrink heads and get really good at it over the years was because even after contact with Europeans, like the Spanish coming into South America were one of the very few groups that managed to repel any kind of Spanish colonialism. They lived under Spanish rule for, I think, like, 30 or 33 years, and then, frankly, said, we're tired of being taxed for our gold, so we're just going to kill a lot of you. Yeah. And it worked. Yeah. There was a revolt, right? Yeah. They killed, like, 25,000 people. And then Spain was it just Spain, I guess, said, Just going to get out of here. Yeah. You guys are good. Exactly. And that's really saying something, considering the amount of gold ore that the shoe rs land sat on. You know, that Spaniards love their gold. So the Spaniards were like, okay, we know you're in there. We're going to leave you alone. You go do whatever you want to do. The shoe are just continued to practice head hunting and head shrinking. Head hunting practice all over the world. Right? Yeah. Head shrinking shoe are only as far as the meetings with the Spaniards. They probably at first were like, no. And then they were like, it's not that much gold, really. I mean, you can get gold elsewhere. Exactly. Yeah. We'll hold the incas hostage. I'm reading 1491 again right now. Really? It's a great book. I was hoping to read that before you read it again. Sorry, I never picked it up, though. That's the first step. I even went and bought a book, like, special for this book. Oh, yeah? One of those little clip on deals. Yeah. Very nice. So, Chuck, why would anybody shrink ahead? I mean, obviously they're just big dumb savages who like to shrink heads, right? There can't possibly be any explanation behind this. Not true, Josh, because as you point out, because you wrote this awesome article yeah. So you know the answer. But that's just our shtick. I was acting. They are firmly rooted in magic and spiritualism and war. And from an early age, little boys are taught, like, retribution, violent retribution is a really good thing, and it's a part of our culture. Yeah. And if you don't carry out violent retribution properly, your dead uncle or your dead grandfather or whatever, your dead ancestor is going to come back and bring horrible pestilence and famine on you. You're in trouble. So they do do it for a reason. They do it to, I guess, ward off those spirits. Right, or to finalize the whole thing. Yeah, well, it's part of this larger process. It's part of this bigger belief, which is if we're related and you die of some unseen disease, let's say you die of cancer. Okay, it's not cancer. It's somebody else in another household, another shoe or household bewitched you and using magic killed you remotely. Yes. So since there's no priestly class among schwar culture, anybody can consult with the spirits under the right circumstances. The right circumstances being you take hallucinogenic drugs. I would take a hallucinogenic drug. Probably Nutema, right? Yeah. It's from a jungle vine, evidently. Yes. A jungle vine that gets you lit. Yeah. And I want to point out, I love that. From a jungle vine, like hallucinogenic mushrooms, it's like you name it, some human has found a way to get every bit out of every single thing on the earth. If it can mess you up, don't forget toads. Toads, yeah. Licking toads. Yeah. We don't recommend that, though, by the way. No. Although I was listening to an old, old episode and you talked about your hallucinogenic toad collection in college. They just like to collect toads. It was funny. I don't remember that. So I suspect that you died because you were bewitched. And now I've taken the tempo and I'm on a vision quest, and I'm consulting with your spirit, maybe some other spirits, to find out who killed you. And I'm going to come down and be like, oh, it was George down the river. Right. So now I have a blood vendetta against George Jorge. Jorge thank you. And I'm going to assemble other households in the area into a confederation to go take your head, George, to make it right. Jorge yeah. Because if I don't, then you, my dead relative, are going to haunt me and bad things are going to happen. And plus it's just a matter of like that's what our culture calls for. And you said they'll even tell the other tribes sometimes like, we're coming for you. Yeah, they'll alert the other household plans because this isn't like a quick thing. It's very well planned and there's a lot of people involved and it's very violent and bloody when it finally does happen. But yeah, they'll say, we're coming after you, you're in big, big trouble. And there may be retribution, but more likely than not it's going to be like, well, you probably shouldn't have killed his uncle. Oh, really? Because that was going to be my question. Isn't this just an endless loop of head shrinking and cutting and shrinking? Well, it is like it's supported by death, but it's generally nonviolent death that they associate with magic or bewitchment, which really requires this specific type of retribution. Okay. Okay, got you. So revenge will take place. I see. You also pointed out that maybe the whole household is slaughtered. Maybe they'll take the women as wives. And we're not really sure. They used to take the wives further back. Is that the deal? Well, some old account said that these guys are polygamous, which they are. You are polygamous. So if they do carry out one of these rates, they're going to take the women as their wives. But then a more recent one from, I think the 70s or 80s or something later in the 20th century said, no, they kill everybody they find in this household. They just don't take little kids heads. But they'll kill little kids. Yeah, but they don't take the head. I like that even they had a line they would draw. Not much shrinking to be done. They like to shrill shrink. I wonder if that has something to do with it, but a little never mind, I'm not going to go there. So check. There's a specific way that all this is going to go down. Right? Very specific, because you don't live near one another. They live over a pretty substantial area of the Amazon basin. Yeah. There's no high rise full of shore. Right. So it will take days to get to this place. And when they finally get there, they basically alert their target that they're here. If they have guns, they'll shoot into the air, they'll shoot at the house or whatever. Right. Basically they're like, come on out, punk. We're looking for Jorge. Yeah, because he killed my uncle. I imagine too, I'm making this up, but it seems like if they sent out Jorge, they might just be like, okay, we'll just take Jorge. That could be the case. Or do they just exact revenge over the whole family no matter what? You know, I would imagine that probably depends on the person, on the amount of rage and mourning and grieving and drugs that they're taking. Right, yeah. So even if they do have guns, you use a spear if you're going to take someone's head to shrink it and turn it into we haven't even said yet what's called a Santa. You kill them with the spear by driving the spear through their neck. That will do it. Their throat. That's that. And then you start this process of shrinking their head by cutting their head off. And you even do that in a specific way, too. That's right. You cut Chuck into a V, right? You do. Between the clavicles above the clavicles in a V shape. Between resulting in the point of the V, I guess between the nipples. Yeah. So there's like a pointed flap hanging down from the neck. Just a pointed flap. Like a skin ascot. Right. We should probably say that this is where it starts to get graphic in this podcast, because we're going to describe you will know how to shrink ahead after we're done. We're always like 20 seconds late with us. Also, if you shrink ahead because of this, we no longer consider you a member of the Stuff You Should Know nation. You've gone off the deep end, you're a murderer, and you should be punished severely for your crime. Okay. Is that a good disclaimer? Yeah, I hope we didn't have to say that. But there may be one sicko out there. You never know. So like you said, you cut it in the V shape, and then you said a hair band, potentially, or a vinegar scrunchie. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because the men often wear their hair long and they'll have it back in a ponytail. And once you have stabbed somebody, cut their head off in this methodical way, you need to get out of there because there may be reinforcements coming. So you loop it through the throat and then out the mouth tied off and you've got a little pocketbook. Yep. And you tie it around your waist or throw it over your shoulder and you get the heck out of there. Exactly. Because you will be killed if you're found. Right. Yeah. I would imagine they don't like it when you kill neighbors or whatever. Sure. But also you need to get out of there because you've just probably discarded your weapons. Once you use a weapon to kill somebody in this ritual manner, it's spoiled, like everything from the beginning stages of this raid all the way to the end of it. The stuff that you're using is spoiled and has to just be left behind. So you're probably running to get out of there and you're weaponless. And I would agree with that tactic anyway. I mean, lightens the load well now, like we say later, there's like a clay pot and other things you use that is spoiled because it has a head on it. Yes. It's just dirty. Like get it out of there. It's got plug on it. You don't want to cook in it. No, we're getting to that now. So wow. This is a really methodical one, isn't it like step by step, as is shrinking heads. And you know what's funny is as I was reading this the whole time, I was like, yeah, that's how I trick ahead. Like it all makes total perfect sense. And they've been doing it for centuries, if not millennia. So they really do have it down step by step. Now, obviously it's easier for us to see it as step by step as outsiders. Sure, there's tons of significance with every single step and a lot of symbology, but for the most part it is a very methodical way of taking and shrinking ahead that this you are practice that's right. So we left off with getting the heck out of Dodge. And that is when the process begins. Because like you said, they live far apart from each other, so they can't just wait till they get back. It might be three days later and you're going to have a rotten head. So they started immediately with an elder tribesman who's probably not doing the fighting, but he heads up the process. What were they called? He is called the Koraka. They started on the way for him. Well, he's probably the one who he's the head of the household or he's like in this confederation of households that was assembled, he's probably like the most respected or war worn warrior. He shrunk a head or two, in other words. Yeah, he knows what he's doing and he's probably the one who took the nutella and had the vision quest and got the answer. But basically he is the party planner for this whole thing. Right. And he's the one imbued with the most spiritual significance throughout. So he's the one who's going to shrink the head. But he didn't necessarily go on this raid. And if he didn't, then he met this rating party at a predesignated camp, one of many along the way back home from the place where they just killed the people. So he says, Jorge the man, go get him. I'm meet you at checkpoint A. Exactly. Camp fun. And now they're meeting there. Okay. So that's where we are. It is very methodical and it's important, you said to be attentive to these steps because if you do it wrong, it doesn't count, right? Well, yeah. Part of this is paying homage to your dead ancestor or appeasing your dead ancestor. And if you don't do it right, then your dead ancestor is not appeasing you're in trouble. Right? Yeah. It doesn't count. And part of that is like if the Saraka, the Caraka, when he starts this process, he'll say there's like incantations, right. And it's not just him. It's like everybody in the rating party is very much paying attention to this and being a part of it. So he'll be like, I'm pulling the throat from the neck. And the other people say he's pulling the throat from the neck and it goes down like that pretty much every step of the way. There's nothing funny about that. It's the way you said it, I think. Yeah. We also need to point out that the warrior guys also have to do certain things, like not eat certain foods, abstain from sex, they don't hunt alone. And this is during the whole year long process? No, this is during the head shrinking process. Okay. All right. Because the spirit is held at bay. Yes. And you said it. I mean, this is a year long process. It doesn't take a year to shrink ahead. Right. But ahead holds this magical significance for a year, and there are certain prescribed celebrations that have to take place to fulfill this obligation to the dead ancestor. It's a big deal. It is. Yeah. You don't just shrink heads willy nilly. Right. And, Chuck, I don't know if we should say here or not, but the head has three significances, right? Yeah. First, it's physical proof to the dead ancestor that you're carrying out this revenge on his or her behalf. Yes. So a trophy, in a way, but not like Europeans thought of it. Right. Secondly, it has a spiritual significance where it is the vessel in which the spirit of the person who's been killed, whose head it was, is trapped. So you're commanding that person now. Right. And then thirdly, it increases the social status of the warrior who's wearing it, because you wear that thing for, like, a year around your neck. Exactly. 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Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. So let's tell them how it's done. What's step one? Well, first, if you want to shrink ahead, Josh, you have to skin ahead. Yeah. Because you can't shrink a skull. Everyone knows that. So you need to get the basically, what you want to do is create a Halloween mask where there once was a full head. Right. So you cut some flaps around the base of the skull. And I guess sort of like when you're taking chicken skin off or if you're, like, spicing chicken under the skin, sometimes you'll cut a sliver and then you'll stick your fingers in there. Right. So you're loosening, little by little, the skin from the skull, cutting the tendons and cutting everything, the muscles that hold it all together. Right. But you want to cut close to the skull because one of the aims of this is to keep the facial characteristics of the person so that he would be recognizable to his family, except smaller. Right? Yeah. So you're working all that through you're separating it from the skull. You remove the eyes. You discard the eyes, you discard the cartilage. You discard the skull with the brain inside of it, evidently. And what else do you cut away? The cartilage that holds the nose and the ears intact, like you said, just like a mask. It's just what you have is the scalp in the face and the neck. All that skin is still connected. And the hair. Right. And the holes where the eyes were and those flap in the mouth and all that stuff is there. It's just there. There's no bone or connective tissue. There is connective tissue and fat still. There's just no bone any longer. So this is the most gruesome mask that you could ever envision in your life because it's real. I wonder if any of them ever put it on. I don't know. Hey, look at me. It has to be caraca with a small head and a victim with a really big head. But yeah, maybe so. Although this is so specific, there's no way, because that would mean that revenge will come up on your head. All right, so that's the skinning. So now we get to the shrinking. Yes. Now you have that rubbery mask. It's made out of real skin because it's a real person, and you have to boil it down first. You mentioned the clay pot. They make a ceramic pot that is just big enough to hold ahead, and they make it just for that person's head because it's never been used before and it will never be used again. They'll break it and leave it in the river. Do we call it a head at this point? Skin bag. The face bag. Head skin. The skull bag. Okay. This is going off the rails. So the caracco dips it three times into this heated water that's heated over a campfire. And this is like one of those situations where he says, I'm dipping the head, and then the warriors will be like, he's dipping the head. Right. And then I think on the third time, he leaves it in there for 30 minutes. No more than 30 minutes. I've seen several sources cite this, but no more than 30 minutes, because after that, the hair starts to come out. But the scheme in Bag basically simmers at a light boil for 30 minutes. Remember, vinegar, not olive oil. I'm sorry. Because the olive oil flows at the top. Yes. And imagine there was trial and error in this, too, because they probably boiled it too long, the hair came out and they're like, no, we like it with the hair, so let's work on this. Yes. So they figured out in 30 minutes, you can't really go beyond that unless you lose a lot of hair. Right. So then after that, you take it out and this thing has already shrunk by about a quarter now, or a third, and you leave it to dry. You dangle it from like, a spear and just let it dry for a while. Break the pot. Yes. You want to see a pot spoiled. Yeah. And then once this is dried, now you're entering the real curing process. Yeah. The head is already noticeably smaller, unsettlingly smaller, but it's going to get a lot smaller, like you said, the size of a fist through this dry heat curing process. Yeah. And like I said, this all makes total sense. This is how I would have done it, had I been assured. So we should probably also say that when it was boiled, pigs were likely inserted to keep the mouth closed. Right. And those pigs may be left in or they may be removed, but either way, the mouth is going to be sewn shut after it's dried to begin this dry curing process. In between the boiling and the dry curing, they're going to start to sew the orifices shut. Right. Yeah. Because what you want to end up with is something that you can turn upside down, like a sack and put hot rocks, then hot pebbles and then eventually hot sand in there in a step by step process to dry it from the inside out. And they roll it around in there because you don't want it to sit there. It's like burn through a cheek. Yeah, it would burn through a cheek, exactly. So they move it around. They work it around. It dries little by little until you get to the sand. And at that point I'm sorry, they use a blade to press against the lipstick machete and then fears the lips, they use hot rocks on the outside to press it against and rub it against, like ironing an oxford. Right. Because as it's shrinking, if you don't shrink it evenly, the face is going to get distorted. I mean, think about this. You're shrinking it down almost like to the point of linear perspective, that vanishing point. Yeah. Right. So imagine that's in the center of this head, you're trying to shrink it all down evenly to that point. Right. And that's got to be incredibly difficult because you're doing it with hot rocks and hot pebbles and hot sand and you boiled the skin to bring it down. You have to smooth it out once in a while by basically using a hot flat rock as an iron, a closed iron to smooth out the wrinkles. Let me ask you, how you get down so small? Remember that in Beetlejuice? Hey, there it goes. Elvis. Yeah, you just reminded me of that. Like the intro of this had like five different variations of that scene, description of that scene, and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't make it work. And then I finally realized, oh, this is a lot more serious than Beetlejuice. Yeah, the Beetlejuice reference isn't allowed in this one. I think it's allowed in the podcast, though. Sure. Yeah. The podcast is totally different because that was a great part. That's how he switches numbers with the tribesman. He's in the waiting room, he has like 9 million something, and then he goes, hey, there goes Elvis. And he switches number four. Yeah, good stuff. Do you know the numbers? Huh? Well, I mean, yeah, it's pretty impressive. Thank you. It's a great movie. I've seen it a bunch. That guy didn't look anything like a shoe are. And I think he used some sort of magical dust to shrink Beetle juice. Yeah, totally off. But I think another appearance of Shore in the movies is the Raiders of the Lost Ark with the gold skull in the beginning. Remember the guys who all have the bows and arrows? From what I've seen of what Shoe are look like, those were very closely modeled after Shore tribes people. Oh, really? Interesting. Yeah. All right. Okay, so Chuck, where we last left off, poor Jorge's head, he had hot rocks and hot pebbles and hot sand being rolled around in him. His eyes had been sewn shut. His mouth had been sown shut. The flap had been sown shut. So it was just a pouch. The ears, too, I guess somebody pressed a hot machete to his lips, probably the caraca. And no, I didn't see anything about the ears being sewn shut. But surely they have to be. But I didn't see it anywhere in any of the sources. I think that's implicit. So now you have this thing, it's getting more and more shrunk, and it's probably about as shrunk as it's going to get from the hot pebbles or whatever. So you hang it over a fire. Yeah. That's the final drying stage, right? Yes. And then you take some campfire charcoal ash, rub it on the skin, which gives it that distinctive darkened look. That and the fact that it's been shrunk down by dry heat. And you have yourself a Santa that takes a few days. Right. The final fire drying process. Yeah. Okay. All right, done. That's it. And we should also note that the hair doesn't shrink at all. So you might not think about it when you're looking at it, but any shrunk in hand you've ever seen is a tiny head with very long hair. The guy didn't necessarily have long hair. His head just shrunk a lot. He might have had a flat top to about the size of a man's fist, about a quarter of the size of a regular human head. Yeah, it's gruesome. But, I mean, as is our way with don't judge other cultures. Who am I, as Chuck in Atlanta to judge these people in South America has been doing this for millennia. It's kind of neat. Yeah. Is that wrong to say? No. Okay. It is. It's interesting. It is. And our interest in this is probably more refined and less like than our fellow Americans from 50 or 100 years ago. Yeah, sure. Right. You know, this was filmed one guy actually filmed the rituals. Yes. That's what I'm saying. It's documented. Yes. 1961 is the only time anyone has ever put a camera on this. Yes. And they're pretty sure that was it. Yeah. I haven't seen it. It looks like it. Oh, you saw it? Is it on the YouTube? No way. Yeah. Edmund Balovsky. Yes. Wow. All right. Well, I'm going to go look that up right now. Yeah. And I don't remember the guy's name. I wasn't like, oh, yes, of course, Edmund. But, I mean, he's the only one who has that on there. Wouldn't tim Burton? No, he doesn't know what he's talking about. All right, where are we here? It's so shut. You've got the beginnings of your ventions, but this is the beginning of the year long process of fulfilling this. Yes. So basically, you walk into town, your town, your household, holding this new Santa you just made along the way, aloft with the Rocky theme going off in your head. Right. Sure. Because you are as bad as they come. That's right. You just take in a head of somebody who killed your relative and you shrunk it. And now you're going to wear that around your neck for the next year. And it's time to party. Yes. That is the first thing that happens, is a big, what you call, in quotes, ceremonial dance at which there is an orgy of wild drinking. Yeah. This guy did a brief ethnography of the shore in 1921 for the National Geographic Society, and that's how he described this first party. And he thought, Why paraphrase it? Let's just throw quotes around it. Because it's perfect. I mean, that guy saw it. And they drink Chicha, which is a maniac beer, and Manioc is a shrub. So they make this chicha out of I think manioc is a root. I thought it was a shrub. I saw a root. Maybe it's the root of that shrub. So Manioc, right. They drink this stuff all the time as it is. So the average adult male drinks three to four gallons eleven to 15 liters of Manioc beer every day, just as a normal matter, of course. So that's everyday drinking. Imagine how much they drink at a wild orgy of drinking. Like an actual celebration. Imagine kegs of Chicago are abundant. Right. And they go for days. The celebration goes for days. And basically the raid party have whatever stances they've made and are showing it off and using them to recreate, like, what happened. I like to try that. The Chicha. Okay. We get beer from, like this is my beer from Wyoming. I don't know if we have any Ecuadorian listeners, and we appreciate that beer, but I want to try teach you. I want to see what that's all about. I bet it's pretty gross. If we have any Ecuadorian listeners, we'd love to have some. I don't think it's, like, bottled commercially. Just send it to us in a bucket. That's how people used to get beer up until, like, the think in a bucket. Yeah, you'd go down to the brewery with, like, a bucket, and they'd fill it up. Those are the days. But you'd spill so much, I imagine. I think you'd drink it down a little first where you hit the road on the way home. You get home and be like, man, my bucket sent you. And then you go back. I spilled it along the way into my mouth. All right, so more parties. How many parties in total? Three feasts and parties. Yeah, there's three. There's the first one, which is the Numpank. Then there is the napan and amiau. And Ameanu is the last one. That occurs about a year after this raid. Right. And Amiano means fulfillment, as far as I understand. And at the end of this, they're like, we don't need this anymore. Seriously. It ends up in a gift shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Or they're known to give it to their kids as toys. It loses all significance whatsoever, like, overnight. Like, after Amianu, it goes from this prized spiritual, social, cultural significant item right. To nothing. So the Shore were known to be fairly surprisingly friendly people. If they thought you were on the up and up. Yeah. If you had something to trade and you were there to trade with them, they would say, yeah, sure, as long as they thought it was fair. Remember, they revolted in 1599 against Spanish colonial rule because they thought they were being unfairly taxed, and I bet they probably were. Sure. So if they think you're on the up and up and you're cool and you're not doing them any harm or whatever, then you can trade with them. And that happened big time. Yes. And Europeans said, what you got there, buddy? Well, this is a Santa. It's a shrunken head of somebody who killed my uncle and my kids playing with it now. And then they say, Well, I got a boomstick that you might be interested in. Exactly. And that began the trade of shrunken heads between the west and the shore. And it started out just like that. A gun for a shrunken head, one for one. That seems fair. Yeah. I'm surprised that the Europeans didn't try to take advantage of that. And be like, this boomstick is pretty pricey. I need, like, five of those heads. Or maybe they didn't want to push their luck. Yeah, I wouldn't push my luck with the shoe one for one time to get good straight. You give them their gun and you call them sir the whole time. Well, and since they did give them guns, that led to a downward spiral, like, usually when you introduced guns into a culture of war. Well, remember, they don't use guns to kill. They use the spear just to shoot and be like, check me out. I'm going to scare the tar out of you by shooting at your house, but I'm really going to cut your head off with this beer. Well, what really started the war was I think the Europeans came there to do this trading, and then that, of course, brought disease that they weren't used to seeing. And so that disease killed people. And they thought, of course, because they were sure they didn't know it was disease, they thought it was magic. So they started taking drugs and saying, hey, it was Jorge. Right. More disease equals more death equals more retribution. That is huge. That is a huge and very overlooked aspect of how European encroachment into XUAR culture increased the war among the Shuar. And the other way it did was just simple supply and demand. The Europeans wanted more heads than the XUAR had, right. So the shore were like, okay, well, we'll just go start warring more frequently. Before, it was a very infrequent thing. And then by, I think, the turn of the 20th century, that war was like a monthly endeavor which had never been seen before among Shuar. Yeah. You said between 1889 and 1911, one area declined in population by 50% because of this war. Just because of war. Not even disease, just war. That's a lot of dead people. It's a lot of shrunken heads, and it's because the west demanded it. They wanted this. They were willing to trade. They were very much in demand because they saw them as obviously very exotic collectibles. But they did have a I like this, the shoe. I had a backup plan in case you were able to go and kill the person who inflicted pain upon your family, but I couldn't get your head. They'll allow you to get the head of a sloth instead. But I imagine that's sort of shameful, like the guy with the sloth around his neck might be like it's not horrifying. He's a little self conscious. Yes. At the party? Yes, I think so. Like, he's partying, but he's like, yeah, he's off to the side, like, drinking punch now. Do you know, if they don't even get retribution, what if they get defeated? I didn't run across anything like that. I think that it was obviously a possibility because you're staging a raid, these people know you're coming, and they're not sending out Jorge on their own. Right. They're going to fight you, probably so. Yeah. I don't know. I think you just failed and you're dead. Right. So you probably don't care that much about what happened to your uncle because you're sitting next to him right now, and you're getting an earful from them. So the sloth heads are significant because they have a feeling that that might be some of the early forgeries, which became commonplace. I think, like, about 80% of the ones that they have today are likely forgeries. Yeah, but they were authentic because the shoe made them. Yeah, there was something they were sewer chances. They just weren't human. Right, right. So that started that was quickly they quickly ran out of the sloth one, and then they were counterfeited by people who weren't sure. So you would have monkey heads, ones made out of goat or horse skin, human heads that were stolen and shrunken by amateurs from bodies from the morgues in Ecuador who had nothing to do with the shoe. The shoe had never had anything to do with the shrunken heads. And there's a lot of ways that you can tell in authentic shoe sansa. I'm going to say it both ways the whole time. And one of them is the lips are usually sewn shut, and they were knotted in a certain way, and the strings were left to dangle. It's called the shoe and knot. That's a dead giveaway. Yeah. And I ran across this one source. It was basically like, here ten identifying characteristics of a sansa. Number one head shrunk. Right. Well, there are a couple of specimens of entirely shrunken bodies, but the people didn't go there's one guy who's, like, an Ecuadorian general or something or military officer, the person who shrunk his whole body didn't go to the trouble of removing all of the bones from the hand or feet. So it's just a little body with, like, big hands and feet. That's kind of cool. It is kind of cool, but not authentic. Yeah. And I just cooked up an idea, though. If I went to get Jorge, but I could not get Jorge's head, and I was ashamed into getting a monkey. Instead, I would just tell people that that was Jorge and that he sort of looked like a monkey. Yeah. I wonder if that would work. I don't know. If you're a big, fat, lying shoe, it would work. Okay. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. So, Chuck, you mentioned that, like, 80% or something of all sanses are considered counterfeit. Yeah, I would think it's even higher than that. Big museums, big time museums were collecting these or received them through donations of, like, famous adventures or collectors widows, which is a moral issue. It is these days. It didn't used to be. It was just like, oh, cool shrunken head, right? Oh, cool, mummy, right. But now there is this question of repatriation. Remember in the Totem pole episode we talked about George H. W. Bush signing the grave repatriation act for Native Americans? So this is a big issue, and it has been one since it's like the 80s or ninety s, I would say. And now, all of a sudden, all these museums who are used to making gobs of cash off of displaying shrunken heads are like, oh, we're kind of on morally gray ground here, which is really like, we're on immoral ground. So what do we do with this? Well, some people are returning them, some museums have returned them, and that, I guess, solves that problem. Other ones, they're testing them now a lot. In fact, this week they got the first successful DNA test from a shrunken head. Oh, yeah? Who did it turn out to be? I get to Christy. Christie. It was published in this week's issue of or maybe it's monthly or quarterly, archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, and it was on display, the head was on display at a museum in Tel Aviv, and a senior lecturer at a veterinary school, which I thought was interesting, tested this thing and authenticated it as real human skin and probably died in South America, probably of Afroecuadorian descent. Wow. So we knew it was real anyway, but with DNA now it's like, all right, it's 100% yes. Now we can tell. Well, and now you can test, though at least these museums can, to see if they're forgeries. If they're forgeries, I guess there's no harm in keeping them now on display. They're probably not going to draw the visitors in like a real Santa Wood. Right? But the Smithsonians, which one was it? The National Museum of the American Indian led the way in repatriating sansa to the Shooar in 1999, I think. And then other museums are thinking of doing it, thinking very publicly and very hard about it. Like the Pit Rivers Museum in England has a pretty substantial collection. There was a lot of, like, basically gray robbing and looting of cultures in the 19th and 20th centuries that were funded by museums that now have these collections that everybody was cool with, that all of a sudden the public's not so cool with. So maybe we should give that stuff back, because these are human remains, and sansa's in particular are called quasi objects because of the transformation they go through. They're not just human remains. They are also cultural artifacts. But at the end of the day, they're human remains. And really, they should probably go back to what's now the Schwarz federation, which was established in the 1950s, and supposedly since then, there hasn't been a Santa. But that film from 1061 kind of undermines the idea, doesn't it? Yeah. And then you point out, too, that during the boom in the trade of the shrunken heads, that people would rob Ecuadorian morgues of their heads to make these. So that's certainly hinky. Yeah. To say the least. Yeah. So I guess the moral of this entire episode is if you have a shrunken head, you should probably give it back. That's right. And didn't the Christians stop all this? Aren't they to blame or to be credited with? Yeah, christian missionaries are the ones who kind of brought the Shuar more into Ecuadorian society and got their culture into this QR federation, and they stopped worrying within themselves, too. Yes, but there are still rumors, and we'll end it on this one as recently as everybody is, like, if you're a shoe, are supposedly you don't shrink heads anymore, but you know exactly how to do it. Well, now I do too. Under the right circumstances, you would do it right. But everything's just been so cool for so long. You don't have to do it. But supposedly in the 1996 centipo war, I believe, is what it was between Peru and Ecuador, ecuadorian soldiers who were Shuar modern soldiers. Yes. There was a rumor that they were making sansa out of the heads of Peruvian soldiers that they killed during this war. Interesting. Yeah. I wonder if they followed the whole process, the year long deal with the celebrations, or if it was more modernized. Like, we're just going to do this for the old school guys. I don't know, keep the culture alive. Well, the idea that it happened during the cinema war has been largely poopooed, but I don't know if they did. I don't know how they did it, but I'll bet that all of the other people in their platoon were really scared of them, probably. So that's it for head shrinking? Literally. There's nothing more to say about it? No, I can't think of anything. No. I even looked. If you want to see a bunch of pictures of shrunken heads and stuff like that, you can look at my article on howstep works.com by typing in shrunkenheads in the handystarch bar. Howstep works.com that's how I found it. That brings up not listen or mail, as I understand it, right? No, Josh. You know what it's time for. Say it. That's right, Josh. This is the point that we do every few months where we thank fans for sending tokens of their appreciation in, and many of them are trying to get a small plug of their own, which we don't mind doing as long as it's on the up and up. Yeah. And so here we go. We'll just tag team this. Listen up for your name, and if we forgot you, please remind us, and you will be on the next edition. Susannah from Archie Comics knows that I was an Archie comic fan from the show and that you made fun of me for that. And so she sent us a load of stuff. Archie boxer shorts and comics. I didn't get pencils and pens. I showed it to you, and you didn't want it. Chuck, you also got both of the gift cards from George from Guitar Center in Austin, Texas. George, I appreciate that. Yeah, man, but I knew that Chuck would put it to a lot better use than I would, so he got that one. You could have got, like, a Guitar Center t shirt. Thank you, George. I used them both already. Vanessa, you sent us germ inspired plushies. They are these little zippered pouches that look like germs. Yeah, two of my nieces are crazy. Really? Yeah. I should donate those to a small child. Germusa.com is where you can find those, and she donates 20% of sales to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. So that is very much worthy. And if you are regifting them to really kind of complete the whole thing, cough into it first and then zip it up real quick, and then give it to the little plush Germ. That's good luck in the shower culture, I think. Sure, Liz. At little Bitsuites.com. Send us some more chocolates, which thank you, Liz. But she owed it to us after the molecular gastronomy podcast. It was in return, remember? Yeah. Are we one up on her now, or she even we're even now. Okay. Yeah. But we got a good deal going with her, so let's just keep this up. Okay. So thanks, Liz. Lidabitsuites.com. That is Liddabi tsuites.com. And it's so good. That's true, Chuck. I mean, we're not just plugging it every time we get a package from her. I am delighted. And fatter farmer. Although unicorn tears from unicorn tierresh.org. And my unicorn tears were tears of joy. Apparently, there are different kinds of unicorn tears. Oh, really? Yeah. Mine were tears of joy. Mine. Jody sent us some geo coins from her geo caching experience. It was very nice. Oh, yeah, that's right. No plug there. Just a kind deed. Matt Lively sent us a sketchbook, grandma's Big Breakfast and 99 other drawings. Is that the one with the everybody made a little squiggle and he draw from it? I believe so. Okay. Thanks, man. It's very neat. We got something from Jenna Dalmas, and Jenna was on the coed trip to Guatemala with Jerry. Is it Gina? It is Jenna. It's spelled Gina. And Jerry told me how to pronounce it and she sent us CD. She's a musician and she sent us some CDs and T shirts. And you can support her@ginadalmas.com, but that is Ginadalmas.com. And I haven't listened to CD yet because I just got it. But I'm going to check it out. It looks like some sort of a alt country type of thing. Yes. Which I did. So do you remember those competing growth stories? The paramedic and the Er nurse who are, I think, married, and we judged which store was grosser fish in the butt. Yes. Or Intestines pushed back in and we voted intestines. Well, Matt and Anna, whose stories those were, sent us. Thank you. Beers. So thank you for the beers. Johnny Spanish. I doubt if that's his real name. He does discover Spanish. There's a podcast actually called Discover Spanish and it teaches you Spanish. Yeah. And he sent us a CD set from Language Treks. And I haven't listened to it yet, but I've long wanted to learn Spanish and I didn't want to throw down for Rosetta Stone. Yeah. So I'm going to try. Why, was it pricey? Yeah. So you got it now for free from Johnny Spanish? Yes. He's going to teach you to say stuff that you're not supposed to be saying. Probably. So Kerry and Ryan sent us a lovely photo of woods on Fire. She teaches back country landscape photography at a community college in Dupont, Washington. And you can go check out her stuff@photosbykerry.com. Photosbykerrie.com, all one word. Josh, we got some beef jerky. I know. This is awesome. It was so good. I almost finished it all on the way home. And it was a slab. Yeah, it was like my bucket of beer. But it was beef jerky. It was buds beef jerky from Northern California. And Mike or GeoTas sent us that. And did he send us anything else? I think it was just a beef jerky. Yeah, I mean, that's plenty. But for some reason I thought there was beer that went with it. And, Mike, if you want to keep that coming, if you can stagger them. So I get a new one every day. That would help me a lot. What's next? Let's see. Alison and Fraser from Victoria, British Columbia, sent us the SYSK Army T shirt. This was an entrance into our contest that we had some time back. Which, by the way, I think we should have another T shirt contest. What do you think? I was thinking that just the other day, actually all right. And didn't win, but is awesome. And we've got our versions of it. We can wear them around now. Yeah, they're Canadian. They might have won, but they were not allowed because of silly rules. Yes, they couldn't even enter, but they're in the image gallery, and they made the shirt anyway and sent it to us. Thank you very much, you guys. And finally, I want to give a personal thanks to Dr. Gabriel Byrd Dennis of Norman, Oklahoma, because, as you know, Josh, I am potentially looking at braces and jaw surgery for my messed up bite that is weakening my teeth. You're like Lisa Simpson projected, like, ten years out. Awful, man. It's so awful. And I posted on Facebook one day about people that had experience with this, and Doc Bird said, hey, dude, I'm a dentist in Oklahoma. Call me. So I did, and we spent like, an hour on the phone, and he gave me all sorts of awesome tips and advice on what to look for in my appointment. And we're Facebook buddies now. Yes, very kind of them. So if you're in the Norman, Oklahoma area, I highly recommend Dr. Gabriel Byrd. And he's quite a dream book. And then finally we have about ten more shout outs. We've got a Juma and Other Stories from Tyler Davis. He sent us his self published book, which is pretty awesome. Got a nice origami crane from Jordan het swell in South Australia. We got a letter from Courtney B, who is an archaeologist in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Thank you. We got a very nice letter from Sam W. And Sam, tell your dad thank you for introducing you to the podcast from us. Please. We got a valentine from Vladim. I don't know if we ever thank Bladder for that one. I found it in some postcards. Okay. We got a postcard from Grenada from Emily, a postcard from Hell, Cayman Islands, from famous Tracy, who we know very well. Oh, yeah. Postcard from Gisborne, New Zealand. From Susan P, postcard of Benjamin Smith on the UC Berkeley campus. Cool. Have you heard of this guy? No. He's just holding a sign that says you're perfect. Nice. Positive, dude. He's wrong, but that's nice. Okay. And that came from Magnolia. Thanks, Magnolia. Got a postcard from Michelle W in Leiden, Holland, and then a postcard of a Garrett execution in the Philippines at the turn of the century from Cecilia, who's a doctor in Manila. It's like a guy wearing a bag over his head, and there's like a machine that looks kind of like a press, but it's vertical. No, it's horizontal rather than vertical. And he's being executed. Some guys are standing around, but the executed is just sitting there holding his hat, like, I'm just going to hang on to my hat while they kill me. Do you still have that? Yeah. I don't think I saw that. I don't want to see that. Yes, it's pretty serious. But thank you, everybody, for all that stuff. And thank you to everybody who has ever sent anything that we forgot. If we did, it was a total oversight. It has nothing to do with how we feel about what you sent us. Send us an email and say, jerks. I sent you this. How could you not thank me? I love you anyway. Signed, you. Okay, you can send that email to stuffpodcast@housetofworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseworks.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. New episodes of Morbid, one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ildren-final.mp3	The Unsolved Mystery Disappearance of the Sodder Children	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-unsolved-mystery-disappearance-of-the-sodder-c	In 1945 a house fire took the lives of five children - except that no trace of their bodies was ever found. Dive into the longstanding mystery of the odd circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Sodder children.	In 1945 a house fire took the lives of five children - except that no trace of their bodies was ever found. Dive into the longstanding mystery of the odd circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Sodder children.	Wed, 18 May 2016 18:19:10 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=18, tm_min=19, tm_sec=10, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=139, tm_isdst=0)	43274348	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. comSK, and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts. Banking with Capital One is like the easiest decision in the history of decisions. Kind of like choosing to listen to another episode of your favorite podcast. And with Capital One's top rated app, you can deposit checks and transfer money anytime, anywhere, making Capital One an even easier decision that's banking reimagined what's in your wallet terms apply capital One NA Member FDIC this episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building your website today@squarespace.com. Enter offer code stuff at checkout to get 10% off Squarespace. Set your website apart. Hey, new shows coming your way. Yeah, live shows, that is. Yeah, we're going back to DC. And Boston. That's right. This fall. October 27. A Thursday. We're going to be at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, where we've performed before. That's great. And that's why we're going back, because Boston was, like, one of the best shows off the chain, I think is what they call it was very much off the chain. And we're also going back to Washington, DC. On Saturday, October 29, as part of the Benson Ball Comedy Festival. Yes. And we're going to be at the Lincoln Theater again, that was off the chain as well. Boy, that was a great show. So big ups to you, Boston and DC. That's why we're coming back. So tickets go on sale tomorrow, Friday, and you can find out the information at our Squarespace live showhome on the web s ysklive.com. And if I happen to not have the links up for that yet, just go to the Wilbur Theater website or go to the Benson Ball or Lincoln Theater website and get your tickets, because these are going to be reserved seating. So if you want to get up close and smell us, then you got to be Johnny on the spot. You don't want to do that. So we look forward to seeing you guys this fall. Yeah. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. So this is Stephanie Shannon unsolved Mysteries edition. Yeah. Really? Are you cool with this? No, I'm leaving. Yes. I think it's great, man. I love me a good Unsolved Mystery, and this is super sad, so it's not like I love it, and I think it's hysterical. Right. What's an hysterical, unsolved mystery? Like, I got pants in the second grade and I don't know who did it. That's an hysterical and it's all mystery. Yes. I was just in line, pants around the ankles, turned around, and everyone was like, did you just go with it? And you were like, Check it out, check me out. I'm in second grade. Yes, good for you. But it never happened. I made it up. Oh, really? Yeah. It's called improv, buddy. It's a craft so unseen, end seen and seen. Have we ever established which one it is? Yeah, a few times. No, it is chuck, we are talking about a family called the Solders. Not the Solders, right. Not the welding technique. No, the Solders. They are a family out of Fayetteville, West Virginia, of Italian extraction, as we'll see. Yes, and very much so. Like you said, this is an unsolved mystery. Their family going along totally normally has turned into one of the stranger unsolved mysteries in American history. Yeah. And certainly in West Virginia history. Oh, definitely. And I should say, I texted our friend Justin McElroy of the McIlroy triplets. Right. Well, they're not triplets, they're brothers. Oh, yeah. Of my brother my brother and Me podcast, because they are from West Virginia. And as you'll see here, there's a very famous billboard that we're going to talk about about this case. Right. And I was like, hey, dude, do you remember where seeing this thing, how far are you from Fayetteville? Right. He said, just a couple of hours. He said, but I've never heard of that. And I was like, really? This seemed like the kind of cautionary tale that would be whispered about all over West Virginia. I could see that. But he said he never heard of it. And then he looked it up and said, oh, wow. And I said, I bet your dad knows about it. And then he did. He said he didn't respond. You didn't text him back? Answer me. No, that's all right. I am Facebook friends with his dad, though. I should yeah, ask him. Go to the source. That's right. So, well, let's go back to the beginning, Chuck. Okay. Back to 1895. That's right. That's when Giorgio Soldo, who had become George Solder, was born in Sardinian, 1895, and came to the US. In 19 eight as a young lad of 13 years old. And he was a go getter. He really was. So he had an older brother who traveled with him from Sardinia to New York. I guess he was like, I don't want to do this. And right when they made it through Alice Island, he turned right back around and went back to Italy. Yeah. I don't know, man. Go get a cup of coffee and think it over is what I say. If you made that ship's voyage, just mull it over for a day or two. Yeah. Cause what if, like, you're halfway back, you're like, actually, I should have stayed. Yeah, you might meet a pretty lady from Brooklyn. Do you see that movie Brooklyn? No. Great. Really? Yeah. Okay, I'll check it out. She said it surprised. I was a little surprised, yeah. It was nominated for many awards. It doesn't always mean it usually means it's pretty good. No, it depends. Okay. Brooklyn highly recommended about a young Italian man who falls in love with an Irish immigrant. Well, this has nothing to do with this thing. No, not at all. Because this man falls in love with an Italian immigrant. That's right. So George, like you said, he was a bit of a go getter. He's 13, he's on his own, literally, without any other family in America. Yeah. It's kind of mind blowing, but then you think back to 1895, they didn't really understand what childhood was at that point, so he was probably like a working age and had been for years. But it seems really weird to us now. Sure. He might have been retiring at 13. He was smoking cigars already. So he, like I said, was a go getter. He started working on the Pennsylvania Railroad and then moved to West Virginia. To Smithers, West Virginia, and worked as a truck driver and then said, you know what? This is America. Darn it. I didn't come here to drive a truck for someone. I'm going to own my own trucking business. And the Statue of Liberty went, yes, nice going, kid. So he started his own trucking business, and he's in West Virginia. So in short order, he starts hauling coal. Yes, coal and dirt. And it wasn't like the hugest business. I think he did okay for himself. He did okay for himself, like solidly middle class. He didn't become, like, wealthy or anything. And as a matter of fact, later on, a local government official would say that the Solders were one of the best middle class families in Fayetteville. Yeah. And they had a small Italian population in Fayetteville, which I think is why he ended up there in his community. Yeah. And he moved there with his wife Jenny, right? Yeah. Jenny Sutriani, who he met. She came over from Italy when she was three. He met her at a store called the Music Box, and they got married. And like Italian families do, they had ten kids. Ten kids in 20 years. Yes. That's a lot of kids. Pumping them out with great regularity. And like you said, when they moved to Fayeville, the reason they moved to Fayeville had no idea that West Virginia even had Italian people in it, let alone strong Italian communities. But they moved to Fayeville and they were part of the Italian community. And George was well known again, they were a respected middle class family there. He did pretty good for himself, and he was also well known for his opinions on everything, including politics. And during the was at war with Italy, and not all of the Italian Americans were feeling it. On the American side, there were a lot of disagreements over Mussolini and the government that he was creating among Italian Americans, including in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Sure. And George in particular hated Mussolini and very frequently spoke out about them and would get in arguments with some of the locals who felt differently about Mussolini. And I guess there were some hard feelings here there, but he doesn't seem to have taken them seriously very much. No. And we mentioned that if it sounds like we're setting something up for later, we indeed are. So just tuck that little fact away. And then can we fast forward in time yeah. To Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve, that's right. So here's what happens. It's Christmas Eve, as is tradition in some households, you can open up a few gifts on Christmas Eve. Yeah. So this is what happened. They opened up some presents, comes time for Betty By and five of the children, maurice, 14, martha, twelve, louis or Louie, ten. Jeannie or Jenny. That was a little confusing because that's the mom's name, eight years old. And Betty said, can we please stay up late and play with these new toys? Yeah. Their older sister Marion, she worked at a five and diamond town 2 miles down the road, and she had surprised her younger brothers and sisters with some toys that they had not been expecting. That's right. And they were very happy. So they asked Mum if they could stay up. Yeah. And the elder Jenny said, yeah, I guess you can stay up. Turn out the lights, lock the doors before you go to bed, I'm going to hit the rack with your dad and our two year old daughter Sylvia, 23 year old John and 16 year old George Jr. I guess they were just ready for bed, too. Right. And then if you're thinking there's one missing child, he is away in the military, the eldest. Yeah. Fighting either Mussolini or Hitler or Tojo. Right. One of those guys. Right. So he's away. And I could not for the life of me find that guy's name. I couldn't neither, actually. So the mom goes to bed, Jenny goes to bed, and the dad, George and his two next oldest sons, who had been working with them that day, they'd all gone to bed about ten. What time did the mom go to bed? At eleven, something like that. Yeah. But she leaves those five youngest children and Marion, their older sister, who I think was 17 at the time, downstairs when she goes to bed. Yes. And then at about 1230 on Christmas morning, because remember, that was Christmas Eve, about 1230 at night, the phone rings. And this is not an era where and this kind of, to me, goes to show these people were doing all right. They had a phone in 1945 in West Virginia. They may have been the only people in West Virginia with the phone in 1945. I'm just saying. I don't think everybody had a phone in West Virginia in 1945. Okay. So they certainly didn't have one at their bedside. So Jenny, the mom, has to get up to answer the phone, and on the other line, she hears a woman asking for somebody she doesn't know or recognize. And in the background, there's obviously a party going on. There's laughter, there's clinking of glasses. And Jenny says, I don't know who you're talking about. You have the wrong number. And the woman laughs weirdly and hangs up. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and come out and say I think this means nothing and it's total coincidence. So supposedly they track that woman down and she said it was just a wrong number. Yeah, total coincidence. That's what I think. But think about that, though. Yeah. Like, had that not happened, a lot of other stuff would have gone unnoticed. Right, true. It's a big deal. So before she goes back to bed, she noticed the lights are on downstairs. Yeah. She said, Turn the lights off. Lock the door before you go to bed. So one of her kids is on the couch asleep. She's like, Wait a minute. The door is unlocked. The lights are on. They shouldn't have done that. So let me lock the doors and turn off the lights. And she leaves the one that's asleep on the couch asleep. It was the one that got her. Sure. Sleepy time on the couch, that's fine. But those five younger ones who've been playing with their toys, they were in order to be found, so mom just assumed they went upstairs to bed. Right. So she goes back to bed. Yes. And then like an hour later, she's woken by, like a thump on the roof. Yeah. And she falls back asleep again. Well, it sounded like a heavy thump and a sliding down of the roof right. Rolling or something, as if something heavy had landed on it and then slid off. Right. And she just went back to sleep. Very important matter. She probably figured it was a reindeer or something like that. It'd be in Christmas. You never know. The next time she woke up, she woke up to panic and chaos because her house was on fire. And Chuck, we'll talk about the fire right after this. It's 2022. When things look different, like doctors visits, for example, sometimes you don't have to go into a doctor's office to be treated for nonemergency situations, like a sinus infection or allergy. And that's why teladoc gives you the chance to connect with board certified physicians right from your home via phone or video. That's right. Doctors are standing by 24/7 so you can schedule a visit according to your schedule. You can see for yourself why teledoc is ranked number one by JD. Power and telehealth satisfaction with direct to consumer providers. Teladoc is available through most major health plans and many employers. But even if you're not covered by insurance, everyone has access to use teletoc. That's right. If you want to check it out, download the app today or visit teletoc. comStuff to register or schedule a visit today. That's teladoc.com stuff. For JDPower 2021 award information, visit JDPower. comAWARDS what if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You aren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. So you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt, and everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. All right, dude, the house is on fire. That's right. So Sylvia, a little two year old Sylvia, is in their room with her the parents. So they get her out, obviously covered with them because she's in the crib. And then 17 year old Marian and 23 year old John and 16 year old George Jr. Are all outside and safe right at this point. So everyone is out except for these five other kids. Right. And they were on the top floor of the house, I believe, in two different rooms, and the only way down is this one single staircase. And George tried to go back into the house. He broke through a window, cut his arm quite badly getting in through the window or opening the door, and runs inside. And the entire downstairs floor is totally engulfed in flame and smoke. He can't see anything, but he can see that there's no way he can go up the staircase or anyone can make it down the staircase. So he runs back outside of the house to try to figure out another way to get up to those kids on the top floor. Yeah. And here's an interesting .1 of the relatives of I think it was the guy who ended up marrying the youngest daughter later in life. Sylvia said they did a lot of research on this, and he said the original police report said that the very first statement said that the two sons, John and George, who got out, said they actually ran into the other kids rooms and physically shook them awake. Right. And then later on in interviews, they said no, they just called out to them and assume they heard. But it's still as a mystery as to whether or not that really happened. Police will say the first statement is usually the accurate one. Oh, yeah. But that's just speculation. So from what I understand, the family rationalized that later on by saying that the two boys probably felt very guilty. Sure. And they said that they did what they wish they had or felt that they should have done. That makes sense. And that their revisions later on were actually the factual ones that they tried to rouse their siblings by just shouting up the stairs, I can buy that. So papa tries to get in, cuts himself really bad. Yeah. Then he says, Wait a minute. I have this ladder that leans up against the house. Always let me go grab that ladder's. Not there. Very weird. It is very weird. And it will be found in a ditch, like 75ft from the house later on and later on, witnesses supposedly saw a dude stealing it from the garage. But there's so many things that people say about this case that is hard to know what's true and what was invented that is true. That they saw a guy. Well, they report that they saw a guy. Well, the guy actually was found and was arrested and charged for stealing and never questioned about the actual fire. The guy that stole the latter? Yeah. Okay. So the dad says, let me get my trucks and my Big Coal Holland trucks, because those are tall. Let me pull that next to the house, climb up on that. Neither one of the trucks start, even though they've been using them to work earlier that day. Yeah. So the thinking by the cops and everyone else pretty much is in the panic. He and his son flooded the engines trying to get them started, and they wouldn't start. Yeah. But it became yet another, like, fishy detail that made this family suspect. Something really weird happened here. Yeah. And then later I totally don't understand the whole engine removal theory. So it doesn't make any sense. That guy who stole the latter was caught stealing a block and tackle that you would use to remove engines. Yeah. That doesn't make any sense. But it doesn't mean that he messed with their car or use that block and tackle to do anything to the engines. No. They probably just flooded them. That one I'm in agreement on. So this family, they're watching helplessly as the house is going up in flames. The house burned to the ground in about 45 minutes, ostensibly with the children trapped inside. Yeah. And if you think, why didn't the fire trucks come? The Fayetteville Fire Department. It was 1945. It was Fayetteville, west Virginia. Christmas. Yeah. It was Christmas night or morning, I guess, at this. .1 of the daughters went to a neighbor's house, called the fire department. No operators on duty, even. Right. And another neighbor who saw this didn't have a phone at their house, so they went to the local tavern, and they called the operator to report the fire, too. And they couldn't get the operator, either. Operator was probably at home sleeping for Christmas. That's right. So eventually, someone drives and literally, physically tracks down fire Chief FJ. Morris, who does not come out smelling well in this well. He doesn't. He said, oh, I can't drive the fire truck as the fire chief. Right. And the way that they don't even have a siren. The way that they alerted the fire department was called a phone tree. They just start calling one another, then they call the next person, which made less sense because, again, the Solders were the only people in West Virginia with a phone in their house. That's not true. So eventually, 7 hours later, at 08:00 A.m., the fire truck arrives to find a smolding pile of ash. And a lot of people are like, well, clearly the fire department was paid off or told to halt. From what I gather, it was sheer ineptitude. And also the sense, I think the fire marshal or fire chief defended himself later, saying, he said, I couldn't drive the fire truck, so I had to wait for somebody who could. Yeah, and also that house went up so fast, there wasn't any need for us to get there in any kind of hurry. Well, I mean, that's probably true. He also said it burned in like between 30 and 45 minutes. Yeah. If you're a fire chief, it's not what you want to say. No. Who cares when we get there? Also, one of the firemen who showed up was Jenny Soder's brother. So it's not like there was this conspiracy among the fire department, necessarily. Although that is a common belief in people who pay attention to this case. It is. So what they find at 08:00 a.m. Is a house burnt to the ground. What they don't find are any remnants of those five children. Yeah. And herein is where the mystery really kicks in. Yeah. The family starts paying attention to little weird details. At first, they just assume that the kids have just totally gone. They were totally burned up. Well, that's what the fire chief said. He was like, there's no remains whatsoever. It burned them to nothing. They did, like, a cursory examination of the rubble. They did find some other stuff. Like, they found appliances that were recognizable. They found a couple of other things, but they never found any of the kids. And they took the fire chief's word at face value and said, okay, well, our kids are in there. We can't bury the site of this any longer. So George went and got a bunch of dirt and buried the site in about 5ft of fill dirt and decided to plant a memorial garden there on the side of the house. Fire. Yeah. This is on January 2. So he wasn't supposed to do this? No, they were supposed to leave it open to continue to investigate. The state police inspector said it was faulty wiring. It's now covered in dirt. And so now the family has just left alone saying, what happened to our children? Were they in there? Right. So when they buried the place in dirt, they assumed that the children were still in there, and this is their grave now. They were never going to be found. But then, like you said, they started thinking about weird details that emerged. Right. One of the first ones was the idea that it was faulty wiring. George basically knew for a fact that it wasn't faulty wiring. He'd recently had an electric stove installed, and just to make sure, again, he was doing pretty well. Just to make sure that the house didn't burn down with this newfangled electric stove, he had the wiring in the house redone, and then he had it inspected by the power company, who sent out an inspector and said they did a good job. The wiring is fine. So he basically knew almost for a fact that it wasn't faulty wiring in the house. Yeah. Not only that, after the fire started, when they were outside, there were still lights on in the house. Right. So remember jenny came down and turned out the lights. She left the christmas tree lights on, and while the house was burning, the christmas tree was still the christmas tree lights were on, which must have been like a really ghastly thing to see. Sure. Speaking of the wiring, there was a point a few months earlier, and this is definitely a strange thing when this guy showed up, he was a stranger. No one knew him. And he asked about working as a driver, and he didn't have any work for him, but he was sort of just I guess they had the conversation outdoors, wandered around to the back of his house and said, you know what? You're wiring here at your fuse box is going to cause a fire someday. And george thought, well, that's a really weird thing to say because not only did I have it just inspected and it's fine, it's just a strange thing for you to say, mr. Stranger, get off my property. Pretty much, but take the canole. Very nice, but weird and disconcerting after the fact. Obviously didn't think anything of it at the time, other than that's a weird thing to say. Yeah. Another fishy thing that happened that really kind of stuck out in retrospect was the life insurance salesman, right? Yeah, a life insurance salesman came through and tried to sell george some life insurance policies for his children. And george didn't bite. And the guy got irate. And his quote was kind of weird, actually. He said, your house is going to go up and smoke your GD house. Your children are going to be destroyed. And then here's where it really gets weird. He says, you will be repaid for the dirty things you've been saying about mussolini. And george just went like, get off my property. Yeah, just the usual. Yeah. So remember we said that he was outspoken about mussolini and his politics. Clearly this got around to this dude, and it's just a weird, disconcerting thing to say, especially after these kids look like they may have perished in this fire. Yeah. Especially if he didn't make a big deal out of it at the time. Was this like a normal business attempt in 1945, West Virginia among the Italian community? Your kids are going to die. You'll be repaid for what you've been saying about Mussolini. Good day to you. I don't know. I'm sure that's not in the handbook. What's even fishier, though, Chuck, is that same guy served on the coroner's inquest jury that ruled that the fire was the result of faulty wiring. Yeah, it all gets a little weird. Yeah. And then quite a few other weird things. One of the older sons said that, you know what? Right before Christmas, there was a dude parked right across from our house watching the school bus and watching the younger kids get off the school bus and come to the house. And it was clear that he was sitting there watching us. And it was strange. Yes. He was in a van. Was he really? No, I bet he was. He would have been if it were like the Bet. Yes. Let's drift. So, Chuck, let's take another break because the mystery is about to deepen even more. The plot thickens. It's 2022 when things look different. Like doctor's visits, for example. Sometimes you don't have to go into a doctor's office to be treated for non emergency situations like a sinus, infection or allergy. And that's why teladoc gives you the chance to connect with board certified physicians right from your home via phone or video. That's right. Doctors are standing by 24/7 so you can schedule a visit according to your schedule. You can see for yourself why teladoc is ranked number one by JD power and Telehealth satisfaction with direct to consumer providers. Teladoc is available through most major health plans and many employers. But even if you're not covered by insurance, everyone has access to use teletock. That's right. If you want to check it out, download the app today or visit teladoc. comStuff to register or schedule a visit today. That's teladoc.com stuff. For JDPower 2021 award information, visit JDPower. comAWARDS. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data, and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls? Now you're making smarter decisions. Faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM let's create learn more@ibm.com. All right, so things are getting a little weird, and all of a sudden now Jenny and George, the solder parents, start thinking like, wait a minute, are our kids actually dead? Who was the last person to see them alive? If John and George Jr. To be believed, they were the last ones to see him alive because they went and shook them awake. But they may not have actually done that well, and they changed their story to say that they didn't. Right. So. Then, technically, Marion, the 17 year older sister who brought the toys and was downstairs with the kids while they were playing with them, would have been the last to see them alive. But I could never find anybody pressing her for what her story was. So the assumption that I'm going on is that she just fell asleep on the couch, and when she fell asleep, the kids were still downstairs. But the soldiers are starting to wonder, like, wait a minute, were those kids even in the house when the house went down? And they're backed up by the idea that no remains were found? Yeah, that's the one that really is bothering them. They're like, something should have been found. Yeah. And all of a sudden, this story is starting to get national attention in the press. And the solders later on would say george would say, if they were burned in the house, if they died in that house fire, I want to be convinced. And if they weren't, I want to know what happened to them. And this kind of kicked off like, a lifelong quest for George and Jenny. And in 1949, to try to literally get to the bottom of it, they hired a guy to come in and investigate, to basically excavate the memorial site and look for the remains of the children. And he didn't find it. Well, yeah. And previous to that, they did their own experiments with burning things, burning animal bones, and the sort of self experimentation to see what remained. And there was always bones, of course. Yeah. They could never get them to just turn into ash. They went to a crematorium even, and said, we're probably just not even getting this thing hot enough. And they said, well, actually, at 2000 degrees, it would take 2 hours to completely burn a body up. Your house didn't get nearly that hot. Right. And it only burned for 30 to 45 minutes. So there should definitely be human remains all over the place. Jenny kind of really turned into, like, this citizen scientist, actually. She taught herself forensics as far as burning of remains goes. She looked into other fires. There was another fire that happened around the same time that killed seven people. And the remains of all seven people were found in the burned out house as well. So she's getting more and more convinced, and so is George, that their kids are still alive. So in 1949, they had a forensic investigator of some sort come in and do an investigation and an excavation of the site. And he turned up some stuff. He found some coins, found a dictionary that had belonged to the kids, and he did actually find some vertebra. And he had the vertebra sent off to the Smithsonian Institution, actually. And they investigated this and issued a report about the bones. Yes, they did. They said the human bones consist of four lumbar vertebrae belonging to one individual. The transfers recess a fuse. So the age of this individual death should have been 16 or 17. Top limit 22. And on this basis, the bone show greater skeletal maturation than what I would expect from a 14 year old who is the oldest missing child. Right. So basically, it was either placed there by someone, it was not charged, it was not a part of the fire. It had not been part of the fire, it wasn't one of the kids, and it was either placed there by someone or happen to be in that dirt. Can you imagine that? Like, think about that. George went and got a bunch of filled dirt to come and fill in this memorial site and ended up disturbing a grave, like, maybe an unmarked grave somewhere. I didn't think that was remarkable. That's crazy. If you went and got filter and you found a bone bones, human bones. Yeah. I wouldn't can you tell by the pitch of my voice that that is crazy? I can. The other weird thing that they found was this green rubber casing that later they found out it was a part of some kind of bomb, an incendiary device. And some people think that that's a weird thing to have on your property, that a house had just burned. And they think this could have been the sound that Jeanne heard in the middle of the night when something hit the roof and rolled off. Right. Who knows? But she didn't hear a big boom. It seemed like if it was a bomb, that would have been pretty obvious. Yeah, but if it was like a napalm bomb, it doesn't necessarily explode. It just ignites. Yeah. So they don't make noise. I don't know. We'll go experiment with one. Objection speculation. The Smithsonian report actually said, it's really curious that the bodies weren't recovered or found in this. Pretty good excavation that you guys hired this dude to do. And it actually set off a larger investigation in West Virginia. The governor and I think the state police superintendent both said, what you guys are doing is hopeless. The case is closed. Your kids died in that fire. Case closed. And the Solders were like, no, we're going to go hire a private detective. And they did hire a private detective. And he started sniffing around town and heard a weird rumor that the fire chief had said that he actually found a heart and had put it in a box and buried it at the site, which is a weird thing to do. It is. And he went to the guy and was like, you got to show me where this thing is buried. He does. He actually dig it up, and they find a sort of I wouldn't say fresh beef liver. freshish, but not burned. And then he admits, you know what? I put this there, hoping that someone would find this and just think it was a body part of one of their kids, we can close the case. Right. Very ham fisted way of closing the case. That's a jerk. Yeah. I don't know why he thought that would work. I don't want to say he's dumb, but it was a pretty dumb thing to do. Beef Lever so, previous to this, all sorts of weird claims had started to fly in reporting of sightings all over the country. One woman was operating a tour stop about 50 miles west, and she said, no, I saw them the morning after the fire served in breakfast. They got into a car with Florida license plates, and trust me, it was your kids. Yeah. So that freaks them out for sure. Of course. Then there was a hotel not too far in Charleston, and apparently late at night, I think four kids had checked in, accompanied by some adults, two women and two men, all Italian. And she said, I tried to talk to the kids and tried to be nice. And the dudes freaked out and started talking Italian and shuffled the kids out of there real quick. Yeah. And they left early the next morning. Super sketchy. Some lady said that she saw the kids looking out of a car that was driving by as the house is on fire. And then there were even more tips that kind of poured in over the years, including one that said that they were actually being held by a distant relative of Jenny's. Someone said that Martha was in a convent out west, I believe. Yes. In 1967, they got a letter from a lady in Houston, said that the oldest boy or one of the boys Lewis, had lived in that town, got drunk one night and basically told everyone who he was. They actually went and in fact, George Solder and sometimes Jenny, he would go all over the country tracking down these leads. Right. And always, sadly, comes back empty handed. When he went to Texas, he got down there, met with the guy, and it wasn't his son, obviously, but had to go back and tell his wife, like, another zero on this one. Yeah. And it's really sad when you step back and look at it from the perspective of the parents. They were not convinced that their kids died in this fire. They were open to the possibility, but they weren't convinced, and they wanted to know for the rest of their lives. So, yeah, he would go all over the country chasing down leads. And the reason he would do this, Chuck, is because he got no help whatsoever from the local authorities. No, the Solders actually wrote to the FBI and got a reply from J. Edgar Hoover himself that said, I'd love to help, but this is out of our jurisdiction. If your local cops will invite us to help, we'd be happy to help investigate. And the local cops said, thanks anyway, and turn the FBI down. I can't imagine how frustrating that must have been for the Solders to see that. Oh, yeah. To see Jerhor say, we'll help out, but these guys have to invite us and get turned down for that. Yeah, it was kind of their life obsession. And obsession is a really good way to put it. There's a story of George seeing a picture in a paper of a ballet class in Manhattan, and he became convinced that one of the girls in the picture was his daughter Betty. And he drove to Manhattan and demanded to see his daughter and the parents or the school was like, you need to get out of here, dude, you've lost your mind. This is our kid. No, you can't see our kid. So we had to go back home after that. So in 1968, it gets super weird. Jenny comes home, gets a mail and sees a letter addressed to her. Not to the family or to her and her husband to Jenny Solder. Opens it up postmarked in Kentucky, no return address. And there was a photo of an Italian man. Well, it looked to be Italian in his mid twenty s of the age fits. And on the back of it, it said in handwriting, louis Solder. I love brother Frankie I-L-I-L boys illilboys. No idea. A 901-3243 five. No idea. The most weird, mysterious thing you could imagine. And I looked at a picture, they were like, this very well could be our son. It looks a lot like him. It looks more like him than I do. I didn't think it was him. I was like, the eyebrows didn't match to me, the nose didn't match. But you can never tell a kid from nine to 25. Yeah, because this is like, almost 20 years. It could be true. He might have looked different enough. Yeah. But yeah. That mystery just was never, ever solved. And so back in the 50s, after they started getting shut down by the local cops and then the state cops and everybody, they started to take matters in their own hands. And one of the things they did was erect that billboard that you asked Justin McIlroy about. Yeah. It became kind of famous. Aside from the McElroy's, everybody in West Virginia knew about it. And it was a billboard on the Solders property with big pictures of the five children with their name and age, and then basically a rundown of what the family thought may have happened to them. Yeah. And at first they offered a $5,000 reward, and then up to $10,000. Yeah. And they owned it. So it was there until the 80s. George died in 1968, and then Jenny died in 1989. And after Jenny died, they took the billboard down. That's right. What other reports came in? One bus driver said he claimed he saw someone throwing, quote, fireballs onto the house. Some of the stuff reeks pretty wasted at the time. Yeah, some of the stuff reeks of, like, that after the fact stuff that people kind of invent, right? Like, wait a minute, I saw a guy throwing fireballs. Right. But there was verified after the fact. Weirdness. Oh, yeah, for sure. That keeps this case alive. Like, one thing we didn't mention, their telephone line was cut. Yeah, and some people say it was the guy that stole the ladder, climbed up, cut the phone lines so they couldn't reach anyone. But you said they found the guy. Did they ask him about that? From what I understand, they didn't ask him anything. They just find him for theft, ladder theft and block and tackle theft. Oh. The other weird thing is they hired another another private investigator at one point to track down where that letter came from. Yeah, picture of Lewis, and this guy just disappears. Yeah, he may have just been, like, a CD gum chew, you know, maybe and just took their money. Quite possibly. Or maybe he was murdered because he found out the truth. I don't know. But they said that he literally vanished, like they couldn't ever reach him again. I think it's likely he's a CD gum too. He just took some desperate family's money and hopefully he's burning in hell. Did the mafia rub him out? Because that became one of the leading theories, is that George was approached by the Mafia, rebuffed their advances, and that was it. They took the kids. Well, yeah. And supposedly it's not just a total flight of fancy. Apparently the mafia was really big in the coal business and the trucking business in the area at that time. So it is entirely possible he was approached by the Mafia. And he does sound like the kind of guy who tell him to go stick it. Yeah. He also may have made some enemies with the Mussolini cracks. Sure. What else is there? Well, one thing that was lost the time was that vertebrae, even though it's almost 100% that it was not one of the kids, at least if they still had that, they could DNA test it now. But of course they can't. Yeah. And so little baby Sylvia, who is two, maybe three at the time, I think two is what I've seen most, is the last surviving solder child. And she said these are her earliest memories of that night of the fire and seeing her father losing his mind, trying to get to this house and bleeding. And she promised her parents that she would keep the story alive. So she talks about it a lot. She goes on to the online sleuth websites that talk about the case and kind of feeds information to people and tries to keep the story alive. It's just crazy, man. You go to bed, you wake up with a fire, and five of your children are just vanished. Yeah. And there's no way they burned up to nothing. That's just impossible. So I read this blog post, like NPR person named Stacey Horn did a piece on it years back, and she wrote this really long blog post about stuff that had been cut from the piece. Yeah. And I got the impression they were trying to play up the mystery. And she said that she personally came to believe that the children did die in the fire and that there was plenty of evidence that supports that idea, but that the media tends to play up the other side of it. But she also said that there's enough weird stuff surrounding it that if she learned that they were still alive, she wouldn't be shocked. Well, yeah. And the fact that they never got in touch, because it's not like these kids were estranged from their parents. They were a tight knit family by all accounts. Right. And the family rationalized that by saying that their family was in danger and they were trying to protect their parents by never getting into right. Which would align with the mafia theory. Just terrible, man. You lose half your family without a trace. Yeah. If you want to know more about this, there's plenty of sites on the Internet that have stuff, but we found this really great article that we base this on by Karen Abbott. It was called The Children Who Went Up and Smoked. Yeah, the NPR one is good. And Stacey Horn Singh is pretty cool, too. You know what's weird is I have a good friend named Stacey Horn. It's not the same one. No. But when I clicked, I was like, oh, interesting. And I clicked on her thing, and it said, Stacey Horn, like cat. She's a cat person. My friend Stacey is a noted cat person, and it's not the same person. And I was like, weird. Doppelganger? Yeah. No. Maybe the name Doppelganger. Yeah. I'd have to see your face. I think I said something. Well, how about the search bar? Since I said search bar, it's time for listening. Or mailchuck handy Dandy search bar. Sure. People said that they missed that. Used to say that. The handy search bar. Yeah. I don't think I said Handy Dandy didn't I don't know. Maybe Jerry said yes. That's back when she listened. So I would take that better word. Hey, guys. Huge fan of the show. Two exclamation points. Yeah, I've been listening to your show for about a year now and turn my wife and kids onto the program. They are all hooked. We had a Stuffy Shone marathon even in our car. Ride back to Chicago from Athens, Georgia. We look forward to your new episodes and are burning through them quickly to pick up the pace. You guys made reference to lead paints being on roadside signs. That is highly unlikely, says Sean. Those signs are changed quite frequently in her base, predominantly. And then he goes on to name, like, eight different types of pigment chemistries, which I won't read out. Okay. And other mixtures of iron oxides he said lead chromates can still be found, however, in road markings like yellow and white lines on the street. Any new roadmarkings are now done with the chemistries I mentioned previously, but there are many states across the country that still haven't gotten around replacing or removing the lead crow mate based paints on the street. Not trying to nitpick it's common misconception to people outside the color industry. And based on my nerding out with the chemistry name dropping, I bet you can't guess what industry I'm in. Here's a hint I don't dance. A chemistry nerd. What does that have to do with dancing? Chemistry nerds don't dance. I think that may be a reference to something we said that I'm not picking up on me. Okay. Maybe Sean can clear it up. Yes, we need a follow up. Listener mail. All right. That's from Sean Muller. Who is this? German. He dropped the umbrella. Okay, so Mueller. He didn't want that association. Well, thanks, Sean. We appreciate that. Let us know about the dancing thing. I think we're not the only ones who are curious. Right? Yeah, I'm not sure what that means. If you know what Sean is talking about, you can tweet to us at sisk podcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstepyshono. You can send us an email to stuff podcast athouseporks.com there's. Always join us at home, on the Web, stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com a summer school's out? The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hey, everybody, chuck here. Right now, there are millions of people around the world hosting on airbnb. I mean, there's no doubt it's a great way to earn extra income, but I've always wondered about their stuff, like what happens if somebody drops a wine glass? Well, now I know. Thanks to Air Cover for Hosts, people can welcome guests into their home with confidence. Air Cover for Hosts gives you damage protection for free every time you host. Learn more and host with peace of mind@airbnb.com. Air Cover for Hosts."
http://netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1215463116554sysk-oj-toothpaste.mp3	Why Does Toothpaste Make Orange Juice Taste Bad?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-does-toothpaste-make-orange-juice-taste-bad	Why does toothpaste make orange juice taste bad? Chuck recounts his first-hand experience, and how it works.	Why does toothpaste make orange juice taste bad? Chuck recounts his first-hand experience, and how it works.	Tue, 13 May 2008 18:30:06 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=18, tm_min=30, tm_sec=6, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=134, tm_isdst=0)	5282420	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from houseofworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here at Housework Stuff Works.com, and with me is my fellow staff writer, the extraordinary Charles Bryant. How are you doing, Sean? How are you doing? Charlie? Over there? Yeah, I'm just waking up. Sorry. Fantastic. Well, when you woke up this morning, did you brush your teeth? I did. And you know what? Just to prep myself for this, I drank some orange juice immediately after I brush my teeth, I think we all know, is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. And you did this on purpose just to prep? I did. I'm a method podcaster, Josh, and I thought it was the role required it I salute the dedication to your credit, actually. That's funny that you should do that. Well, it's not that funny if you're preparing for it, because that means you read this article. Why does orange juice taste bad after you brush your teeth? So since you read it, I guess we can have a pretty intelligent conversation about it, right? Well, we'll try. Let's see what you got on flavor. Flavor. I've got a little bit on flavor. Flavor is divided into five different categories, which most four of which you've probably heard of. You got sweet, you have salty, you have bitter, you have sour, and then you have umami. Meaty taste. Yeah, meaty taste. I don't know why they didn't just call it meaty, actually, I don't know either. I think umami is just as nice because everyone wants to know what the heck of umami is anyway, so you get to see them both. If you just said meeting, nobody'd say what's? Meeting. You'd say umami. Right. Icebreaker. Yeah, exactly. A Japanese icebreaker. Yeah. Thank you. So anyway sorry, I got sidetracked. Flavor is all these different five things, and they react with each other to create different flavors with flavor combinations. And you get flavor and temperature and consistency and smell and texture together, and you have what we know about taste. Well, it's kind of like all of the different toppings available from delicious Pizza Hut brand pizza working together to create over 1 million combinations of delicious pizza. Right. That's astounding. It is astounding and delicious, actually. So we kind of understand flavor a little bit. What we understand less, though, is exactly how this works. Right. When I was researching taste for this article, I ran across an article written by one of our esteemed colleagues, Sarah Dowdy, right? And she wrote on how smell works. And of course, these two, they work in conjunction. And actually, we don't really know how either one works, but there are prevailing theories that explain both, and they're pretty similar, actually. It has to do with our taste receptors, and they're supposedly shaped a certain way, and they accept only certain shaped molecules. So, like, your sweet receptor is shaped so that it would only accept molecules that possess maybe a sweet property to them. Right, right. What's the shape like? It's shaped like an egg. You don't want to know what, umami, shaped like. It's terrible down there, but that's pretty much what we're thinking, how taste works. And we have a little better handle on exactly what's going on with that horrible collision of orange juice and toothpaste. Do you know what it was? I mean, you read the article, right? Yeah, I did. One leading theory is that it's this chemical compound. Is it a chemical compound? I believe it is. I mean, it's got three names, right? Sodium laurel sulfate, which is a surfactant, which is a fancy name for kind of a sensing agent. So you brush your teeth, and it gets you foam at the mouth like a rabid dog. Everyone always says rabid dog. It's never a rabid cat. Yeah, you don't want to run across Atticus Finch when you have a mouthful of SLS. No, you don't. So, anyway, the SLS doesn't really do anything except make you think that your teeth are getting cleaner and it helps sell toothpaste. Yeah, well, it's doing a heck of a job. And from our understanding of SLS, we have a pretty good idea of what's going on on the tongue. Right. It's actually like Tone in the Destroyer as far as phospholipids are concerned. These things are basically like little coverings on your bitter receptors, kind of tones down bitter taste, and it actually goes in and just destroys these things. Right. But at the same time, it also dampens your sweet receptors. So when you have sodium laurel sulfate on the tongue, your sweetness is down, your bitterness is up, and orange juice is among the worst things on the planet at that moment. It's like a perfect storm colliding in your mouth. Exactly. And you're left with your knees pulled up to your chest, rocking in the corner, just waiting for this to subside. How long does that take? Well, Josh, someone did a study, and I'm not sure why, but some doctor felt the need to do a study, and he determined that it takes about an hour. Fantastic. Case closed, actually. Hopefully the doctor had plenty of volunteers to try this out. He could do it himself. Well, if you want to know more about taste and what we think is going on down there, especially in regards to orange juice and toothpaste, read Why Does Orange Juice Taste Bad? After you brush your teeth on howtofworkscom? For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstepworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry, it's ready. Are you."
https://podcasts.howstuf…loding-lakes.mp3	How can a lake explode?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-can-a-lake-explode	Lakes are usually tranquil bodies of water, but in rare instances, they can be deadly. Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to hear Josh and Chuck discuss lakes that have exploded -- and the factors that create a killer lake.	Lakes are usually tranquil bodies of water, but in rare instances, they can be deadly. Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to hear Josh and Chuck discuss lakes that have exploded -- and the factors that create a killer lake.	Thu, 07 May 2009 12:23:31 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=7, tm_hour=12, tm_min=23, tm_sec=31, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=127, tm_isdst=0)	20931470	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Chuck Bryant's with me. Chuck. Hi, Josh. How are you doing? I'm recovering from kids day. Yeah, Chuck and I actually I didn't volunteer. Chuck volunteered himself and me to wrangle kids for Kids Day. I got to tell you, the adult to kid ratio was one and a half to one. And I'm still white. I know. There were literally four kids and what, like eight of us? Eight adults? No, six. Six? Yeah. I was worn out, man. Yeah, I know. Kids Day is just awesome. He has not the energy. Actually, my favorite part of the day was when he brought him on the tour and then we brought him into the studio. Jerry looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin. Yeah, our producer Jerry does not like kids, it turns out. That was awesome. She put on a real sweet face and was smiling, going, Hi everybody. And then the kids got in the sound booth and screamed to see if we could hear them. And we should. Kids are fun. Especially twelve year olds. They're great. So I'm glad it's over. Yes. I actually got tapped to do it again next year. Did you? No, I just kind of figured we did such a bang up job though. They'd want us back. Yeah. Well, anyway, thanks for that, Chuck. Sure. You are natural. You take time. Let's talk about exploding lakes then. Okay, sure. So Chuck, have you ever seen a 328 foot tall cloud of death? There's a bathroom joking there somewhere that my wife would appreciate, but the straight answer is no. Your wife likes Catholic humor? Oh yeah. I didn't know that. I wouldn't have paid her for that. She's dirty. She seems way too intelligent for that kind of thing. Well, she is, but that means nothing. Still scattering a logical well. Had you lived around a little lake called Lake NIOS in August of 1986, you would have seen a 328 ft tall cloud of death. And had you walked in it, you probably would have died, right? It was frightening. I bet it was. Chuck sent me this great picture that you think we could post it on our blog when this comes out? I don't know, you keep saying that. Did we do that last time? Actually, that would have been today with the face transplant and I did not get the rights to that. Did you try to get the rights? I did, I looked into it. You're such a liar. Okay, well, Chuck sent me this great picture of all these dead cows just kind of falling over on their sides around the lake in 1986. Basically what happened was on I think the evening of August 21, all of a sudden there was this big rumbling sound and Lake Dallas, it's pretty substantial lake. I think it's over 600ft deep. Yeah. This is in Africa. We haven't even said that. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's in Camaroon, and there was this rumbling from within the lake, and all of a sudden, this huge column of water shoots out of the middle of the lake hundreds of feet into the air. And as this column is going, this cloud that eventually becomes a 100 meters tall cloud starts to develop. But the thing is, it's kind of hovering close to the lake, so it's a really heavy cloud. Right. And then this cloud gets the bright idea of moving off of the lake and down into the populated valley. Right. Which is, I guess, just where the air flow took it, I guess. And it clung very low to the ground. It sunk. Basically, it just followed the ground into the valley. And so you think, hey, there's a cloud. What harm can a cloud do? But the people who took that attitude paid with their lives. Yes. To the tune of 1700 of them. Right? Yeah. People up to 15 miles away from the lake died. Livestock people. Some people were knocked unconscious. It depended on the concentration of the secret ingredient. We'll get to in a second. Right. Some people were unconscious for, like, 36 hours, and they wake up and all their livestock and their family is dead. I know. Unbelievable. I mean, no, imagine this, like, really put yourself into that situation. You're hanging around, you're living your life of an idyllic agrarian life around this beautiful lake, which supposedly used to be this gorgeous blue. It's really pretty. And all of a sudden, the lake blows up, and there's a cloud of death that kills your entire family. It knocks you out for a day and a half. Well, in the lake turn, did you see the after photos? It turned really brown. I didn't. And the water level lowered, and it was disgusting. It looked like a before after photo of, like, 100 years of pollution or something. Wow. And this was overnight? Yes. So finally, after about two days, the cloud dissipates, but not before it moves through village after village is killing people. And so obviously, when people start to come in to investigate what happened, they find all these dead bodies. The government got involved, and rightfully so. Yeah. Sounds like an X Files episode. Definitely. It's exactly what it sounds like. But it was real. Yeah, well, X Files is real, too. Really? Sure. Based on real accounts. As far as I know, every single one did not. Yeah. So the government gets involved, which means science gets involved, because being an elected official doesn't necessarily make you a science type. You're not an egghead. Right. Far from it. Right. So the Cambriani government recruited some scientists to say, what the hell just happened? There's 1700 people that were killed by a cloud of death. What just happened? Chuck, what happened? In August of 1986 at Lake NIOS, Cameroon. Well, Josh, the secret ingredient I know you know the answer was CO2. Carbon dioxide. Yes. Pretty simple. But where did it come from, Chuck? Well, that's being Coy with me. That's the thing. They quickly realized that it was CO2. That wasn't the hard part. Figuring out actually how this cloud came up from the lake was the hard part. Right. And there were a couple of theories at the time. One is that an underwater volcano had erupted and pushed this gas up, which sounded pretty plausible to me, and actually looked at some of the old articles and that's kind of what they said it was for a while. Right. Well, there's a split camp, right? Yeah. The problem is they went through and set up the British Geological Survey, set up some seismographs around the lake, and there should have been some small aftershock earthquake. Right. And they measured nothing. They also didn't find any sudden sulfur levels that would have been residual from a volcano explosion. Right, right. So that one kind of got scrapped and they went with the other camp, which was a gigantic, deadly burp, basically, is how it's described in the article. Right. Which is exactly what it was. So I guess we need to go back in time to when Late Night was formed to really understand this. Right. We need our back in time music. Okay, so 1986. Chuck, what? Ghostbusters is sweeping the nation, right? Well, no, we need to go back when Lake Now was formed. It wasn't in. We have to go even further back. Here's our time travel music again. So, check. What year are we in? I mean, this place doesn't look very heavily populated. Well, it's a long time ago. We're talking about thousands of years before Ghostbusters. Yeah. Seven or 8000 years, maybe. Okay. All right. And that's a guesstimation. So if someone from Cameron writes in and says it was actually 9000 years, then give truckers a break on this one. It's a long time ago. So, Josh, Cameroon in Africa, there's a lot of weak spots in the crust around that area. And you know what magma is? I do. It's a molten lava that hasn't reached the Earth's surface yet. Exactly. So it's like liquid rock. That's another way to put it. It rises from the Earth's mantle and it shoots up quickly and vertically, and it cuts a tube towards the surface. Right. And when it reaches the surface, the magma can rain down a big pile of rock to form a cinder cone volcano. Right. Absolutely. You're with me? Okay. Can I say the other part? Yeah. Or if this magma, which is shooting up out of the ground, comes in contact with wet rock, an explosion happens, huge explosions, and this is what formed, like NIOS. It formed a big crater. It just went kaboom, and all of a sudden there's a crater. And then this crater started to fill in over the years, and now it's a volcanic crater lake. Yeah. Right. Take a crater, add water, and you have a lake. Right. Lake NIA, and a very pretty lake. So basically, that's what happened. You've got at the bottom of the lake, you have an old tube where the magma rose up to the surface and it remains there. So if you go down about 6 miles, you'll hit the magma. Right. It's staying down there. Yes. But there's still CO2 coming up through this column. Right. But it stays trapped because of the fact that Lake Niles was 600 and some odd feet deep. Right. Every 33ft, there's 1 ATM of pressure. And so this is about 20 atmospheres, which is dense and heavy enough to keep a bubble of gas held down at the bottom. Right. The problem is, gas builds up in every kind of lake there is. Right. Every lake, every pond. I didn't know this. This is interesting. I didn't either, but I'm going to pretend like I did. Watch me go. Like when leads and other organic matter, dead fishies fall to the bottom, they produce gas, CO2, maybe methane, that kind of thing. And this happens in any body of water, right? Yeah. But the thing is, in most climates, in temperate climates, there's an actual gas exchange that happens annually. When the temperature is cool, the surface water cools and goes to the bottom, which displaces the gas, and it happens very calmly and casually. And there you go. There's no explosion. Interesting. The problem with Lake NIOS and other lakes and Cameroon is that there isn't a seasonal change. It's warm all the time. There's never that turnover. And this bubble of gas that's coming up from the magma shaft gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Right. I think Magma Shaft would be a good suit of him for you. That is a good pseudonym. Magma Shaft. Yeah, magma Shaft. That's nice. Yeah. Basically, it acts like a champagne cork, all this water sitting on top of it. And in order actually, we kind of left out the part at the beginning. Something needs to happen to trigger the gas to be released. It's just not just going to happen on its own. And they think it may have been like a rock slide. Right. Or an earthquake. Sure. And usually what happens is the whole bubble doesn't get displaced or the whole layer of gas doesn't get displaced. Part of it will, but since it's one big Cohesive layer, one part of it being ripped off will dislodge the rest of it. And all of a sudden, you've got a huge column of water coming up. Unbelievable. Gas CO2 going everywhere, forming a cloud of death. But a boom and bada bing. 1700 villagers and countless livestock dead. Yeah. And this happened a couple of other times. In Africa, there are two other lakes. Cameroon is lousy with exploding lakes. I know. Well, it's because of where it's situated yes, that is true, Chuck. It's situated over a very thin part of the Earth's crust, as you said. Right, right. And there's two more lakes. Lake Monon. This is what I gathered. Yeah. Monnoon and Lake Kivu. Yes. Both of those have had incidents as well, but not nearly as deadly. Well, Lake Kivu hasn't happened yet. Oh, it hasn't? Lake Kivu is between Rwanda and Congo. Okay. And that one, if it does happen, would be an amazingly catastrophic natural disaster. It's twice as deep as Lake NIOS. Right. Which, again, remember, killed 1700 people from the cloud it produced. So this one is twice as deep. And there's about 2 million people living around it. Right. So they will be in really big trouble if Lake Kivu all of a sudden erupted. And it most likely will. They've been studying it, and apparently it's right there about to happen. No one's doing anything about it, really. Yeah, I know. They just finally got around to doing something about Lake NIOS. Do you want to talk about that? Yeah. It's a great segue, actually, Josh. Thanks. You're natural. Thanks. You've been doing this a year. We had our one year anniversary, by the way. Does no one even recognize that? No, I didn't even know when yeah, we had a fan come in and we had our 100th episode. Came into the office. Yes. A fan wrote in and said that it was our one year anniversary. And we also had our 100th episode, which you I remember the 100th episode. Yeah. One year anniversary. Wow. Happy anniversary. Beautiful. You, too, Jerry. Yeah. Happy anniversary, Jerry. So enough of that. Yes. Well, they basically came up with a really basic some of the coolest ideas in science to me are so simple. You would have thought a kid came up with this idea. Basically like the space shuttle. Yeah, exactly. This thing make a big plane that goes into space. Yeah. They decided to degase it with a big straw. Yeah. They just basically put a pipe into the bubble, and all of a sudden, a bunch of CO2 water came up and they degas it a couple of times a year. I'm sorry. A couple of times a day, I think. Yeah. And there's a webcam. Have you seen the webcam? No, but I saw a picture of it. It looks like one of those lakes at, like, a country club subdivision. The Cheesy fountain. Exactly. That's exactly what it looks like. I didn't know there was a webcam. Do you know the address? I don't off the top of my head. So what do you type in? Lake NIOS webcam. The gassing webcam. You can probably find it, but before you go there, you should know that the last image is from November of last year. So it looks like it may be not actively running anymore. Got you. Because I think the whole idea of a webcam is to show things live as it happens. I think so, too. Yeah. Not from November. Last year. So that's basically what they did. They put the first pipe in in 2001, a French engineering team. But the sad thing is, these foreign scientists who came to NIOS to figure out what happened said pretty quickly, like, this is what we should do. We should drop a straw. In 2001, the first pipe went in, but I read that they were hoping to have the CO2 levels down 99% by next year. Oh, really? That's what I read. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. Well, and I think it looks a little bit better than it used to as well. It's pretty. Again, I don't think it's back to where it was pre 1086, when it was really cool looking lake, but I don't think it's the brown mess that it was right afterwards, either, with floating in it and stuff. So you want to hear something interesting? Always. Well, first of all, these kind of exploding lakes are actually called limnic eruptions. Right. That's the scientific word for it. And we understand the explanation, but the people in Cameroon who had lived around Lake NIOS had another story for it. And basically the gist of it is that every once in a while, evil spirits rose from the lake and killed people in villages. I'm not entirely certain why. Probably because they were evil spirits. Right, right. But you know what that's called? That's called a humorism, really, when something is explained in a different mythical way, when a myth is clearly based on historical occurrences. Interesting. So they're saying that these exploding lakes had happened before in the past, while people were living around. Precise, though. So they explained it with evil spirits emerging from the lake, but pretty much for the same result. Cloud of death. That's CO2 cloud of death made of evil spirits. In the end, you're still dead, and so is your livestock. Right. Can you imagine being as man evolved and started to figure things out? When they first started thinking and saw a volcano, like what that must have? I mean, they probably thought the same thing, that someone is trying to kill them. They did on evil spirits, didn't they? Yeah. And now when science is around, they're like, Is my face red? I know, but there's no secrets anymore. It's kind of disappointing. There's still plenty. Do you know how the space shuttle works? No. Well, I could go read about it. I guess you could figure it out. So, Chuck yeah. We've got Lake NIOS, it seems like under control. Lake Kivu is still a problem. Yes. They haven't stuck with straw on that one yet? Not as far as I know. And then there's one in Ecuador, Lake Quilatoa, and that one's about if it erupted, it would be on the level of the degree of NIOS. Right. So there's exploding lakes just waiting for a limit of eruption all around the world. So if you live in the tropics near a lake, move. Is that your advice? That's my advice, yeah. So what do you think? Is it done? Did we do it? I think we covered everything. You feeling pretty good? Yeah. Are we plugging things any longer? Let's do the blog plug. The blog. Plug it. I like the plug from the one the face transplant, the Hulk one. Blog good. Yeah. Chuck josh Wright blog. Fireball. Fire bad. Yeah. So we just redo that one? Sure. Go ahead. Just do that. Should we just reuse the one that we recorded before? No. Okay. Jerry is saying no, so start fresh. Chuck okay, here we go. Josh, we have a blog. We've been plugging this. I'm trying to think of a plug analogy, but I can't think of any. We've been plugging this for a while. It's on the right side of the homepage where you can get it now and text speak. And we've gotten a lot of fans interacting now, which is cool. And I'd also like to point out that the blog is now where you can go just for a little news. Josh and I are kind of venturing out into these little opportunities now, being interviewed on ABC News, by the way, being tickled by strangers. Right. For money. Little things like that are starting to pop up here and there. So the blog is what will promote that and let people know where they can support us and that kind of thing. Yeah. I got to tell you, Chuck, I'm very grateful for some of my friends. Like, my friend SG actually is much smarter than me and knows all sorts of stuff that I get fed that makes me look smart, because I just go ahead and post on it. Oh, is this one of the blog commenters? Yes. Nice. I lost without my smart people. Yeah. Be lost without them. That was heartfelt. Thanks, Chuck. I rarely see that out of you. I know. I'm usually just so dark and angry. Evil. Like a Sith Lord? Kind of. Without the red face paint. Right. So I guess that's plugin. Yeah, that's the plug fest. You guys have been plugged. And now it's time for listener mail. Oh, not yet, josh oh, no. Right now it's time for listener mail. Josh, you just have one under the banner of exceptional. Sorry, listener mail. But that is a long one. Chuck, are you going to read that whole thing? No, I'm going to do my scan thing. This comes to us from Helen in Guatemala, specifically in Quezaltanago, Guatemala, and she is riding in about the 2012 episode. She lives in the western highlands, and there's still Mayan people there, lots of them. And she has been fascinated to hear so much about this 2012 stuff, but only from us media outlets. Apparently, none of the minds are talking about no one cares about. I got that impression, too, when I was researching. I think we even mentioned that. Yeah, it's very much Western. Yeah, very much. She said our own calendar begins every week, month, year, ETCA. The Mayan calendars all function in a circular rather than linear concept of time and form cycles that repeat infinitely. So they don't believe the world's going to end at any particular point on the calendar. The repeating cycles are based on the idea of keeping count of the passage of time, which is very important in the culture. So she did want to compliment us that we've come closest to just completely debunking this than most US media outlets. Don't tell it to the Belgians, though, right. She did want to point out, however, that I believe at 1.1 of us said something about the Mayan calendars are used in secret. She said that's not really true. You can get them in bookstores all over the place there, and they are used. And different calendars have different uses, which I thought was interesting. There are three major ones an everyday calendar for planning everyday stuff fittingly, a religious calendar for planning rites and ceremonies, and an agricultural calendar for planning, planting and harvesting. And they still use these and get books on how to use them. And it sounds like a really kind of an interesting thing. I can see that daily calendar than selling it like things to do today if you're mine. Right. Stock up on canned goods in case world so Helen thinks and she's in Guatemala. Cool lady. Thanks, Helen. We appreciate it. If you live in Guatemala, Guam or anywhere else and you want to send Chuck or me an email, send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-10-28-sysk-spam.mp3	SYSK Selects: How SPAM Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-spam-works	In this week's SYSK Select episode, SPAM is a canned meat product made from pork shoulder and ham. First introduced in 1937, this iconic food has spread to stores across the world. But what exactly is it, how did it get here -- and why is its shelf life "	In this week's SYSK Select episode, SPAM is a canned meat product made from pork shoulder and ham. First introduced in 1937, this iconic food has spread to stores across the world. But what exactly is it, how did it get here -- and why is its shelf life "	Sat, 28 Oct 2017 13:00:03 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=3, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=301, tm_isdst=0)	38469879	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. And for this week's SYSK selects I've chosen Spam. There's so much to understand about Spam, including one of my favorite facts of our entire show, that that Spam never goes bad. So enjoy Spam now. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I am Josh Clark. It's charles W, Chuck Bryant and that's stuff you should know. Let's all go home. Some people are probably already home. Well, go to bed. Okay? Told me that in the email the other day. Go back to sleep. I don't get that. You're just being goofy. Yeah. Okay. Just lightening the moon. I got you. Go back to sleep. Yeah. Hey, buddy. Hey, Josh. I have a story for you. All right, let's hear it. So last November, not too many months ago stop looking. Just listen. All right. There was a Carnival Cruise liner that had a little fire. The Carnival Splendor was on a seven day trip to the Mexican Riviera and about 44 miles off the coast of Mexico, it went adrift because the fire in the engine room just knocked everything out. So they lost power, which means it was basically just like being on an abandoned boat, but filled with people. A ghost ship. And filled with not just people, filled with 250 magicians who were on a convention. That sounds like my idea of hell on earth. Okay? In addition to the magicians, which apologies to any magicians listening, ice sculptures melting. You've got magicians, they can't find their rabbits. You've got toilets that don't flush. You've got cabins that are stuffy. You have warm food or warm drink. Yes. So Carnival and their credit did give away free beer and wine and all that, but it was warm. So for three days, all these people were hot beer just sitting adrift. They weren't very happy. The US. Navy flew Sordis out to the ship and dropped off supplies. They dropped off crab meat. They dropped off Pop Tarts. They dropped off a little something called Spam canned meat. And when the ship was finally, I think, towed back to port, sadly, the people dubbed this crazy vacation. What do you think? Do you think they dubbed it the Poptart Casin? No. Do you think they dubbed it? The Lump Crab Meat Kitchen. No, of course. No. They dubbed it Spamcation 2010. Yeah. That's like Chad's story. Our buddy Chad was on a cruise. Remember, when he was younger, that the power went down? He never told me this one. Oh, yeah. He said it was like Sodom and Gomorrah for a couple of days. Really? Oh, yeah. He said that people were having a lot of fun and engaging in sodomy, just and gamora. Me having a good time, is how he characterized it. That's crazy. I wonder if he just didn't realize that it would have been like that. Either way, with the power on or off, he was just exposed to the power off part. I don't know. He kind of made it seem like that with the power down, people just a little nutty. It was sort of like the end times are here. We're on a cruise ship adrift, and let's just have fun with each other. Crazy. Yeah. I never been on a cruise. You? No. Yeah, I'm not a cruise guy. My dad, he's turned into a cruise guy. He and my stepmom are into cruises, but my dad's way into them. Every time they go, they come back with, like, a stomach bug or the flu or just apparently it's like the epidemic just goes through, like crazy, like wildfire. My friend Andrew in New York, or from La, but from the Bronx Andrew, he showed me video tape of his grand. I think it was his grandmother. Maybe it was his aunt. This old Jewish lady in New York talking about a cruise, and she was explaining about the cruise and how much it costs and how much you get, and she was like, she said it costs more to stay at home. She thought it was cheaper to go on a cruise than to just live her life at home. Well, she does live in New York. It was very funny, though. Yeah. I didn't tell her. Right. But, Andrew, if you're listening, I still remember that. And if you're listening, Chuck, sorry for that one. I am. So that was Spamcation, 2010. And of course, they named it Spamcation. Spam the food. By the way, if you were hoping to hear about Spam, email sorry, we'll mention that. We'll mention that briefly. But this is about the iconic potted meat, right? Which, by the way, Chuck, next July 5 will be at 75th birthday, july 5, 2012. It was introduced to the public May 11, 2012. It would have been 75 years since it was trademarked and technically born. Yeah. And then I know in 25 years, there will be a spontaneous is what they'll probably call it. Yes. Which will be spontastic. So, Chuck, let's talk about spam. It's shrouded in mystery. No one has a clue what's in it or in what degree or what it's made of. Chuck, what is Spam? Josh spam is a pinkish brick of meat that is canned, and we actually do know it's in it. It is pretty easy. It's 100% pork shoulder and ham. Yeah. And ham is from the butt. Right. It's from the rear hind legs and rear end of the pig, is what ham is. It's also got a lot of salt because you need that to help flavor and preserve the meat. And got a little bit of sugar for flavor and water. And then a tiny amount is what they say on the Hormel site. They use the word tiny. A tiny amount of sodium nitrite, which keeps the botulism away. It keeps the botulism away, and it also keeps the pinkish hue, because if not spam would turn gray, which is not very appetizing. They're doing their best to keep it pink, so I don't know if the pink or the gray with Spam specifically would make a difference. Yeah, but the grabster for some reason who wrote this article? How Spam? All the good ones. He left out potato starch for some reason. Oh, is that in there? Yeah, potato Starch is in there, too. I did not see that. Spam has a Hormel on the website says the shelf life is indefinite. No. Yes. Wow. They say it's indefinite. They recommend you eat it is stamped within three years of the stamped because the flavor quote, gradually declines. Wow. It declines to the bottom of the can. Yeah, but it's still edible. Shake it up. I'm sure it goes right back. That's really something. So should we do history first or should we go into the production? It makes sense to do history first. Let's do history then. Okay. You know, before it was called Spam, there was a product on the market called Hormel Spice Ham. Did you know that? I did not know that. And it wasn't selling very well. Well, because Hormel was in the fresh meat biz. Right. And apparently it was hard to make your name in the fresh meat biz because it was just kind of all the same looking. Right. Like, look at this turkey breast. Right. It looks like the turkey breast next to us. I imagine they still have the same problem today. Yes. But they decided to get into the canned meat business. Well, that was George Hormel's problem. Jay Hormel was the one who said, well, let's just get into canned meat. And he was the son of George, the founder. And this was in the late 1018 hundreds in Austin, Minnesota. Yes. Which is still the home of Hormel. Yeah. Right. And it's one of two places it's produced. No, there's a few others. They added some. Yeah. There's South Korea, Denmark, and I can't remember where the third one is. Okay. In North America. You're right. Fremont, Nebraska, is the other place. Right. So Jay Hormel is I guess he comes into his father's business and just revamps it and probably kept it going today. Can meet see, exactly. One of the reasons why he got into canned meat was because they were just not able to make a name for themselves in the fresh meat, but also because he came into the business during the Depression, and there was a lot of thriftiness. So people wanted something that was cheap and delicious, that they could feed their family, but meaty. Right. And Jay Hormel gave them spice ham, but it wasn't called Spam at first. Like I said, it was called spice tam. Right. Yeah. Well, he had problems at first packaging it because it took a lot of trial and error because canning meat, it was a pretty new fangled thing at the time, and apparently cell walls the heat would cause. We need to point out that Spam is cooked. Yeah, it comes like you can eat it right out of the can. I have already? Oh, yeah, man, not me. I mean, I haven't eaten Spam literally since college, but we used to take them on camping trips and fried up. Well, yeah. That's not right out of the can. No, but I could also eat it out of the can. I circumstance. I have never eaten it out of the can. The taste is the same, but man, fried. Like, I was remembering that taste today. It's been 20 years, though. Or probably not 15. It's been a lot less than that for me. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yumi's family is from Okinawa, and Okinawans are crazy for Spam. Really? Oh, yeah. Like Hawaiian. Yes, we'll get to that, too. So the cell walls would break down and release the water from the meat. So what you would have was dry meat floating in water, which is pretty gross. It's separate. Yeah, because these cells would lie. That's right. Which is not good. So over time, they figured out the canning process, which meant a lot of salt in the precise temperature that you need to cook it at to preserve it to where it is moist. And it also has to be mixed and canned in a vacuum, which is really important. That's the key. Yes. If you mix it and can it in a vacuum, you should be okay. And speaking of key, remember when you needed a key to open it? No, I wasn't alive then. Yeah, you are. It wasn't that long ago I wasn't paying attention to Spam. Yeah. There was a key that came attached to the can, and you would take off the key and insert it into a little thing and roll it back. I guess like old sardine cans used to do the same thing. Okay. Yeah. Now I see that on, like, cartoons from the 60s. But I didn't know spam had that spam keys before they went, I guess with the pull tab. Was there like a giveaway, though? Like a spam key? Like you'd send off for it? Or were they told them at the store it came attached to the bottom of the can. Oh, got you, man. Those are the good old days. It was self contained and fairly explanatory. All right, so Jay Hormel figures out how to can meet. Yes. But he was a born marketer. The guy sold. He came up with Hormel's chili concarnate. Oh, really? He hired a 20 piece Mexican band to go around the country, like, touting its goodness. And that was Los Lobos, right? Gypsy Kings. I think he would come up with great publicity since he was good at marketing, but he was hamstrung by hamstrung by the name Hormel Spiced Meat. It wasn't selling well. He had it figured out, and he later on kind of messed a little bit with the recipe to come up with Spam as we know it today, but there's something similar called Hormel Spiced Ham. So he was having trouble coming up with the name, and he had a New Year's Eve party, right? Yeah. Well, he had a contest before the party. Yeah. And it yielded nothing. It yielded names like Brunch and Baby grand. Right. And he was like, we can do better than AC Grand. Right. And we should probably give a shout out to NATO Rama, who had a pretty good little blog post about it. Is that what you thought? So Hormel is like, we need to do better than that. I'm going to have a New Year's Eve party, and I'm going to tell my guests that they can get a free drink for every name they write down on a slip of paper. And there's a quote from him saying that along about the fourth or fifth drink, people started using their imaginations, right? I imagine so. And finally, an actor named what was his name, Chuck? His name was Kenneth. D-A-I-G-N-E-A-U-D-N. We'll go with that. Okay. He was a Broadway actor. I believe he came up with the name Spam and $100. Yeah. You have, like, five slow gen fizzes, and it came up with Spam. Right. 100 cash. Right. And that was it. I guess he had to sign away the rights. Oh, I'm sure. Right there on the spot. Yeah. He's like, I'll sign it. Yeah. Spam. I wonder how he came up with it, besides the fact that he was drunk. It's intriguing and mystery. It's lost to mystery if you go onto the Spam official site and they're like, what does Spam mean? And there's a lot of conjecture that it means things like something posing as meat, like it's an acronym. Not true. Or that it stands for stuff pork and meat. Okay. It's another acronym. Apparently, there's dirty ones, too. Yeah. But what we need to point out, though, again, that Spam is not some weird mystery meat with all sorts of disgusting parts. Unless you think Pork shoulder and ham is disgusting, we know what's in it. That's true. So apparently it's lost to time. They think it's just basically taking spice and Ham and put together. But again, if you go on the official Spam website, they're like, Spam needs Spam now. Right. That's what we're going with. Sure. So that's where the name came from. It was Hormel trademarked. It introduced it to the public, and it started to take off pretty well. But it was actually aided by an obscure act by the US. Congress that was passed in the Lend Lease Act. Right. Did it have something to do with the exportation? It did. So in 1041, America was neutral, still in what was becoming World War II. Right. And the Congress passed the Lend Lease Act saying that the President had the authority to send weapons supplies and food to countries that were fighting the axis power, which effectively reversed the neutral stance we had. Right. Yeah. And spam is a good thing to send because you can have it forever. It's in a can that can get dented up, and soldiers apparently could eat a lot of it. And not just soldiers. People in other countries, in restaurants, they shipped \u00a3100 million of the stuff. Yes. So Hormel was like, hey, we've got a bunch of stuff for you. Give us a contract. And they did, and it became ubiquitous in World War II, especially in the Pacific. Right. So two things are going on with the GIS. Well, two things are going on with World War II. One, the GIS are eating this stuff, or what they thought was spam morning, noon, and night and hated it because they got so sick of it. And secondly, it was also being shipped to countries that were part of the Pacific and European theaters. And then after World War II stopped, these people had developed a taste for spam. Well, even the soldiers that hated it came back, and they were kind of like, oh, boy, now I kind of miss spam. I could really go for some spam. Exactly. So World War II is, like, this incredibly strange, perfect marketing platform for spam. And then right after World War Two, apparently Jay Hormel recognized what was going on, and he let out another advertising blitz back here in the States, and that was a household name from that point on. It was a perfect storm, if you will. Sorry. Now, does that explain why it's popular in Hawaii in Japan? Because of Pacific thing? Yeah. Okay. Especially in Okinawa. There have been Marines there forever, and apparently anywhere the American military goes and has a very big open presence in the local population. Spam is a big thing, but for some reason, people of Asian descent are crazy for spam. Well, they make it. I know in Hawaii, they have it in, like, sushi rolls and stuff like that. I imagine they do in Japan, too. Yeah. I haven't seen it in Japan. Sushi? It's called Spam musubi. It's a slice of Spam on slab of rice wrapped in nori, which is seaweed. Sure. Not even, like, avocado or row or anything like that. It's Spam, man. Is it cooked or is it raw? It looked cooked in the picture I saw. Well, I'm sure you can find it anyway. It's all cooked, but it was cooked again. Right. Okay. And in Hawaii, also, Burger King and McDonald's, you can find, like, spam rice and eggs on their menu, their breakfast menu. It's everywhere. It is. It is ubiquitous. And they're nearing their 8,000,000,000th can of Spam. Right. Pushing it out there. All right. So that's the history. We should also say the Hormel Corporation often has alleged unfair labor practices and stuff like that these days. Oh, really? But Jay Hormel was dubbed by I think Fortune magazine, the Red Capitalist because he was really progressive with labor relations. In a good way. Yeah. There was, like a three day strike once, and he had a platform built so he could meet with the labor leaders. And he hammered out things like an annual wage, a 52 weeks notice before termination for workers. Wow. A year like a year from now, you're going to be laid off, profit sharing, all this stuff. That was unheard of. He became like a really and he managed to create really good relations with his employees, which helped get them to really work hard to turn this stuff out. I'd say 52 weeks is almost foolish as an employer. Yeah. Because when it nears, it's like, no, we need you. Don't worry about that. All right. So that's the spam history. Now, we should talk a little bit, Josh, about spam production, because it's pretty neato. Like we said, austin, Minnesota, and Fremont, Nebraska, is where it's made here in the States. And it is such a highly automated process that apparently it only takes 13 workers to run the spam factory. And imagine a lot of those are shaving trimming ham, because Ed says pig pieces arrive at the plant machines across the street. Is it really? Yeah, they grow the pigs. They grow and kill the pigs across the street. The machines remove the pork from the bone, but the ham is trimmed by hand. They grind it up into 8000 pound batches, flash, cool it, blend it, and mix it with the other stuff. And then pipe it. I always love it when meat is pipe. Pipe it to a conveyor belt where it's pumped in a can and sealed shut right off the bat. Right. And then it's cooked. Right. It is cooked in the can. It's cooked in the can right. In these six story cookers that can hold up to, like, 66,000 cans at a time. Which is something because I think all of the capacity for all of I think five spam factories is something like 44,000 cans an hour. Wow. So they need this huge capacity to cook that many cans at once. Your stomach's growling. I would need a Spam right now. I thought about bringing some in. I kind of regretted with the Twinkie cast not eating twinkies live on the air. But yeah, Spam. Gerry, do you have any Spam? She's fresh out. Okay. Nothing fresh about it. So it is cooked in the can that kills the bacteria and obviously cooks it, wash it and cool it. And then applied the plastic label. It used to be lithographed on the can itself, which I remember. And it had a different picture. It had a loaf of Spam with clothes in it, and now it's a Spam burger. I prefer the old picture. Yeah. And the lithograph one way, and I think 97. And they went with probably the cheaper plastic wrap on the can. I imagine that's why they did it. Lithography is not cheap. And then it is shipped all over the country and then they license it. I guess they probably don't ship it all over. Well, they probably ship it to you. The ones here, the two the one in Nebraska and the one in Minnesota supply North America, South America and Australia. Okay. Yeah. And they on the Hormel website. If you've ever wondered what spam tastes like, it is a, quote, wonderful combination of a savory, salty, sweet taste that will make your taste buds dance. I know they did a lot of self promotion on the official website, if you ask me. Dancing tastes. Oh, yeah, of course. It was like did you go through all the questions? It was like, how should I eat spam? Eat delicious spam any way you deliciously spamily want to spam. They have a museum, of course, the Spam Museum, which is free as it should be, and it sounds awesome. Did you read the Roadside America article on it? Yeah. And I looked at some of the pictures, too. It's cool. It's a cool museum. There was one guy on the Roadside America article named John who seemed to tell it like it is. Like, he talked about the hog place across the streets, like they slaughtered 20,000 had a hog across the street there every day. It's like at the spam. That's in the Spam Museum. Yeah, it was one of the guides. Oh, wow. And apparently they employ retired spam factory workers as guides. And this guy was just like a straight shooter. All right. Yeah. So if you go, you should ask for John. Oh, really? That's what I gathered. I can't wait to hear from people from Minnesota about this that live near there. I wonder what the smell that gives off. So let's get to the health benefits of spam. It's not healthy. It's not. Apparently a twelve ounce Cam is just the standard size. Yeah. There's two sides, the twelve and the nine. The seven. But if you're eating Spam, you're going for the twelve. Yeah. That's the one you normally see. Sure. The twelve ounce can, that little twelve ounce can has six servings in it. Yeah. That's about a slice, roughly, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I'd say like a sort of thickish slice is a serving. So there's six of them in there. One slice basically has a third of your recommended intake of sodium. Yes. So full can is 198% of your daily sodium intake. Yeah. That's two times what you should be eating. Yes. It has a lot of saturated fat. A lot of fat. And a lot of it is saturated, 96 grams. And in total, in a twelve ounce can, which and you always got to do the Big Mac comparison, a single can of Spam is a little bit less than three Big Macs. Wow. Stuffed in that little can. Wow. They do have reduced sodium and light versions. They do we need to point that out? Who's eating that? The health conscious fan eater? Yeah, I mean, surely people are eating it. They're going down the grocery store island going like, I can go for some Spam, but I really should watch myself and I'll get to Spam light. Alright, I need to point out in fairness, we're making some jokes here about Spam eaters, but there are poor people who rely on things like Spam and I just want to point that out. I don't want people to write and say, you know, like, I used to have one to the Golden Pantry in Athens. I would have these daily, like cheap hourly workers come in and buy like potted meat and spin. Ya. A sausage is huge. And they would spend literally like the little pack of crackers and the potted meat was their lunch and they would spend like a dollar 50 on it because they couldn't afford anything else. So we're not making fun of those people, we're making fun of rich people who eat Spam. I'm not making fun of anybody. Okay. And actually, if you bring that up, because you brought that up spam was born out of the depression. Yeah, well, exactly. And apparently now during the recession, its production is through the roof again. See there demand is just crazy for it. So we're not mocking but Spam and they seem to take it. I mean, it's all advertising for them. They've embraced the culture of Spam and everything that it entails and it's the cheesiest meat around. It's impossible to not make fun of. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. It's a pop culture icon. Which is why we're doing this podcast. Exactly. We're not doing one on well, I guess we could do one in Venus sausages, also made by Hormel. I ate one not too long ago at the School of Humans. Wow. They served Venus sausages at their little rat party. Nice. And they taste exactly the same as I remember. I've never tasted one, but I can tell just by looking at it exactly what it tastes like. It's sort of Bologna esque. Yeah. And a tube. All right, so there has been some research that suggests that potted and processed meats might increase the risk of cancer. Yes. The FDA still says no, no, it's fine, but 2005 is a big year for that. Was that? The University of Hawaii study. Yeah. And they found that you're 67% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer if you consume large amounts of processed meats. Right. And the reason why is because that sodium nitrite. That's what they think. Well, this is why they think it it's correlated. Right. Sodium nitrite itself is not a carcinogen that preservative that they put in. Yeah, but if you combine nitrite with amine and amines are found in meat when they combine and they're metabolized and they combine, they form nitrosamines. Nitrosamines. Yeah. Man, I wish I would have said that right the first time. Those are carcinogen. Most of them are. I can't remember who did it, but somebody sampled 300 nitrosamines, and 90% of them were carcinogenic. As far as people think nitrite into nitrosamines. So if we're eating cured meat, we're converting it into a carcinogen in our body. That's the fear. Cured meat or process cured meat. But anything that has sodium nitrite in it, bacon, cooking bacon makes it carcinogenic by under this logic. Right. So there isn't, like, a direct causal link, which is why the FDA is not doing anything. Surprise, surprise. But the logic is there. That's where the fear comes from. Okay? That's where the fear sets in. And we mentioned that that was done by the University of Hawaii. And that is because, as we said, Hawaii and Hawaiians love their Spam. Do you have any stats on that? Yeah. What was it? I think for every Hawaiian, they eat \u00a36 of Spam per year. I think so they definitely eat I'm sorry, \u00a33. So I've seen different numbers here. I saw six cans per person per year. If you spread it out across the population evenly okay. As a whole, the state eats 8 million of 100 million cans that are made that are consumed in the US. Every year, which seems low. Yeah, I got all sorts of it's all over the place. The numbers are all over the place. But Hawaii leads the nation in spam consumption. Well, and they said it's far and away, so they didn't tell me who was second place. I imagine Georgia ranks it's probably up there. Top ten scrapple. I'll bet Georgia leads in scrapple consumption. I bet California is pretty low on the list of Spain. I would think so. But yes, Hawaii is crazy for you. If you can find it at a McDonald's, that means that it's part of your local culture. And remember, in 51st states, it was a big thing. Sort of saw that, but don't remember the spam references. Yeah. Anytime they were at the restaurant, there was like some spam joke. Okay. I think I might have checked out at the 25th, 1st date. It was a cute movie. That Drew Barrymore. I love her. We have to mention Monty Python's Flying Circus because they a had the Broadway show or have spam a lot. Is that still running? I think so. Somewhere. I'm sure it's on the road. Big hit. And in the 1970s, they're awesome show, the Flying Circus. They had a very famous skit about spam. Did you watch it? Yeah, I watched it again today. Hilarious. I've seen it before. I think my favorite part is the beginning when the couple just comes down on wires into the chairs. Yeah, I like that. Who played the wife? Was it Terry Gilliam? No. Shoot, I can't remember his name. The other Terry. Terry Jones, maybe. Okay. I'm not sure. He was hilarious in it. Spam. And the joke was that. There's Spam on the menu all over the place in this diner in England, and there's also a big group of Vikings that start singing a Spam song in the diner. Just type in Monty Python Spam and go for the one that has 3 million views. Vintage. A little back to the history for a second. Hormel was so involved in the war effort that they had a wartime mascot called Slam and Spammy. I did not see that. Which was an armed pig throwing grenades. Really? Yeah. Wow. Ostensibly at Hitler. Oh, of course. In Tojo. Sure, yeah. You got to toast the name of Hitler. No throwing grenades. They weren't made of spam. No, they were grenades. Okay. He didn't even look like a cute pig. He looked like the kind of pig you'd see, like, painted on the front of an airplane in World War II. Okay. I thought they were throwing, like, Spam grenades. No, you wanted to keep the Spam from the Nazis. That would help them. Yeah. You don't want them to you want to rank death upon them, not Spam. Right, that makes sense. Although if you drop Spam from high enough, it would kill you. Yeah, I guess it wouldn't be very good marketing if they're throwing Spam to try and stop the Internet. What else we got? Well, we should talk about the email version of Spam and where that came from. The story I got is that in the early days of the Internet, remember bulletin boards? If a bulletin board user wanted to scroll you off the screen, they just started typing Spam and copy pasting it until you were removed from the screen. That's what I heard. That's a good one. And they got that from the Monty Python thing, evidently. And then early chat rooms. Same thing. It was initially called flooding, and then simply Spamming. And then eventually the email version came around. Nice. And it does not stand for stupid, pointless, annoying message. Yeah, that's stupid. That's just a false idea that makes me want to beat someone up. What else we got? My personal experience with Spam has been pretty pleasant. Let's hear it. Let's see. I've had an curry. It's a very good incurring with rice. Nice. When I was in Switzerland once, I had metzgerroshti, which is one of the greatest things I've ever had in my entire life. It's like fried hash brown potatoes, slice of fried Spam, fried eggs, and then this divine gravy. And I ate that as often as I could. Surely I've mentioned it before. Mitz karoshi. You throw some French fries on there and you're at Permanny's. Yeah, I've never had Permanis. Muppet treasure island featured a character called Spam. Spam. Is that what that was on? Yes. Okay. And he was a big warthog who also wore a necklace of shrunken pig heads. So that kind of ties back in with our shrunken head thing. So he was nuts. He was nuts. And the hormel Company sued the Jim Hinton Company for, quote, a noxious appealing wild boar who was intentionally portrayed to be evil in poor sign form named Spam. I guess they called him Spam. And the Henson Company was like, we're just kidding around. Like, can we settle this? Get a sense of humor? And I think it was settled. I don't think either that or they just lost the lawsuit. Yeah. I got a world record for you. Oh, yeah? Let's hear it. Richard La favor or Lafarre, ate \u00a36 of Spam in twelve minutes. Wow. And I think he holds the record still. Wait, hold on. You keep talking. I'm going to do some math. And if you want to go, there are different spam festivals, but I think the Big Daddy is in Waikiki. The Waikiki Spam Jam. Just tell their 8th one in April, and I believe they hold it every year in April. And that is where lovers of spam congregate to trade recipes and spam related products like T shirts and mugs and Christmas ornaments and just all things spam. There's spam sculpting contests, too. Yeah. How fast did that guy eat? \u00a36.12 minutes. He ate eight cans of Spam. 812 ounce cannons of Spam in twelve minutes then. So what's the sodium in that? I didn't do that math. Well, that was 200% of your daily intake in a can. So he ate 800%? Yes, 1600% of his sodium intake for the day in twelve minutes. And he loved to tell about it. As far as I know, he's alive and well. Let's spam. I got nothing else. You know, I like to do some time. Barbie. I bet that would be fascinating. That lawsuit you mentioned, like, made me think of Barbie. Mattel love to sue anybody and everybody. They can teach one to push their buttons. No, it's just interesting. Yeah. I sort of like these pop culture ones. We had someone say we should do peanuts. Charles Schultz's peanuts. I looked into that and I may be writing the article. So maybe we'll do that. That would be awesome. Yeah. And we're long overdue for the Doctor Seuss podcast, too. Okay, well, there you go. Keep listening, because it will eventually get better. Okay, that's what we just basically promised. If you want to learn more about Spam and read about Ed Grabanowski's take on it. He tries it for the first time while he's writing this article. And there's a step by step picture graph of how to make fried spam and cheese sandwich. Just type Spam. Actually, we should probably do everybody a favor. Go to your favorite search engine type spam food and then how stuff works, and it will bring up the Spam article. Is it the number one? Hit it's up there. But it's tough to find on our site because so much computer spam articles come up. Do that and then go into the handy search bar and type whatever you want. And I said, handy search bar. So that means it's time for listing mail. Yes, Josh. I'm going to call this from Kristin, our 16 year old fan from Toronto, which is in Canada. She sent us a really nice email about how she listens to it with her family and how she learns things and all the different things she's learned. And then she got to a PS, which I'll skip to PS. I've always wondered, how do you guys distribute your information so evenly between the two of you? Maybe it's just me, but I remember in elementary school, almost every group presentation ended in either tears or a fight because someone spoke more than their fair share. I know you guys aren't in the fifth grade anymore, but you seem like nice, civil guys, but be honest, have you ever had any disagreements off the air over someone stealing the thunder? And if you haven't, how do you avoid that? Because your listeners would want to know, but it's on the spot. Yeah, I think it's just equitable. You know, some shows might speak a little more, some Josh does, and it does no good. I think you grow up a little bit and you realize it's just silly to think of things like that. Yeah. And I think by doing that, we've just kind of even out. And I think also, if one of us gets the impression that we're talking too much, we usually tease the other one up. Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's going to be a boring answer, wouldn't it? It's just not being in fifth grade anymore. I think I remember I don't think I wanted the spotlight in the fifth grade. I think I was one of those, like, I'll write it and you were like, the evil genius behind the scenes dance. Hope it yeah. So there's your answer. Fish bulb. If you have a question for us, you want to look behind the scenes, it's fine. Kristen from Toronto. Thank you. Kristen from Toronto. If you have a question for us, you want to peek behind the scenes? We'll answer anything, but we probably won't. But we'll say we will because we like interesting questions, right? You can send them to stuff podcasts@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstoughfworks.com hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out. The sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music. My favorite murder from exactly right media. My favorite murder has something forever. Everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-11-18-sysk-daylight-savings.mp3	SYSK Selects: How Daylight Saving Time Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-daylight-saving-time-works	In this week's SYSK Select episode, Benjamin Franklin first came up with daylight saving time in 1748, and people still practice it today. But how does it work? What are the pros and cons? Join Josh and Chuck as they turn back the clock to explore the ori	In this week's SYSK Select episode, Benjamin Franklin first came up with daylight saving time in 1748, and people still practice it today. But how does it work? What are the pros and cons? Join Josh and Chuck as they turn back the clock to explore the ori	Sat, 18 Nov 2017 14:00:02 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=2, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=322, tm_isdst=0)	33523348	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hi, everybody. Chuck here with how Daylight Savings time works. My Select Pick of the Week from December 6, 2011. And in real time, we have just sort of recently done the operating opposite, where we fall back with our clocks annually, which is kind of a depressing time of the year, to be honest. It means on your clock, it's dark really early. Then, on the other hand, is light a little bit earlier in the day. And daylight savings time and the whole concept of it has always just been a little weird to me. And there are many false rumors out there about why we do it, how it started, and this episode will clear it all up. So please to enjoy how daylight savings time works. Welcome to stuff you should know from howstepworkscom Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. He's on his iPhone. Chuck no, not that makes this Stuff you Should Know, the fully attentive podcast. You were saying? Yeah, I can't really say anything. You always say stuff and then I repeat it, like, 30 seconds later and I get a look of death from Chuck. We like to cover our bases twice sometimes. It's important stuff like the digestion that's right. That thing which comes out next. Right. All right. Intro. Man oh, I'm sorry. Am I stalling? Yeah. Okay. Franklin chuck? Yes. Have you ever heard of a Methuselah trust? No, but I have something to do with being old. Well, you're not old. Instead, say, a bequeathment grant that you've put in an account earning compound interest right, for 500 or thousand or 100 years, should conceivably where it's still legal, grow into a staggering amount of money. Like, very quickly. For example, there was a guy who you might have heard of named Ben Franklin. Benny ben Franklin, in his will, left \u00a31000 each to the city of Boston and the city of Philadelphia, both of which he considered his hometown. Okay. And these monies were meant to stay in a private trust that earned compound interest and by Franklin's reckoning so after 100 years, in 1890, it was supposed to be cracked open a bit, was supposed to be taken out, and then the rest was supposed to be left in until 19, 9200 years after his death. Right? So by his reckoning, each city would get about the equivalent of $6 million apiece by 1990, which is when it was supposed to end and finally mature. It didn't quite work out. Franklin's calculations didn't take into account lawsuits to stop this, to stop the idea of them with Susan Trust in general, right? Trustees fees, lawyers fees, all this stuff. So what it came down to was about three and a half million each. So it was off the mark a little bit. But he made his point, which was, if you put a grand in and you have enough foresight, you can give some money to the city of Boston. Did that really happen? Yeah, they got their three and a half mile each town did. What this demonstrates, probably more than anything, though, is that Franklin was, above all else, an idea man, right? Yeah, he was pretty good. I mean, he invented spectacles. He had some really good inventions under his belt, the electric kite. But more than anything else, he was all about ideas. And he was more aware than anybody that his ideas weren't always he didn't see him through to fruition all the time. Right. Not all ideas were meant to be. But another good example of that is his idea for daylight savings time. He was the guy that came up with this saving daylight saving time. I think most people say savings. Yeah. But it is in fact, saving. But we're going to mess up and say savings, so just prepare for that. S people. Franklin was an ambassador to France, 1784. This is a pretty crisp job back then. Sure. The Enlightenment. Come on, it's Chris job now. Sure. Woke up one morning, all this fellow Parisians were sleeping, and he said, hey, we should change the time and get these people up earlier. Did he talk like he was in Jersey? He basically proposed it in an article, but it's generally dismissed as satire. But it wasn't a real idea. Right. His whole idea was to basically everybody was, like, sleeping in late while it was still daylight and then staying up late long after sunset. It was a waste of daylight. A great way to fix this is to say, let's get everybody up at the crack of dawn, and we'll do that by shooting off cannons that wake everybody up. It was sort of a jab at the French, a friendly jab. Well, he was a friend of the French, but, like I said, generally dismissed the satire. Not really like the seed of the idea for daylight saving. No. But other people about 100 or so years later came up with similar things and they meant it. And I don't know if we can say that Franklin didn't mean it, but he didn't think it was a very important idea, necessarily. But it's so ingrained in our society here in the United States, here in North America, and most likely, if you're listening to this, in Europe or Australia, you know what we're talking about all over the world, really. You're kind of like, yeah, daylight savings. I mean, it's peculiar, but of course we're going to do it. Of course it makes sense. This is from people who really can't even tell you whether it's spring forward or fall back. So let's set that straight right now, because I think if we just stopped there and said, it is spring forward, where you set the clock forward an hour and it's fall back where you set the clock back an hour. We've just done a tremendous public service. Do people really not remember that? Yeah, I'm among them. Really? Yeah. I will always remember it now because I've studied this article, but no, I always had trouble with it. Well, that's why they say spring forward, fall back. You can also fall forward and spring back. You can't spring back. I did. Hold on, josh just sprung back. Sprung back. All right, well, here's the other public service announcement. Here in the US. Second Sunday in March, you're going to spring forward. The first Sunday of November, you're going to fall back. I didn't know that because every year I'm on the Internet going, well, when do we do this? When do we do it? Yeah, I thought it fluctuated. Second Sunday in March 1 Sunday in November. Boom. Yeah, I thought it fluctuated as well, too. 02:00 A.m. Yeah, it's standard now, thanks to a lot of legislation that's taking place over the phone over the years here in the United States. Most recently, the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Set the rules as you just described them. Right. Yes. We should also say, Chuck, to our friends in South America, you have the opposite. We're not exactly sure when it starts for you, but we can tell you that you do spring forward and fall back. No, fall forward and spring back because the seasons are the opposite. They go on to daylight savings time in the fall and then change it. They go off of it in the spring. And also one more thing. Daylight saving time. Right. I find it confusing and that the mind wants to say it's like daylight time saving. Like daylight saving time, right? Yeah. Like your time saving. Yeah. But really it's daylight saving time. So it's like a period of the year. Yeah. So I've always had trouble wrapping my mind around how you're saving daylight, not time. Everything about this is so confounding. I know, because I'm one of those people that's like what the clock says is arbitrary in a way. Unless you have a shift job, you would have made a great farmer. Yes. That's kind of bunk, too, from what I hear. Okay, so let's talk about this man. You just gave the details on when to do it. Yes. In the United States. It's the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that establishes that. But if you are Arizona or Hawaii or Guam and you say, I don't want this to apply to me, I already feel cut off enough from this country, from the rest of the world, I'm going to apply for an exemption, you're probably going to get it. Yeah. Indiana has had a mixed history with daylight saving. They've kind of fluctuated back and forth over the years, and at times, only some counties had it and some didn't. And they finally went all in 2006. Yeah, pretty recently. Yeah. If you're in Indiana, you know what I'm talking about. And it's not just the United States. Apparently, as of 2000 and 876 countries observe daylight savings time. Yeah. But I don't know which source is newer. So we'll go with 70 to 76. But just after reading this, I could see six countries falling. It's a surprisingly contentious thing, setting the clock back an hour, basically. I saw one source that calls it the arrogance of humanity. To set time period? Yeah. Well, no, to adjust the clock. Yeah. It is now two and not one. Right, exactly. And it is a little bit loony, if you think about it. I think Japan, India, and China are the only major industrialized nations who do not observe. And it's getting more and more difficult, too, to be a country like that in this globalized world, to not observe savings. It's kind of problematic. Sure, yeah. I imagine that's why most countries do it now. Well, not most, but a lot. So Europe has long observed what's called summertime, but it wasn't until 1996 that the EU said, hey, let's all just stop this patchwork thing. Here's the standards now. Right. The European Union says it runs from daylight saving time. The time of daylight saving summertime. Yeah. It's the last Sunday in March of the last Sunday in October That's the EU. Yeah. Good for them. Stuff you should know, you mentioned earlier that another couple of guys that proposed this, one of them was New Zealander named George Vernon Hudson, and he was actually the first dude to genuinely propose this. And he gets overlooked a lot of times by the other guy we'll talk about. But Hudson in 1895 was an entomologist and astronomer, and he had a shift job that allowed him I guess he worked at night because it allowed him extra daylight hours that his friends weren't getting. He'd go out and hunt for bugs, and he's like, this is great. He's like, we ought to really try and do this. But William Willett of England is the guy that a lot of people credit with it, and I think it's because it was kind of his passion in life. He really tried to get this pushed through. Yeah. He was an avid golfer, and his whole premise for it was that it would extend time for leisure after work. After everybody got done working for the day, there's still daylight hours. And he wrote a pamphlet that's online. It's called the waste of daylight. It's online in its entirety, if you search that. And he lobbied the House of Commons to institute this, and in 19 eight, they officially said no. But he kept lobbying them until his death in I think the died in 1915, actually. So he did not get to see it because a year later oh, yeah. Insultingly enough, a year later, it was brought on in England, thanks to a little something called World War I. Yeah. And actually, it was Germany. That was the first country to ever institute daylight savings time. Yeah. They called it war time, though. Yeah. So did FDR later on oh, did he? Yeah, but the Germans started it. The English quickly saw the value in it and they started it. And it was all the preserve coal supplies during the war, because if you were up earlier, you'd be tired earlier and you wouldn't stay up as late earning precious coal needed to pound the Kaiser into oblivion. That's right. And a lot of nations got on board because of World War I, 31 in total, including the US. And then World War II after the war, I think most of these countries got rid of it. It was just for war. Yeah. And then World War II came around. Same thing happened, but in more abundance. 52 nations this time. Right. And the US actually kept daylight savings year round for three full years uninterrupted from, what is it, February 1942 to September 1945. And apparently, FDR, he called it wartime, too. He had no problem with it. He was just going to leave it like that indefinitely. And he finally acquiesced to farmers, which, if you know much about farmers in that era, they were really effective at striking at overturning like scab trucks and dealing with communists and being pro Communist, and they were a force to be reckoned with. They call it God's time. Did they really? Yeah. We'll talk more about the farmers in a minute. Go on. Well, we had it for three years solid, like you said, and then after the war, they said, you know what? You don't have to do it, but it's up to your state if you want to keep doing this or not. Some did, some didn't. Yeah. So that's the history. Well, actually, no, it keeps going in history does keep going, doesn't it? Yeah. So the states are all patchwork and everybody's just kind of doing however they want, but we have this thing called the Interstate System that comes about which links states more and more and there's more trade, and really, people need to know what time it is in another state that they're sending stuff to. Sure. So the Uniform Time Act of 1966 finally said, you guys can decide whether you want to do it, but if you're going to do it, you have to do it along these guidelines. And it stayed that way uninterrupted until 1986, except for the Arab oil embargo, where the US said, we're going to extend the daylight savings through winter as well. Yeah. I went from six months to eight months 1973, because they found that doing so saved the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day. It's a lot. And 600,000 in those two years. Is it true? Who knows? Conspiracies about that definitely up for debate whether it saves 10,000 barrels of oil a day. Yeah, I'm sure it's up for debate. The weird thing about daylight savings is it's largely been intuitive for decades. It was practiced for decades before anybody finally put it to the test. Well, the whole point behind it is this, Chuck. There are more people asleep at sunrise, and more businesses are closed at sunrise than at sunset. So if you look at electrical demand right. As a whole over the course of a single day, you're going to see in the afternoon, in the evening, it starts to peak. If you take an hour, if you take the whole day and shift it backward by an hour, people are going to get up earlier, and it's going to spread that electrical demand over the day. Yeah. They're also going to go to bed earlier, so they're going to use lamps less. They're going to stay up less late to watch TV. So the overall demand should decrease, too. And this is the whole reason that daylight Savings time has always been kind of championed by most people. That's the whole reason that they want you to think, well, that's part of it. The other is to get people outside more. Yeah. I mean, I read up on this, and what I found out was that it really comes down to money. They want you spending money more, and that is going to happen more if you're out and about shopping or playing golf. Exactly like the golf lobby in 86, the last time before 2005 that anybody tinker with it. Reagan said in Public Law 99, he started at the first Sunday in April, which was where before in 1966, it was from the last Sunday in April. Right. So a full month he added to daylight Savings time. But the golf lobby said that an extra month or an extra hour, I think an extra month was like $400 million to just that industry alone. See there yeah. Money talks. And the reason I say that's the main reason is because they've done studies. In fact, in 73, when they did the oil embargo, they didn't just study oil barrels, they studied utilities, and they found that it's a pretty negligible difference, about 1% energy savings. But that's for the whole country. That's a lot. That is a substantial amount of that's a lot. See. I read it's. Negligible. Say it is 1%. Say it is negligible, but say that it's 0%. If you don't do anything, you automatically have said, well, there's a savings in energy, especially in this eco conscious society that we're growing into. That's it right there. Okay, daylight Savings time. Do it. We'll save 1% of all the energy expended. Fine. Do it. It's better than not, right? Sure. What else could possibly go wrong? And I was very surprised from this article to find that there's actually counterarguments to daylight Saving time. Well, yeah, because they basically, I think people have challenged these studies, is what I've seen. In 2001, they did another study, California did, where they actually doubled it to a two hour shift, and in the end, they found that electricity savings of about 0.3 for the year. Right. Which is substantially less. But you can also say it's still better than nothing. Why not just do it? That's true. There's also other arguments too. Things like there's fewer traffic accidents in the evenings because it's lighter out. That's what they say on the evening commute. Crime is decreased because criminals prefer darkness. And if you're out taking a walk after work and it's light out still, you're probably not going to get mugged. And then, of course, the golf industry said everybody needs to get off their rears and get outside and play more golf. Golf fever catch it. And they are big on that as well. Well, I got most of my info you should know from that Skeptoid guy. What's, here? Dunning. Well, no, that's what he said. He said basically it's all about money. He said don't be fooled into thinking this is some energy plan. And he said that the numbers are suspect. And then it really comes down to spending money as a consumer. I'm sure it does. The other aspect of it, you know who's the biggest against it now? Who? These days? It used to be farmers. Well, he said that's bunk too. He bunks everything, though. So here's the thing. Farmers, from what I understand, it used to be farmers, and I've seen this elsewhere, that farmers had a problem with it because daylight savings added an hour under their day. They had to get up at the crack of dawn no matter what time it was. So if they had an extra hour, they had to extend their business hours because they had to deal with the public who was running on an hour later time. Right. So farmers hated daylight savings and they railed against it. That's my understanding. With modern technology, where a lot of the farm processes are automated, they don't have to worry about the sun time or God's time as much. They're not as opposed to it. The problem is with airlines now, when they're flying to places that don't have daylight savings, they apparently have a lot more trouble getting a slot at an airport when the time doesn't quite match up, because the airport is like, we're not going to the trouble of figuring this out. Right? Go lobby your government to stop screwing with time. So apparently that's the big industry that's opposed to daylight savings right now. Interesting. Yeah. Like I said though, that's his job. He's the Skeptoid debunking. He said the farmer thing is he thinks it's somewhat of a myth because he said all the sources are the exact same and he can't find any origin source that he thinks is valid. That's pretty good evidence that something is a myth, but he's trying to prove a negative. He should be opposed to that. Maybe he is. There was a new study, though, recently by a guy named Matthew Coaching. He's an economist at Cal. Go, Bears. And I said, Indiana has kind of been back and forth over the years with like half the state doing it. When they finally went all in six, he said, hey, this is a great opportunity to check this out and study it. And he found that it led to a 1% rise. He figured that lamp usage went down overall across the daylight savings. Right. But that there was a peak in energy demand. That was an increase over when you don't observe daylight Savings in the fall when it was cold in Indiana in the form of heating. Like people, their heat went up because they weren't under the blankets as early as when they just observed standard time year round. And that actually cost $9 million for the state. Well, I think that's part of Dunning thing, too, is these studies that were done in the 70s, they didn't have computers and ipods and bluray players, and we have way more things besides lamps these days right. To take into account and air conditioners and things like that. So he's saying it's kind of an outdated there were no lamps in the 70s, an outdated model. And daylight Savings chuck also kind of strikes me as like a really good example of for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. So, like, there's fewer fender benders during the evening commute, but apparently parents are also, like parents groups are also opposed to daylight Savings, in part because kids accidents involving kids waiting for the bus in the darker mornings increase. Oh, really? And then if crime goes down during the summer, but then it increases in the fall. Now, there's no figures to support that necessarily, but there's also the only study ever conducted about how daylight Savings creates a decrease in crime was a single study of the District of Columbia in the 70s. That finding a 10% reduction, but no one's ever backed it up. That's the only one. Yeah. Well, and think about it, too. Cars are good for industries like tow trucks and mechanics, the tow truck lobby, the auto industry yeah. That wants to sell you a new bumper. You're right. Everything has an opposite reaction. And also, apparently chronobiologically. It can be very problematic for us. So it says was he German? Yeah. I didn't see his name. He just referred to as a German Chronobiologist. I couldn't find him or her. Yeah, that's true. He or she says that your body never even adjusts period to the circadian rhythm, and so you're just out of whack for eight months out of the year, or I guess it depends on which one he thinks is right. Yeah. And the big problem is going back and back, like going back and forth, right. If we all just said, okay, the whole world is going to set their clocks back 1 hour forever, and that will be referred to from here on out as the hour, the moment, and then we're just going to forget about daylight Savings time, it would conceivably have the same effect. Right. But it would not have that jet lag problem that the German Chronobiologist describes. Right. And even worse, there's other people that propose extended daylight savings throughout the year or throughout winter as well. Okay. Right. If we did that once, it would conceivably be fine. Our bodies could adjust it's going back and forth. Other people are proposing double daylight savings where you go back 2 hours, which would probably wreak havoc if the chronobiologist is correct. Right. And there's actually data that supports this idea that our bodies are disrupted by it. Like the Swedish heart attack study. Yeah, I'm sure they are. I never thought of it as losing an hour, though, because it happened at 02:00 A.m. On Sunday, and I would just wake up and whatever the clock said, is what it said. Yeah. I never felt like I guess I don't get up Sunday morning at seven for a shift job. No, that's a big part of it. I saw in the Consumer, some guy wanted to know about getting paid because he worked late night on November, this past November, for Sunday in November when he had an extra hour, because there's actually 25 hours in that day. Right. 01:00 am. Is counted twice. Interesting, isn't it? There's a 25 hours day that we just went through that's got to mess this up somehow. It's got to, and it does. The Swedish study I was referring to found that since 1987, the number of heart attacks rose about 5% during the first week of daylight savings time every year. And then Australia, some Australians looked at some data between 1971 and 2001 and found that male suicides increase in the weeks following daylight savings time. And they're controlling for everything else. And it appears to just be daylight savings really affects people with bipolar disorder and men are more prone australian men with bipolar disorder are more prone to commit suicide in the weeks immediately proceeding to change over to daylight saving. Wow. Yeah. That's sad. It is sad. There have been some kind of interesting things that happened over the years because of DST. In 99. The West Bank was on Daylight savings. Israel had just switched back to Standard Time. So a group of West Bank terrorists were preparing some time bombs, smuggled them to their counterparts in Israel, and as they were planning the bombs, they blew up. No. Yes. No. That's what it says. Is that from Skeptoid? No. Is that from Snopes? They'll take snaps, too. I think that's real. Wow. I think that happened. That is crazy. Minneapolis and St. Paul were on different times in 1965, which kind of whacked things out. Amtrak a train cannot leave the station before it's scheduled to obviously can't leave early because everyone's going to get on. So when you fall back in October, if you're running on time, you stop and sit there for an hour. November. What did I say? October. I think it used to be in october when this was written. So you sit there for an extra hour if you're on Amtrak on that day? That's right. That's crazy. And then in the spring, apparently, they don't do anything but try and catch up. Like everything's a little late for a little while. And they just try to drive faster. Can you imagine being a logistician? I want to hear from logisticians. I have a deep respect for your profession. Yeah, agreed. That's tough stuff. Time. Who knew? Is it arbitrary what the clock says? It's just a number. I tend to go with just the rise and fall of the sun and moon. Are you kidding me? Like, you could throw away every clock in the world and nothing would really change. In uncivilized parts of the world, in the civilized world, everything runs on the clock. But it's just time the number was invented by. Man. I know what you mean, man. You know what I'm saying? A little abstract. Thanks for that, Chuck. I think that was an excellent way to kind of put everybody to sleep. No, just put them on a little cloud. Yeah, man. If you want to learn more about clouds, about Daylight Savings Time, about Chuck Bryant you can type in those words in the search bar@houseoffworks.com and it'll bring up some very cool stuff, I assure you. And I said, search barhouseofworkscom. That means it's time to Chuck. For listeners. That's right. Not listener mail. We have a contest we have nothing to do with. Yes, this was sprung on us, but we like it. We're in favor of it. Yes. If you are interested in coming to Atlanta, all expenses paid. Yeah, that's the kicker. Actually, I'm not going to say all expenses paid. Yes. I don't know if we should legally say that certain expenses are paid. You can come here, tour the studio, hang out in the office. We'll even go to lunch with you. With Jerry. Jerry will be there, and you'll get to see her face like we won't make her wear, like, a paper bag. You can enter this contest. It runs now. If you're in America. Yeah, the United States. As I always tell everyone from Canada and elsewhere that's mad about this, I can't win your contest, either. I don't think that makes anybody feel better. No. If you're American, if you're in the United States. It runs through December 31. Winners will be announced the week of January 1, 2012. Grand prize trip to Atlanta includes one night hotel airfare up to $500. Nice. And then American Express gift card for incidentals like taking me and Chuck out to lunch. I think we'll pick that up. Okay. And if you refer somebody, you go to Facebook thehouse of Orchestra, not the stuff you should know. Go to the housetophos.com Facebook page, enter, and you have to like it. And then you enter. It's the only way to enter, as far as I know. Yeah, I think so. But if you refer someone and they win I'm sorry. After person A enters a contest, he or she can share the contest link with friends via Facebook and Twitter. And if a friend of theirs wins, then you win a Kindle fire that's not too shabby. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I would give you the link but it's like 3000 characters long. So just go to Facebook housetoforks.com. Housetofworks official Facebook page. Yeah. And you will find the information there. Yeah. And lunch it up with us. Yeah, let's do lunch. Before we go, I want to correct myself big time correct myself about patent trolls in the gene patents. Okay. Episode I mentioned patent trolls and I don't even remember what I said they were, but I was way off. Patent trolls are people who go around buying patents with no intent of manufacturing these things or what the patent is for. I figured that's what it was like buying a website domains. Sure. But then they sue. The whole point is to own the patent so that they can sue anybody who infringes on it. So basically they're keeping any kind of innovation from coming about along the same lines of what they own the patent to by suing people who try to do it. And they're basically just whatever. This great idea that's patented is just never going to see the light of day because they have no interest in doing that. They just want the money from suing people. Got you. That's a patent troll. I apologize for to all the patent roles out there. Yes. To all the people who corrected me. Thank you for that. Yes. If you want to correct us, we are always up for that. You can send us a tweet at Syscape podcast. You can join us on Facebook. We have our own page too. It's stuff you should know. And you can also send us a good old fashioned email stuffpodcast@housetuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstoffworks.com. Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-10-21-sysk-cheese.mp3	SYSK Selects: The Cheesiest SYSK Episode Ever	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-the-cheesiest-sysk-episode-ever	In this week's SYSK Select episode, cheese is often overlooked as a one of humanity's great achievements. Making cheese is surprisingly easy: It's been accidentally created by more than one culture at different times. Tune in to learn more about cheese --	In this week's SYSK Select episode, cheese is often overlooked as a one of humanity's great achievements. Making cheese is surprisingly easy: It's been accidentally created by more than one culture at different times. Tune in to learn more about cheese --	Sat, 21 Oct 2017 15:30:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=15, tm_min=30, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=294, tm_isdst=0)	43450715	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful from the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and the Disney Nature Films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com. Hi folks, this is Chuck here. Welcome to the Saturday Selects edition of Stuff You Should Know. This week I am picking out the cheesiest SYSK episode ever from August 25, 2011. This is not a show about bad music, but this is a show about cheese. I love cheese. Josh loves cheese. A lot of people love cheese. And this ended up being a very dense it probably could have been a two parter, but a really cool episode about the history of cheese and how it's made and just the varieties of cheese. You could have an entire 14 part series on cheese. But as we do, we decided to cram as much as we could into one episode. So pour up some wine, cut some cheese. Metaphorically. Actually, not metaphorically. And enjoyed this episode. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always. Is Charles W so funny? Chuck Bryant. Is that a new nickname? So funny Chuck. My wife would beg to differ. She might say I'm not so funny sometimes. No. Okay. So Chuck yes. How are you doing? I'm great. I've got an intro this time. Awesome. How long has it been? I don't know. It's been a while. Really? Since we've had a proper intro? Yes. Okay. If you ask me. So let me paint the picture for you. Alright. In May of 2010, a little newspaper called the Telegraph, I believe out of London, published an article about a recent survey of 4000 consumers, british consumers, of what were the top 100 most important inventions ever created by man. Okay, so some of them are not surprising. The wheel came in first place. Beer is on there and it came in was it on there? I don't know. I can tell you. Painkillers were on there in 13th place, 15th place. But no, man, I didn't see beer on here and surely it is maybe that was just they don't consider that an invention. Sliced bread came in seventy th place. The iPhone came in 8th place. What ahead of the combustion engine? That's ridiculous. In 87th place came calendars. Okay. But then right after that, in 88 place came the cheese grater. Yes. The greater the cheese grater. That makes me think so. First of all, this is clearly one of the dumbest assemblages of 4000 people ever put together calendar. And then cheese greater and then iPhone. I think that possibly I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and that they didn't assume that cheese was invented by humans. The cheese grater was clearly invented by humans. You don't find them growing on trees. Cheese, apparently, you find growing on trees. It's a gift from God. But I think had the pollster said, I just want to remind you here that cheese is an invention, that it would have scored higher, at least 88. It would have at least replaced the cheese grater. Oh, yeah. England, I don't know how they are in cheese, but the EU is real big on cheese. It is as a whole. So it's Wisconsin, New York, I think Germany. And it's in the EU. France, Greece, Denmark, Belgium, they're all, like, in the top ten. Yes. Greece is way ahead of well, Greece comes up in some stats that are coming right after this. But Chuck, cheese is an invention. And as legend goes, an accidental invention. Right? Yeah, I've seen it dated back to pre history. So they can't obviously trace it back to 6000 BC and say how it happened. Right. Well, they can say that it was around at least as late as 3200 BC. Because it was found in the tomb of one of the Egyptian pharaohs cheese. 5000 year old cheese. Wow. And the idea goes, the legend goes that there was some shepherd, some goat herder, some cow herder, which I guess you'd call a rancher, went to, I guess, go tend to his flock. And he had his daily milk, and he used a cow skin or a cow stomach, a calf stomach specifically to store the milk. And when he went to go drink it, it came out all curdled and smacked his face. And he said, what is going on here? He told some people about it and it took root. Now, see, I read that Rokafort was invented by accident by a shepherd. Yes, I read that, too. And he stashed his lunch in a cave because he saw a young maiden that he wanted to go get down with. And he forgot about his lunch and came back like, a couple of weeks later and it was moldy and he ate it anyway. And it was like, hey, this is pretty tasty. Yeah. He's like, I like this a lot. So that makes me think these tales might be just intermingling some. Well, they are tales. There's nothing specific, nothing documented. But Rochfort also supposedly is from the dates to about the time of Christ. So if Jesus known as the Egyptians in 3200 BC, and it would have come before that, but it's possible they were invented independently, accidentally. Right, that's true. There are a lot of shepherds running around at that time, a lot more than these days. That's true. And Rokuford is also a PDO, which is a protected designation of origin cheese. That's true, man. Which means it's got to be made in rochafort sewer souls. All right. And specifically this mountain range, this small area of mountain top. Got to get the sheep from there in France. Got an agent in the caves there. Yes. Or you're not eating. Roquer. And still to this day, speaking of how Rogue first produce the shepherds, it's still kind of dressed like they used to during medieval times, like Little Bo Peep, kind of, but they all have beards. It's really kind of disturbing to go to this area. The families make the cheese from their own flock milk and then take it to the caves, where it's purchased by a feignurs, which are expert finishers of cheese in France. Which means they just sit around and look at it. Yeah. They're like, Come on, hurry up, the cheese is done. So that's just a brief sketch of cheese history, right? Yeah. And that's the most interesting stuff, I would think. All right, well, that's the podcast. All right, well, let's talk cheese, man. You know, these stats are interesting. Yeah. In 2009, the average American consumed or the American consumed an average, depending on which way you want to look at it, of \u00a332.9 a couple of years ago per person per year. Say that one more. \u00a332.9. Let's just call it \u00a333 of cheese per person per year. I love cheese, but I don't think I eat that much. I had no idea I was eating that much cheese. I might be that dude. I love cheese. I'm going to start paying attention. I'm going to do a yearly cheese count also. What was it, like? \u00a333 per American per year of cheese? Yeah, take a few ounces. That's part of \u00a382 billion of cheese that America alone produces, or produced, I should say, in 2008. And get this, 82 billion. 82 billion. I got, like, eight different stats on that. Yes. There's a lot of different stats out there. It's true. I got from 9 billion down to 10.1 million. I got 82 billion. Wow. We're all over the place with that one. Okay. This is from, like, a cheese board, probably Wisconsin. I probably would have been, like, the Delaware cheese board. I'm not listening to this. But in 1975, we ate \u00a314 of cheese a person, so we doubled our cheese intake since. 75. That's really something. What year were you born? 76. Might have something to do with that. I knew I was destined for something, but the Greeks are up to close to \u00a360 a year. Yeah. The Greeks and the French apparently score between 53 to \u00a373 on average per person. The Greeks and the French are tied as the world's greatest consumers of cheese it's a lot of feta, that is. And feta is probably the oldest cheese, by the way. Speaking of cheese history, it's also one of the simplest. Yeah. I love crumbly. Delicious feta. Right. Feta. If you went to Greece and grab some feta that some Greek shepherd farmer had just made and you brought it back to the US. They would slap the cuts on you. The FDA would. Oh. Because the aging laws we have here are different. Yeah. It's a raw milk cheese, which means it's a fresh kind of cheese made from unpasteurised milk. And in the US. If you make that kind of cheese, if you make cheese using pasteurized milk, you have to age it 60 days at least. UN pasteurized milk. UN pasteurized milk. Yeah. So this is just like we just stepped into this fascinating world, if you ask me. Yeah. Pasteurization, just quickly, as most people know, is when you take food, usually a liquid, though, you heat it up really hot for a specific amount of time at a specific temperature, then you cool it down really quickly. And the goal there is to slow down microbial growth, but not stop it. Right. Because that would be sterilization and not pasteurization. Right. Named after the great Louis Pasteur. Yeah. And if you don't want to sterilize it because that ruins the flavor, I would imagine. Sterilized milk. Sterilized cheese. Yeah. It's not good stuff. But not only is pasteurization good for your health, most would say. Yeah. While cheese kind of stores, like, the hard core kind that have, like, Mohawks with, like, Elmer's glue. Right? Sure. They will tell you that the only good cheese comes from cheese made from unpasteurised milk. Yeah. Raw milk cheese. Yeah. But other people will tell you you're not really right. We can make really good cheese with pasteurized milk, and pasteurized milk makes for an easier cheese making process. It's more reliable, it's more predictable. Yeah. And when you're making metric tons of cheese, you want something consistent like that. Right. All right. What a whambang start. Why do you talk about milk all the time with cheese, Josh? Well, because cheese is really just a portable form of milk. Yeah. Basically, it's like grain represents virtual water. Sure. You ship grain from one place to another, you're really shipping the water that was used to produce the grain in addition to it. Yeah. I remember seeing those commercials. I think it was craft. Like, there are two cups of milk and every slice of craft American cheese. And I always thought that's impossible. Yeah. Look at it. That little slice of cheese, and look at two cups of milk. There's no way. You're probably right, though. No, they can't say that. They're the second biggest food company on the planet, I think. Yes. So you're right. Josh, I can tell. You and me, cheese is nothing but milk. Milk is about 80% water. If you remove this water, you got cheese basically. Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that, but it's not that much more complicated. I was really surprised. Both of us apparently went our own way and learned how to make cheese. And I have to say, like, I am strongly considering getting me and you me into cheese making. You can make mozzarella pretty easily. Yeah, but I'm not big. I'm okay on mozzarella. I like a good mozzarella, but more I'm into, like, the slightly stinkier cheeses you can pull off making, like, a Limburger. Well, I wouldn't make that, but I could make, like, a Gouda or a Chevrolet. Chevrolet. Yeah, I like that, too. Speaking of limburger, quickly, I don't remember the name of the bacteria, but the bacteria used in making limburger is the same one on our body that creates body odor, which is why I read that as well. Yeah, that's why people say it smells like feet. Because it does. Yes, and scientifically speaking, you're absolutely right. What if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yeah. Listed in as host, Veritude Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access, global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the I Heart Radio and Salesforce.org original podcast, Force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com types of cheese. So we'll break that down real quick. Yes, we should, because there's a big, contentious debate about how you classify cheese, and this guy, Steven Jenkins for this article seems to have a pretty good handle on how she should be classified. Josh, he's a member of the Converte Chevalier duesee fromage very nice. Thank you very much. I was looking at it. I wonder if I'm going to have to handle that one. It's cheese connoisseurs, and he's an expert, and he says you can break them down into fresh, soft, ripened, washrind, natural rind, blue veined, uncooked, pressed, cooked, pressed, and processed and chuck, like we were talking about already, the fresh cheeses. This is the easiest, the most basic, the most ancient kind. You've got your feta, you have queso fresco. Moscowone, right. Not mascarpone. The R goes after the S, so it's mascot. I wonder why it is always mispronounced. I have no idea, because I thought it was Marcapon until I read it and I was like, that rolls off the tongue, though, more than the Rs rolls off the tongue, more than the mascarpone. Yes. Which isn't even really cheese, technically, right. No, it isn't. You skim the cream off of the top of the parmesan making process and add a culture to it, and you got Moscow Pone REGOT, also known as ricotta. But if you're from New Jersey, you might say regolt. Okay. And cream cheese, obviously. Yeah. And I think you mentioned queso fresco, right? Yes. Those are fresh cheeses. Yes. Those are the ones where you just basically go through step one through three of cheese making, and then you just start eating it. Yeah. And some of them still contain the liquid part, the whey. Right. And they don't keep very long. And that is fresh cheeses, which is why you got to eat them right away. That's right. It's a portable way of preserving milk, but it's only preserving milk for, like, an extra day or two. Yes. It's very mild, taste, very milky. Okay. Soft drip and cheeses, josh they're semi soft. A lot of times they have a white bloomy rind, and we're talking Brie. A little more flavorful and buttery, but still pretty mild. Yeah. So the rind on Brie specifically, or any kind of bloomy rind cheese is made from bacteria. Right. There's a lot of bacteria going on with cheese, right? Well, they just rub bacteria on the outside of the cheese, maybe some salt, and then the bacteria starts to rot the cheese effectively from the outside in. Very effective. That's what the rind is. Some people say you should eat the rind because it is cheese, but it's bacteria laden cheese. I eat the rind. Do you? I really don't. Really? Yeah. I dive right into that Brie. And Brie, as far as smell goes, is one of the milder bloomy rind cheeses. Most blooming rind cheeses and most soft, ripe cheeses are the stinky ones, like Stilton, which is the king of English cheeses. I love me some stilton. Limburger Roguefort. All right, so now we are at Wash rind. Those are the stinkiest of cheeses, Lindburger. And if we mentioned some of these just because they overlap into different categories, right. Wash rind means these usually have a reddish orange rind, and the stink comes from washing it most times in liquid like Brine or wine or beer. Yeah. Makes it stinky. You might make a wheel of cheese if it's a soft, ripened cheese and just throw it in, like a Brine bath and leave it for maybe six days per side and it's going to float on top. And then you flip it, leave it for another six days, and you've got it washed. And it stinks because of the mold and bacteria that grows because of that wash. Yeah. And the beer and wine bath also came from the introductions of cheese to monks. They said, hey, we make beer, we make wine. It's kind of what we contribute to the world. Plus, you've got these caves. Have a cocktail party without cheese. Exactly. So there you go. That's where that comes from. Natural rind moving on is heavier than most of other types of cheeses. It's aged usually, because not all cheese is aged. A lot of them are made from raw milk. And again. English stilton and Chevrolet are natural rhine. Jesus. That's when the rhine forms naturally. Yes, correct. Yes. Okay. So rind, I guess I should correct myself. The stinky ones almost always have some sort of bacterial induced rind, whether it's hastened along by washing or it just happens naturally. Right. If you got a rind, if you have a moldy rind, you're going to have a stinky cheese. Okay. Okay. Yes. And then where are we? Chuck blue vein. Blue vein. That's rock fort gorgonzola. May. Tag blue. By the way, do you like these? I love blue cheese. Love blue vein cheese. Yeah, eat it all day long. It's exactly what it sounds like. Everybody's seen it. You get a hunk of this, and it's just like crumbly, and it looks deteriorated. Okay, but that blue or the green? The veins in it is mold. Pretty healthy. Active live mold, too. Very tart. Like. That's one of the cheeses that makes my jaw just go. Do you eat it as a dessert cheese? No, I don't do a ton of dessert cheese. Sometimes if I'm at a restaurant that has a nice dessert cheese menu, but I like the cheese and wine thing. We'll get to that now. Okay. And then lastly well, third to lastly, we've got the pressed cheeses cooked and uncooked. Right? So uncooked cheese is cheddar cheese. Good old Cheddar. Just the orange block of cheese is uncooked. And Cheddar is actually the name of a process of making cheese. Cheddarring is taking the curds and just pressing them down on top of one another until you squeeze all the way out. Yeah. And all these pressed cheeses are really dry because you're pressing the way out, like you said, and that's the liquid. So it's going to be much drier, like your hard Parmigiano Reggiano cheddar. Yeah. And also as a side note, orange cheese. Like orange cheddar. You know how it's like brilliantly orange sometimes, and you're like, that can't possibly be a real orange. What's going on there? What's not? Apparently, back in the day in the spring and summer, this is the fact of the show for me, I think so. I would say the \u00a333 per person, that's the gross fact of the show. But if you want to celebrate cheese at a cocktail party. Just say what Josh is about to say. I think you should take this. No, I think you should. Okay. Back in the day, if you had your flock out of sheep or goats or cows and it was spring or summer, they were chewing grass. When they ate grass, they were ingesting a lot of betacarotene right. And vitamin D. Okay. Which lent a lot of that stuff to the milk, which ultimately led a lot of it to the cheese, which ultimately died at orange. And in the winter months, they were eating hay, which made kind of for, paler, wan looking cheese. It might have tasted as good, but people tended to prefer orange cheese. They just thought it was better. So over time, people said, well, we're just going to start dying all of our cheese orange. And that's where it came from. And to this day, apparently, it's just an open secret that among cheese makers, you dye your cheese orange if you're making an orange cheese. Fact of the show. Yes. Betacarotene, grass, summer, spring, history. So, like we said, those are the pressed cheeses. GRU regional. They're all pressed. I love Greece. They can be cooked or uncooked. Cheddar is uncooked, right? Yes. So if you take the curds and you just press them, and that's uncooked pressed, obviously enough. If you cook the curds and then press them, that's cooked, pressed, and that's like grief gouda. Parmesan. Yeah. Parmesan. No, provolone. A pasta Falata. And then processed cheese, we have to mention. Yeah. We're going down the cheese chain. Yeah. Processed cheese, technically, again, is not a cheese. It's a byproduct of the process. It can have cheese scraps, can have whey and cream and water, gums, dyes, other ingredients. You can work your way further down to Easy Cheese. Yeah. Cheese Whiz velveto. Yeah. You know when a cheese doesn't need to be refrigerated and it comes out of a propellant? Yeah. If you have cheese and can, that's a big giveaway. Usually sodium citrate, sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, sorbic acid, sodium alginate. I don't even know how to pronounce this. Apocalyptanal, anato. These are all things in Easy Cheese. Cheese isn't easy, though, so I think that should be your other giveaway. Yeah. Cheese takes time. Yes. It's not easy, although you think it's easy. Although there is such a product as Easy Cheese, I believe. No, that's what I'm saying. That's the stuff in the can okay. That you scored out onto a cracker. So that's Easy Cheese. I mean, that is the brand name. Well, what's the one where the cheese it's like a little plastic tray, and the cheese is on one side of the crackers around the other, and there's like that little red plastic spreader. Spreader. Yeah. I mean, that's some sort of processed cheese. Okay. Which is technically not cheese. No. So there you go. You can make cheese from pretty much any kind of milk. Like, traditionally, you've got cow, goat, sheep. Buffalo. Buffalo. But you can also make camel cheese and horse cheese and moose cheese, and I haven't had any of those. Anything with nipples that's lactating, you can go ahead and melt and make cheese. Even just a little cat. Yeah. Camel cheese. I'm interested to try that. So maybe one day. My day. I don't know if anybody should try to mail that to us, though. Campbell cheese in the mail? I don't think so. Speaking of lactating right? Yeah. Let's talk about how cheese is made. Chuck josh there's a lot of different ways to make cheese depending on what kind of cheese like it gets. Very specific. Obviously, we can't say that you do this for 2 hours and age it for this long. Right. But there are four main stages. Just curdling or coagulating of the milk, shaping of the curds, draining of the curds, salting, washing and seating, and then maturing. And then we can get more detailed. Right. Now, somewhere in there is the running of the bulls. I'm sorry, the milk comes in, it's got to be heated to a specific temperature. Yes. Because again, milk is nothing but curds and whey. You want to separate these? That's the first step. Yeah. And the way to separate them is to create lactic acid. Milk is chock full of lactose. Yes. But for it to lose sugar stability it's a type of sugar. Yeah, it's a milk sugar. But for that, for milk to lose its stability and break into curds, which are globby semi solid masses, and whey, which is like basically like milky water, you need to convert the lactose to lactic acid. So apparently lactose to milk sugar, holds everything together. And to convert it to lactic acid, you introduce bacteria. Yeah. There's a few different ways you can do it. It could be lemon juice or vinegar, or it can be an actual bacterial culture. And it doesn't take much of this. I saw the Dirty Jobs micro they had. I think it was a 5000 pound batch of cheese that they were making this huge VAT of milk. And he added what looked like about the size of this mug of bacteria culture to it. Yeah. So it goes a long way. Well, there's a lot to them. There's a whole lot going on there. Yeah. So if you do use bacteria, you're probably going to use either a thermophilic, which is a heat loving bacteria, or a mesophilic, which is like a kind of a warm temperature bacteria. Right. But either way, they're going to go in there and they're going to go to town on the lactose and convert as a byproduct lactic acid. Right. So then all of a sudden you have curdled milk. That's step one. Done. Step two is where that legend about that shepherd comes in. Yeah. With rent. Yes. Renting, yes. Reno I don't know if that's the word. Rent is enzymes, are enzymes from the stomach lining of the cow or sheep or a goat. Well, a young one. A kid. Yeah, if you will, or a calf. Well, you wouldn't want to some old cow's stomach lining anymore. Well, it's not necessarily there anyway. The whole reason that this enzyme is in there is so a young cow can break down mother's milk and digest it. Exactly. So when you add it to milk, Josh, it makes the casein into curds. And casein is one of the proteins in milk and way is the other one. Got you. Okay. And it is casing. So look that up. Well, there's other types of rented, too, actually. There's vegetable rent. It everything from like sunflowers and ivy to papaya and mallow. But I don't know if the taste is the same. I guess it is. I'm sure it's not the same. And I've also seen that papaya and pineapple doesn't work as well. Oh, really? Yeah. And then if you use one, like stinging nettle, works really well, but you have to basically create like a brine that you introduce into the cheese. So it affects the flavor. So you can only use it for certain kinds of cheese. But yes, if you are a vegetarian, there is such a thing as vegetarian cheese out there. And if you're not a vegetarian, a lot of them there is calf stomach in your cheese. Yeah, but just a tiny bit. Apparently a thumbnail full is like the rule of thumb excuse the pun, the coagulation period. It depends on what kind of cheese you're making. But sometimes it's as little as 30 minutes, sometimes it's as much as 36 hours. But it's set. It's like chocolate mousse. It looks set, but it's sort of separate underneath. Like the top is solid. Right. And then you've got the way underneath. But if you apparently well, there's plenty of way still left in the stuff that's set, too. But I guess if you stick your finger in there this is what I've read. If you stick your finger in there and it comes out clean, then it's set. It's like a pumpkin pie. Right, exactly. Except if you don't eat your finger now. So when you've got this thing set, you cut it with a thing called a harp, which is a curd cutting knife. Yeah. It looks sort of like I guess there's different ones, but I think a lot of them are made out of fishing line. Yeah. And so you're just like a Harper guitar strings. You're just kind of gently passing it through, breaking it up, and you're cutting it usually into like little cubes, half inch cubes, that kind of thing. And that alone releases the way. Right. So you drain the way off until you have just the kurds. And then you either use large curds, smaller curds, you may cut the curds up somewhere. You may use them as they are. Right. Then I think for mozzarella, that's about it. Yeah. You want to keep the. Kurds separate, though. Like, kurds want to join back together. Maybe they have machines, but it's smaller. Dairies. You have, like, six or eight people in there just churning the stuff up with their hands between their fingers constantly. And that's the hardest part, I think. Yeah. So you got that you got the curds separated from the way you're getting more and more way out. And then you might cook the curds. If it's a cooked type of cheese, like cooked press, like Gouda, you might just start mashing them together if it's cheddar. And then the stuff the bacteria for cheeses like Stilton or Rope Ford or whatever, the bacteria that you use as a starter starts to come into play because now it's done being cooked, it's done being heated or warmed, and the bacteria is going to start to thrive because you're giving it a temperature. You're putting in a climate, I should say, that it loves where bacteria loves cheese is like when you first make cheese, it's not very tasty. It's kind of rubbery. If it is a ripen cheese, you need to let it ripen. And ripening is basically the further conversion of lactose to lactic acid by this bacteria over a period of weeks or months or years. Right. And that gives the cheese its flavor. It's stink, too, but that's what gives cheese flavor, is the activation of this bacteria. That's right. Another thing that helps with the flavor and all cheese will have is salt. Salt does a few things. It speeds up the drying process, it enhances the flavor. It helps the rind to form if you need a rind, and it slows down the microbial growth, which is good. Right. But all cheese has salt, and it's added at different times, too, from what I've seen, depending on what kind of cheese you're making. And sometimes it's straight up salt, sometimes it's a briny wash. So it all depends on what you're doing. Yeah. When they make a rope for it again, they just take the wheel of cheese and rub salt on it on the outside of it until all the pores are closed. And then that creates the rhine at the beginning of it. So you've got your cheese ripen. You've got it sitting in a cave like environment. Right. Yeah. Temperature and humidity are very important, down to the degree and percentage. Very controlled. Yes. So before you stick it in the cave, Chuck, you might want to needle it, depending on what kind of cheese you're making. Right. Is it in the mold yet? Yeah. Okay. Yes, it's in the mold, pressed if you're needling it. You probably I don't know if you started to create the rind or not yet. Maybe you probably would. With needling in particular, blue vein cheese is your favorite. They really get their kickstart from this mold, this bacteria that loves oxygen. So you have to poke holes in the cheese, little tiny holes. This is needling and bring the oxygen to the bacteria so they can create the mold. Needling is not a nice thing to do unless you're making cheese. That's true. Or sewing, I guess. So what you're doing is actually bringing the oxygen to the mold so it can turn into that great blue vein cheese, which is really you realize it's rotted dairy is what a blue vein cheese is. I know exactly what it is. All right. You don't like it? No, I do. Okay. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you're getting into. Oh, I know. So that's some of them. Some of the cheese you can get are hairy moldy. What if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yeah. Listening is host Veritude De Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access, global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast, force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You aren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. So you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt and everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. Have you heard of kasumarzu? No. Okay. Prepare for this. Man kasumarzu is made and illegal in Sardinia, Italy. Okay. And it's this type of cheese, it's a sheep's milk cheese, which makes it a pecarena because it's in Italy. That's what they call sheep's milk cheese. Right. And during the cheese making process, the cheese makers, the underground cheesemakers, allow this type of fly, called a cheese skipper, to lay eggs, which become maggots in the cheese. Wow. The maggots crawl through the cheese, eating the milk fat and creating an enzyme that putrifies the cheese not just sticking it up molding, but putrefying it apparently it's absolutely delicious. You can't necessarily compare it to a taste. I've read a couple of things on it, and everybody says it's a sensation. It can burn the tongue. Right. It's so acidic. But if you are willing to eat kasumarzu the right way, you eat it with the live maggots on it. And these maggots can jump six inches off of the cheese. So if you can't stomach the idea of eating live maggots or don't want digestive problems for the rest of your life, you will put a little bit of the cheese that you're going to eat in a paper bag, hold it up tight, and wait for the popping sound of the maggots jumping off the cheese to stop, which means they're all dead. Awesome. Then you can eat the cheese. Would you eat that? Totally. I would too. I would eat it with the dead maggots. I wouldn't try it. I mean, it's got to taste good. It's not like they're eating something disgusting. I mean, it sounds disgusting, but it tastes disgusting. No, I would definitely eat it without the maggots if I had to. If the only way to try it was with the live maggots right. I would not be happy about it. I would strongly prefer eating it without the maggots. Okay. Yeah. Just want to know. So it's Kazumarzu man. In my opinion, the coolest cheese ever created. That's just like cool cheese stuff, how to make it what it is types. But if you're asking practicality guys, where's my practicality in my daily cheese life, my cheesy life, which, by the way, the etymology of that, I look that up. They think that it's ironic reversal from 19th century British slang when cheesy meant fine and showy. So they think that's an ironic reversal. I don't know about that. Yeah, I think some sorority girls said it and it caught wildfire. Yeah, it seems like one of those kind of words, like cheesy. It was sitting there waiting for it to be picked up and used in that way. Although it did in the 1896, apparently the late 18 hundreds. It meant cheap and inferior as slang in the United States. Something was cheesy and then it died for a little while. Who knows? Anyway, I was curious about that. So cutting the cheese, josh, there are ways you should cut the cheese. I mean, you would laugh at that. Depends on the shape and size. And this is all from cheese.com, by the way, your cheese resource on the web. You divide the cheese so that you get an equal share of the inside and the outside if you want to do it properly. Okay, makes sense. Round cheeses are cut in wedges, like a cake. Cheese bought in slices should be cut lengthwise. Okay. Not across. And tall truckles are easier if sliced horizontally. Truckles. And it's like a tall barrel cheese. Okay. It's like taller than it is wide. Got you. Not like a big wheel. So it's a cylindrical cheese. Yes, it's a truckle. Matching cheese and wine, there are no hard and fast rules, but generally whiter and fresher cheeses go with crisper and fruity or wines. Yeah. You're not a big wine guy. No, I enjoy wine with cheese. Okay. I'm into rose. That's right. Right. Now, smooth fatty cheese goes well with smooth wine. Wine with, like, gloves of fat floating on the oily wine, though. What's an oily wine? Well, I can't think of wine off the top of my head, but an oily wine, I've never heard of it. Sweet wine. Josh Jay is laughing. Contrast with highly acidic cheese. White wines usually go better than red wines, even though I love my red wine with the cheese. Yeah. Dry, fresh wines are ideally suited to soft cheese. Goat cheese, dry, white, fresh, red, soft cheeses. Got you. You can also match cheese with beer insider, obviously, and they say to try regional combinations. Like, if a wine is from a region and cheese is from a region, chances are they probably go well together. That's a good idea. Yes. It's a good rule to follow. So I have a piece of advice based on my own experience. There is nothing better you can do for, like, an hour or a half hour, whatever you can get away with on a Saturday afternoon when you have the time, then to go to a place that has a real live cheese monger who knows what they're talking about, and going up to them and saying, hey, I really like this kind of block cheese. I've been eating for a while, but I'm ready to expand my horizons. So can you introduce me to some and watch their eyes light up? Yeah, they'll be very happy. They'll cut you some samples. They'll kind of walk you through. And it's not ridiculously expensive. I mean, when you look at the per pound price, you're like, $35. But you're not buying a pound. You just buy, like, a quarter of a pound usually is about the least you can get, but still, it lasts quite a while. So I strongly recommend, if you're sitting there eating a block of orange cheese right now, go out and introduce yourself to the world of cheese, because there are some really awesome cheeses out there. There are many good ones. And when you buy these cheeses, you might bring them home, and the next day you found that they're all hard or they're not like they were when you bought it, and that's because you didn't store it properly. Yeah. And there are some tips here, Josh, for storage from cheese.com. I could use them. Unpasteurized cheese should be not sliced until it's purchased. So if you see it in a place and it's, like, sliced up, don't get it, because that's wrong. Okay. Keep the cheese in the condition in which it matures so hard, semi hard and semi soft cheeses should be stored in temperatures from about eight to 13 degrees Celsius. What is that in fahrenheit? I don't know. There's conversion tables on the web. Okay. Keep the cheese in wax paper and put it in a loose fitting food bag because you don't want it to lose humidity, but you still want to have air. You don't want it to dry out. Got you. So you got to keep that balance. Blue cheeses, you should wrap really all over because it'll jump onto other foods in your refrigerator, which you don't want the mold. Well, and it'll also infect the other foods with flavors that you might not want. You don't want blue cheese eggs. No. And you don't want your eggs to smell like your blue cheese. Right. Which makes sense. You should take the chilled cheese out of the fridge about an hour to 2 hours before serving it and wrap soft cheeses loosely. You don't want to wrap it in, like, plastic wrap really tight. Again, they recommend wax paper and, like, a loose ziploc type thing. You got anything else? I've got random facts. Monterey Jack comes from David Jack, who lived in Monterey, California. Pretty easy. And it's one of only four Native American cheeses. I think it's Colby. Jack brick and it's a Native American cheese. Well, native, like, from Oklahoma, not from Europe. Got you. Or wherever. Colby. Jack. Cole, cheddar. Jack, brick and Cheddar. Yeah. Think of the four American cheeses and the US. Guests. The number one cheese that we produce in the US. American cheese? No. Cheddar cheese. That's number two. Mozzarella. Yes. Probably because of all the pizza. Yes. That would definitely explain all the cheese consumption, too. In Wisconsin, besides their awesome dairyland, they had a bunch of immigrants from Switzerland and Germany and Belgium and France settled there. So that's kind of why it's the Swiss in particular, created the heart of the cheese trade in Wisconsin. They were doing it for themselves starting in the 1830s or the 1840s, and by the 1870s, they were selling outside of the state. So it happened pretty quick. The industrious Swiss, they are industrious with their knives and cheese. They go well together. Yeah, I know. And finally, Josh, I would invest some money, if you have any leftover, into craft, if you've got some despair chains laying around because Asia is loving their cheese all of a sudden. Oh, yeah. The continent typically not very cheesy. Not much Asian food has cheese. It's probably due to the rise of the money class in China. Well, it's due to a rise in pizza and cheeseburgers specifically. Yeah, they're loving pizza now, and apparently South Korea is the biggest buyer, and they're like they've literally doubled and tripled their cheese imports in the past couple of years. So big cheese eating going on over there now. So that's it for cheese, I guess. If you want to know more about cheese, there's a really good article on the site. Really? Honestly, it's a good initial primer to get you ready to go, to really learn how to make it yourself. You can just type plain oldchee C-H-E-E-S-E in the search bar@houseupworks.com, which means now it's time for listener mail. Spammy. Listener mail. That's why I'm calling this. I just heard your Spam podcast. I worked at the Cornell Institute for six months after my PhD. You made a brief aside about the smell. Let me tell you something, it was like nothing on earth. On days that I followed the pigs to work, I would anticipate smelling a very pungent version of newly dead flesh. Then the next day, I would be overwhelmed by the smell of halfcooked meat. It's the most powerful smell in two years on. I can still smell it. You could not escape it anywhere in the building, even in the back room of the lab. You mentioned the recession boosting the sales. I can attest that was the case. Thankfully, I was living upstream from the factory, though, so my house didn't smell a spam. But large portions of the town do actually smell a spam, particularly on certain production days. All joking aside, I was in love with Minnesota. I loved living in Austin and its people and would love to live there again in the future. I never made it to the museum where they give away stamps, but local restaurants had spam burgers even though she didn't eat any. So it does seem as bad as you think, Josh. I can imagine it would. Did you see the other person who's moved to Hawaii and has been documenting spam displays? One of the things was macadamia nuts, but spam flavored macadamia nuts? I'd like to try that. I want to as well. Yeah, whoever that is, or anyone in Hawaii. If you could send us some spam macadamia, that would be good. Okay, so that's from Elizabeth, and she is a postdoctorial research associate in the bio department at NuMaSS Amherst. Smart lady. That's a Pixies song, right? It is, yeah. If you want to send Chuck and I a sample of your cheese, especially camel cheese, we want it, email us and ask us where to send it to. Right. Or if you have a cheap story, we want to hear it. This is so wide open. There's got to be something good in there. Send us an email to stuffpodcast@howtofworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Hey. It's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer. And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstarkk, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopeets.com."
86cc55da-3b0e-11eb-9699-f3cc169e53eb	The Creepy Legacy of the Hotel Cecil	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-creepy-legacy-of-the-hotel-cecil	The Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles has had no less than 16 unnatural deaths, from suicides to murders and everything in between. Listen in to the history of this decidedly creepy hotel.	The Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles has had no less than 16 unnatural deaths, from suicides to murders and everything in between. Listen in to the history of this decidedly creepy hotel.	Tue, 07 Sep 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=7, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=250, tm_isdst=0)	46969087	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarkson. There's charleston chuck bryan over there. Haunted hotel. And this is stuff you should know. Yeah. Can we do a couple of quick announcements? Yeah, sure. Without singing that announcement song. Did we have an announcement song ever? Not us, but it like summer camp. Okay. You never did that? No. Well, I'm not going to sing it now, then. I kind of want to hear it now. No. Is it like announcements, announcements? It's announcements time. Sort of, almost. Yeah. That's close enough. Trigger warning for this one. First announcement, because there's some grizzly stuff in here. I guess that's all we need to say. Okay. And then also we've been remiss and that we haven't mentioned the fact that there's a Stuff You Should Know board game out. Yeah, it's not grizzly at all. No, it's very family friendly. In fact, it's one of the highest honors that's ever been bestowed upon us. And Stuff You Should Know, Chuck, because out of the blue, out of nowhere, about a year and a half ago, maybe, yeah, trivial Pursuit, the makers of Trivial Pursuit, got in touch with us and said, we want to do a Stuff You Should Know trivial Pursuit game. And they did. It wasn't a practical joke. The fine people at Hasbro who I got to say I mean, we've worked with a lot of outside companies for various projects. Boy, Hasbro is about as tight and buttoned up and awesome as any company we've ever worked with. Right. But also like, super friendly, super fun, super nice, amazing. And not in like, that creepy, everybody's trying to be nice way. They're all just like a genuinely pleasant group to work with. But yes, they are super buttoned up as well. Very rare. They make games. They all seem like they make games for a living, which would mean that you have a pretty cool job and developing the game with them was fun. And the questions are based on real stuff. You should know episodes. And it is not just Trivial Pursuit, it is co branded. So do not expect to get the Trivial Pursuit game with the little pieces of pie. No, just want to be clear. They said, we want to make up a brand new game for brand new game. And they did. They made up a game. And this is the stuff you should know. Trivial Pursuit game. That's right. And you can get it wherever you get games. I recommend your local little indie toy gaming store if they have it, but otherwise we would love to support you. Got a weirdo in your town who dresses up in withered clothes and goes to work. Go buy your game there. Great Christmas gift, by the way. Yeah, for sure. Also, why just stop there? It's great for Dads, grads, moms, proms, everything. I think it's like $20, right? Yeah, it's like really reasonably priced, if you asked me. $20. $20. You got 220s in your wallet. You could buy our book and the game at the same time. So we did the TV show, we did a book, we do a podcast. Don't forget our YouTube series. Sure. Who can? No. Chuck and now the game. It's amazing. And now the Hotel Cecil. Yes. Onto the show. So I'm glad you did that little trigger warning because there is some grizzly stuff in here, but there's also, I think, some fact settings, some facts straightening that we should do from the outset. Because one of the things that people who get into the Elisa Lam story, which we'll talk about in a little bit, quickly find that they are all manner of internet urban legends and myths and conspiracy theories surrounding it and none of those seem to be true. Which is pretty annoying, actually. Yeah, it is very annoying. It's just so internet, too, you know what I mean? Yeah, this goes on a lot these days, but it seems like this 1 may be more so than even others because the bizarre nature of one part of this story and I don't know, I found myself slightly annoyed. I am too, in the exact same way that I'm annoyed by people who believe that the couple from the Conjuring were like legit in real life. Right. You know what I mean? Sure. But at the same time, it goes even further than that, I think. I ran across a couple of articles that I really think struck home. What's genuinely annoying and even disrespectful about that is that, like, Alisa Lam died because she had serious mental illness. She had been diagnosed and she wasn't managing properly with the medications that she was on. And that happens a lot. And she died because of it. And so to say that she was possessed by evil spirits or that there were ghosts at the Cecil, or even that she was murdered by an unknown suspect, it really disrespects the reality of the situation, which is sad enough as it is. But at the same time, Chuck, there's one more thing I have to caveat all this with. It's understandable the impulse to bring in restless spirits and conspiracy theories. It's understandable in this particular situation because of the setting. Yes. And I guess the first part of the show will be about the setting, which is the Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles, which is not open right now. It may be open in the future. I think they were doing a this thing was open in the 1920s during the height of the Depression, and it's a very large hotel, 19 floors, 700 rooms. And in the 1920s it was sort of like a big deal for downtown Los Angeles. It was near a major rail station and it was kind of just what La needed and it was kind of fancy schmancy for the time. And over the years. We'll talk a little bit about the downfall. But at the time of at least a Lamb Stay. They had carved out three floors and built a separate lobby entrance to trying in an effort to rebrand this hotel as something called Stay on Maine. In that they had three kind of floors that were a little bit redone cosmetically. A little bit of a nicer lobby that was sort of away from some of the situations that were going to detail here in a second. But they did all share a common elevator, and at least the Lamb was staying in the state on Main section, stayed on Maine. But that's just to point out the fact that the hotel was going to eventually, supposedly undergo a massive renovation and that it was all sort of put on hold because of Covet. And I think now it's just being sat on with some of the long term tenants that are protected to stay there. Yeah, I think there's like 30, but there's, like you said, 700 rooms. Sure, but you said that the Cecil Hotel, which is very much down at the heels now, started life in a much different way, where it was meant to be like a pretty nice hotel designed for middle class travelers to La. And that situation next to the rail station was a big draw for it was definitely a feather in its cap. And I saw it's in the bozard style. It's not incredibly pretty from the outside, but the inside lobby is still pretty neat looking. Lots of Toraso tile and columns, and there's fake Roman statuary and a big clock and like, over the checkin desk. It's really pretty and a really 1920s original style still, although it's just kind of got this drab air that's kind of falling over it over the years. Yeah. And that is in large part because, as you said, there are a lot of unheard people there today. A lot. Back then, the area called Skid Row of downtown Los Angeles is kind of right there. I used to drive through that area sometimes when I lived in La. When we would go downtown to eat sushi. Back then when I lived there, downtown was not as much of a destination unless you were going to Staples Center or something. But it's made a real resurgence since I've left and kind of trying to build downtown back up. But Skid Row is still an issue, and like you said, there are people there that work with unhomed folks that are really trying their best to take care of them. And the fact that that hotel is right there just sort of looming large is a bit of a thumb in the eye. Yeah. And I get the impression that the area that's now Skid Row in Los Angeles had, at least since the 1880s, kind of had an unusual reputation. It wasn't always for people down on their luck or anything like that, but it was a little more low rent than other parts of Los Angeles. There was just a mishmash of all sorts of different people, it seemed like, really alive. And the CISO was kind of built at the outskirts of that between what would become Skid Row and then one of the nicest parts of La at the time, Bunker Hill. And everything was hunky dory for the Cecil when it first opened in either 1920, 419, 27, depending on who you ask. I could not confirm one way or the other because both dates have kind of taken off so much. But when the stock market crashed, that area, that was just kind of colorful and a little bit low rent, that quickly became Skid Row, as we understand it, beginning around the Great Depression. And not only did the proximity to Skid Row kind of, like, lower the Cecil star rating, when the tenants started, the hotel guests started to dry up. They had to lower their rates and start catering to people with less means. And so the hotel just kind of stopped taking care of itself little by little, starting around the Great Depression and continuing on through World War II. Yeah. And it kind of became a last resort kind of destination for people with addiction problems, people in the sex working industry. And it got that reputation and pretty soon got a reputation for all kinds of bad things happening there. There have been no less than 15 or 16 what's classified, I guess, as an unnatural death at the Cecil. Many people took their own lives there. If you read down the laundry list, it's like quite a few people and ingested poison. Quite a few people jumped or maybe were pushed out windows. There have been some murders by gun. There have been murders by strangulation. There have been sexual assaults. This one sad case of a woman who gave birth to a baby and was suffering from some sort of mental illness, evidently thought her baby was born, not alive, and went to throw the baby out the window, and it turns out the baby was alive, then died. She was found not guilty. I think temporary insanity was the plea there, and just weird kind of tragic, awful things happening over the years, time and time again at the Hotel Cecil. Yeah. Like another frequently referred to incident was where a woman named Pauline Auton, she jumped from, I think, like the 9th or 10th floor to take her own life and landed on a guy who was a passerby, who happened to just be walking unluckily beneath the Cecil at that moment on the sidewalk and was struck by Pauline, and they were both killed. And that doesn't usually happen very often. Like, that's a pretty remarkable thing. And I know that the most I could find was, I think, 18 incidents, but it seems like those are just ones that have been documented. There seems to be quite a bit more. There was a Netflix series, I think a four part series on this recently, and they interviewed a woman who had spent ten years managing the Cecil, and she said that her name is Amy Price. She said that under her ten year tenure, at least 80 people died that she knows of. And you can kind of imagine, you could find newspaper write ups from the when somebody jumps out a window and definitely when somebody jumps out a window and lands on a hapless pedestrian, like, that's definitely going to be documented to make news. But if somebody on skid row overdoses and dies in this hotel, is that going to be documented? So it's possible that there are a lot more people who have died at the Cecil from unnatural causes over the years than just those 17 or 18. Did you watch all of that documentary? No, I haven't seen it actually yet. Okay, have you seen the whole thing? Yeah, I feel terrible because the director is the great Joe Berlinger, who actually had on Movie Crush in one of my favorite episodes where we kind of just talked about documentary filmmaking. He's a legend. He did the Paradise Lost series. He did that documentary on Metallica when they're all in therapy. Yeah, I mean, he's just sort of the legend in the genre. I thought he did the Ted Bundy tapes recently. Yeah, he did that. And then he directed the movie version with what's his face. Zach Efron. With who? I said, Ryan Gosling. Close. Another super handsome hunk. And that was a good movie. But this wasn't so great. I didn't love it. It felt kind of over long and a little salacious. Yeah, that's the impression I had from reading about it. Yeah. So I was disappointed. But Joe is a great filmmaker and a good guy, so I feel kind of bad. I think that's a fair caveat. A great filmmaker and a good guy can still make a hunk of poop. That was all right. Okay. But maybe let's take a break and I'll email Joe and tell him I'm sorry ahead of time. All right then. We'll be right back. So the Cecil Hotel starts to get not a great reputation even around town. I read an article on KCET.org, which I guess is a PBS station in SoCal, and they said that local residents started to refer to the Cecil as the Suicide. That was the name of the hotel for people around there. Just kind of like it just kept going. Like every time. Maybe a couple of years have passed without some high profile death in the hotel and then it would happen again and it would just reaffirm everybody's ideas. That place just wasn't quite right. There was something wrong with it. Almost like it was a magnet for that kind of tragedy. Yeah, I mean, I think most major cities have had at least one of these hotels that just sort of is inexpensive, maybe in the wrong part of town and has a reputation sometimes for lured activities and checking in and not checking out. And this was La. And La for sure had more than one. Sure it did not help their reputation in the 1980s when Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker and one of the more sensational serial killers in American history, he stayed there for a while and lived there and apparently brought body parts back to the Cecil Hotel. Cecil like I'm British Cecil Hotel from some of his victims to ingest there. And that's certainly like super creepy. Wait, did you ingest? I hadn't come across that. He eat that victim's eyeballs? I think so. Wow, man. I don't think he was Domer level, but he was known to eat some body parts. There's a great documentary on his case, too. Super disturbing. Yeah. That's on Netflix as well, I think, if I'm not mistaken. But one thing I hadn't realized before that I ran across when I was researching some of his stuff was how he was caught. It's just absolutely triumphant. It was a mob of people in the neighborhood in East La. Yeah, he was spotted. He saw himself on the front page of the newspaper and just instinctively started running, tried to carjack a woman, hit her, was seen hitting her. An older man basically ran over and helped the woman pulled Richard Ramirez out of his car and the woman whose car was husband came over and started beating him and he tried to get away and just an increasingly large mob chased him and would beat him and he'd get away some more and they chased him down and catch them again and they finally pinned them down and waited for the cops to come. That's how great caveat that I'm not down with mob justice, but a group of people finding a serial killer on the street and subduing him. I'm way okay with that. No, I totally am. In this particular instance, I'm all fine with that kind of justice for sure. Yeah. And a badge of honor for East La. Because the entire city of Los Angeles, it was a scary situation there in the can imagine. That's where Chief Marin was born, according to that one song. That's right. Yeah. So the Nightstalker he was not the only serial killer that checked in there. He actually inspired just a few years after he was convicted in 1989, I think, like in 93, there was another serial killer named Jack Hunterweger who was Austrian, who had already been convicted, I think when he was like 19 or early twenty s of killing a woman by strangling her with her own braw and went to prison. He was very smart, very charming. He used this to basically get early parole. He convinced the public that he was actually reformed. And apparently it was held up as like a great example of how the prison system could rehabilitate someone, and it was just a complete false fabrication. He was basically posed as a true crime journalist, like, he reinvented himself as that, went to La. In other parts. He went to Europe, traveled through Europe a little bit, too, but also ended up in La to do research on his true crime novels, went along on ride along with the LAPD and ended up using that to scout victims. He killed three sex workers and the whole time he was staying at the Cecil Hotel. And they think probably as an homage to Richard Ramirez or at least a connection to him. Yeah. So at this point, the reputation for the hotel, it's not the kind of thing that is going to appear online 15 years ago when young people like Elisa Lam are searching for an inexpensive place to stay. And sadly, that's exactly what happened. Was a Canadian traveler, she was 21 years old, was on her way kind of up the West Coast, traveling by herself. Her parents were a little unnerved by her traveling by herself, so she was asked to check in every day what she was doing. And at the time, they had kind of dorm style rooms, kind of youth hostel style rooms where you had bunk beds and a shared bathroom and you could stay there. It was a traveler's hotel. And I hate to say it, but if you didn't know much about La, you may end up at the Hotel Cecil because you could stay there for like $75 a night or something like that. Yeah, from what I could tell, stay on. Maine did a really good job of making their website to their advantage and making it seem like this is a really hip, happening spot. In some ways, they were kind of like just a little ahead of their time because apparently that area around skid Row in downtown La is like the hippiest spot to live in now again, but at the time, it was still really, really skid rowy, basically. It could be dangerous. Yeah. And I think it still is, but I think it's just becoming more and more gentrified and it's becoming, I guess, less dangerous in that sense. But at the time when Alisa Lamp showed up in 2013, was it a dangerous place to be, but this particular spot was just full of especially European kids on basically budget holidays, staying in La. Basically in hostels. And I know originally she was put into a room with a couple of other girls that I think were traveling together, but she was traveling alone. So it was very hostile and not hostile with an E, right? Well, yeah, there's an E, but in a different place than you'd expect. Youth hostile. It was very youth hostile. Like, she was put in a room with other people at first. Yeah. La didn't have a lot of that. I remember there was a youth hostel in Venice that for some reason, I always wanted to stay there. When I lived in La. I was like, I can go down, stay in the hostel one night because the pickup beach was so the beach was really far when you lived on the East Side, and you kind of never went over there much unless someone came to town and wanted to go to the beach. Oh, that makes sense. Sure. And it was broke back then, so it could have been like a little staycation. Did you ever do it? No. It's one of those things you think about late night, and then you wake up the next day and you're like, no, you blew all your money on Taco Bell instead. Oh, man, I missed Taco Bell. I didn't need it that much, but I haven't had it in years. I've had too much, I think was my problem. Okay. Was that the deal? By the way, side note, speaking of weird late night foods, we had a guy on our front door camera the other day come in the middle of the night and leave a package, and we were like, what is this? We went out the next day and it was a bag full of crystals. Wow. A delivery. Like a door ash or something. Oh, crystals. I thought you meant like, Amethyst or no, I mean tiny square sliders. You had the wrong address, I think. So either that or your daughter has mastered the telephone by now. It was really weird. And of course, the first thing I did was feel terrible that someone's late night munchies didn't get satisfied. Did you eat them the next morning? Just says no, you don't like crystals? Or was it because it was sitting there overnight? Both. I never was into crystals for some reason, man, I like crystals. It was the thing. I don't know why. I think I was just a Waffle House guy. I'm fine with Waffle House too. The big problem with crystals, though, Chuck, I'll tell you, is their fries are probably the worst fries of any fast food. They're the most bland. Somehow, if you just bit into a raw potato, it would be less bland and tasteless than if you ate a crystal spry. Yeah, well, they don't know how to do it. And if you're from the other places in the country, you might. White Castle is sort of an analog to crystal. Yeah. Anyway, this is not an episode of The Doughboys. This is stuff you should know. And back to Elisa Lam. She was supposed to be there for about, I think, four days and check out on February 1 and did not get in touch with her parents like she had been doing each day. She had been seen shopping for books at a nearby bookstore and then bought some books. And this is one of the things in the documentary, like, they didn't really have any footage of her with any other people inside the hotel before her disappearance. Well, she was also reported to be constantly by herself, too, by people who saw her. Yeah, I mean, she was traveling alone, so that makes sense. But she did get handed out. There were two gentlemen that handed off a kind of a large box to her oh, yeah. On camera in front of the hotel. And of course, the Internet is loose, or, like, who are these guys? What was in the box? And apparently in the box were these books that she got because she had spoken with the book read seller about the size of them. And, boy, I don't even know if I can carry these. And I think had them delivered to the hotel or whatever. So kind of nothing to see here. And another example of how annoying this case can be with people online speculating wrong stuff. Yeah, it can be a little annoying, for sure. But, yes, she was alone, traveling alone. I think she started out in San Diego, or at least her last stop had been San Diego. Her next stop was going to be Santa Cruz. And, yeah, her parents have been like, okay, you need to call us every single day. And she had been pretty faithfully until that February 1 came and went with no call. And I believe they pretty much immediately contacted the hotel and the LAPD and said, hey, our daughter hasn't checked in. Can you see what's going on? I don't know if they did it on February 1 or not, but in pretty short order, the LAPD determined that she was just gone, she was nowhere to be found, and that there was some suspiciousness going on, for sure. Yeah, I mean, they did a thorough inspection. They went to her room. They had found that the hotel had gathered all her stuff and bagged it and was holding it in storage, which was regular protocol when someone doesn't check out and just leave stuff. Nothing shady going on there. They checked around the hotel, in the alleyways and sidewalks. They checked up on the roof. They didn't find anything. And things got really strange. And I guess we should take another ad break here, but things got really strange when the hotel sent them footage from inside the elevator of the Cecil Hotel. And we'll get to that right after this. All right, Chuck. So Elisa Lam is now known to be missing. She left her stuff behind at the Cecil Hotel, and she didn't check out. She didn't call her parents as she usually did, and she's officially a missing person within a couple of days, I think maybe February 6, the police held a press conference and explained what was going on to the public and basically asked for everybody's help and if anyone had any info. Where did she go, where is she? How she's doing? Is she okay? And I didn't see anything about any crazy leads or anything like that. It doesn't seem to have really kind of captured the public's interest at first. And I saw there's this guy named Josh Dean who's written several articles on the Elisa Lam disappearance. And I believe one of the ones that he wrote kind of pinpoints why there wasn't a huge public interest in the first week or even two of her case. It was because Christopher Dorner had gone on his rampage against the LAPD, basically declared war on the LAPD, and was killed in, I think, the mountains of San Bernardino in a standoff, like, right when Elisa Lam went missing. So not only was the public's attention on this, especially in La. The LAPD's attention was definitely on that as well. So at least the lamb was kind of like this faint little chirp in this huge maelstrom at the time. Faint chirping a maelstrom? It's the best I could come up with on shorts. Amazing. Are you kidding me? Oh, thanks. You just made that up. Yeah, I did. You like it? Yes, but I just have a feeling that next time I'm at your house, it's going to be like it's going to be carved into your desk or something. Right. It's on a T shirt. Right. You make Momo wear that tshirt every day. That's right. Yeah. The other big reason was, until this footage actually came out of the elevator car, then that's when the public's attention really caught hold. They changed everything. Yeah. I mean, there's no way around it. It's a very sort of unsettling, and I remember when this happened, before any of the facts of the case were kind of out. I remember looking at this video, and it is very unsettling, and it does appear to be very creepy in that a young woman gets on an elevator, very kind of casually presses all the center buttons on all the floors. I think they determined she was on the 14th floor and sort of pressed all the floors on the way down. Elevator doesn't do anything. The doors don't shut. She moves to the back corner and sort of standing there she goes. And she looks outside of the elevator both ways a couple of times in the hallway, and then kind of retreats back quickly. At one point, she steps out into the hallway and appears to be gesturing towards somebody, or she's at least making hand gestures to the right, down the hallway. Yes. They're unusual hand gestures. They're not like the normal hand gestures you might make. They're not at all subtle or casual or almost even like you might not even realize you're using your hands when you're talking. Sometimes these are more gesticulations than just mere gestures. You know what I mean? Yeah. And there's no doubt. And eventually, she kind of leaves around to the left and exits to the left, and the door stays open for a while before it shuts, but there's no getting around the fact that, having known nothing. And knowing that this person disappeared, this young woman, and then you see this. It seems very suspicious and creepy. I don't admittedly creepy. I don't even think it looks that creepy. It looks to me like that she is trying to get away from someone and is afraid someone has followed her or is gesturing at a person who she feels threatened by. It's what it looks like to me. I know other people online talk about otherworldly spirits, and like you said earlier, she's conjuring spirits with her hands. That never occurred to me. It just looked like she might be in some kind of peril and was trying to get away from someone. Right, but that's creepy in and of itself. Yeah, I just mean that creepy and like a supernatural what's going on here way. No, I think the thing that really when it really turns creepy to me is when she turns around and hides in the corner of the elevator. Like she's hiding. And then the second part that's genuinely creepy is when she leans out and looks both ways and then kind of jumps back into the elevator. It's really hard not to kind of put yourself in her shoes. And she's clearly frightened at that time to see somebody frightened like that, that's creepy. And you're waiting on someone to enter the elevator. But that never happens with the Internet sleuthing. You couldn't really make out the time code very well. And so all the people online are like, well, why can't you make out the time code and the timestamps? What would degrade that and not the rest of it? And then they think they decoded it and there's almost a full minute missing. And the Hotel Cecil edited out a portion, clearly before they send it to the cops. And they interviewed the woman and that you're talking about the manager, and she was like, no, of course we didn't edit anything out. Like, we were horrified by this disappearance and just sent him everything we had. Right. Plus, I'm sure also that most of the employees that stay on Maine know exactly how to edit video out before handing things over to the cops anyway. Well, it is La. That's true. That is a good point, actually, but I don't buy it. I think it is what it was, which was a person in an elevator who was having some mental issues, and we'll get to that in a second. And I think it's sort of like the easiest explanation of the video, at least to me, seems to be the most accurate. All right, that's what I buy. That's how I buy it to you. So that video was released on February 13, and now all of a sudden, the public is taking notice. She becomes an Internet meme, like, almost overnight with people watching and analyzing that video, like you were saying, and yet they still can't find her. No one has any idea where she has to spend two weeks now since she went missing. This video is out there. The entire Internet is on the case now. And it wasn't until a couple of days, I think two days after the video came out, Chuck, that one of the guys, one of the custodians of the Cecil Hotel of Stay on Maine, I should say, was asked to go check on the water supply on the roof because the Cecil Hotel used gravity fed water. They had four 1000 gallon tanks on the top of the roof. And when you open the tap, the water would come pouring down from those tanks into your room and out the faucet. And some of the tenants I don't know if it was just the hotel or some long term tenants, but they were complaining that the water pressure had suddenly gotten really low and that the water that was coming out had a strange odor and taste and a weird kind of color to it. And so they dispatched the custodian to the roof and he went and checked. And I think as he was approaching the main water tank, I think, tank number one, he noticed that the hatch was open and very short order made the grisly discovery of Elisa Lam's body. Yeah, he was kind of like the super. He was a maintenance guy. His name is Santiago Lopez, and he's in the documentary too. I don't think he saw the hatch because the hatches on top of the tank. But he went to go and he said it was a routine thing, if there was any kind of water issue, was to climb the ladder to the tanks and go look and see what was going on because there's probably a clog or something. And he saw her body naked about a foot below the water, just sort of suspended there. And when they interviewed this guy in the documentary, it's really sad. He was sort of at the center of a lot of this with interviews. And he was speaking to, I guess not through a translator, but through subtitles. But he was clearly still very upset about this. And it scarred him to see this woman floating in the tank. And he knew immediately who it was and called down to the hotel manager, who we've been talking about and said, she's up here in the tank. And the cops came, they found her clothes, which were determined to be the same clothes she was wearing in the elevator video, kind of at the bottom of the tank. They had sunk. And immediately the new mystery is not what's going on in this video. Although that played a part because they were still trying to figure that out as far as foul play goes, but how she made it in here and why she made it in there. Yeah, because the hatch is not easy to get in or out of. They had to cut her out of the they cut a hole in the bottom of the tank so they could access it, right? They couldn't just pull her back out of that hatch. So that's kind of weird in and of itself. She's also nude. That also kind of added to the mystery of the whole thing. And then also the coroner, when he made his taxicology report available, he basically said he wasn't able to find any conclusive results because there wasn't enough blood to take a sample from. She just kind of permeated the water and that her blood had. And you just couldn't take a water sample and be like, oh, yeah, there's no drugs in here or anything like that. So all of that combined really kind of just took that mystery that people had been primed to start thinking about with that video and then just blew it through the roof, you know what I mean? The water being going to other people's taps in the hotel, and Lisa Lamb basically being a part of that water really kind of solidified her legendary status or the legendary status of her mystery, I think, in people's imagination, anyone who comes across that case can't help but let the mind wander in that respect, for sure. The idea of drinking water and bathing in water with a decomposing body, the body was in a pretty rough state of decomposition at that point. They did do, obviously in the autopsy, they didn't find any signs of foul play. There were obviously no obvious wounds. There were no internal wounds. There was no strangulation. They pretty much said, this doesn't look like foul play at all. One of the mysteries was how she got up there. Because if you want to go just to the regular staircase, to the rooftop and this is not a rooftop, that doesn't have like a rooftop hangout area or whatever, although there was plenty of graffiti and beer bottles and drug needles, and some people would make their way up there. But if you go through the regular door, it's one of the alarm doors which would trigger downstairs and all throughout the lobby that never came on, and you have to have a key to disable it. But there is a fire escape entry with a ladder, basically, for the last story. It's a little precarious, but she could have just simply gone out the window to the fire escape and climbed up the ladder and then up the ladder to the tanks. It would be a little bit of a scary trip up that ladder, I think. But considering what happened, she clearly was not in a good place mentally. So I think that's completely believable. That journalist Josh Dean went in, I think, 2015 to see the Cecil himself. He had gotten obsessed with the case, so he went and kind of investigated it in person, and he quickly found that open window was still open and the fire escape was easily accessible. And I think one of his articles is called American Horror Story, which is a reference to, I think, the hotel season of American Horror Story was based on, or inspired by Elisa Lam's disappearance. But there's a picture that he took of that ladder leading from the fire escape on the 15th or 14th floor up to the roof, and all you see is up. Like, you just see the ladder, and then above it is sky. But after reading about it, your imagination just thinks of the 15 stories behind you as you're looking up this ladder. It's one of the most unsettling pictures I've ever seen, if you read the text that surround it. But he said, by his judgment, an average person could easily make it up that ladder, especially if you don't look down. Yeah. He said if you're carrying a body or another person, you could not do it. He said it just would be difficult. It's one of those straight up vertical ladders on the side of the building. Yeah. But if you were in a manic state, as a lot of people believe Alisa Lam was, you could probably make it up that ladder pretty quickly and you wouldn't even necessarily consider looking down. And all of a sudden you'd be on the roof. And after you were on the roof, it would be a fairly easy proposition to get into one of those tanks, especially, I think she weighed about \u00a3115 and was about 5ft, four inches. So it was possible for her to get into one of those tanks through that hatch. But either she was too scared to come out conceivably, or she couldn't get out when she wanted to get out and tired of treading water, because the water would have been about 8ft deep and drowned after a while. Yeah, I think the police dogs did pick up her scent near that window. So that seems to be what happened. And this is one of those cases where the more I read, all I could feel was despair about this poor woman having what looked to be some sort of medication related manic episode. Maybe scared, maybe thinking someone was following her and trying to get away and going to great lengths to maybe hide somewhere, like inside of a water tank. I don't know why her clothes were off or why her clothes ended up in the tank. I'm not saying any of this makes sense, but it is something that could happen. And all I can think about is what an awful place that she must have been for something like this to have happened. Yeah. And I mean to kind of back up the mental break theory, which is what I buy. That's where I put my stock. Remember I said she was originally put in a room with a couple of other girls she didn't know at the stay on Main. They complained about her behaving strangely, so she was moved to her own private room. Apparently, she went to a taping of the Conan O'Brien Show and was escorted out because she was behaving strangely. And then detectives also found she was on four different medications for bipolar one disorder and depression. And the LAPD, based on the prescription dates on the bottles and then the number of pills that were left and the instructions on the bottles, the LAPD were able to determine that she hadn't been following the dosage recommendations or taking her pills or medications. So if you put all of that together and then also that people taking their clothes off as part of a psychotic episode happens. It's been documented. Yeah. There's no pieces missing on the table. Like she could have gone out on that fire escape, gone up the ladder. Like there's nothing that is. Well, yes, but then there's this really big thing that remains unexplained, like it explains absolutely everything. And then suddenly it kind of makes all the other stuff like government mind control or ghosts or whatever, seem just kind of gross. I totally agree. I believe her parents brought a lawsuit against the hotel that was eventually dismissed, if I'm not mistaken. And it just remains a very sad situation and a sad case. And it is very annoying when you get online and everyone thinks that their spirits being conjured and all this wacky stuff. It's just not the case. Not the case, indeed. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Well, that's it for the Cecil Hotel and the Lisa Lamb rip. And since I said rip, that means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this follow up to Y Two K. Oh, yes. And this is something that we actually had in our notes that we, I guess just kind of failed to bring up. Yeah, right. You had it in your notes as well. Yeah, the 2038 problem. We had a lot of emails about this and we're not going to fully, probably explain to everyone's satisfaction how it works, but hey, guys, just got done listening to the Y Two K podcast, which brought back an interesting range of memories of living through that time. In case you weren't aware, there's something called the Unix Y Two K problem that still exists, but is slowly being fixed by smart people behind the scenes. Thank goodness the majority of computers in the world run Unix based operating systems, not Windows or Mac OS. And unless these systems are patched at 314 on January 19, 2038, their clocks will roll over to think it's midnight January 1, 1970. Yes, the cause is basically the same, and the early versions of the OS only had so much memory allocated to time representations, but more modern versions now have this fixed, and hence computers aren't susceptible once they're updated or upgraded. Although not all systems can be easily updated. And that is from a bunch of people, but specifically from PhD. Alan Chalker. That's great. Thanks, Alan. To everybody who wrote in. I was like, oh, man, I meant to include that. But apparently Unix represents time as the number of seconds from the epoch date, which is some date in 1970. And then eventually it's going to have more seconds than it can represent in the number of digits, so it'll just roll back over. Like you say. It's pretty neat. Unix pretty cool. But also, I'm glad to hear that there are smart people working on that because we got 17 years. Man, you guys take it easy. Take a weekend. Sure. Go send your house and social distance from everybody. That's right. We also got a lot of emails just from people that some people whose parents helped rewrite code or were heading up projects rewriting code, and it was pretty cool. We got a lot of emails about that one. Struck accord. Yeah, it was a good idea, Chuck. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, like Alan and everybody else did, you can send us an email. Send it off to stuff podcast@iheartradiocom. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My HeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-08-05-sysk-men-nipples.mp3	SYSK Selects: Why do men have nipples?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-why-do-men-have-nipples	In this week's SYSK Select episode, they're always right there, taunting you: why do you have me, they ask? Why do men have nipples? It turns out there's a good answer why and nipples on men aren't entirely useless after all. Join Chuck and Josh for this	In this week's SYSK Select episode, they're always right there, taunting you: why do you have me, they ask? Why do men have nipples? It turns out there's a good answer why and nipples on men aren't entirely useless after all. Join Chuck and Josh for this	Sat, 05 Aug 2017 20:08:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=20, tm_min=8, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=217, tm_isdst=0)	24320716	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. This Is Chuck with this Saturday Select Edition of Stuff You Should Know. And this week I picked out a little show called Why Do Men Have Nipples? And that's how you have to say it in your head when you're read it out loud. It's from January 10, 2013, and if I remember correctly, it's just kind of an interesting episode, I think. Josh and I were looking at each other one day with their shirts off. I was like, Why do you have nipples? Why do you have nipples? And that's generally how most of our shows get started. So give it a listen. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. And we're doing this. We're doing it whether you like it or not. Yeah. We're recording our podcast stuff you should know you probably know because you tuned in, so welcome. And if it was an accident hey, welcome to the party. Talk about serendipity. You're about to learn about male nipples. Yeah, you are. Talk about a party. Yeah. You got got them. I them. We all do. You want to talk about chromosomes for a second? Sure. Okay. Chuck, you and I each have 23 chromosomes in our body. We talked a little bit in designer children, I think. Yeah. About little genetics overview. We're not going to go into that now. But the 23 chromosomes, if you put a man and a woman side by side or their chromosome side by side, 22 of the 23 chromosomes are going to be exactly alike. It's that 23rd that gets you. Yeah. The 23rd chromosome either has a pair of X's or an X and a Y. That's right. Pair of XS equals a woman. X y equals a man. Okay. We're not that far apart. We're really not. And that becomes very, very clear when we're in utero, because sexual dimorphism, which is the inward and outward differences between genders, between male and female, like who's in ha ha and that kind of stuff. PPS and cuckoos. Sure. Those are all hammered out in the course of our development on the 23rd. Chrome zone, right? Yeah. A lot of it you come out with. Right. You were born with a vagina or penis. Yeah. Or both. Right. But a lot of it is also set up to be kicked in when puberty happens. That's right. But still, there are differences, there are changes, and it's all because of this 23rd chromosome. Some of the things, though, can go either way, and depending on what happens when puberty comes along, either nothing is going to happen to this equipment, I guess you could call it. Yeah. Or a lot of crazy things happen to it. And one of those good examples of this are nipples. There's a really great question. Why do men have nipples? Chuck? Yeah. I have a funny little story about this. My sister and I were hanging out about 15 years ago, and they had a male dog, and I was rubbing the belly, and the dog had very just pronounced nipples, more so than you would usually see on a male dog. Okay. And I guess I never noticed before, and I was just like I was kind of grossed out. And I was like, oh, why does your dog have nipples? And she's like, you have nipples? And then it was an awakening. Blew your mind. Blew my mind, yeah. I was like, wow, you're right. I do. Why? And I never really researched things like this back then, and now I know why. Now we know why. Yeah. And we should say this is the generally accepted explanation. It's not necessarily scientific fact, but this is pretty much why. Yeah. Most mammals, in fact, most male mammals have nipples, I think. Mice, stallions and pie. Yes. The male platypus is among the handful of mammals where the boys are born nipple free. Which is weird, because, as Conger points out, kristen Conger from Stuff Mom Never Told You, she wrote this article, and she points out that you could make the case that mice are more involved in that respect than human males. Yeah, ours could be a flaw. Yeah, we'll get to that. Well, let's talk about this back in 19, right before Y two K it's Y two K fever. Yale University researchers released a study that said, hey, we've gotten to the bottom of this mystery of why or how male mice don't grow an impulse. They're just completely, seriously go out in your yard right now, trap a mouse, pick it up by its tail and examine its little belly. No nipples, nothing. Or if it's got nipples, it means it's a little lady. Exactly. That's the way you tell. That's one of the ways you tell with mice. And it's because of a protein, PT H letter RP. Yeah, it's always so exciting when they give them names like this. Mice are after their mammary tissue starts to form, produces protein. And a male mice, it signals the cells to form male hormone receptors and it basically destroys the tissue in utero. Correct? Yes. Because boy mice and female mice, they all develop mammary tissue, which gives you all the equipment for nipples and breasts and milk ducts and all that stuff. They just destroy theirs before they're born. Yeah, that protein signals it to be destroyed in male mice. Prepare for the mind blower. Now, boys and girls, as humans undergo a very similar process in utero as well. Before that sexual dimorphism that's really carried out by the 23rd chromosome begins, both genders start to develop mammary tissue and develop all the equipment called milk lines. Garn calls it the plumbing. We have the same plumbing. Right, exactly. Which is kind of funny and true. Yeah. And we developed this plumbing before it's decided or before we start to develop sexual traits. Right. So it's almost like if you look at a timeline of sexual development, the nipples come first so that they're not associated as far as the I guess nature is concerned with male or female and human, it's the same thing. Yeah. So we don't have a protein that takes care of the nipples and males. So men, boys and girls are born with pretty much exactly the same setup until puberty. That's right. And that's when the hormones kick in. Estrogen and girls is going to cause breast growth and mammary gland development. Yeah. And that's when things diverge. You know what really stood out to me on this? That means that our nature's default setting, as far as humans are concerned, is female. Yes. I think it's pretty neat. It is pretty neat. Well, women are the seed of everything. Sure. Seed of life. That's right. It's what everybody calls them. The seed of life. Yes. So the simple answer, then is the reason we have nipples is because we've always had nipples. And through the years, evolution never said, you know what? You don't need nipples. No. And I think the case has been made that the reason men still have nipples is because nipples are so vital to female reproductive success that Congreg points out there's no adaptive pressure to select nipples out of men. Yeah. It's such a vital function. Right? Yeah. So it's like we don't want to possibly mess with anything, so everybody gets nipples. Okay. Just live with it. Yeah, but that's why men have nipples, because nature's default setting for humans is girls. Yeah. It's interesting. And I love my little nipples. I'll just come out and say it. You do? Well, I think it would be odd to not have them. I don't think so. It'd be interesting. A little getting used to, but I think it would not look odd. We did our Barbie podcast. Has that come out already? Yeah. And there are people on the web that will teach you how to make nipples for your Barbie dolls. I saw that kindle. Yeah, like, very realistic looking. Very realistic. But yeah. You'd look like a Ken doll. This would just be weird. I don't think Ken looks abnormal without nipples because it's a doll. It also doesn't look abnormal without a penis. That's true. Yeah. I think you would be a little distressed if you woke up one day without nipples. Or maybe you'd love it. Maybe it's a new lease online for you. Yeah. I'd be like, just go bare chest everywhere. Great. I'm a freak. Yeah. So we said Chuck is something that's kind of interesting, if you ask me. If you take a six year old boy and a six year old girl, a prep best and boy and prep busting girl, and you compared their mammary glands, the whole memory operation they've got going on, they're virtually the same. And it's not until estrogen comes along that the differences really change, the fat develops, so the breasts get bigger, these milk ducts develop. You've got all this process that just kind of takes these things that are almost latent and turns them into functioning breasts. Right. We found if you expose a man to estrogen, he could conceivably lactate himself. That's part two of this. We didn't even put that in the title because we didn't want to just blow your minds right out of the gate. But the point is, men have nipples because girls have nipples and men can lactate because women can lactate. Yeah. And in fact, as little babies, you and I might have lactated. Who knows when the hormone prolactin is what facilitates breast milk production in new moms. They can actually pass this along in utero to their fetus, and that little baby can come out if they get enough of that passed along with the ability to lactate both little boys and little girls. And it's called witch's milk. Only last couple of weeks, usually. Yeah. I'll bet it's a distressing couple of weeks if you're the parent. Like, what is going on? Well, I'm sure it's explained. There's all sorts of weird things that can happen right away that you're like, what? Yeah. And I think usually doctors like, don't worry a little font in, else the brain will grow together or not the brain, the skull will grow together at some point. Don't worry about the don't pat it on the head, which is milk. It occurs and I don't know how rare it is. She didn't say. But it got rare, is it? Yeah. Even rarer is spontaneous lactation in adult men. Yes. And that's called galacteria, which does not sound very pleasant. No, it doesn't. But essentially, if you lack enough testosterone that your estrogen levels are comparatively high, you can suffer galacteria, which basically is male lactation. Spontaneous male lactation. Yeah. But Congrat points out it could be the cause of alarm, though, if you're an older man. Correct. Is that just because of the testosterone deficiency? Right. Okay. Yeah. But Darwin thinks, hey, maybe early man breastfed, like full on breastfed, and who knows? Maybe they did. Who's to say? Are we to say? No? Charles Darwin. Yeah. So you've got galacteria as a possibility, which is milk is possibility two ways that human males can spontaneously lactate. And we're not the only ones who do. There's a type of bat that was discovered to lactate spontaneously, and a surprising amount of animals over the course of the last century or two have been exposed to all sorts of different tests to make them spontaneously lactate. A steer was made to lactate. Do you know how surprised that steer must have been? But we found that if you can increase estrogen levels and trigger the release of prolactin, you can make men produce milk. Right. And it happens sometimes. The prolactin is produced by the thyroid gland, right? Yeah. Pituitary gland. Yeah. And women, when they have a little baby, it really ramps up, like, ten times as much. Exactly. So what they found is that after a baby is born, dads suffer. I guess. Suffer is not the right word. Dads experienced an increase in prolactin production, too. Normally, it's not enough to cause lactation, but they suspect you can make it happen if you are. Okay, so this is really strange. If you hold a baby to your breast, your nipple and your man, and you're the father, so you're already kind of like, prolactin high. Sure. You could conceivably trigger the production of milk if you did that repeatedly over the course of, like, a couple of weeks. Yeah. It's a physiological response, and biological, I guess, sort of all wrapped up into one. And you can have, like, sympathy lactation, almost. Yeah. And it happened 2002 in Sri Lanka, right? Yeah. I didn't actually get to look this guy up, so I don't know a whole lot about him other than the fact that he breastfed his daughter after his wife died. Yes. His wife died during childbirth, and he took over. Wow. That's amazing. It is. But another way to lactate is if you're starving. Chuck oh, really? Yeah. There was this one POW camp, japanese POW camp. And just one there was 500 cases of men lactating spontaneously for each other to live on. Or no, you would think. Actually, what happens is your pituitary gland produces prolactin, and your liver is typically charged with eating up excess hormones. Right. When you're starving, both of them kind of slow down, but when you start to eat normally again, your pituitary gland starts functioning quicker than your liver. So you have higher levels of hormones, including prolactin. Hence, you have starving men who lactate. Wow. That's a reality show. Some sort of island, like Asian island, I don't know. And there's a tribe, the Aka Pygmy tribe in Africa. There's about 20,000 of them. And this dude it was documented that they men breastfeed their children, and this dude went and lived with them. And not only that, it's amazing. They're known as the best fathers in the world because they spend 47% of the time their babies are within arms reach of the father, which is far and away more than any other culture in the history of the world. Right. 47%. And the gender roles in this Aka tribe are completely interchangeable. Like, sometimes the men go out and hunt, the women take care of things. Sometimes the women go out and hunt, and the men wash the clay pots and take care of the children, and it's just they don't know gender roles like that. It's just completely interchangeable. It's pretty cool. That is very cool. Yeah. And that was a question that kind of Darwin raised, like, well, wait a minute, maybe we used to breastfeed and used to breastfeed, and that's why we have this, which would make it vestigial, like wisdom teeth or appendix. It's something that we used to use that we don't anymore. So it's super fluous. Sure. Or it's possible that we can in a pinch to it, which would not make it vestigial, because we could still conceivably use it like that in Sri Lanka or the ACA. I guess the big question that it underlines is, like, why if men can do it, why aren't we? Yeah. Why wouldn't you do that? Especially if we live in a generally monogamous culture. Well, I think probably because of evolution, because women did it for tens of thousands of years only, like, if we had kept doing it, if early man did do that and they just kept doing it, then today you and I might it might be like, hey, I'll pump and dump today, honey. Exactly. Don't worry about it. So let me ask you this. If we stopped, if we used to do it, even if we didn't used to do it, the very fact that we're equipped to do it, like, under the right conditions, under the right chemical baths, you and I could lactate right now. Right. Let's have a party. As our cultures become more and more monogamous, and we get further and further away from males going around and spreading their DNA with as many mates as possible, and instead pair up, then it's entirely possible that 10,000 years from now, men and women will both breastfeed. We've got the equipment as possible. It will just get easier and easier for us to do it, and then we will breastfeed as well. Interesting. It is. Well, it's apparently quite a bonding experience between mother and child, and so I'd do it. Gerry just laughed. I was not breastfed, however. Oh, you weren't? No, man, I was the child number three. And your mom was over it? Yeah, she's just like, no more. I've never looked into the ramifications of that psychologically, if that matters. It seems like you turned out okay. No comment. So before we sign off, I guess we should raise the point that because we do have a lot of the same anatomy underneath, men can get breast cancer. It's not rare, but it's not super common. I think in 2012, about 2200 American men were diagnosed with breast cancer. Yeah. And so it happens. You never hear about it. There's nothing to be ashamed of, guys. And that's a high enough rate for some to say, like, well, then that means that nipples should be selected out in men and probably will eventually. Right. Well, therein lies. What we mentioned earlier is the fact that it could be just a flaw, an adaptive flaw of the years. Yeah. What about third nipples? Additional nipples? Did you know that they happen most frequently in males? And on the left side, it's interesting. One in 40 newborns has an extra nipple. Yeah. Have you ever seen these? Yeah. They don't usually look like a full on nipple. Sometimes they look like a birthmark or something like that. It has a tooth growing in it, but yeah, Chandler had the third Napoleon friends, right? Yeah. Right. So he crusted the clown. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't think I knew that. Yes. One in 40. That's way more common than I think. That means that I know a few dudes that have a third nipple. They just hadn't told me. I don't think I know 40 people. You're so weird. You got anything else? No. Okay. Well, if you want to learn more about male nipples, male lactation, evolution vestigial stuff, you can type in why do Men have Nipples? In the search barhowstepworks.com? And it'll bring up this article, and I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail or whoa, whoa. I guess I need to stop myself. We have a television show coming out where I play Josh, you play Chuck, and the television show is called Stuff You Should Know, and it's coming out on Science Channel January 19, Saturday at ten and 10:30 p.m.. Two episodes for the big debut. That's right. We are debuting after the season three premiere of Idiot Abroad with Ricky Gervais and Carl Pilkington. Yes. Which we're excited about. That's a great lead in for us. And if you don't have cable and you don't have Science Channel, or even if you do and you're like, I love that, and I want to see it 800 times. Yeah, you can get it on itunes, I'm told. Now they are making these shows available on itunes for purchase the day after the episode airs. And episode one is free, dudes and dudets. Yeah. So every Saturday when we have a new episode the following day on itunes, you'll be able to buy it. That's right. So January 19 is the big premiere. I'm already wearing a dicky and a bow tie and little cuffs right now. How do I look? You look great. I'm getting ready. Slowly but surely. That's right. That's 10:00 PM. On Science Channel stuff you should know. The television show is going to be great January 19. Isn't that right? All right, now, listener mail. Yeah. I'm going to call this mustache woman. Remember during one of the November plugs, I think said something about, ladies, of course you don't have a mustache, but blah, blah, blah, it can happen. And this is probably a pretty good podcast to mention this. Okay. This is from Caleb. Guys, I was listening to what will happen when we reach the Singularity, and Chuck said, men, I guess women, if you can grow a mustache, more power to you. I immediately stopped the podcast so I could email. I suffer from a condition known as polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS, which is a leading cause of infertility and affects about 12% of women. Many women don't know what it is or that they have it, but symptoms include infrequent or no menstruation cycles, acne, weight gain, diabetes and insulin resistance, and her sutism, like her suit is, which is excess hair. It can lead to women growing hair where no woman should on the face, excessive arm hair, legs, and even hair on the nipples. Luckily, I am not affected by this particular symptom, but some women report having to shave several times a day, including sneaking razors and to work to shave their faces. Needless to say, this is a devastating reality and can have huge impacts on a woman's confidence and emotional well being. One lady with PCOS is participating in Movember to raise money for men's health that's awesome. And to promote PCOS awareness. That is really awesome. Very cool. So I'd love if you could read this on the air and raise some awareness around this condition. You can find more information through the Polycystic Association of Australia via Twitter at P-O-S-A-A I'm australian. Please don't do an impersonation. Are you going to? No. That's terrible. I would really appreciate the plug. Big fan of you guys. This is Kayla. Awesome Kayla. Thank you very much for writing in. And thank you to the woman who grew a mustache for November. That's pretty awesome. Heads off to you. If you want to let us know about something that we obviously don't know about because we made some weird reference to it, you can tell us all about it on Twitter at syskodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com STUFFYou Know, and you can send us a good old fashioned email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder one week curly on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
4589ee90-ba8a-11e8-9ed2-8fa172b6daf9	Short Stuff: Nicknames	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-nicknames	What's in a nickname? Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. Let's get our shorty on and find out the deal.	What's in a nickname? Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. Let's get our shorty on and find out the deal.	Wed, 08 May 2019 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=8, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=128, tm_isdst=0)	12563541	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hello, and welcome to the Short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Josh. And this is short stuff. Like I said, your nickname is Josh, which is short for Josh. You are. That makes sense. It does. Almost boringly. So your nickname is Chuck, which is short for Chuck. Now. It's short for Charles. Yeah, that's what kind of got me onto this. I realized I sort of never knew how Chuck came from Charles. And there are a lot of examples of names that we're going to go through right now that don't quite make sense, and there are some interesting and murky stories behind a lot of these. Well, let's start with yours, with Chuck. I always thought Chuck was short for Chuck, chuck Bock, but it's not. It's short for Charles, but it doesn't really make sense. I mean, there is the Ch that you're like, well, okay. They're associated in that way. That's about it, though. But it turns out that the story behind how Chuck got associated with Charles is one of the most fascinating, convoluted stories that anyone's ever come up with. And unlike most nicknames for English language names, it does not come from England or even from the UK. Or Europe. It comes from America, specifically the lower east side of New York in Chinatown, where there was a guy named George Washington O'Connor who came to be known as the first Chuck. Chuck O'Connor or just Chuck Connors? Yeah, and not the Chuck Connors, the actor, the rifleman. Yeah, that's a little confusing. But this is a gangster. He grew up in Chinatown. And this is how the story goes. We weren't there. Hung out in Chinatown a lot by growing up there, obviously, and became known as the mayor of Chinatown. And he says that he got the name Chuck because he loved Chuck steak. And everyone else said, that's not true, then. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. He's the guy he should know. But other people appointed to the 1850 census in the US. Where if you look at those names and you pick out the Chucks or the variations of Chuck, they were Chinese he's in Chinatown. Variations of Chuck in Chinatown. And so basically, when he dies, they misprint his name as Charles. He never was Charles. No, it was George. So it was just basically a big mistake. I'm a big mistake. Well, your nickname is that's all? Yeah. Not a bad one. How about another how about Hank is short for Harry or Henry. Right? Yeah. Weird. But this one makes more sense. It does. It's actually pretty straightforward. Hank H-E-N-K is actually the Dutch name for Henry. Right. And so back in the 16 1718 century, again around New York with all the Dutch settlers, they would have called somebody whose name was Henry Hank, H-E-N-K which eventually became Hank. Pretty boring until you realize that the original nickname for Henry wasn't Hank. But among English speakers, it was Harry. So much so that Prince Harry, his real name is actually Prince Henry, which I had no idea until today. Yesterday. Same here. This one is super interesting because I've often pondered, how does a Richard become a Dick? And this one kind of goes back to medieval times when basically there were kind of like four names. You were John, William, Robert or Richard, and then there was always like, Sarah over in the corner. But it was basically those four names, more or less. And so it got really confusing and so nicknamed became really popular. So you could sort out your Richards and your Roberts and your John's and your Williams. Yeah, because not only did they all have the same first name, people didn't have last names by that time, yet it was just so confusing back then. It really was. So people started coming up with Rhyming names where the first letter would be different. Right. You had to make sure you were killing the right guy. Right? Exactly. Right. So Richard has always had the short and form of Rick, basically. But because you might know seven Ricks, you might also call one of them Hick or Dick, because Rhyming names and switching letters with an H or a D was very popular back when people had absolutely nothing to do but farm and then die. So they would come up with stuff like this. So the original nickname for Richard was Hiccup at first, from what I understand. Yeah. The same for Robert. Robert wasn't Bob at first, it was DOB or Hobb, and then Bob came along much later for the same reason. Yeah. And actually, you can see this, there are people walking around with the last names of Hobson or Dobson, son of Hobbit. That would be the son of a Bob or a Robert, who is nicknamed Hob or Dobb by the people again, who had nothing to do with their time. All right, this is getting really confusing. So we're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about Williams and Margaret's and Sarah's and Anne's and John's right after this. Okay, Chuck. William to Bill seems pretty straightforward. Will bill, it rhymes, but apparently that's not the story behind it. If you go into the Irish Gaelic dialect, which is probably a form of Celtic, if you'll remember from the Druid episode, if you look at the letter W, you would typically want to say W. But no, it actually makes a bu sound. And so when William the Conqueror headed into Ireland in the late 17th century, he was not very well liked. And so the local people who spoke Irish Gaelic saw that William and called him Billy instead of Willie, they called him Billy King. Billy was the first Bill, and that's how Bill became the nickname for William. But how does a Bill become a law on Capitol Hill? It just hangs around. Ladies, we haven't forgotten about you. Peggy is a nickname for Margaret, which this is where things get really interesting with the rhymes. Yeah. If you weren't interested before, prepare to be finally in this episode, because apparently in the 1500s, in the 16th century, there was another fad for Rhyming M names with Pneumon. So this is how it goes timeline wise. Margaret becomes Marge. That becomes mag. Or mag. I guess that becomes meg. Eventually. That becomes Maggie, perhaps. And then that becomes Peggy. Yes, meggy, Peggy. And they say that that's the lineage. Or not the lineage, but you know, what's the word I'm looking for? The well, the lineage. I think that works. Yes. The etymology. The evolution. Yeah, the evolution. There you go. Okay, that thing. Here's another one for Margaret. So did you know that Daisy is a nickname for Margaret? I had never heard that. I hadn't either. Which makes zero sense until you start speaking French and you find out that Marguerite is the word for the flower daisy. And so some English speakers who were pretty full of themselves, said, we're going to start calling Margaret's Daisies. Okay. By that. I love it. Martha would turn into Math or Moth. Eventually that would become Maddie and then Patty and then Patsy. So Patsy is apparently still a nickname for Martha. I did not know that one. I did not know that either. So my favorite of all is Ann to Nancy. Yeah, I like this one too, actually. So instead of calling, saying something was my and why, people would say mine, and they would speak affectionately of people or I guess possessively of people by saying, like, mine an because people don't like to expend a lot of energy. That got shortened to NAN. My NAN. Right, yeah. Then NAN got kind of changed and dolled up to Nanny and then Nancy, and then finally Nancy. So Nancy is a nickname for Anne? And the same thing also applies to, like, Ned nelly. Any English name that begins with a vowel could be changed from Mine Ed to Ned pretty easily. There's one apparently ascribed to baby talk or attributed to, I guess I should say sure, sarah. Apparently some kids have problems pronouncing the little letter R. It'll sound like an L. So Sarah somehow makes the leap to Sally because of kids, I guess. Have you ever heard Sally is the nickname for Sarah? No. I always thought Sally was just that was just the name you were born with. Yeah, or maybe it was short for salsa. My daughter started making up nicknames for her ghost friends, which I guess are imaginary friends. And it's funny to see her just come up with these names because one of them is Salsa. Oh, really? That's awesome. Yeah. There's. OC salsa fossil andy seesaw and cu she loves the siblings, huh? Yeah. I mean, it's all sort of she's working it out. You're like it's all in good fun. It is. But now, like, I referenced Salsa or Fossil or OC. And she's like, yeah, they're right over there. And then I laugh, but part of me goes, is my house on it? Right. As long as they're not telling her to burn things, I think you're okay. My older sister had imaginary friends, and they were named Bobby, Teak and Peak. Bobby Teak and Peak. Was it Bobby Tik as one name or there were Bobby or three people? There were three people. So there must be something to that. Yeah, alliteration I think so. All right, let's finish up with John and Jack being a nickname for John, because when I first heard that, I think it was in the presidential debates, who was it that said, you know, Jack Kennedy? Lloyd Benson. Yeah, I remember hearing that and being like, who the heck is Jack Kennedy? I think he meant John. And then I found out it was a nickname, and I never quite got that until yesterday. Yes, which is weird because nicknames are usually shortened names. This is just two four letter names, john and Jack. But yeah, Jack is a nickname for John. And there's a couple of theories. One is an easy one that goes back to the Norman invasion where the French would have brought the name Jacques over. That makes sense that people were like, oh, Jacques, jack makes sense. The problem is that Jacques is the French name for James, not John. So there's a little bit of a hole in that one. Yeah. The other is, again, the medieval England. Sometimes you would add K-I-N kin as a suffix. So William was Wilkins, peter was Perkins, which is how you get things like, again, Wilkinson or Perkins. And apparently John became Jenkins, and Jenkins was shortened to Jenk, which became Jack. I think really, this just demonstrates no one knows where Jack came from, I think so. There you go. Hopefully your name was in there. If it wasn't, you can make up your own nickname. It's cool. Go ahead and let us know what it is. Find us somewhere on social or via email, who knows? But we leave it up to you to determine which route to take. In the meantime, we're out of here with our short stuff. Stuff you should know is the production of Iheartradios how stuff works. For more podcasts, my HeartRadio of the iHeartRadio app apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
3f82c826-5461-11e8-b6d0-df53a8fbf2b4	Selects: Mermaids: Not a real thing	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-mermaids-not-a-real-thing	Mermaids aren't real. That much we know. But the history and lore of these magical and sometimes menacing creatures of the sea is pretty interesting stuff. Learn all about these half women/half fish in this classic episode.	Mermaids aren't real. That much we know. But the history and lore of these magical and sometimes menacing creatures of the sea is pretty interesting stuff. Learn all about these half women/half fish in this classic episode.	Sat, 06 Mar 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=6, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=65, tm_isdst=0)	39651038	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody, and welcome to Saturday. Yesterday was Friday. Tomorrow Sunday. Today is Saturday. This is Chuck. Today's episode is Mermaids not a Real Thing. This is from August 4, 2016. And I got got to say, I just remember thinking this was kind of an interesting podcast, and that's why I picked it for Saturday. Enjoy, everybody. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Yeah, that's right. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there in the ether, floating, possibly not existing. Who knows? And this is stuff you should know. That's right. Just a couple of mermen trying to make their way in the world, trying to keep their tails wet. Yeah, that thing dries out. You've seen Splash? Yeah, it's actually no, she dried out, and she was just fine. Oh, you're thinking of et. When you turned all white and dried out? I was thinking of Splash because I couldn't remember. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It was a cute movie. It was one of those early HBO movies, early Tom Hanks, which I'm a big fan of. Early Tom Hanks. And I just thought it was a really fun, funny movie. John Candy. Yeah, it was a great movie. What's his name played the evil man trying to expose her. Eugene Levy, I think. Oh, is he the bad guy? Yeah, he was the one that, you know, that's a high quality movie, when Eugene Levy is the bad guy. Yeah, that was the SC TV crew, and he actually tried to spray her and get her wet so she would oh, it was and in fact, turned into a mermaid on the sidewalk. That's what it was. She got wet. She turned into a mermaid. Right. She got dried. No problem. Yes. And Daryl Hannah, of course. Who's running around with Neil Young now? Oh, really? Yeah. How about that couple? Sure, why not? You're both environmentalists, but there's a lot of turquoise in that bedroom. I wonder if you hook up with Neil Young or anyone like that, if you're sort of a new relationship and not like the wife they had for 40 years. If you're, like, play song, why don't you? What? I wonder if you ask them to play music. Oh, like you're actually into them. Yeah. If you're Billy Joel's new 25 year old wife. Sure. Do you ever say, like, hey, honey, play me a tune. Right. Play that one that you wrote ten years before I was conceived. I think what I'm saying is, I would have a hard time being with Neil Young, and not every night after dinner, just kind of nudging the guitar toward him. Oh, I got you. And saying, I'd love to hear Old Man. Yeah, please, baby, one for me. Yeah. He says I played that song 45,000 times. Yeah, well, I can tell you, I would guess that once you reach a certain point in playing a song, you never want to hear that song or even think about it existing again, but then you still have to play it. I try not to think about that when I'm at those shows. Yeah. It makes me feel bad for them. They might as well be in the monkey house or something and you just throwing bananas at them. And God bless the people who really bring it. Still. Sure. Where you feel like, man, they're playing that song for me tonight at a man. Does he still bring it? He's just who came to mind? Whereas when I saw the Police on their reunion, they were phoning it in. Really? Yes. Even Stewart Copeland. Well, they were playing the songs, but it didn't look like they were enjoying themselves at all. It looked like a total money grab. Sure. They entered from three separate entrances and exited from three separate oh, yeah. And I got the feeling they didn't even speak much. I was reading an article on the Ramones, the Rolling Stone on recently. Yeah, I guess it was. Yeah, they had a great article on them. It was definitely rolling stone. Okay. Did you read it? Yeah. Then it was awesome. But yeah, they would just, like, get on the bus and not speak to one another, go to the next town and get on stage and play and then come off stage. They would speak on stage because they had to. Yeah, that was it. And apparently well, at least Joey and who is his big foil? Those ones who really hated each other. Yeah. Supposedly they didn't speak at all for like, 25 years straight. Right. Because Joey stole DeeDee's love of his life. Right. And then they were in the band together still after that, it was just like, TS, man. So weird. So, like, a lot of songs, especially ones like The KKK Took My Baby Away, that's about Joey stealing DeeDee's girlfriend. Wow, it was a great article. Yeah, good read. So back to Splash. Funny movie about a mermaid. And we're going to talk about mermaids here. And mostly what we're going to cover is the lore in history and the mythology of the mermaid because there's a little giveaway. There are no mermaids. What did you look up? Like pictures of real mermaid sightings and stuff? Yeah, and it's the same thing as pictures of Bigfoot sightings and pictures of UFO sightings. Some weird distant blur that it could be Kelp or it's such an obviously doctored photo. What would be fun, though, is if we had a time machine. Forget killing Hitler. Playback Machine. Oh, yeah, that's right. I can't believe we haven't put this into good use. Forget, like, saving the world or keeping the dodo from going extinct. I would take some of these doctored photos that are just so easy to make today back to the 1920s and be like, look at this. And they go, yeah, I know. We still believe in that stuff with your aim being what? Just to freak him out? I figured there'd be a money angle. Yeah. Josh is traveling wonder emporium. It's not a bad idea where in which you just show them photos, but I charge them like, 2016 rates and no one can possibly afford that. So I go out of business, like, almost immediately. Right. There's like one guy in the town that's like I'll pay 27, 50 to see those. Right. Step right up. Town's only billionaire. That's a great idea. I don't know why no one ever thought of that. It was a terrible idea, like, from beginning to end. Forget going back and betting on the stock market or the outcome of the World Series. I'm going to go back and set up a business doomed to fail. All right, so let's talk about mermaid lore. Well, we can start here in the more modern age because there are still places that try and take people for money. Like, we were just talking about even yeah, like me. In fact, in Israel, on the coast there, they actually have a town called Curiot Yam. Great name. If you go to Curiosity, you could win how much money does he even say? Million bucks. Million American dollars. If you provide incontrovertible evidence of the mermaid that is reputed to wanda there and appear at sunset. As of 2009, was the first sighting there. Yeah. And of course, what that is is a ploy to try and get tourists, come and spend money in the town and look for the mermaid. Sure. Come on. We welcome you to curiosity. I'm sure Loch Ness has made plenty of tourist money over the years. Apparently they have a standing offer as well. And that's where the mayor of Curiosity got the idea. Great idea. Sure. And actually, I saw that photo too. It's kind of neat. I don't know what it is or who created it or whatever, but there's allegedly a photo taken obviously from like, a cliff down onto a beach that will have, like a big just slab of rocks surrounded by sand. Yeah, sand and mermaids. Right. There's a mermaid on that rock just kind of looking out in the sea. Yeah. And of course, it could be anything. It could be totally doctored, who knows? But it's from a distance. And at least they didn't, like, go full out, like, perfect picture of a mermaid or whatever. It's just suggestive enough that people who believe in such things would be like, right there, there's a picture of a mermaid, you know? Totally. So that was found in 2009 or that surfaced in 2009. And since then it's surfaced. Since then, the towns had that standing offer. Correct. So the interesting thing to me about mermaids is the mythology. Did you take mythology in college at all? Yeah, I did. I always wanted it to interest me more than it did. Me too. I don't know if it wasn't explained to me quite well enough, or just the ancient non bicameral mind wasn't fused together enough to interest people in the modern age. Well, I think so. I think the stories themselves, as far as good storytelling, were just lacking because a lot of them were just versions of one another, and there was usually a very basic premise or moral. And in the case of mermaids, a lot of times, a lot of folklore even, was rooted in misogyny. There'll be a woman to come along and screw your life up, right? Or if you screw up a woman, she will kill your children, or something like that. Like, women were not to be trusted, and they were murderous and duplicitous in a lot of mythology. It's true. The old hag. So it was in various, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of books and text, including the Talmud, believe it or not. And we've talked about planning the elder, the beer and the dude. Yeah. Rome's planning the Elder. He, in his natural history, talked about a mermaid like creature called the Neriud. Yes, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah. N-E-R-E-I-D. That e I is a tough transition. It is, because you want to say, like, Nereid. Yeah. These were C nymphs, half human, half fish mermaids. And he also talked about sea men. And we should point out that mermen. We made the joke about us being mermen. I believe myrmen were even first on the literary scene. Is that correct? Well, first, at least with mythology or theology, I guess. There's a Babylonian god of the sea named EA. EA Sports. Just EA. And he pops up in Babylonian mythology from. I think. 40 years ago. And they think that he's actually the progenitor of or the predecessor. I should say. Of Poseidon. Who is the Greek god of the sea. And Neptune. Who's the Roman god of the sea. Because the Greeks gave us Western culture. But they just walked around to all of the neighboring cultures and picked their favorite parts and put them together. Yeah. And that was definitely one of them. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I guess it was. In the folklore and fairy tale episodes, there were twin episodes almost, about the original Little Mermaid and how she was dignified to the fullest, but the original story was far darker. Darker, but also even more touching by far. I went back and read the last section of it. Well, give me a summary at the end. So at the end, this is where it dramatically differs from the Disney story. The Little Mermaid is scorned for another woman. The guy she loves chooses someone else and marries her. And the Little Mermaid is like, dude, I gave up my tail for you. I think a witch has my tongue kind of thing, and I want to get back my life. So her sisters came and bring her this ritual knife and say, you can convert back to a mermaid. If before dawn, you plunged this knife into this dude's heart, this guy who loves heart, and you get some of his blood on your feet, you will regrow your tail, and you can jump into the sea and everything will be just fine again. So she goes and she finds the guy sleeping with his new bride beside him, and she just can't do it. She throws the knife into the sea and becomes seafoam. She disintegrates and becomes seafoam. So she gives her her own happiness up for this guy, right. And dies as a result. But even better than that, when she turns into sea foam, she becomes a different mythical creature, like, basically an air nymph that goes around, like, helping humans. And she can possibly get into heaven if she helps people for 300 years. Hans Christian Anderson wrote it way better than I just recounted. It a lot less ohms, and likes, but it's worth reading. Plenty also talked about mermen back in the day, and there would be mermen or seamen who would at night climb up onto ships. This is a quote. That's why I'm reading it. Weird. Upon which the side of the vessel where he seated himself would instantly sink downward, and if you remain there any considerable time, even go underwater. And that was something that we will see as we talk more about mermaids. They're often either an omen that's something bad is going to happen to sailors or coastal dwelling people, or they actually directly cause harm to sailors or coastal dwelling people. Yeah. And most times under the guise of something beautiful and like a siren. Yeah. They are often well, we haven't even described one. Surely you know that a mermaid has the head and body, torso of a woman, human woman, usually with huge boobs. Yeah, if you're talking about a sailors account. Right, sure. She was busted. Did I mention the boobs? Yes, you did, sir. Seven times. From the torso down. She's a fish. Maybe web feet, maybe not. Very graceful, very fast. And always beautiful. It depends. Oh, yeah. There were some of legend that were not ugly. Really? Yeah. Not ugly. Or they were ugly, but they were not in parentheses. Beautiful, comma ugly. I hadn't heard about that. Yeah, it's in here. I must have missed that part. It's far more frequent where you were saying that they were beautiful and alluring. Okay, but we'll talk more about that after we take a break, huh? All right, Chuck. We were saying that for the most part, mermaids are beautiful, and one of the reasons why they are supposed to be beautiful is because they are frequently accused of luring men, sailors out to sea to their death. Yeah. And how do you do that? You do that one of two ways. You have a beautiful singing voice, or you just straight up look good yourself. That's right. And if you have a beautiful singing voice. You're a siren, in which case you would not be a mermaid because the siren is half bird, half woman. Yes. And they don't even necessarily live in the water or near the water. They're sometimes described as hanging out in fields. Yes. I guess sometimes you can be very pretty and be a good singer. Right. You're a mermaid. Yeah, you could be. Yeah, sure. Who am I to disagree? You'd be Beyonce. Right. Or Alicia Keys. Right. Or Adele. Oh, you know who I like is Rihanna. Oh, yeah. She's great. Very pretty. That part in what's it called? This is the End, and she played herself. Yeah, she was pretty great. She was pretty funny. Michael Sarah likes banked her, and she just immediately turned around and smacked the heck out of them. Yeah. I enjoyed parts of that movie, especially Michael Sarah playing like a coke out church. That was really funny. Yeah. So back to the beautiful mermaids, though. There was one in 1000 BCE in Syria, and her name how would you pronounce that? Adorgatis. I think you nailed it. Yeah. All right. We'll go with that. And you'll see a lot of duality and a lot of these stories, and she was one for sure. That was a protector, a goddess. I think she protected the fertility of her people and watched over them and fell in love with a human man, as you will often see in a lot of these stories. A dude. Yeah, dude. And it was fine for a little while, like in most stories. And then it goes south and she kills him. She crushed him with her greatness. Oh, I thought, like, her big tail or something. I don't know. Well, she wasn't a mermaid yet. This is where she becomes that's true. That's right. I forgot about that. So she accidentally kills him and then is very shamed throws herself into the lake because she wants to become a fish. And she's so beautiful that it only works half as good. I really can't figure out the math on that. No. But I guess she's just so beautiful that the human beauty part of her is like, no, I won't be a fish. Just the lower half can be a fish. Yeah. Because she had toe fungus, so that was easily overcome. But her face was really nice, so the fish part just couldn't overcome that. That's right. So she ended up a mermaid. Like, oh, it's foreign or anything. I'm not being Xenophobic, but it really, like, says a lot about humanity and, like, how we think of things. Like, no, she was so good looking that this magic couldn't even overcome that point. We place a lot of value on that kind of thing. All right, should we move on to Germany? Yeah, this one was kind of interesting to me because Germany is landlocked. I never really thought about that. What does Germany have a mermaid mythology? Well, I mean, they have lakes, I guess. But mermaids are 100% ocean dwellers, aren't they? No, there are some river dwellers. Oh, that's right. Although I think the Sirens were specifically river. Well, in the German myth, it was a river dweller. Correct. Okay. Yeah. The Nyxes. Yeah. And they lured men into the river. Yeah, it was a river. So they could drown them. Like, again, the call of the Siren. Come in here. Look how beautiful I am. Right. Check these out. And now I'm holding your head underwater, right. And you can't breathe anymore. And the guy's like, I regret nothing. But this duality that we're talking about is what you see a lot of times in mermaid myths from West Africa. The mami WADA the mother water. She was a mermaid who was very nurturing and very loving if you didn't cross her. Yeah, exactly. That's where the duality comes in. I don't even know if that's duality. I think that's just a complex person. Good. Complex character there. Yeah. So she's great, but when you cross her, she's murderous. Sure. All right. And that's what she did, actually. If you were loyal to her, you could be wealthy from her magic mirror in comb. But if you betrayed her, then what this article says is she reigns down fury and destruction. She ran the H word from above. But the duality is an important part of it because the physical creature itself is two things. Sure. And they are also two things emotionally. And the mermaid, or merman, or merfolk, as they're calling this article. Are they really? Yeah. So merfolk are half fish, half people, right? Yeah. But they're not anywhere near unique in the pantheon of mythological creatures throughout the ages. Right. Again, there's Sirens, half birds, half women. There are just tons of, like, the minotaur, half man, half bull. The centaur was about half go, or horse and half man. I don't remember. That sounds right. I think half horse. And I was like, Where did all these come from? I suspected bestiality, and it turns out I may be right. Oh, yeah. Would you find there are some scholars out there who believe that this is the product of a much more relaxed attitude toward bestiality than we modern humans have today. Yeah. I still never saw that documentary about the horse. Yeah, it's a good one. Zoo. Yeah, I need that. Fell off my radar, man. It's one of those ones where they largely do recreate. Like, the whole thing is almost recreation. Right. And I usually am not hip on those. It doesn't feel like a documentary to me, but that one changed my mind about that whole technique that they did it so well. Really? Yes. It's rough. I bet it's rough. Especially, like, when you think about the animals as well. Yeah. Of course, there's more than just that. That makes it rough. I need to see that. So I guess we can talk a little bit about some eyewitness accounts. They're all bunk, of course, but they have happened in world war II in Japan, on Indonesia's Chi islands. Supposedly they encountered a monster on the beach that had webbed hands and feet and was kind of part human, part fish. Yeah. It was like, look at these jazz hands. You can't do this. And then back in the day, some of our most revered explorers and adventurers reported seeing mermaids, like John smith and Henry huntson and Columbus. John but he loves him. Yeah. There's a good quote in here from Columbus because he wasn't too impressed. Yeah, he said and here's the thing. I read that in his diary. He's referring to himself in the third person. Well, that says a lot. That's odd. He's like Ricky Henderson. Right. Or George Castanza. So he says that he saw some oh, yeah, the quotes on it. You got to read the quote. He's out sailing around. Oh, what is that? Out in the ocean? I think I'll take a look through my spying glass. The day before, when the admiral was going to the admiral himself yeah, that's what I'm thinking. He was the admiral of the fleet for sure. The day before, when the admiral was going on to the Rio del oro that's the river of gold. He said he saw three mermaids who came quite high out of the water but were not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face, they look like men. But I still thought about it. Yeah. So what they think now I don't know how they substantiated this, is that Columbus was seeing manatees. Yeah. Have you seen manatees? Yeah. It looks nothing like a human from enough of a distance, though. You're like, wait a minute. What is that? Especially if you've never seen a manatee before. I don't think it looks human like at all. From enough of a distance exam. Yes, I can see how somebody would especially if you believe that mermaids existed and you see a manatee, maybe. It's hard for me to totally get that go there and put my mind in that kind of frame, in the frame of Christopher Columbus. Well, just to have never seen a mermaid, to have never seen a manatee. To be high on arowax scalps. Oh, my God. I just blanked on the green. Marijuana? No, the green the green drink. Absinthe. I don't think absence was around with Columbus. Are you kidding me? No, I'm not. You're shooting that stuff. I can kind of see it. So he maybe saw a manatee. I was like, they're not so great looking after all. They're not that great. What's everyone talking about? Yeah, he saw one. This is like Jimmy Carter in the UFOs. You're kind of surprised when you hear this that somebody cited it. Apparently reagan said he saw UFOs as well. John Smith said he saw some. He liked what he saw. He liked the look of the manatees because he said he fell in love with one with long green hair. Yeah, he said it wasn't bad looking or it wasn't unattractive or something like that. Yeah, he hedged his bets a little bit. I guess he wanted to check the rest of her out, and then he saw she had a tail and was like, oh, I can't go there. So what's going on here? Are they hallucinating because they've been on the high seas too long? That's what a lot of people say, yeah, other people say that again. They were predisposed to believing in mermaids because people thought mermaids existed. This is the age of exploration. So it's the beginning of the age of exploration, which means that before then, the oceans were largely unexplored, and there were tons of beliefs in thousands of years old mythologies about creatures that lived in the sea. So if you thought that those things existed, then something that looked kind of like a mermaid could be a mermaid. So that was probably if they're just cases of mistaken identity. They were highly suggestible. Yeah. They did one on two monsters, remember? We did. Yeah, that was a good one. I thought that one was going to be awful. And it turned out pretty great, that episode. Yeah. Like, I remember thinking, like, this is not going to go well. Kind of like this one. Yeah. How do you think this one's going? Pretty great. All right, well, let's take a break then, and give each other a neck rub, and we'll come back more comfortable than ever. All right. There is a dude, I love this guy. His name is Carl Bantz. He's a Carl Bantz fan. Well, I'm not quite sure I understand, unless did you read the article? Well, just set it up. Okay. So a dude named Carl Bantz, back in 1990, he wrote an article in a legitimate journal, the journal Limnology and Oceanography, and they published it, and it is an entirely tongue in cheek, but totally played, straight account of the extinct species. Mermaid. Yeah. He surmises on, like, for real, where they came from, what their biology was, why they left us. Yes. That they were warm water dwelling, that they ate human flesh, which is why they lured people to their death. He goes so far as to say that they most likely only produced one or two offspring at a time because the females of the species had two breasts and that was it. Okay. Yeah, sure. This is the thought that this guy put into this article, and the fact that he writes it totally straight and really gives it its due attention. It wasn't that this is going to be a great idea, and just the idea itself is hilarious. So I don't really have to put any effort into actual execution. He put effort into the execution and he did pretty good. I'm not knocking him. I guess I just don't see why this journal would put something like that out there even. I don't know. I mean, I guess they had a good sense of humor and maybe it was the April Fools episode. I was wondering if that was the case, too, and I forgot to look if it was the April issue. Perhaps he did use the words horny skin folds, though, right. Their skin etherize was not smooth scaled like a regular fish, but it had, quote, horny skin folds like an armadillo. Yeah. What's interesting is I saw another account from 1830 in Scotland. There's a town called Benbecula on the outer hebrides Right. Which is like the outer islands, the archipelago. It's archipelago, that's how you say that right, archipelago. Yeah. Either way, there's a town there string of islands, coastal. Thank you. Coastal town, where in 1830, the whole town swore they saw a mermaid and tried to grab the mermaid, and the mermaid swam away. So some kid threw a rock at it and hit it and it's back. And two days later they found it dead on shore. And they felt so bad about it that they did they buried it. They gave it a funeral with like a casket and everything. Wow. And they said that it didn't have scales, that it had kind of rough skin instead. Pony skin fold. Yeah. They didn't use that term, but this is like a thing in 1830 in Scotland. Yeah. Pretty interesting when you read the account of it years later, by the way. Corny scamfold. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. That is interesting. Maybe there's something there. Right. How do you keep the folds of the horny skin fold clean? It like gunk gets trapped in there. Gross. I don't know. Maybe that's the name of the first single cleaning the folds. The other thing that Bantz did in his article was explain probably why they're extinct now. He came to the conclusion that they're extinct. He said they were warm water, so they would have cohabitated or shared their ecosystem with jellyfish. And as humans started to fish more and more of the sea, we upset the ecological balance. Jellyfish populations were allowed to boom, which is the case. And they stung the mermaids to death because the mermaids had lacked the blubber that would protect them not just in cold water, but from jellyfish stings as well. So they died out from jellyfish stings? Yeah. Because their upper skin was just regular skin. Right. It wasn't the horny skin folds, so it provided no protection. Exactly. It's worth reading. Go check it out. It's called Mermaids. They're biology, culture and demise. You can find, like, the full PDF online. Well, I think we have to address the Animal planet. NAFU, nafu. I think they would call it a ratings bonanza. Yeah. What was the other when we talked about the megalodon? When Discovery Channel aired a megalodon documentary that appeared by all accounts to be true. Right. And was not. Same thing with mermaids, but they did it. Twice. They did they did a sequel because it got, like you said, huge ratings. And this was a documentary. Well, not a documentary. It was a mockumentary that looked like did you watch any clips or anything of the second one? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it looked like a show, like a hunting bigfoot crew. It's like, we got this mermaid, we know where she is, and we're down here hunting 3000ft below the surface. Yeah. And they interviewed a guy that looked like Zac Galifianacis. If only it would have been Zac Galafanakis. It would have made it much better. But then it was only shows where at the end and small lettering was probably not small, but at the end of the credits, it's like, this was all made up. These are actors. Yeah, but they still buy it. If you go online, people are still arguing over the legitimacy or credentials of the marine geologist Torsten Schmidt. That's a great name. It is. And people are like, well, if he were a real scientist, he would have been published elsewhere besides this. And he's not published and it's like that's because he's not real. He's made up. Yeah. This is like settled, right. They didn't even pretend that it was real. So I don't know if that's the case or not because they said it wasn't on at the end of the show. Okay. But they didn't come out and say everybody. Oh, well, I know what you mean. Right. So actually, Noah, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration had to release and they felt they needed to release a statement after the first one saying like, hey, mermaids don't exist. No evidence has ever been found. We're Noah the end. And I bet they'd love that even. Oh, yeah. Oh my God. Noah's making a statement about it. Yeah, it's going to be all over the news. Right. And so I guess enough people bought it and bought into it that they were able to release a sequel. And in the sequel, the reason they released the sequel was because Torsten Schmidt had footage of a webbed hand, like, smacking the windshield of his little, like, underwater two man sub and then swimming off. And so they just kept showing that over and over and over again. Yeah, I saw that shot. Galifian acoust, he did look like him, didn't he? A lot. I thought you were going to say it was found out when Torston Schmidt showed up on an episode of Two Broke Girls the next week. Right. It's like a waiter. Yeah. And a progressive insurance ad is like customer number two. Exactly. There's one other sighting I wanted to mention. This one is second for my favorite after the Scottish one. Okay. It was in Adam, Netherlands. Is it Edom? Sure. Like the cheese. Yeah. Okay. Two girls were like, rowing their boats and found a mermaid and took it home and dressed it up as a little girl and taught it to live on land, but it remained mute its whole life. Like e t. But isn't that cute? That is very cute. They're like, you're coming home with us. Oh, you've got a family. TS. We got a family, too, and it's your new family. And they just made that story up and told people, and it survived, I guess. Interesting. Although they matriculated the mermaid into human society there, but we're talking 1430, so who knows what was going on? Yeah, they were eating. They probably got their hands on somebody who was like, who knows? And they're like, oh, mermaid. This is a mermaid. Oh. Just someone who had some sort of physical deformation and made them come live with them dressed as a girl for the rest of their life. Like schlitsey or something. Yeah, like we did in the freak shows. They would just call them make up whatever animal they want to do. That was another great episode, too. Are you just recounting the good ones while we do this one? Just to remind people it gets better. So being a mermaid is an actual job you can get. Back in the day in the 1940s and 50s, it was a big hit to go to a sea park and have mermaid shows. And specifically one in is it Wikiwatchi Springs? Yeah. Wikiwachi Springs, Florida, near Tampa. And it was a booming business back then. They said between half million and a million tourists every year, including big famous people like Elvis Presley and Don Knotts. Yeah, those are the two. They mentioned. Those two would trash a place together. Oh, I bet Don gets into the whiskey. It's all over. So, yeah, it was a huge deal back then. They're still doing it there today. But it is a real job. You can go if you're a great swimmer, you have to know what you're doing. Yeah. It seems like oh, yeah, you just put on that tail. But that tail is heavy and awkward. Yeah. Plus, like, somewhat buoyant swimming with your legs together. Yeah, that's hard. Very difficult. Yeah, it's not an easy job, from what I can tell. Yeah. So apparently, once you put, like, they look very graceful swimming around in those things, but you go put one on and get in a pool and see what happens. Right. And this article, I think rightly. Points out that the professional mermaids that you see today, this is from years and years and years of practice. Yeah. They didn't just get in the water, and they're like, yeah, I'm a natural. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be really awkward. Sure. And you also have to know how to hold your breath like a mo. Like a mo. Yeah. I stopped myself. Yeah, you do. And you have to learn how to swim the mermaid crawl, which is what they name it. But it's not like regular swimming. Yeah, right. And you can make a little dough, too. A little bit it said you can be hired like it's a one off for a party. What is that? Like you go to a neighborhood pool and everyone gathers around like look at the mermaid and claps out of rhythm and you're like, what do you guys want me to do? I guess you can do that. But mostly what I've seen are like the shows in some sleepy Florida town, right? Like Gator Farm and shows, the start in the Wiki watch you mermaids or like at resorts or something like that. Yeah, back when they used to love that kind of thing. And some of these professional mermaids apparently use their status as a soapbox for ecology and efforts to keep the oceans clean. Yeah, that's pretty cool. There seems to be a real threat of that running through the professional mermaid culture. You're like an eco activist. That's a decent band name, too. Professional mermaid culture. Yeah, this one was rich with bands. Band names. Horny. Skin folds. Yes. If you want to know more about mermaids, you can type that word in the search bar athouseoffworks.com and since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. Actually, in lieu of listener mail today, we are going to ask you for something because people also often say like, how can I help the show? Spreading the word is awesome. We always appreciate that. But one thing we haven't asked you to do in a long time is to go to itunes and leave a review. Oh yeah. Because that makes a big difference. If there are reviews, even if they're not favorable, just be honest. Vote with your conscience. Vote your conscience. And yes, go to itunes, leave a review for us because just having reviews is a good thing. And tell a friend, help spread the word. I feel like years go by before we say things like this. Yeah, well, I think literally that's the case. Yeah. It's been a long time, so we really appreciate the way the show was built was on word of mouth largely. We really count on that. So tell a friend, go to itunes and leave a recommendation. And the other thing that we also need are more jingles. Oh yeah. These jingles that you hear, these bumpers are from fans and listeners, musicians, very kind one. Yeah. And they really enjoyed doing it and we love throwing them out there. So send us your jingle and we can't promise we'll use it, but we probably will. Yeah. Because they're pretty great. Yeah. So that's all I got. Well, thanks. If you want to get in touch with us to help us out with any of this stuff, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com, STUFFYou know, you can send us an email to stuff podcast@housetofours.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyoushenknow.com. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from My Heart radio visit the iHeartRadio App Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
71e89d07-9110-4046-a0ee-aede00d59c79	Short Stuff: The Mars Rock with Signs of Life?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-the-mars-rock-with-signs-of-life	<p>In 1996, real-deal NASA scientists announced they had discovered signs of ancient microbial life in a rock that had broken off Mars and landed on Antarctica. The news set off a controversy still going today. Do we already have proof of alien life?</p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>	<p>In 1996, real-deal NASA scientists announced they had discovered signs of ancient microbial life in a rock that had broken off Mars and landed on Antarctica. The news set off a controversy still going today. Do we already have proof of alien life?</p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>	Wed, 27 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=27, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=208, tm_isdst=0)	14555170	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, friends. You know, dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure, but all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony is passionate about creating real love for all, rooted it in compatibility. Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself, like, I don't know what you want in a relationship. And it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes, someone finds love on Eharmony. Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry is even here, too. Dave's here in spirit, so it's a short stuff. Let's go. Martian rock. Yeah, Chuck, we did one recently on not just setting, but how humans might respond to what the protocols are for talking to aliens. I don't remember what we named it, but we mention this in passing in that episode because we're talking today about a particular chunk of rock that was discovered on December 27 in Antarctica, and it's called Alh 84001, and the Alh stands for the Allen Hills region of Antarctica. It was found one stands for the fact that it was the first rock discovered of the season, and it was the 84 85 collecting season. So that's where the 84 comes from. And you might say, hey, that's great. That's interesting. What's so remarkable about Alha 840? Zero one? And I think we should talk about that in depth real quick. Let's in depth real quick. Yeah, we should for sure shout out geologist Roberto Score, who was the person who was out on a snowmobile and saw this thing for the first time. Every time she found one, she'd be like, Score, way too much of that. I'm kind of pleased with myself. Okay, so Roberta Square finds this thing, they bring it back, and it's kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark style stuck in storage for a remarkably long time because they didn't really know what they had on their hands until 1993 when they finally started kind of looking into this thing a little bit more. And they said, Wait a minute, everybody. This rock is from Mars, and it was formed when the Earth was still molten about four and a half billion years ago. And the way they figured it is that there was some cataclysmic event that sent this rock launching out into space and it sort of bumped around for about 16 million years and then eventually found our solar system. Like, 13,000 years ago. Yeah. And it got pulled into Earth's gravity and eventually it deorbited and landed in Antarctica. Yeah. Why is it it's so funny. It just seems like that stuff never lands in a suburban neighborhood in Alabama or something. I think it has plenty of times, but we've just so developed that and move so much Earth. We just have no idea what those rocks are. We're just pushing them out of the way. And I guess even though it seems like there's people everywhere, there's still a lot more land where people aren't around for something to land on. Definitely for the ocean, of course. And then also, Chuck, remember, the only person to ever be struck by a meteorite, I think was a woman in Alabama in like the 50s or 60s, remember? Yeah, I think it was Alabama. So it's raining meteorites in Alabama, apparently. Okay, so this thing was special. They realized it was from Mars, and so they started to really take a much closer look at it. And the first thing they discovered that really kind of knocked their socks off were these orange grains locked inside of it that they tested and they found were made of carbonate. And they know here on Earth, carbonate forms when water that has carbon in it flows through cracks in a rock, that water evaporates and leaves and that carbon remains. And so they said, Hold on a second here. If this thing has carbon, which is an essential ingredient of life, then that might mean this could be proof of life on Mars. And it also says, everybody, that there was water flowing on Mars. Yeah. Another vital ingredient for life. Right. So this kind of got their attention and focused it toward the idea that perhaps there was some sort of evidence of life in this rock. And they started looking very closely at it. And as the BBC put it in an article that we read, they noticed near the carbonate grains, worms and sausages that looked just like Earth bacteria, except much smaller, and that really got their juices flowing. So now, all of a sudden, you have a team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who are studying a four and a half billion year old piece of Mars, investigating it for possibly having Harvard life at one point. Right. And we should point out that there were obviously with something like this, there were people that were on what you would call or what I believe you call Team Believe or Team Believer, but of course also people that said, no, this thing was probably contaminated here on Earth, like some kind of terrestrial contamination. And that explains what we're finding here. So you had two sort of groups, I guess for lack of a better word, naysayers and believers. And they were studying this thing really closely. Yeah. And I think we take a break and come back and talk about what each team figured out. Let's do it. Okay, friends. So imagine you're in an accident and your injuries are extensive enough that not only do you have to spend time in the hospital, but you're going to need rehab, too. Well, you have insurance, so no problem, right? Well, not entirely. You get back from the hospital and notice there's a gap and that your insurance is only covering part of your bill. And it's a big bill. Yeah. Until you get back on your feet, you can't get to work. And now you have this financial burden hanging over your head like some dark rain cloud. So what do you do, Chuck? Well, if you have Aflac, you can worry less knowing they can help with the expenses health insurance doesn't cover. Aflac pays cash, which can be put toward expenses, which may be impacted by a covered medical event. Things like your medical bill, copays, or even routine things like rent, groceries, childcare and more. Yeah, that's Aflac in a nutshell. They care about what health insurance doesn't cover so those they insure can care about everything else. And care has always been part of Africa's DNA. It's the foundation that the company was built on more than 65 years ago, and it's at the core of who they are still today. That's right. They believe the cost of health care shouldn't come at the expense of peace of mind, which is why they are on a mission to help close health and wealth gaps for Americans everywhere. So when the unexpected threatens your peace of mind, let afflac stand in the gap to help you. To learn how Aflac can help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover, visit Aflac.com. That's Aflac.com. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. So, Chuck, Carl Sagan famously said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, right? Yeah. And the idea of a chunk of Mars bearing evidence of microbial life, ancient, billions of years old microbial life, is a really extraordinary claim. So there was a lot of push among Team Believer to find extraordinary evidence to back this up. And like you said, there was this idea that perhaps this had been contaminated terrestrially. There was a study that was conducted by an entirely different group of people. From what I can tell. That looked at other Martian rocks that had been found in the Allen Hills area of Antarctica. That had been processed at the same Jet Propulsion Lab in a search for something that looked like what was showing up on the Alh 840 zero one rock. And they didn't find anything. So that right there kind of bolstered the idea that this rock was special and unique and it hadn't necessarily been contaminated here on Earth. That's right. So that's one positive step forward for life on Mars. More and more people, I think, started to kind of fall into the Team Believer camp. But there was one person, a specialist in microscopy or scoping. What are you saying? I'm going to say microscopy. Well, alright, fancy pants. Yes. I'm feeling like grapen here. Do you look through your microscope? I do when I examine my grape Poopon. So this person joined the team, basically saying, advising them, hey, we may want to hold our horses here because we don't want to make fools of ourselves by going public with some findings that I don't even know if I believe. And she started looking through this thing, obviously through a microscope. And when you get down there in microscopic land, they describe it on the BBC as terrain, which is kind of cool, like the terrain of this rock. And saw these little black grains on the rims of these carbonate globs and they were very tiny, just nanometers in size. And she learned that these were magnetic crystals made of iron oxide and iron sulfide, which was another big AHA moment. Yeah, they're like really tiny compasses, they're magnetic. And it turns out here on Earth, they're actually a byproduct of a specific kind of magnetotectic bacteria. Nice. A cool word once you master it. It really is. And it's a byproduct, it's a process of life that produces these little magnetites. It can also be created in other ways. Right. Non organically nonbiologically. But to do that, to create these little magnetites nanometers across nonbiologically, it requires really high temperature, really high PH and an environment that's not at all hospitable for life. But that also means it's an environment not at all hospitable for liquid water. And since they had basically, essentially confirmed that liquid water had deposited that carbon, it would have had to have been liquid water that I guess housed whatever bacteria that might have created those magnetites. To put it differently, it was another check in favor of the idea that something living had once been on this rock. Right. Found by someone from Team Naysayer. Yeah. Who again, she had come on, I think, to kind of save her colleagues from embarrassment. She started out as a genuine scientist is supposed to. She attempted to debunk this, not to be a jerk, but again, that's what scientists are supposed to do. I think from what I could tell, she was also taking it upon herself to she wanted to be the one, rather than say, other scientists who might not be nearly as kind or gentle about it. Yeah, team Naysayer gives it a negative connotation. Team Sheptic, I might as well have said team poopoo pants. I like all three. So the team believer gets back on board to do some more studying. They found organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs that are in these carbonate deposits that they had originally found. And here's the thing, you can find this stuff in the cosmos, you can find it here on planet Earth when you charge your meat on a grill. You might have heard that if you grill things in a certain way with big chart grilled marks. There can be carcinogenic compounds. That's what that is. And that just occurred to me. That's probably why you don't grill food. Who means is that why? Yeah, I'm not really happy about the taste of chard stuff, but also I don't own a grill, so that kind of prepares me from grilling. All right, so there's a lot of stuff. So that's what the PAHs are. But they're created as a byproduct of life, which is sort of the key as far as this rock is concerned. And they found this stuff, like when things decay, like an oil deposits and coal deposits yeah. From when microbes decay and become fossilized. Right. So here's the thing again. Just like those magnetites, PAHs can exist and be created non organically. Right. This is how they're part of cosmic dust and all that stuff. But again, the way that they showed up in this rock really made this team say this is exactly what you would expect these PAHs to be deposited in this form if it had been deposited by a decaying microbe rather than happening non organically. Right. So again, another big check in another box that supports the idea that life had once been inhabiting this rock that was from Mars. Okay, so at this point, it's the mid 90s, it's 96, it's the summer time. They don't have definitive proof, but they did submit findings in a paper in Science, in the journal Science. It was reviewed by a various team panel, which did include Mr. Sagan or Dr. Sagan. Yeah. Mr. Reverend Sagan, Esquire. And then NASA got involved and grilled them and they finally decided, all right, I think we at least have enough to make a public announcement that we have possibly discovered life or evidence of past life on Mars. And Billy Clinton got up there, made that announcement, and it was a really, really big deal, as you would expect. I think the BBC reports that within just a few days, a million people had seen the science paper online. And this is a science paper. It's not generally the kind of thing that most of the public will click on and download and read. And people were really into it. There were news crews around the block in Houston trying to get a look at this thing. Yeah, in the first week, there were more than 1000 stories that NASA counted on the announcement. And they suggested that the scale of the coverage across the world actually eclipse and exceeded the coverage of the first moon landing. So, like you said, it was a really big deal. I mean, think about it, Chuck. The president of the United States, arguably back then, the leader of the free world said, hey, some of our scientists think that they found evidence of ancient life on Mars. Said it out loud in the rose garden at the White House. So, yeah, it was a huge deal. And the public received it pretty well and pretty enthusiastically. Again, they're talking about microbes that existed 16 million years or more ago on Mars, but it was still evidence of life in the scientific community. However, it was not received quite so well. Yeah, I think since then all the evidence has been looked over and there's still team Skeptic Poopoopants. Team Poopoop Pants is very much alive, as is our team believer, and the jury is still out. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that point to it being life on Mars, and I think that definitely sort of helped kick off a lot of our subsequent research and interest on Mars. Just that first little hint. I don't know if you could point like a direct line to funding or anything like that, but it wouldn't surprise me. No, you actually can. I read that it actually created the field of astrobiology, which is pretty well funded today. Yes, so it was a really big deal. And the fact that the jury is still out, like you said, means that somewhere I believe in Houston, we have a meteorite that contains evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. Just not everybody believes that's what it is. And they probably put in a crate and rolled it back next to the Ark of the Covenant. That's right. You got anything else? Nothing else. Good one, everybody. Sure. Stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
d641f9c2-3b0d-11eb-aa42-7f0fc734f0f8	How Blue Holes Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-blue-holes-work	Geologists and biologists have recently realized that the planet’s oceans and coasts are littered with a unique type of ecosystem called blue holes, submerged sinkholes that were once dry caves. They are turning out to be weird and amazing places.	Geologists and biologists have recently realized that the planet’s oceans and coasts are littered with a unique type of ecosystem called blue holes, submerged sinkholes that were once dry caves. They are turning out to be weird and amazing places.	Thu, 18 Feb 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=49, tm_isdst=0)	35254092	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there. Jerry's, hovering about. And this is stuff you should should know. Another jazzy Earth science edition. Chuck. Yeah. And this is like I know we covered this had to have been Internet roundup. Did we? I don't think we covered I mean, we've done a lot of cave stuff. We did sinkholes, cave dwellers, caving, cave diving, and cave diving. So which one? It could have come up in cave diving, I think maybe, but I feel like I remember showing a picture. I'm feeling Internet roundup. Okay, yeah. That's kind of funny, because this, then, is the second thing we've done that we already did on Internet roundup and then forgot about that's. Right. That's a trend. We're trending. But the cool thing about this one, Chuck, is that these things that we're going to talk about today, blue holes are so new, scientifically speaking. They're so unexplored. But there's a lot we can get wrong, and no one will know for, like, ten or 15 years. Perfect. We'll be done by then. Isn't that great? Yeah, we'll be sipping my ties on the beach, earning 20% by then off German bear bonds. What is that? Trading Places? No, that's Diehard. Okay. I think that was a mash up. It was. It? Yes. It's funny how things just kind of invade your subconscious like that. Well, I mean, Trading Places, they definitely were sipping drinks on the beach, which did not happen in Diehard. No, but he says did he say something like that? Yeah, he says by the time the FBI figures out what's going on, we'll be sitting on the beach, I think he says, sipping my ties, earning 20%. Does he say? Like in Trading Places? That's right. Yeah. But he, like, breaks the fourth wall and stirs right at the camera when he delivers that. That'd be great. So obviously, as everyone's picked up by now, we're talking about blue holes. And if you don't know what a blue hole is, I feel like this is definitely one of those ones where we need to define it rather than just start talking about it out of the gate. Define what it looks like or the reveal of what it is. Okay. Yeah. We'll define what it looks like first. How about that? All right, well, it looks like a blue hole in the ocean. Like, there's ocean, and then all of a sudden, it's like, wait a minute, sometimes they're pretty circular, like, almost exactly circular. And sometimes they're oddly shaped, but it's definitely, like, a different color. And what it looks like from a bird's eye view is like, well, hey, it looks like it might be deeper right there. And it is. Yeah. And it's a much darker shade of blue than the surrounding areas because it's a deep, deep hole in the sea floor. And the stuff around it is usually far shallower, comparatively speaking. So usually the area around is like a much nicer, kind of lighter, blue green, clearish color. And then this is like this really dark blue hole again in the middle of the sea floor. And they're really popular diving spots. You have to be a really good diver, as we'll see, to dive on a blue hole. And they also have long, for centuries, been known locally as really great fishing spots, both commercially and for sport fishing. But the thing is, it's starting to become clear to geologists and biologists that these things are kind of dotted all over the world. There's some out to sea, there are some that are actually landlocked, but that they share some commonalities, and that these things, these blue holes, submerged holes in the ground or the sea floor, are some of the weirdest, most amazing environments that exist on Earth right now. Yeah. And we should probably say that fishermen everywhere are probably still mad at Jacques Cousteau, who in 1972, put The Great Blue Hole, which is one particularly striking blue hole, off the coast of Belize. He put that on the map in 1972 on a show that I used to love to watch, the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. Did you watch that? No. I saw the Life Aquatic with Steve Zizu, though. So close enough. Yeah. I'm not sure what channel it came on or it was in reruns or if I was watching it live, but it was sort of like that. And Mutual Omaha's Wild Kingdom were the two big nature shows for me growing up, as far as turning me on to all this stuff. Right. I think the show ran from 1966 to 76, so it's entirely possible you were watching it live as a youngster, probably reruns. Yeah. But still, I mean, I'm sure it immediately went into reruns. It was wildly popular in that particular episode, if you're interested, was Secrets of the Sunken Caves. But, yeah, he put this thing on the map. Not literally, it was on maps already, but he introduced it to the rest of the world. And the Great Blue Hole, as that one in Belize that he covered is called, is on basically every serious scuba divers bucket list to dive. It's just one of those places you have to dive before you die. Hopefully, you don't die while you're diving on it. But it does happen sometimes. It does. And blue holes are basically I mentioned our episode on sinkholes at the beginning that was a bit of an Easter egg because that's really all they are, is underwater sinkholes. It's a feature of what's known as a karst system, K-A-R-S-T where you have this porous limestone making up the bedrock, which leads to a lot of things. It's porous, so it wears away. And the road is kind of easier, I think, than other kinds of bedrock. Yeah, that's where if you listen to any of the Caving episodes is where you're going to get some of these great stalagtites and stalagmites because that acid rain drips down and wears away that limestone and it forms little icicles from the top and then when it hits the bottom, it forms reverse icicles on the floor. And some of these blue holes have these stalactites and stalagmites because they used to be used to be land, right? They used to be dry caves. Like that's the thing. Once they found stalactites and stalagmites in these blue holes to see, they're like, okay, this had to have been above dry land because the dripping effect of water coming from the top and then dripping out the bottom, it's kind of lost in the translation when the thing is already submerged in water, it has to be dry. You know what I'm saying? You can't drip underwater. Not really. No. I think it just kind of goes every which way rather than straight down. So, yeah, when they started finding these collectively stalactites which come down from the ceiling and stalagmites which come up from the floor, they're collectively called spliathems, which we've talked about in plenty of other episodes. When they started finding spelliothems in these blue holes, they were like, these were once on dry land. Which is pretty cool. But it also makes sense too that these are just caves that formed at some point in the great distant past on Earth. I mean, where else are they going to form? And it also makes sense that as a cavern formed through the same process that forms peliathems, it's just the water kind of carved out a hole in the limestone, it dissolves it and then it gets bigger and bigger over time. And then all of a sudden you have a cavern that the roof of that area is not supported like it is surrounding. And so it's eventually going to collapse in whether it's on dry land as a sinkhole or if it's on dry land. And then that eventually becomes submerged by water, you have a blue hole. So it's just a sinkhole that's now out to sea because of sea level rise, basically. Yeah. And one of the cool things about the great blue hole is when they started looking at these stalactites and stalagmites, they're like, well, some of these look like you would expect because when things drip, they drip straight down or build straight up. But some of these are angled sometimes up to twelve degrees and they're like, that's pretty interesting. So what it probably means is that this thing formed over many, many, many years and the Earth's tectonic plates started shifting and so they started dripping at different angles. So you've got this really cool effect that happens where you have these something that you wouldn't see normally in a cave, basically. So a couple of years ago, Nat Geo and Richard Branson did an expedition where they were basically tried to map the Great Blue Hole 3D map it. And they went down there and they went deeper than I think had been before in a submarine like that, and found a bunch of stuff. They found that it was filling up very slowly. I think they liked it to like an underwater hourglass. It's very slowly. So it's not like it's going to be full anytime soon. They found a two liter bottle of Coke, a GoPro camera, and some dead people, some dead humans. A lot of dead animals, but some dead humans as well. Yeah. So the Blue Hole has claimed at least three lives that we know of on record. Right. Which is actually kind of a low ratio compared to some other blue holes out there. But they are still down there. And like you said, two of them were found by Branson and the Nat Geo crew. And they came back and told the authorities and believes exactly where they were. And they also apparently said, but look, it's really quiet down there. It's really like a restful place. You could do a lot worse for a final resting place than the bottom of the Blue Hole in Belize. And I guess the authorities, I don't know if they consulted with the families or what, but I was made to think by some of the stuff I read that the authorities in Belize said, you know what, let's just leave them down there, and that will be their final resting place. Which sounds a little morbid from the outside, but that's actually kind of customary when it comes to cave diving in particular. I think we talked about that a little bit in the cave diving episode. Yeah, for sure. And the cool thing about the Great Bluehole is that at one point, it was in the jungle. Yes. So that would make it a different kind of bluehole, which is still technically a blue hole, but it's called anchialine I'm pretty sure that's right. Pool, which is a blue hole, but it's landlocked. So, like, the rim is exposed to dry air. It's not underwater like on the sea floor, because the sea levels just aren't that high. And one of the interesting things about the Great Blue Hole in Belize is it was at some point, because sea levels lowered so dramatically during the last interglacial maximum, about 260 years ago, that a significant portion of this vertical cave, which is now the Great Blue Hole in Belize, was dry. It was just totally dry. Like, you could walk around the top of the rim because it was no longer underwater. You could jump in, you would die, but you could jump in, and you would go all the way down, and then maybe at about the bottom, say, 20 meters of the cave, you would finally hit seawater. So over time, the seawater levels have risen from the last time the Earth was in an ice age, and the sea levels have risen so much that now the cave is totally submerged and is actually many meters under the surface of the sea because of sea level rise. Yeah. And there's some really cool things you can learn from studying these blue holes. And maybe we should take a break and learn about those right after this. All right, so there's a couple of really cool things that you can learn by studying blue holes. One of them is you can look at the sediment and you can basically kind of get a snapshot of ancient weather patterns. I think when Branson and the Gang went down to the Great Blue Hole, they found a lot of sediment where it sort of indicated that in different areas, it indicated that perhaps the Mayan empire had several severe hurricanes and maybe had something to do with them not being around for much longer. Yeah, because these blue holes are basically, at a certain level, cut off from the ocean above them. Like, there's a point where there's no currents any longer, where the waves can affect it, where there's no oxygen dissolving past a certain boundary that we'll talk about in a second. And so beneath a certain depth, they're just like this perfect record of the Earth's geological history, frozen and sequestered from everything else. So if you go down there and this is the kind of the trend that they're starting to figure out that these are the expeditions are trying to launch and start taking samples of the sediment, you can get a really good picture of Earth's, say, like hurricane past or drought past. Apparently, when there's spikes and iron content, they take that as from dust storms from Africa, which says that there's probably severe drought around the world that year. So there's all of this information you can glean that's just trapped and locked in the bottom of these great blue holes because they're so deep and so remote and so unaffected by the world above them. I just think that's amazing. It's super cool. The other cool thing you can learn about is sea level rise over the years. We don't have the clearest picture in science of ancient sea levels and when they were, like, exact levels of when they were glacial periods and interglacial periods and the rising and falling of the seas. But if you go down there and you radiocarbon date these stalactites and stalagmites, you can compare them to the relative depth of the whole cave system, and then you can basically say, when was their air here? When was their water here? And get a pretty, you know, at least a much better picture of what the sea levels used to look like. Yeah. And they figured out that the cave itself was formed between about 153,000 years ago to about 15,000 years ago. There are four major dry periods where the cave was exposed during that time. And I don't know if they figured out from the great blue hole itself, or if they just already knew this, but apparently in the past, the sea level has risen really quickly a couple of different times. I think 11,000 years ago and 8000 years ago, over the course of less than 150 years, it rose 25ft, and then again 21ft in less than two centuries, which is a really significant rise. And having information like that is really vital to kind of placing our current sea level rise and experience of climate change in context, in this greater context of Earth's history and possibly its normal rhythms or what's abnormal. So to be able to understand that because of the kind of record that's kept in the blue holes is extremely helpful. Yeah, and I think the usual level of sea rises about a meter every century, so a spike of 24 and 20ft is really, really big. I mean, you could basically watch it happening. You know, it's start to come up around your ankles if you stood in the same place long enough. Another cool thing about blue holes, and particularly great blue hole, is that there is a layer of hydrogen sulfide that basically acts like a blanket, and they're at different depths depending on which blue hole you're talking about. But it's just a real concentrated layer of hydrogen sulfide that is a byproduct of decaying plant material. And it's kind of stinky. It's kind of that sulfury eggy smell that you might smell sometimes. And it's really clear water below in this area. It is really brown and kind of gross. And then it's so far down, it doesn't look brown and gross. From the top, it still looks nice and blue, but it's really a separation point where above it you have life, and below it there's no oxygen getting through. So you have no life. No. I thought it described as like kind of a hazy brown, kind of cobwebby layer. I think in the great blue hole in particular, it's about 30ft thick and it starts at about the 90 meters mark, and you have to go down past it. It's creepy. It is creepy, but it's also apparently, even though you have a rebreather on or scuba apparatus, it still seeps in through your skin while you're swimming through it. And people will, like, throw up and get itchy kind of break out in hives, started to get nauseated and headaches because it creeps in through your skin in just that short time. So it's really gross. It's really toxic in this concentrated form. It's like basically concentrated gas form suspended in a blanket layer, and oxygen can't get past it. So it's an anaerobic environment in that lower layer, which means it should be totally dead and lifeless. But one of the things that they're finding out about blue holes is that even in this anaerobic toxic layer, there is archaea, another type of life that's not quite bacteria and definitely not eukaryotes or prokaryotes. I can never remember which one we are, but they live down there. Extremophiles is what they're usually called these days. And there's a whole kind of teeming colony of life down there that actually takes all of this stuff that accidentally falls into the blue holes and digests them and turns them into this bioavailable, nutrient rich sediment that's just kind of trapped down at the bottom of the blue hole. Yeah. And then the Great Blue Hole. When they went down there, they saw I think they described it as I say conk. They were saying conch. I'm not sure which is correct, but I've always said conk. But like a conk graveyard down there, basically where it's just littered with all these poor little sea creatures that happened to fall below that layer and they can't get back out. And it's like Silence of the Lamb's desk. There's even like scratch marks where you can tell they've tried to get out over the years and we're unable to. You conquer fingernails that have peeled off and are stuck on the sides of the walls. It's a bad jam. What do you think about that Clary show? Is it going to be any good? I like the concept. Yes, me, too. I have a direct sequel, but I don't know. I saw that they seemed to be recreating the lamb thing. And I just saw this movie like a week ago and it's still just so good. I think one of the strengths of it is that they don't show any of that story. It's all just Clarice and her telling of the story because it's so much creepier. Yeah. There's no flashback scene or anything. Right. So this TV show did that and I'm wondering if that says a lot about it or not. I'm wondering who is playing Buffalo Bill because they recreate some of that stuff. It looks like my friend, it's our old pal Tommy Chong, the note holder. He got himself a pretty sweet gig. He's playing him. No, like, man, they should just get that guy. He's around and still creepy looking. Yes. James Gum. The guy who played Jane Gum. Yeah, sure. Yeah, why not? So where are we here? We were talking about little crabs and things trying to get up unsuccessfully, which really is super sad. Yeah. So there's a whole conch graveyard down. Who is saying consci? Were they British? I don't remember because I've always heard conclusion hermit crab graveyard down at the bottom of the Blue hole. And it is sad, but it's just kind of like the circle of life thing. But again, the weird thing about these blue holes is that some of them are not circles. It's all just a oneway deposit of stuff from the top down to the bottom and everything just kind of gets stuck there and again, forms is pretty cool. Record isolated in time. That's not entirely true of all blue holes. It is for the Great Blue Hole. And plenty of other blue holes where it's just like, things go in, they don't come back out. But there are other blue holes out there, including one called green Banana blue Hole in the Gulf of Mexico, I think, off the coast of Sarasota that is pretty deep. It's like 450ft, I think 435ft below the surface is the bottom of it, and it starts 154ft below the surface. And it's some incredibly vibrant, alive oasis in the midst of this relatively barren Gulf of Mexico desert. And they are trying to figure out what the heck is going on, because other blue holes are just like life suckers. And this blue hole is like, have some more life, you get some life. You get some life, and you get some life. It's a pretty interesting conundrum. Does the green banana have that layer? Yes, although, I'm sorry, it doesn't have the layer, but it has plenty of hydrogen sulfide in it. Maybe that's the difference. Yes. And they're trying to figure out why, because there's another hole, similar called amberjack hole that they've explored, and it definitely has a layer, but there's also some sort of nutrient flux or exchange with amberjack, too. But in the Green Banana, it's like a two way highway going from the top to the bottom up to the rim. And what's interesting is they figured out that there are microbes there, I think, archaea, that actually eat the inorganic carbon that leaches out of the dissolving walls of the cave underwater. It eats it and turns it into organic carbon, which then makes its way up somehow to the rim so that there's actually more life that can be sustained there's, more bioavailable carbon than would be there if those microbes weren't chomping on it and turning it into organic carbon. So it's pretty interesting stuff, and you don't find this kind of thing just anywhere. So they're starting to really figure out that these blue holes are very unusual, unique communities, even among compared to one another, but especially when you step back and compared to, like, topeka, it really knocks your socks off. Yeah. And they're all underwater cave systems. There are parts of these cave systems that are still unexplored because they're so vast or so deep. And like you said, they're new, and it's dangerous to get down there, even if you're Richard Branson in a fancy multimillion dollar submarine. One of the things in the ones off the coast of Florida that they're trying to figure out is whether they actually connect to the aquifers in Florida and whether or not that is the reason why there's some salt water intrusion going on in the state's. Drinking water. Yeah. And it's possible that the flow of nutrients up and down the green Banana has to do with some sort of tidal connection. There's, like a flushing mechanism, maybe it could be from the aquifers. They don't know. But that would be a big one to figure out, because saltwater intrusion, especially down in Miami, is an enormous problem. It will probably lead to that city being abandoned in the next 50 years. Poor Miami. Unless I mean, we could always figure out desalination processes, but yeah, that'd be a town to save, if you ask me. I love Miami. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's vibrant. I'm not the biggest fan, but it's not for everyone. Sure. No, but I like it. I think it's a great town. Should we take another break here? Yes. All right. We'll take a break and we'll finish up with diving in these things, I guess. Sure. Okay, Chuck. Like I said, Jacques cousteau kind of said, hey, everybody, go check out the great blue hole. It's amazing. But there are plenty of other blue holes out there that everybody wants to dive on. And we should say the great blue hole is not just famous because of Jacques cousteau, or it's not just noteworthy because of Jacques cousteau, not like he could have gone to just any blue hole, and it would have been, like, the best known blue hole in the world. It's incredibly large. It's not the deepest blue hole on the planet. I think that one actually goes to one in the south China sea called the jungle marine cavern, which is about 300 meters, nearly 1000ft deep. This one is, I think, 415ft deep, but it's a thousand feet across. So if you combine its width and its depth, it's the biggest blue hole out there as far as we've discovered yet. Yeah. And that's what makes it great, and that's what makes it a diving destination. But it is very dangerous. It is not something any kind of novice diver wants to take part in. In fact, I'm sure you're probably not even allowed to unless you're at a certain level of diving ability, would be my guess. I think it's how they can police that, right? Yeah, that's my question, too. I don't know how they police at all. I read about one called Jacob's. Well, I think in new Mexico or Texas that some people died diving on it, and somebody tried to put up a grate that kept people out of the rest of the cavern system, and they just immediately removed it and kept going. So I don't know how you would police that either. But it is dangerous because it's super deep. It's dangerous because of that layer of hydrogen sulfide that we talked about. I know we talked about the bends in quite a few episodes, but nitrogen narcosis can happen at just 100ft down. So the conditions are just so different than anything you would normally encounter as a diver. You can't just use your regular rule book and playbook and think everything's going to be just fine. It's very specific conditions. You really got to know what you're doing as far as blue hole specific diving goes. And as we mentioned earlier, those three people died. At least three people there's probably been more, I would guess, but three verified people have died in the great blue hole alone. Yeah. From what I saw, when you dive a blue hole, it's a combination of technical diving, which is like really deep diving that requires all sorts of planning and skill, combined with cave diving, which requires, like we talked about before, all sorts of finesse. Like if your flipper just flicks one of these, split them, it just dissolves into a cloud of silk and you don't have any idea what's up and what's down any longer. So it is really tricky. And people do die. You saw that one article I think I sent from Fizz.org, I think, where it was talking about them searching the cave system under Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas, and they came across a diver who was still wearing his 1970s scuba equipment and had been left in place there after dying there. So it's a really dangerous diving. There's a blue hole in Egypt that's considered the diverse graveyard. I think so. That diver looked like Brad Pitt once upon a time in Hollywood, basically. I mean, wouldn't that make it exponentially creepier, too? Just the fact that it's like 70s diving equipment that's just something about it would make that horrifying to come upon in a dark cave. It's cooler looking equipment for sure. They should have never progressed past that design into the Mountain Dew electric yellow kind of thing that they've got going on today. Yeah, back when they were called skin divers. Exactly. I don't even know what that means. I don't either, because you usually are wearing a wetsuit maybe it's like the opposite of dry suit diving. I don't know. Who knows? Everybody in the 70s was stoned on pot, so you can't make heads or tails of what they're talking about, these things. Blue holes are also a good place to go if you are a free diver. And if you're interested in setting any kind of a free diving record. A blue hole is a great place to go, even though it's dangerous because it's super deep. We talked about free diving before, but that's diving without the scuba gear. It's people that can hold their breath really long time, people whose bodies can adjust to those depths better, I guess. Or maybe they're just trained to adjust better than other people. Yeah, and I think it was the site up until Semi recently where they actually had a competition there called vertical blue, where they have set rolled records. But I don't think they do it there anymore. Right. I don't know if they hold vertical blue or not, but there is a type of free diving called no limits free diving, which is, I think they stopped recording records because they didn't want to encourage people to do this any longer. Sounds terrifying. It's like the most extreme version of one of the most extreme sports there is. Free diving on its. Own. It's just crazy nuts, but no limits. Free diving is where you have, I think, flippers on in a wetsuit and a mask, and that's it. You just take a deep, deep breath and hold it. And then you take a weighted sled that pulls you plunges you down to the depths of the blue hole very quickly, and then when you reach the level that you're trying to reach, usually to set a new record, you grab onto a buoy that's down there, and it takes you back up really quickly. And I was like, how can you not get the bends? And the key is the trick is you're not breathing at depth. You're just holding your breath when you breathe at depth. That's how nitrogen bubbles can get dissolved into your bloodstream. If you're just holding your breath. I guess that could happen, but I think it's much less likely for it to happen. Either way, it can't possibly be good for your body, because these guys are holding like they're holding their breath for nine minutes. I saw in one case. Yeah. I can't imagine what it does to your body going that fast down and then that fast back up again. I can't go 8ft down in a swimming pool without my ears doing something funny. You just come up like, ow, ow, ow. It didn't hurt. But I don't know. I mean, obviously, it's practice and training and all that stuff, but I say no, thank you. Yeah. And so we should tell people, like, with the depths we're talking about, the guy who holds the record right now is named Herbert niche. He dove to 702ft like this back in 2007, and in 2012, he did it again, this time to 831ft. But by that time, they weren't recording records any longer. So it's an unofficial record, but 831ft on a breath and then back up. That's nuts, man. So you can imagine that when people try this stuff, they die sometimes. And at that vertical blue competition at dean's blue hole, which is an kia ellen pool up in the Bahamas, a guy named Nicholas mavoli died back in 2012. Very sad. It is. It's a very dangerous thing to do, free diving. It's also a dangerous thing to do diving on blue holes, but I guess it's one of those ones where you work toward a goal and you finally get to do it and your life has changed forever kind of thing. You got anything else? I got nothing else. I don't either, man. If you want to know more about blue holes, there is a lot to learn out there, so just start researching and thank us later. And since I said thank us later, it's time for listener mail. This is a good one. This is in response to the n double ACP episode. Hey, guys. Just finished listening to NAACP. Made me think of my father's college days. He attended ole miss when James Meredith joined the school. And one day, I saw an opportunity to help a young field reporter named Dan Rather move his equipment from the registration building to the library. My dad kept in contact with Mr. Rather and let him know that he was actually living in the same dorm as Mr. Meredith. And that is how his time as a stringer began providing mostly audio clips of events happening at the school. He said at the time he was selling reels to CBS, ABC, CBC, and the BBC, making around $6,800 a week. Wow. Which is real money for a college kid in the 60s. That's real money now. Yes. It was only a matter of time before the university found out who was providing the footage and offered my dad the choice of stopping or being expelled. He opted for expulsion, thinking he could just enroll in another college, but then learned that his transcripts were flagged and he could not just pick up and move to another school. I know, right? So he had to go back to Ole Miss and promised not to report anymore so he could finish and get his degree, which he did. Several years later, he married my mom, and they took a trip to the CBS studios near them, and my dad suggested they pop in to say hi to Dan Rather. My mom thought he was pulling her leg. They went to the studio, asked to speak to him, and was promptly asked if they had an appointment and was turned away. As they were leaving, Dan Rather walked by and said, john, last name Redacted. How the heck are you curse word Redacted. And according to my mom, she almost fainted. Anyway, my family has always taken a lot of pride. My dad helped shed light on the integration of old Miss. Granted, his role could have been filled by almost any of the students living in his dorm, but he was the one who did it. And that is Brenda in Sarasota, Florida. That's a great story, Brenda. That jibes quite well with our Blue Holes theme because there's some office arizona, too. Totally. That's great. Yeah. The University of Mississippi is like, you better stop reporting now get back to class in journalism school. Right. Exactly. Well, thanks again, Brenda. And if you want to get in touch with us, like Brenda did, you can send us an email to stuff. Podcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My HeartRadio, visit the iheart radio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-tinnovators.mp3	What are tinnovators?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-are-tinnovators	Tinnovators are folks who come up with new and innovative ways to use old Altoids mint tins. Learn about some of these "tinnovators" and their art in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Tinnovators are folks who come up with new and innovative ways to use old Altoids mint tins. Learn about some of these "tinnovators" and their art in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:51:20 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=14, tm_min=51, tm_sec=20, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=209, tm_isdst=0)	23510770	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today, this July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney Nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus, brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Bryant, who is with me, as always. I don't know what I'd do without you, Chuck. Oh, man. But seriously, it'd be like having a conjoined twins separated. One that has its head and is still alive. You're being mean to me seconds before we went on, and then you butter me up, right? When in front of people. In front of people. You have hundreds of thousands of people. I'm secretly very abusive to you behind closed doors, aren't I? Yes. So, Chuck yes, my fellow ENFR? Oh, yeah, we took the Myersbriggs personality test. Pretty cool. Again, like conjoined twins, except for the distinction of the P and the J. I'm a perceiver. You're a judger. Right. And I think we complement each other well in that regard. I agree. I'd actually like to do a podcast on that test. Let's do it. I think we should do you know if we have an article on that, we'll just make stuff up. Yes. I totally want to do it, though. I found it really fascinating and I did not think I would, and I was into it. Maybe we can work swimming with whale sharks into that somehow, too. We're just doing podcasts now based on personal experiences around the office. Tomorrow is going to be called Ham and Eggs for Breakfast. So, speaking of around the office, Chuckers, as you know, we have a bunch of new kind of cool articles about Altoids on the site. Who to thump it? Yeah. The curiously strong mint. You took my line. Oh, really? I'll kill you. Sorry. So, yeah, we've got a whole suite of articles. We have, like, a sub channel and the science channel that's dedicated to Altoids. Really? Yeah. Wow. Have you been on you haven't been on it? No, I wrote a few of them. Now, the final products look pretty good, though, right? I think so. The focus, as you know, since you have written some, was on this strange little group of people called Tennivators, right? Yes. Well, let's talk about them in a minute. First, let's discuss candy. Okay, yeah, sounds good. Talk about Altoids. Chuckers, do you have candy in your mouth now, like you did during the Twinkies show? I don't. Let's address that, shall we? Yeah, we got a few letters that came in that said, what was Josh eating during the Twinkies part? Even worse. Why was Josh eating? Yeah, it sounded like he had a worthers in his mouth or something. Or a candy. Yes. One guy gets wethers. Or Jelly Ranchers. Not true. Josh didn't have anything in his mouth, and we've surmised that because we were talking about Twinkies. He was just frothy. It's weird. I went back and listened to it, and I definitely sound like I'm chewing on something, but no, I think I just really wanted a Twinkie. I guess they were too cheap to pick some up, weren't you? Right. Yeah. So, just to let people know, we're slightly more professional than to suck on candy while we're trying to podcast, despite our illustrious surroundings. Right. Although we do have jolly, we have candy on our desk. We avoid it during I think Jerry would literally murder us if we just started eating candy during a podcast, right? Yes. I think I might salivate again. Okay. All right. So, Chuck, did you know that Altoids, these little mints, date back to the reign of King George III? I know. It was the mad king crazy who drove the colonists to revolt. 1780. Dude, people have been sucking on these mints. Also, did you know that King George may have had a perfaria? Really? What is that exactly? There's acute intermittent perfuria, which is, I think, what they think King George had. It's a congenital disease where porphyrins I can't remember what they do. I think they get rid of waste, build up in your bloodstream, in your system, and it can get kind of bad. It can have effects on the nervous system. It can have psychological effects, which is why they think King George was mad. And the stomach cramping is unparalleled. It's really horrible stuff. But the perfair you might be most acquainted with I can't remember what it's called, but it's where you're photosensitive. You can't go out into sunlight, can't be exposed to sunlight. It was featured in the others. You ever see that one? I did. And also, that's where they think the vampire legend, or that aspect of the vampire legend came from, is from people who have bacteria. I thought you were going to say give them bad breath or something. That's why they created Altoids. I think that was consumption, which was pretty big around 1780. Which is when they were first created. Right. Yeah. And that's always, by the way, we mentioned the Curiously Strong Mint. That was their slogan from day one, because they use real peppermint oil and lots of it, copious amounts of it's. Hardcore stuff, as anyone who's ever had an Altoid nose. Yeah. It does the trick, though. Yeah. So in America in America, we'd love to attach weird pop stuff to candy, to food like koolaid. Which, by the way, we should probably make that correction, too, while we're at it. Yeah. It wasn't Koolaid at Jonestown. It turns out it was slavery. I've done some terrible things in my life. I've never felt more ashamed than I do for missing that. Really? Yeah. Well, you know, like I told the hundreds of people that wrote it and corrected us on that, sure, it was Flavor Aid, but unfortunately for koolaid, what matters is what people think of and remember and don't drink. And the koolaid is what people remember. I don't even know if unfortunately is the right word. It could be fortunate. I'm not sure about it. How's flavor AIDS market share doing since Jones town? Exactly. So basically, in America, we don't just eat things like we eat things and then turn them into cultural phenomena icons on it. Right, exactly. So. Altoids isn't any different. And it's not necessarily the mint. Although, agreed, they are curiously strong. It's the tin that seems to really get people's juices going. I mean, who out there hasn't had Altoids at some point and saved the tin? Right. And kept paper clips or spare buttons or rubber bands or something in them? I don't know who my house is fuller, that's whom. Yes. At home right now, I have a couple of Altoids tins on my desk with assorted little knickknacks. Yeah. Because it's perfect size. It is convenient, it's snapshot, and I think that's what led this whole tention thing. Well, yes, technically, that makes you a ten. A very lame lane. That's exactly what I was going to say. But a tenivator nonetheless, which I guess we should define this a ten we've turned up through our research, is somebody who finds new and novel uses for old Altoids tins. It's as simple as that. And it can be as simple as throwing rubber bands in an old tin. Right. But some people have come up with much more advanced projects. Yeah. They write about a bunch of them that involve anodes and electrodes and weird stuff that I would electrocute myself trying. Right. So should we talk about tenvaters? I don't see why should we talk about these people? Yes. Who do you want to talk about first? Because I have to say, Chuck, this could have gone either way, this assignment, writing these articles. But the people that we ran across, at least the ones I wrote on, were generally really interesting. They were interesting people. And the stuff they came up with was very interesting, very creative people, which I was very thankful for. Let's start with Jacob Slatt. Yes, let's. Steampunk. Steampunk guy. For those of you who don't know what Steampunk is, it's kind of this subculture movement that's based out of this subgenre sub of speculative fiction that centers around the Victorian era and all like the fantastic contraptions that like Jules Verne and HC weld came up with. Right. So like throwback stuff that's in fact kind of futuristic. Right. So Jake Von Slack came up with one of the most recognizable Steampunk relics ever, which is the Steampunk desktop computer. Have you ever seen it? Yeah, it's wicked cool. Have you read the article that J. Strick wrote? Jonathan Strickland, our writer called fellow podcaster. We have a cool article that's just on Steampunk on the site. I think it's pretty cool. I would never get caught up in something like that because any movement where you're dressing up and going to events is not really up my alley. Right. But I like to look at them when they walk by me on the way to their convention. Sure, yeah. I'm more into first suiting, but I can see how somebody would get into Steampunk. It's interesting. I've been looking from the outside in, but JFon. Slat is kind of the de facto godfather of Steampunk. But it also happens to be a tenvador too. Right. So he makes little Steampunk tens. He sells these too, right? I don't know if he sells them. I think one of the things that goes along with Altoids almost across the board is that it's open source. Right. So Jake Bond Slat puts instructions on how to do his projects up for free on his website, which I think is called steampunkworkshop.com, which is really cool if you ever chilled around on it. And also some of the other people will talk about especially the do it yourself electronic folks. There's kind of this sentiment like, I created this project and I want to share it with the world, and here's how you can do it step by step, which is really big about sharing. It seemed like sort of a community. And a couple of the guys I interviewed, guys and gals, had gotten in touch with other tenders. And I'm kind of surprised they don't have a little mini convention at some point. Oh, yeah, just wait for it. It'll happen. We'll go, should we just as a chipmunk and a rabbit and go to the tention. So do you want to explain how he does this or just want to kind of give you what von Slack came up with? This is just one of his projects. He has other Altoids projects too, since he's Steampunk, he's been into Victoria and stuff. So he shows an etching, a copper plated, etching. Yeah, very cool. And I was on the site, he was kind of getting the gist of it so I could explain it in the article on him. It's called how to make a Steampunk. Altoids, tin. And he goes through all these really elaborate techniques to copper plate an Altoids tin. I know. Pretty advanced and somewhat dangerous. It is very dangerous. He's using acids and chemicals like hardcore epoxy. Removers electricity and water. Right. Together. Yeah. Which is always a little fun. Yeah. Actually, when I wrote it, I copied and pasted the couple of paragraphs describing that part and sent it to him to see. I said, I don't want any of our readers to be electrocuted. He told me if this is accurate. Right. And he wrote back, he's like, here's a much simpler way to do it. So basically, through trial and error, he came up with the simplest method, which was good for me because I could comprehend it and wrote about it. Got you. So basically what he does was he takes what is it he calls it blue vitriol, which is the Victorian era word for phrase term for copper sulfate. Right. So he uses the terminology to the link. Oh, yeah. Cool. Actually, he's steampunk to the core, buddy. But anyway, he takes this, and just with a Q tip, he dips it in the copper sulfate, rubs it on the back of an Altoids tin that's been stripped of its paint butt and everything, and it turns copper and copper plates. It like that. It looks really cool. Yeah, it does. But that's not the end of it. Right. So he takes, like, a Victorian etching. Yeah, well, a digital image of it. Just something off the internet. Exactly. And then he prints it out on, like, a transfer paper, like press and peel or something. What do they call press and peel in Victorian era? I don't know. So not that, though, buddy. Press and peel. Yeah, maybe. Who was that? My Victorian era lady. Was it really? Yeah. I thought that was Eleanor Roosevelt. I think it was. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah. Don't just take our word for it. Head to squarespace. Comssk and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code S Y SK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace. Comsysk squarespace. Hey, Chuck, it's summer, which means school is out, sun's shining, the daylight lasts longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story, isn't there? There sure is. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, you can tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right Media. That's right. Part true crime and part comedy, my Favorite Murder takes you on a journey through small town mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. That's Right hosts Karen Kilgareff and Georgia Hard stark banter with each other, sharing their favorite true crime tales, and explore unique hometown stories from friends and fans alike. And they're both great, and it's a fun show and you should listen. So listen to new episodes of my favorite murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. So he'll take the transfer paper, put it onto the back of the newly copper plated Altoids Tim. Yeah. Here's where it gets very dangerous, right. Here's where electricity comes into play. So it gets a twelve volt, one amp DC, wall mounted transformer. Right. Pulls one out of his pocket. It's probably steam powered. Yes. And he clips the positive side to the Altoid tin. He wants the etch. It clips the negative side to like a dummy Altoid ten to throw away one. And then yeah, he drops it into a salt water solution. He said one teaspoon of salt for every quart of water. And I got the impression he wanted at least a gallon, enough to submerge the Altoids tin, throws it in there, turns on the power, waits ten to 20 minutes, turns off the power. This is very important. Yes. Reaches in. All right. And then removes it. Also, I saw a picture of it. It's cool. Like the water starts bubbling. Yeah, it's pretty cool looking. So he turns the power off and then takes it out and he scuffs off the transfer paper. And it's been etched into the metal. So into this copper plated metal. He busts it, adds some rouge, busts it, brings it to a high shine. There you go. It's such a cool product. It is really cool. Again, in the article, just from what I wrote, you can do it in all the articles we included, how to make your own of what these people made. Because it's open source. Right. But yeah, if you really want detailed instructions, you can go into his site, too. Well, I think the fact that with all of these, I noticed the fact that it was an Altoid sin is what got attention, basically, because I did one on this kid, Nick Bren, who makes little mini flashlights from the little small I think it's the Gum ten. And he sells these kits online and kind of like your guy Aaron Dunlap, too, who does the USB charger and Nick Bren with a flashlight. The mere fact that it was an Altoids ten made people go, oh, man, I got to have one of those. Yeah, because it's really nothing more than a little, small, tiny flashlight you can put in your pocket. Like the little plastic ones you can get at the gas station check out line for $0.99. It's an Altoid stand, so it's cool. Yeah. Dunlap said that he created his USB charger just out of necessity. Right. He uses a nine volt battery, like a dollar apiece. And he added the USB charger and the connector and all that stuff, and he connects his smartphone to it, and it gives it like 60 minutes of talking time or 4 hours of standby just from one nine volt battery, which is cool. He also makes kits and sells them. And he said he had some leftover from his first project. That's why he put kits together to sell them. And he said that had he chosen just a plain old off the shelf metal enclosure, he suspects he'd still be trying to sell the first 25. But instead he sold thousands and actually founded a company called the Electrodes Company just to handle the order. Pretty cool. It got picked up on, like, Dig and Bonbon. And he said it was the allure of the Altoids. Absolutely. Did it? Yeah. What is it about the tin? Well, I think well, I interviewed Nick Brandon and this other guy, Matthew Poach. He does a speaker. Like, you can plug your ipod into this Altoids Ten and play your music out loud because he's drilled little holes, like a speaker grill on the top of it. What's it called? The Minty Boost? No, that's called speaker. Okay. Because there is an Altoids project. It's a legendary Alto by Lemor Fried, who I haven't met or interviewed, but he seems to be kind of like this DIY Altoid electronics guru, and he came up with the Minty Boost. A lot of people tip their hats to him. I think your steampunk guy kind of takes it to the next level, personally, when you're etching Victorian era stuff. That's pretty cool. Yeah, he's a sub sub genre guy. Right. He's a steampunk Altoids innovator, which it doesn't get more niche than that, I don't think. I had another actually, one of my guys, too. There's kind of two camps. You can either be artistic and we've seen some cool, like, shadow boxes. And I know one of the ladies you wrote about did a Zen garden, which is kind of cool. Kate Pruitt. Kate Brew. She's very cool. Yeah. And then the other side of the coin is people that do a more useful thing, like flashlight, speakers, USB chargers, that kind of thing. Right? Yeah. There's an artistic side and then there's like a technical side. Right. But the artistic side, dude, I've got the man who I wrote, David Zeldin. He actually does fine art. Oh, yeah? And makes big dough. Nice. So what's Alvin does, he actually uses the tens as his canvas. So he will mount tins pressed against one another, side by side and whatever, a four foot by four foot frame, and actually paint over them all. So what you have is a complete finish painting in small little blocks, almost like a mosaic. Pretty sweet. Yes. I haven't seen his stuff. Yeah, he's based out of Miami, and it's awesome, man. Are the articles up on the site yet? My speaker article is, and the flashlight article is, and the fine art article is cool. And the shadow box article, we'll check it out, man. Lots of innovators. I know. I wrote at least ten, I think. Really? Yeah. So there's a bunch of stuff about Ten and how to undertake their projects, and if it was too involved, we just kind of kicked it to a site like Instructables.com. Yeah. That's a great site. Oh, yeah. Very in depth, detailed stuff. Or you can buy some of these kits, too, if you're too lazy to do it yourself. Yeah, well, the kit you kind of have to put together yourself, so that's fine. Right. Good projects for kids. Yeah. There was another guy named Matthew Poke who came up with Swiss AVR knife. Well and he's the same guy that does the speaker. No. He made his speaker based on Lemor Freedom Minty Boost. So he was training himself in the art of do it yourself electronics based on other projects. But he's also a tentator as well. And he came up with the Swiss AVR Knife, which uses an AVR chip. It's like an eight bit processor, something like that. And you can program it. It's reprogrammable because it uses onboard flash memory. Right. But using a little sound output device and some little Led lights that goes through all these different mechanisms. Like the mini menorah. Right. So, like, all the Led lights light up. Or there's the what's it called? The noise maker. And it just makes all these different digitized sounds. Fans of craft work would really appreciate that one, but a lot of people are putting a lot of thought into Altoids, too. I think it's cool. I feel like I'm wasting my life. Well, let's go get some Altoids and empty them out and start painting on them or something. Let's do that, Chuck. Let's do some folk art. Okay. Yeah. It's the easiest kind of art, I believe, so, yes. Well, Chuck, that's innovators. If you want to read more about Ten, as we said, we have a ton of articles on the site. You can find those just by typing Altoids, I imagine, into the handy search bar on how stuff works.com. Since I just said that, that means it's time for listener mail. Yes, Josh, we got a listener mail. I'm just going to call America's Funniest Home Videos. Oh, I like this one. They took a bit of ribbing from us, for me specifically. And this? Are stupid people happier? Because I put that show at the very bottom of the food chain, comedy wise. Getting kicked in the groin. Yeah, what's funnier. So this comes from Jason. Jason says, I just listened to your podcast. Stupid People happier. And I loved it. Especially the part about the America's Funniest Home Videos. I thought you might be interested to know something that most people don't know about laughter. The following excerpt about how jokes work applies equally well to the AFV videos. And this is from the definitive book of body language. That's what he quoted. The basis of most jokes is that at the punchline, something disastrous or painful happens to someone. In effect, the unexpected ending frightens our brain, and we laugh with sounds similar to a chimp warning others of imminent danger. Even though we consciously know that the joke is not a real event, our laugh releases endorphins for self anesthesis, as if the joke wait, did you just make that word up? No, that's a real word. Okay. If it is a real event, we may go into crying mode, and the body would also release endorphins. Crying is often an extension of laughing bout and is why, in a serious emotional crisis, such as hearing about a death, a person who cannot mentally accept the death may begin laughing. My dad's always said, yeah, it's interesting. It's right on the money. When the reality hits, the laughter turns into crying. So there you have it. Dude get kicked in the groin. And it's funny. That explains it all. So I guess I am the stupid person. The joke is on me. Chuck, you're pretty far from stupid. And I think the only way to end this is for you to kick me in the groin. I will do that. Come here. Only way to do it. Come stand right here. No way. All right, well, I feel like plugging a few things. Look at you. Okay, so, Chuck, we've got two pages on Facebook. There's one for Josh Clark and Charles Bryant. That's us. Or Chuck Bryant. I think it is. There's the Stuff you should Know fan page on Facebook every Wednesday at 01:00 P.m.. Little known fact except for, like, to 30 people, we never counted. Every Wednesday at 01:00 PM. On the blogs@howstuffworkscom. Your blog, chuck posts one every week called Live Webcast. Watch it here right now. Something along those lines. We do a live webcast via U Stream. It's like 22 minutes long. It's awful. It's getting pretty funny, I think. You think so? Yeah, it's a little different. We do, like, news items and current pop culture things, and I think it's kind of fun. I'm proud that there's very little crossover between the podcast and the webcast. We're really working. We're like James Brown here, right? So we have Facebook pages. We've got the webcast. We have the blog. We have a Stuff You Should Know blog on how stuff works.com and what else. Anything. Dude, we have our second celebrity fan now. Oh, yeah. You want to give a shout out? Yeah. Well, we should give a shout out to our first celebrity fan who is Will Wheaton. Hey, will Wheaton, famous for the Star Trek series, and stand by me? He'll always be famous for Stand By Me. I was never much of a tricky any guy in our age generation. Stand By Me is like, one of the quintessential films. Yeah. Great movie. Yeah. The Dead Kid. Yeah. So Ray Brower. Boom. That was his name. Holy cow. I just pulled that out of my head. Blue Bloated version. We want to say thank you for your support because he actually mentioned this on his blog, his very popular blog. And we just found out that Ayesha Tyler is a big fan. Yes. The lovely, fetching, intelligent, smart, funny, Aisha Tyler stand up comedian. Yes. Former Talk Soup hostess. And she was on friends. Yes. Seasons nine and ten. She did. Ross. Ross. Ross and Joey. Yeah. I think she's probably the only person to date both Ross and Joey. I know. If she had done Chandler, it would have been a trifecta, right? Yeah. And let's see what else? I think you mean Data is Chandler, right? Sure. Okay. Yeah. So we're accumulating celebrity fans and I couldn't be more that we know of. And actually, let's just go ahead and cut to the chase. Barack Obama. If you listen to these podcasts, send us an email, will you? We've always wondered. We love you. Yeah. If you want to send us an email whether you're Barack Obama or not, please don't send an email as Barack Obama. If you're not Barack Obama, though, we know you can send that email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Want more Housetofworks? Check out our blog on the Housetofworks.com homepage. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandtalopets.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…05-sysk-beer.mp3	SYSK Selects: How Beer Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-beer-works	In this week's SYSK Select episode, at long last, Josh and Chuck take on perhaps their most important topic ever. Learn about the history of beer, how it's made -- the whole shebang, basically -- in this watershed episode of Stuff You Should Know.	In this week's SYSK Select episode, at long last, Josh and Chuck take on perhaps their most important topic ever. Learn about the history of beer, how it's made -- the whole shebang, basically -- in this watershed episode of Stuff You Should Know.	Sat, 27 May 2017 19:26:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=27, tm_hour=19, tm_min=26, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=147, tm_isdst=0)	46480560	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, folks, this is Chuck, and welcome to this week's SYSK Selects edition, how Beer Works. Not a long intro for this one. It's how beer works. So that was my pick. Why not rerun this one, right? Welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Bottoms up, et cetera. Take off your shirt. Is that what beer equates to in your book? Take off your shirt? Well, I take off my shirt when I drink too much beer. Oh, do you? Yeah. Loosen the old belt. Take off the shirt. Close. The blind. Neighbors don't want to see that, I want to point out. No, they don't. That guest producer Mattie today, just a little serendip. He is brewing his first batch of beer. Yeah. Right now. Yes. And he was like, man, it's not like just preparing food. He said, this is, like, serious chemistry going on, because I think he's shooting for the stars here. He's not starting out with an easy brew. I think, as you know, Maddie, he's not one to just dive into something lightly. Oh, no. Full bore. Yeah. You should see how he got into Zeitgeist something. I think he's bringing a porter. Is that right, Matt? Stout. But Stout supporters, as I learned, have been very much mixed throughout the years. Which came first, I believe, porters. And they were named after River Porters. Yeah, because that's what they like to drink in London, the River Porters. Allen River Porters. It's darker beers. Yeah. Although they'll kind of take what they can get. Yeah. That is one fact of about 1000 that you're about to hear. So also, I want to mention yumi's. And my friend Stewart is in a band called Superhuman Happiness. And one of his bandmates is making his first beer right now. I believe it's his first. And they're calling it superhuman happiness. Nice. Where are they? Out in New York. Out of Brooklyn. Of course they are. Yeah. So Stewart has promised to save a six pack. Great. I'm pretty psyched about it. Is their music good? Oh, yeah, they're really good. He's very good. He's one of the founding members of Antibolis. Have you heard of them? No. Do you know that shows Feyla? No. The Phila. It was on Broadway. It's a musical about Feyla Kuti, the Nigerian Afrobeat. The one that you went to. Yeah, I knew about it. Okay. That guy he arranged that got you. He's good, man. Okay. When we saw him with not buying principally the other guy yeah, you hate buying principally. I don't hate him. What's the other guy? The other guy that we can buy? Yeah. Sam Beam. Yeah, he played with him oh, cool. When they came through life. I like those guys, too. Yeah. So do you want to talk about beer over? Yeah. Seriously. We got a lot to cover. We shouldn't have wasted that minute of your life. Sorry, everyone. So, what, Stuart and Matt are engaged in is a millennia long tradition of brewing beer. Yeah. COA first, really quickly, you must be 21 to drink alcohol. Oh, yeah. And don't really take off your shirt and drink responsibly. So we're certainly not encouraging anyone to go out that's underage to get the delicious, delicious beer and drink it. All right. So as old as since people could walk around, it seems like they wanted to start brewing beer. Well, as old as civilization is what they think. Yeah. So not since they could walk around, but since they discovered that moldy bread did funny things. Yeah. And they think that it's possible that it was an accident. Some piece of bread got wet and inadvertently fermented. Like everything was there just right. And I guess back then they didn't waste anything, so they probably were like, Let me drink this nasty thing, or everything was new, and they were like, what does this taste like? What will this do to me? Exactly. They had tried magic mushrooms before and we're like, I will eat anything now. Yeah. You never know what you're going to get. They were still figuring things out. They're in the figuring things out phase. Right. So, yeah, it's possible it was a piece of bread. It could have just been a piece of grain or something. Because there's a school of thought that we have bread because we have beer. Yeah, I love that theory. Because they figured out that you could bake bread and easily make a mash out of bread and water to produce beer, and that this is all very portable and anybody could kind of keep some bread in their home. So it's possible we have bread because of beer. I love that theory. But the point is that yeah, beers as old as civilization. Because one of the first things we did was domesticate grain, and you need grain to make beer. And we figured it out pretty quickly. But the oldest record of brewing is, I think, 6000 years old. And Sumer yeah. Ancient Sumerians have a seal that had a hymn on it. The hymn to Ninkasi, the Goddess of Brewing. And the hymn not only was a hymn, but it was a hymn about making beer. It was a recipe for beer. Yeah. And it wasn't like, use one cord, but it was very broad, the recipe. Have you read it? No, I think Dogfish Head Brewery remade it using that recipe. Yeah, I've got one of theirs. They remade this ancient Chinese thing too. I don't think it's the same thing. No, it's very much it's more in the tradition of wine or brandy than beer. Yeah. But yeah, this one, this Hindu Ngosi is definitely beer, for sure. And that just kind of kicked everything off just right out of the gate. Yeah. The earliest reports were the beer would make you feel exhilarated, wonderful and blissful. Right. And so people are like, how do I get my hands on this stuff. Yeah. And they figured out very quickly how you got your hands on this stuff, Chuck, because beer came about at a period of transition to agrarian societies, from nomadic huntergatherer societies to agrarian societies. And there is another school of thought that not only do we have bread, because beer to think for bread, but civilization itself, that civilization. That beer attracted nomadic groups to civilization, because that's who had the beer. That's how you got the beer. You domesticated grain and you made it. Yeah. And this hut over here, they're really good at making beer, so let's live near them. Right. And then encircle that hut, and then that circle grows, and all of a sudden everyone is just sitting around getting drunk. Exactly. And then somebody's got a surplus grain, so they're in charge, and people end up doing work, and religious groups start up. But this is kind of immortalized. In the epic of Gilgamesh Inky do, the wild man who represents the hunter gatherer tribes, the nomads, is given beer because it is the custom of the city yeah. The civilized people. And he drinks like, eight glasses of it. And while he's drunk, he washes himself and became a human being just like that. So he moves from the wild into civilization via beer. Fast forward a little bit to Babylonia or Babylon. Yeah, I got to get out of Babylon then. Yeah. They had 20 different types of beer, and I believe they even invented the can that turns blue when it's cold. I'm not mistaken. That is priceless. Is that Babylon? I think it was. Okay. There's also a question I could not find a definitive answer for, but supposedly the Babylonians took brewing so seriously that if you made a bad batch or tried to sell a bad batch, your punishment was to be drowned in it. Yeah. I wonder if that's true. I found it all over the place, but nobody had a good definitive source, so I present it as a rumor. Early beer josh was unfiltered cloudy, had chunks of junk in it and residue, so they would actually drink it through a straw, sort of as a filter so they wouldn't get the stuff in their mouth. It was really bitter. Hammer robbie, very important lawmaker back in the day. Now, where do we just talk about him in the I for an eye code? I can't remember it. Was it Noah's ark? Maybe. I don't remember. But yeah, he's the guy who came up with the eye for an eye. It's like one of the earliest set of laws. And a beer for a priest. Well, it turns out, actually five beers for a priest. Right. Well, five liters. Yeah, that's right. A day. Yeah, that was his beer ration, and that was one of the first laws that he established. A normal worker got two leaders, civil servants, three, and then administrators and the high priest. Five leaders a day. Now, that is what I call a social contract. Yeah, that's worth sticking around for. Seriously. So, yeah, hamura be wasted. And we're going to fast forward a little more. The Egyptians. Keep it going. Yeah. They had their own hieroglyph. They did, for brewer. And then everything comes very close to being disrupted forever with the arrival of the Greeks and the Romans, because they drove Volvos and listened to NPR, and all they cared about was wine. To the Romans especially, beer was barbarian drink. You only drank beer in the remotest outposts of the Roman Empire to get wine to a certain degree, don't you think? Sure, yeah. I mean, wine is very big around Greece, but so is Greek beer. No, but I'm talking about period all over the world. Like, you generally think of wine as being high society, and the construction worker kicks back with a Coors light. Can we all just drink both? Yes. Maybe even mix together? No. Okay, that'd be gross, but yes, I agree with that point of view. I think it does kind of carry on today, and I guess it's where it finds its root. Yeah. The Snobby Greeks, interesting in Romans, luckily, there was a remote outpost of the Roman Empire that was like, I don't care what you say, man, we're making beer. We're going to dedicate our society to making beer. Of course. And today we call those people the Germans. Yes. God bless them and their efforts. Back then, they were called teutons. Yeah. And Tacitus wrote about the ancient Germans and said to drink the teutons have a horrible brew, fermented from barley or wheat, a brew which has only a very far removed similarity to wine. The only thing that had in common was that you drink it and it messes you up. Yeah. Aside from that, it couldn't be any more different. Right. And the Germans have been making beer since at least 800 BC. That's the earliest record we have of beer drinking in Germany. And I don't know if it it probably spread from the Teutons to the rest of northern Europe, but you see beer pop up in very ancient northern European texts, like the Finnish saga, the Kaliwalla. There are 400 verses dedicated to beer, 200 verses dedicated to the creation of the earth. That's a society that takes its beer seriously. Yeah. And the Nordic I kind of thought it was called the Nordic epic edda. Wine was for the gods. Beer was for mortals and mead for the inhabitants of the realm of the dead. You ever had mead? No, I never have. It's like honey based, right? Fermented honey. Yeah, it's like honeywater. Fermented honeywater. It doesn't sound that good. I had some hippie in Virginia give me some mead one time that he had made. Yeah, you took me from a hippie. I did. Stayed with him one night was one of those deals. Going through town. Okay. Friend hooked us up for a place to stay. Did you have a bindle? No. He did, though. And he even had a house. He had homemade mead. It was gross. It wasn't very good. I didn't care for it. I'm sure it's an acquired taste. So, yeah, mead kind of falls off here, right? Yeah. Except for Hippies in Virginia. Exactly. Wine kind of stuck in the Mediterranean, but beer just continued to spread and take hold. Yeah, like barley. I mean, of course, wine spread itself as well. We have it in France and California and everything, but around this time it was fairly localized to the Mediterranean area. And as we enter the medieval age, the Dark Age is first and then medieval times. The monks, Christian monks, got really good at brewing. And the reason they took it up is because this was a place of, like, science and agriculture in Abbey was and could also support their abbey. Exactly. Which is now what Trappist monks are. If you drink Trappist ale and it says brewed by Trappist monks, this is a tradition that's well over a thousand years old. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Monks supporting themselves by doing something for the community. And some of them threw beer, God bless them. Another tradition, which is rampant sexism, took place when women were the ones that brewed beer in the medieval times. And not only that, but they said, we want only hot women brewing our beer. Well, it was so important that only beautiful women could brew beer. But can you believe that? Way back then, they were like, no, I don't want no ugly chicks making my beer. Can you believe that the earliest form of sexism I can think of. I'll bet it goes back further than that. Well, sure, but there's a feminist twist later on. Well, because I got really good at making it. Yeah. People who were women, who were well known. If you were a medieval wife, one of the things you did was brew. Right. And if you were good at it, eventually your family may come to bear the name Brewer or Brewster. That's where your name comes from. Exactly. It means that you have a female ancestor who landed your family a surname through her brewing skills. That is feminism. To ask me. It might have been the St Pauli girl herself. Maybe. So do you think she's a feminist icon? I don't think so. Where are we, Chuck? We are in the 15th century and something pretty cool happened in Germany. And to me, this is the fact of the show. Just because I did not know this, the Rhine Heights Cabot of 1516 was a beer purity law basically said you can only make beer out of four things water, malted, barley, malted, wheat and hops. So that is wrong. That is not right. Three things. I don't know where this source got the four ingredients, but there's water, barley and hops are the only three things you can put in beer. Okay. Wheat wasn't included at first. Yeah. Okay. Right. Regardless, this still the fact of the show. The Rhine, heitzkeboat is the oldest nonreligious legal standard of food production, and the oldest consumer protection law on the planet was beer. Because of beer. It's 1516. That is crazy. And it's still around. It is. It's still enforced today. Like, don't try to make a beer in Bavaria using anything but those three ingredients. Yeah. You make beer in Bavaria with corn and rice, you got a one way ticket on the bullet train out of town. Right. Or you'll get caned publicly. That's right. And there are a couple of reasons why this law was passed. One, people used to put crazy stuff in beer, like hallucinogenic roots or poisonous roots that could make you do crazy stuff like hemlock and things like that. So it was a purity law. It was also to control prices. If you read the purity law, it's like you can't sell a beer for more than this. And then thirdly also is to make sure that important grains like wheat got diverted to important things like food. Yeah. They didn't want people going crazy like using wheat, which is why that wheat was wrong. It's barley water and Texas. But wheat beer obviously came along, and rye beer later on. Right. So let's go to America, man. USA. Virginia again. Yeah. Beer has been around the US. Since before the US. Was around. Maybe it was a hippie. Maybe he was a descendant of the original brewers of beer in the US. Maybe. Who knows? So in 1587, by this time, colonists are already making beer, flagrantly ignoring the Rhine Heights Cabots by using corn. They realize very quickly that this makes a terrible beer. I bet it was gross. And in 16 nine, the first ads appear in London newspapers asking for brewers to move to Virginia Colony. Right. They need some beer over there in the New World. In 1612, the first brewery set up in New Amsterdam by Adrian Block and Hans Christian Anderson. No, Hans Christensen. And I thought this was interesting, too. Same place where the first well, it says the first nonnative American, but I guess it's the first American. No, because America wasn't there yet. This is New Amsterdam. Dutch colony. So it's the first nonnative American born in North America. Right. It wasn't like, an indigenous group, which was Jean Vigeni vinnie. Vinnie. And he became a brewer. Yeah. He was born in the first brewery. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, he kind of had to become a brewer under those circumstances, didn't he? Well, in America, just had to become a nation of beer lovers because of this, I think. Yeah. And boy, did we love it. So, like, researching this and other researchers I've done, america used to be ten times more an awesome place. I can't remember what episode it was. It may have been Prohibition, where we were talking about, like, if you look at lists of things served at Colonial funerals or weddings or whatever, it'd be like five kgs of rum and 50 kgs of beer and all that. But there's only like 60 people there. Yeah. And then the fact that the word cocktail referred to a drink that you drink in the morning and that the whiskey old Fashioned was the original cocktail. Right. Yeah. We used to drink a lot more in this country. What is it? 73. Yes. We hit our peak number of breweries. 4131 breweries, supplying a population of just 50 million people. Yeah. Our peak back then, of course. Yeah. Because now there's a renaissance. There is a craft brewing, and now there are more breweries than since the 1800s. That's awesome. I did a little research on craft brewing in the 1970s. There were only 40 consolidated breweries in the US. And experts thought that that number would fall to as little as five. And it was all this homogeneous light lager that Americans grew to love in World War II. Yeah. Because Prohibition hit and there's like a beer evolutionary bottleneck. Yeah. You couldn't survive unless you were one of the big, big ones. Right. And you had to make other things, including non alcoholic beer. But so you come out and there's just a few breweries operating, right? Yes. And then World War II hits. And that caused the other reason that beer became homogenous in the United States. Men went off the war, women became the market for brewers, for beer. And they preferred a lighter style beer. Sure. So in America, almost for decades after World War II, the only beer you can find, pretty much was that American style pilsner lager. Yeah. It was like this through the 1976, the first craft brewery, the new Albion Brewery in Sonoma, California, open. And they were like, we want to start making some good old beer again, like some ales and some amber's and some stouts. They were only open about six years, but they inspired hundreds of others to take it up. And that's generally looked back as the new renaissance started in 76. That's great. In 1980, there were eight craft breweries in there were 537. And in 2010, there were 1600. That's beautiful. And I think over 1900 in 2011. So they went from literally almost being extinct, like, 20 something years ago or 30 years ago, to, like, booming. Big time booming. But that's still half of that 1870s number, 1900, so yeah, you're right. Half. But that's the highest level since that time. But consider that think about how much beers in this country right now. You got 1900 breweries. Yeah. Plus supplying 300 million people. Back then, we had 4100 breweries supplying 50 million. Yeah. It's crazy. Well, unless not kid ourselves, I think the craft brewers are supplying about 4% by volume and about 6% by dollars. And the three miller, Anheuser, Busch and Core are the three big daddies. I prefer to fool myself in this circumstance. Yeah, but you are right. I mean, there's a renaissance going on. Sure. So let's talk about what these people are doing during this renaissance. You want to talk about how beer is made? Yeah, and I've never done it. Surprisingly, I never have either, but I'm going to. Oh, yeah. Well, bring me some way. This has inspired me. I just need to collect friends who brew their own beer so I don't have to do it. Exactly. Barley water, hops, and yeast are the basic four ingredients. And I like how you put the whole idea to extract sugars from the grains. Usually barley yeast eats it up, and it poops out alcohol and co, too. And that's beer. Yeah, it's that simple. And you've just described two steps. There's two big categories of this process. There's brewing and then there's fermenting. And the brewing part is pretty simple. It's taking malted grain, which is, like, dried and cracked and heated so that the sugars start to come out a little more. I guess caramelized is another way to put it. And then you take that and you steep it in basically a t. And the t that you've just made is called work. Yeah. And that's called mashing. Right? Yeah. So mashing, yes. Taking the malted grain and steeping it, that's mashing. That's right. But it produces a sticky, sweet substance, pre beer, as it were, called wort. Yeah. Or I imagine Vert in Germany. Probably. Yeah. And you take that word and your brewing process is done. When you put it in a tank with yeast, you just started the fermentation process. Yes. And that's where things get groovy. You boil the vert for about an hour, you add the hops, and depending on what kind of beer you're going to make, is really going to depend on what kind of hops or how much hops. Yes. We haven't started fermenting yet. I jumped the gun. You have to add the hops to the work. Oh, yeah. We did jump the gun, but Budweiser, let's say, has about eight to twin IBUs, which are international bitterness units. Yeah, that's how you measure hops. Yeah. Are you like hoppy beer? I am. A big IPA in pale oil. Yeah, I like beer. So hoppy, it makes me sneeze. Well, that's pretty hoppy. South has about 30 to 50 IBUs and a double IPA, or an IPA could have up to 100 dogfish head. 120 Minutes has 120 IPU's. Well, and they try that stuff. Well, I like the 60 and the 90. The 120 is actually kind of hard to find a lot of times because they don't make a ton of it, but interestingly. Pale ale. You know where India Pale l comes from? The IPA India? Well, it does. British soldiers were stationed over there, and when they started setting up trade with India back in the day, or colonizing it. That's one way to put it. And they were like, boy, we're really thirsty and we kind of miss our old beer back in England. So they would send over their pale ales and they wouldn't really make the voyage very well, the sea voyage. It would show up flat and kind of gnarly. So they added a lot more hops, because hopsax is a preservative. Thus India pale ale. Nice. Yeah, nice. That's the story I got. If I get wrong, I'm going to be really embarrassed. No, I think that it gets sturdy. I would buy that one. That's the kind of story here in a bar. That's the story you say in a bar that gets you free beer. We should try that. So you've got the work that's boiled, right? It's all sugary, and you add yeast to it and put it in a tank, and now it's fermenting. And like we said, the yeast just eats all the sugars and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol as waste products. And depending on the kind of beer you make, well, it really depends on the kind of yeast you use. You're either going to be waiting around for a few weeks to a couple of months. That's right. So if you are making something called an ale, you're going to be doing all this. You're going to ferment using top fermenting yeast at room temperature. And then after a few weeks, your beer is going to be ready to drink. If you are making a lagerger, which in German is a verb meaning to store yeah, it's going to take a few months and you're going to store this stuff. You're going to let it ferment at near freezing temperatures and it's going to ferment at the bottom. The yeast is yeah, they would put it in caves. It was called lagering, was distorted in caves, cold caves. Because for those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years that they were making beer, they kept being like, this beer is messed up and it happens to be summertime. What's wrong with this beer? Oh, it's also summertime. And then finally somebody figured out, wait a minute, we're making the best beer in the wintertime. And they didn't quite know why, but they figured out a process to replicate it. But of course, now we understand that the wild yeast and bacteria in the area that was prevalent in the summers of Germany was messing up the fermentation process, souring the beer, the stuff. Using yeast that survived in winter months in the cold produces really clean, crisp, very awesome beer. A taste of the Rockies. Yeah, exactly. That's now called the lager. That's right. We actually forgot something, too. And I know there's home brewers right now going, you can't forget carbonation. Yeah. Skipping back a bit after you do have the bottle beer, it's not carbonated yet. It's very flat. Right. So you need to carbonate it. And I imagine the big breweries force carbonate like sodas do. Right. And if you're a traditionalist though, and I wondered about craft breweries. I need to know more about this, if they do that or not. Well, I think it usually will say, like, bottle conditioned. Oh, really? Yeah. So bottle condition means it just waits, and you waited out for the yeast to do its thing naturally. Right. And that's where you're going to get your foam and your good bubbly goodness. Because it produces carbon dioxide, the waste product takes a while. Waste product? You say waste product, I say bubbly goodness. Okay. So you want to talk about gravity? Yeah. Gravity is how much alcohol is in your beer. And the brewers measure the gravity before and after the fermentation process, and they calculate the difference in the amount of alcohol by volume and represented by a percentage. Right. So, like, the higher the percentage, the higher the gravity of the beer. Yeah. Nowadays with the craft beers, you're going to get all kinds of percentages, like six to 9% to 10%. Right. That's a pretty heavy duty beer. Oh, yeah, definitely. What is, like, your average Budweiser? What is that, 5.5? There was a law in Georgia for a while that was you couldn't sell beer over 5.5. Do you remember when they repealed that law? That beautiful time in the do. Remember that? Actually. Wow. Yeah. That had a lot to do with craft breweries in Georgia, too. Definitely say the stuff about the lambox. So I thought that was really interesting. Okay, so lambix are a type of spontaneously fermented brew. I've had it. I didn't know this, though. The same problem that the old Germans had with local stuff getting in there, I guess. The French, when they're producing these lambics, the Belgians French, they're basically just leaving their stuff out to be exposed to wild yeast that grows in the area. It's crazy, spontaneous fermentation. And like I said, I'd tried lambic in the past, and I didn't know what made it so special. That was it. I don't care for it a whole lot. It kind of has a sour aftertaste it's fruity, sort of like cider, almost. Yeah. Not enough hops? No, I like my hops. What's your favorite beer? Actually? I mean to ask you that. So I'm a pretty big fan of anything New Amsterdam puts out. They're great fat tires. One of the all time best. Yeah. We have friends, fans at Brooklyn Brewery. Yeah. And New Amsterdam. Remember they sent us, like, a bunch of beer? They were the first ones. They did. Thanks again, guys. Yeah. We have fans at Brooklyn Brewery. They send us beach towels and other swag. They did. We had a fan who sent us some Shiner Bach ones, but I don't think he was related to them in any way. He was just from Texas. Yeah, that's a Texas beer, right? My alltime favorite. It's never been toppled. I've had plenty of beer and I'm like, this is really good. Like innocent gun. Have you ever. Had that? No. Oh, my God. It's like Ambrosia. It's the most amazing thing ever. But you can't just drink, like, one after the other if you're in such a mood. It's just a lot. It's very rich. So my favorite beer that's just no one's ever toppled it is Sierra Nevada Paleo. Yeah, I'm right there with you. It's just the best beer, I think, that anyone's ever made. It's delicious and nutritious. It's refreshing. Yeah. I want to go to their brewery. I like the dogfish head stuff, but I'm into trying. We have these stores here in Atlanta now, indicator, where I live with all the myriad craft beers. And I'll try any kind of pale ale or IPA. Have you been to Ale? Yeah, I have. Is that place in it? Yes. And they have the growlers there, which is always kind of fun. You just get something on tap and drink it out of a jug like an old pirate. And I also have to say our local boys at Sweetwater are killing it, too. Yeah. As far as Pale ales go, sierra Nevada and the 420 are very close. 420 is good. I will always go for that if they don't have the Sierra on the menu. And I remember my first beer very distinctly. Do you? Yeah, because as everyone listens to the show and I was a very good Baptist boy growing up, so I didn't drink or anything like that until I was older. Right. And I remember the first time I tasted beer, I had only had soda as far as a carbonated beverage, and that's the only thing I could expect. And I just remember thinking, this is so weird tasting. Like it's fizzy like a soda, but it doesn't taste anything like a soda. And I was like, oh, how do people drink this stuff? Yeah. And then, like, 30 seconds later, you're trying it again, like, oh, that is so bad. Why can't I stop? I want to stop. Yeah. First beer, huh? I don't remember mine. Yes, I remember it was long gone. I think mine was you were probably younger than I was. I don't remember. My dad drank, like, old Milwaukee tall boys. And I'm sure I tried, like, a sip of his when I was a kid. See, we didn't have beer in the house, so that was just waiting around. Yeah. All right, so where are we, Chuckers? We could talk about some of the older beers in existence. Yeah. So there's, like, actual old beer. It's over 100 years old. That particular bottle of beer was manufactured, like, 170, 80 years ago. And there's two shipwrecks that have beer on them that ironically are competing for the oldest beer in the world. And they both went down in 1825. Wow. I know, it's maddening. There's one in the Baltic Sea. There was a shipment of beer and champagne from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg that went down in 1825. And then there's a shipwreck in the English Channel in 1825, and a guy named Keith Thomas, he was a microbiologist, I believe. He got his hands on some of the bottles of this beer that is still around and tried it and was like he vomited. And he's like, maybe I can figure out some other way to do this. So he got the yeast from this beer and got a colony going. The living yeast, same yeast. It's not like a descendant of it. Like, this is the yeast. And he got it going again and found like an old porter recipe. And now he makes flag porter, which in and of itself is one of the better beers around. Oh, sure. I also want to say I like just about anything Sam Smith does, too. I don't know that Sam Smith like oatmeal stout and winter welcome. Yeah, Sammy Smith. Sorry. Sure. They had the Shakespeare stout. Wasn't that Sammy Smith? No, that's Rogue. Yeah, that's Rogue. But I've had the old guy is awesome. I'm getting thirsty. Dogfish Head has revived a recipe, and that's what we were talking about earlier. The guy from Dogfished claims it's the oldest known fermented recipe in the history of man. And it was from a Neolithic burial site in China. And it is called they brew it now. It's called Chateau Jiahu. J-I-A-H-U from 7000 BC. And they decoded it molecularly from clay pots, founded a Neolithic burial site. That's very cool. And have brewed this stuff. And they're also the ones I get a little crazy. They did the Midas touch brew that was supposedly King Midas recipe from his tomb. That's so cool. And we have people right in, but I love what they're doing over there at Dogfish Head. They also did the one based on the hymntonicancy. The what? The Hem to Nicanse. The same marion one. Right. So there's also some brewers that have been around for a while, like Stellar Tour. If you look on the label, you'll see that it has some mention of 1366. That's old man. That's when they started brewing. That delicious, too. I love a good Stella. Like a nice summertime beer for me. Agreed. August Diner began in 1328, probably the oldest beer in the world as far as brewing. The recipe is wine. Henstaffen. Did I get it? Yeah. Vahenstefan. Oh, nice. Those are brewed by Benedictine monks. That beer has been brewed since the 700s. But the vineynstaffen the guys brewing that also operate the oldest continuously functioning brewery in the world, which opened its doors in 1040. Wow. And it's been going ever since. That's awesome. It's about to celebrate its thousand th anniversary. So cool. What else? A man named Arthur Guinness in 1756 did a very smart thing by signing a 9000 year lease on a building in Dublin. And they have been making the old delicious Guinness beer there since then. And I enjoyed at our south by Southwest event at Fideo Irish pub. I enjoyed myself some Guinness at that event. Love me some Guinness. Is Guinness sponsoring you now? None of these people are. But why are you wearing that leather eight ball jacket with Guinness patches all over? The Schlitz story I thought was kind of interesting. Yeah. I searched the story up because I remembered hearing it. Yes. And I was like, we got to mention that one. So what was the deal? They were making good beer for a long time. We're one of the top three. And then they changed their recipe in the late seventies and just screwed it all up. Yeah. They wanted to be number one, and they were number two. Wanted to be number one. So they decided that they were going to just change it, and they changed it in a really lazy, cost efficient way. Instead of malt, they used corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup. It's such a bad idea. And then they didn't filter as much either. So you had this really weird tasting chunky style beer, and this was in the 70s. By 1980, Schlitz's market share was 1%. It went from the number two selling beer in America to, within just a couple of years, 1% of the market. Yeah. I think more than one person lost their job on that move. Oh, yeah. They may have, like, killed those people. So they discontinued the brand altogether at one point, didn't they? Yeah, it went under. And then Stro's, which I also remember from my childhood. Sure. You know what? We're going to buy you guys. So they bought Schlitz, and then they just bought the label. They're like, we don't want that. Keep all this leftover chunky beer. But they bought the label and apparently rolled out the classic 60s formula, which I have not tried. I have not either. We do want to shout out to Yingling as well. In 1829, David Yingling opened a brewery in Pennsylvania in Pottsville, and it is still open today. The oldest operating brewery in the United States still in the Ingling family. And their black and tan is very delicious to me, and it's very popular beer. People seek it out. I think one of the reasons why is because it's tradition. Sure. And it's delicious. Yeah. And it has cute puppies in their labels and marketing material. Yes. And I want to ask Budweiser, if you are the makers of Budweiser and you're listening, bring back the bullet bottles, and you'll thank me later. Do you know who makes Budweiser? Anheuser Bush. Right. You know who owns anheuser Bush? InBev. They're a European company. Oh, really? Is something as American as Budweiser is owned by the Europeans now? Well, Anheuser isn't exactly American. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Neither is Bush, but yeah, the bullet bottles. Do you remember those? They were short, little stubby bottles. Now, those are the barrels. Okay. These were bullets. They were short and kind of went up and then just graduated up and they were I guarantee you people would buy those. Yeah, the classic budweiser phallus bottle. Well, Miller Highlights came back with their old school bottle. Oh, yes. I know exactly what you're talking about. You remember the old bullet? I totally do. Yeah. They were cute. And I think if Budweiser brought those back, people would really jump on that because everyone likes the old school stuff. You can look like you're in the 70s again. Eight or 70s. Yeah. You can send your thanks by check to Chuck Anheuser Busch and the money starts rolling. Or just a case of the bullets. So this is kind of unusual. We don't usually throw out cool, random facts at the end, but there's some cool ones. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I'm going to start with the London brewery of 1814. So there was a 100,000 gallon tank, fermenting tank of ale in London at a brewery, and it exploded. And when it did, it killed eight people and destroyed a pub nearby. It actually killed nine people. The 9th guy died the next day because when these 100,000 gallons of ale flooded the streets, people started drinking it. One guy drank so much that he died of alcohol poisoning. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Josh yes. According to statistics, the Czech Republic leads the world in beer consumption per capita. I have been there and I can tell you they love their beer. It's cheaper than their water. I've been there, too, and it's delicious. Over 156 liters per year per person. That's for everyone. They don't just say, like, 21 year old citizens. Right. So that is 439 beers a year. 12oz. They're probably 16oz over there. Or are they twelve? I don't know. I don't know how they broke that down. So that is 18 cases of beer per person. About a case and a half a month, 500 centiliter a half liter. It's like a tall boy can. A big can. Well, I think most of Europe is like that because I remember being in London for the first time and thinking, man, all you guys have is tall boys. And they're like, what's a tall boy? Right. That was Australian. That was neither, actually. Pretty close. Madden. They're laughing at my hackney attempts. Bath symbol. Yeah, the Red Triangle. Famous. It was registered as a trademark in 1876. It's the world's oldest trademark. Pretty cool. And the beerstein. You ever been to Germany? Yes. The beer gardens there. It's exactly what you think. You're going to get a four and a half foot tall German woman with forearms as big as your waist carrying, like, five of those big, huge mugs of beer in each hand. Yeah. That's crazy. And it was exactly what you want if you're going over to your beer garden. I was like, wow, I'm so glad it's like this. And my buddy Brett and I actually had a very fun night in germany, drinking with this old, fat German dude that didn't speak any English, and I spoke a little bit of German, but we all loved the Beatles, and we drank with this dude for, like, 3 hours, singing Beatles songs nice. In both English and German. Very nice. And Carl and I have a picture with this guy still. It was one of my great memories of traveling abroad. Well, tell them where the beerstein came from. Oh, the beerstein comes from the bubonic plague. They were like, we need to put lids on these things so we don't get any disease in there. So they came up with the beerstein. Yes. And what was it to the pottery was there were advancements in ceramics. Right. I think the money fact is the bubonic plague created beer stein. Yeah. So that's it. But I didn't get Steins in Germany. It was just a big mug. Got you. It looks like a half gallon of beer. I'm not sure how much it is, but it was good dunkley stuff. Nice, man. Matt, did we get anything wrong? He said we're pretty good. That's good enough. I'm sure there's some home brewers that will take us to task, but we did our best, man. We want to hear about it. Yeah. Do you have anything else right now? I'm done. Okay. So that's it for beer. You can type beer into the search bar@housetoporks.com. Remember, as Chuck said at the beginning, don't go out and drink beer if you're not 21 no. In the United States. And drink responsibly. Yes. Don't be a goon. Don't ever drink and drive. This is dumb. Agreed. Chuck a little older, and you realize that the commercials are all right. That's just a stupid thing to do. Yeah. Agreed. All right, so that's it for beer right now? I said search bar@housetoforce.com. I think. So it's time for listening to me. That's right, Josh. And you know the other reason why you get a little older and you say drink responsibly is because you do a lot of stupid stuff if you don't. Oh, man. And you'll be the butt of many jokes. Even if no one gets hurt, you will act a fool and end up with, like, toothpaste up your nose if you passed out at a party. That's what happens in your world when you drink too much. Now, you've seen a lot people put toothpaste they pass out at a party, and people, like, draw stuff on your face and take pictures of you and put it all over the Internet. Plus, you feel cruddy the next morning. Yeah, exactly. See our Hangovers podcast for that. All right, I'm going to call this pretty cool. Interesting email from an attorney about dueling. Guys, I just got done listening to your podcast on duels, but you might like to know that I, and I am sure many of your fans, enjoyed the podcast with a twinge of sadness, because, alas, I cannot duel why, you ask? I'm an attorney, and one of the states in which I am licensed is Kentucky. And when an attorney in Kentucky is sworn in, he or she swears an oath. When I was sworn in, the Commonwealth of Kentucky contained this additional tidbit. In order to practice in the Commonwealth, I had to swear that I would not participate in any duels. She still has to say this. Isn't that crazy? It's pretty cool. What's more, as I listen to the podcast, I realized that I've been preparing to duel my whole life. During college, I worked as a serving winch at Medieval Times, watching Joust each night and twice on Saturdays. My senior year of college, in order to fulfill my PE requirement, I took fencing, which was actually really interesting and more athletic than I expected. So, sadly, no matter how much experience we may have, neither I nor my fellow members of the Kentucky Bar come Stuff You Should Know fans can use the information we need from your podcast. There was talk in the last few years of years of removing that particular clause from the oath, but as far as I know, newly minted Kentucky attorneys are still required to abstain from dueling. Just seems logical. I think we should add that to just about anything. Like when you go get your driver's license, you have to check a box that says, I won't do or in your marriage. Vowels. Yeah, there's just a lot of places where we could insert that. And that is from Rebecca Wright in Kentucky. Ohio? Really? That's what she signed? It is? No, she signed at Cincinnati. But I like to say, Santa, if you're a home brewer, we want to hear from you. And if I hear from you, we mean send us some of your wares. Chuck said that, not me. But he's right. So we want to hear from you via Twitter at syskpodcast. We want to hear from you on Facebook@facebook.com, and we want to get emails from you. And you can send those to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
3f221918-5461-11e8-b6d0-733e6f5f2600	SYSK Selects: How the Electoral College Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-the-electoral-college-works	When you vote in an American presidential election, you're not voting for your candidate - you're voting for a group of people you hope will in turn vote for your candidate. Listen in to learn more about the strange process for electing the president, in this classic episode.	When you vote in an American presidential election, you're not voting for your candidate - you're voting for a group of people you hope will in turn vote for your candidate. Listen in to learn more about the strange process for electing the president, in this classic episode.	Sat, 03 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=277, tm_isdst=0)	39329220	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hi there. It's Josh Clark. One half of stuff you should know. And I'm here to present our episode on the Electoral College, a convoluted, flawed system, one that's shown its inherent problems in the last couple of decades. In fact, the Electoral College is frequently cited as the most undemocratic aspect of our democracy. I hope our episode on it gives you a good picture of it and hopefully charges you up to vote, because our ability to vote is not only a right, it's an imperative. So please vote this November and anytime you have a chance to vote, because that's how America moves forward. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. And you put us together a couple of microphones, some cameras. You get something called Stuff you should know. Cameras? Yeah. What are you talking about? Oh, yeah. There's nothing here. Everything's very normal. Just proceed. Chuck? Yes. How are you doing? I'm great. How are you? Time is nigh. I'm getting over my cold. Yeah, you sound good. Do I? Yeah. Well, you sound better than you did last week. Yeah. I'll give you that. But I don't feel like I sound 100%. Not 100%, but compared to the swimming and snot phase, I will take this. And it got really bad. It's pretty snotty. I'm not going to go into it here, but wow. Okay. Yes. Election time is nigh. I know. I tried to get right to it. Yeah. And I blocked you. That's why I wanted to do this one, because people perennially ask for the Electoral College, and other people say, I don't know what that is, but I want to hear about that, too. And then people in other countries just say, you guys do what? Yes. It's kind of depressing. Yeah. Actually, I meant to look up to see what other countries did with their election. It's all like kings and birthright and stuff. Yeah. No one else votes? No. Okay. It's just the USA that does. That good price. Yeah. Chuck? Yes. I don't really have much of an intro here. All right. It's more of a can you believe this kind of thing. Okay. How long have you thought that you went to the polls and cast a vote and the vote you were casting was for the candidate that you were casting that vote for, who that vote went to every time up until yesterday. So, like, you didn't have much of an idea about the Electoral college. No, I did, and I knew sort of how it worked, but until you really get down to it, you don't realize that, well, I'm voting for a person that's going to vote for a person. Yeah, exactly. Because in some cases, it's not even on the ballot. Like the person who you're actually voting for. Okay. So we did what I like to do. We confused everybody and now we're going to go back and explain what we're talking about. Okay. Yeah. I was confused, actually. I'm going to be ashamed myself. Right out of the gate, when it said every four years on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November, I was like, why don't they just call it the first Tuesday of November? But then I realized that I guess if November 1 is a Tuesday, then the election won't be until the following Tuesday. Yes. Because they got to get the Monday in there. It gets even crazier than that with the Electoral College. They go the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. Yeah. I think everybody had, like, gout or something like that back. Just passed out consumption. Right? Yeah, that's what it was. So that is when the actual Presidency is decided in December? Yes. Although everyone knows. Well, you would think. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about this, the Electoral College, the whole thing. Why don't we just stick to the popular vote, which is what everybody thinks they're doing anyway? Where did this come from? I have an answer. Okay. Back in the day when our founding poor fathers and mothers were doing their thing here, they decided, I think I don't trust a regular popular vote. It's reckless, as described in this article. And then another camp said, you know what? We sure as heck aren't going to let Congress decide the President. Right. So why don't we come up with a really confusing wacky system called the Electoral College? Yeah. Because it's compromised. Do you want to have a bunch of uninformed rabble rousers who just revolted against the King of England a few years before voting, or do you want a group of elites voting? It's like Citizens United. You don't want either of them. So, yeah, they just went and got confusing. Yeah. I imagine it was more confusing back then than it is today. You think so? Or maybe not. Maybe it made more sense back then. I think it probably did. Okay, so what they come up with? What was the compromise? Well, the compromise is when it comes election time, there are these people called electors who actually decide the Presidency, and they represent that's equal to two US. Senators that every state has, plus the number of representatives that each state has. Yeah. So that comes to 538 total. Yes. And three of those are part of the 23rd Amendment from 1961 that gave three electors to DC. Yeah. They figured since everything's based here, we might as well toss them a few votes. It seemed like the right thing to do. Right. And did you say that was the 23rd Amendment? Yeah. Okay, so they actually cast the vote. When we vote for the President, we are voting for the electors. And like you said, they're not always even on the ballot. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. And I bet you anything 90% of the people who vote have no idea who their electors are or how they got to be in that position. Right. They're like, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama, but who's this Todd Vinemaker in parentheses next to him? I have no idea who that is. Or if in some ballots you'll go to the end and it's like county commissioner, dog catcher, and then electors, and then there's a list of people's names biparty, or like you said, it's just not on there at all. Yeah. And one thing I was surprised to learn was our own electric here in Georgia. I looked them up just because I thought I might as well know who they are and their addresses are in there. Like I can go knock on the dude's door in Decatur like eight blocks from me and say, you, sir, have a great responsibility at your hands. Are you going to do that? No. Okay. But I could. You could? I think maybe you should reconsider. I'm just surprised. I don't know. I guess well, we know where the President lives, so that's not a big deal. But I guess I'm surprised that all that stuff is common knowledge. I thought there would be, like, secret. Yeah, I think they want that to go the opposite way. Well, no, it makes sense now that I figured it out. Like, they do want everything out in the open so everyone knows. But it just seems a little weird that the guy voting for the President is actually like half a mile from my house. Right. Or one of the guys. No, I'm with you. All right, so you've got this group of people who are actually voted in, and they meet after the popular election is certified. The Secretary of each state certifies the vote. The Governor whips up a certificate saying, here are all the votes that each candidate got. And then based on this, the electors go and cast their vote the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December. That's right. I couldn't find why. I don't know. I guess it just falls somewhere in between the election and January 20, I guess. And that's when everybody it's like, wait, Christmas, Christmas. We've got to make sure we're done in plenty of time. And then they cast the vote and then it's unsealed. Right. In red. That's right. Even though, barring any surprises, you pretty much know election night from either exit polls or whatever Dan Rather tells you, or whoever does it these days. You would hope, because that guy who lives a few miles away from you blocks or miles, I think I charted him out. I'm stalking him. It was less than a mile. So that guy you want his name? Yeah, John White. That's his name. So. John White, the elector. Right. One of them. It's perfectly legal for him to say, you know what, supposedly I am supposed to be voting for Barack Obama. Yeah. But I really like the cut of this Mitt Romney's gym. Yeah. That doesn't really happen, though. It has, but not quite like that. But in the modern times, I think one of the reasons why they published their addresses is so a good lynching, it's throwing you out there like, hey man, you can vote however you want, but everybody knows where you live. And if you think they get mad about Referees making bad calls faithless Elector. That's what they're called. Yes. Which is a great band name. You think faithless Elector or the faithless Electors? No, I don't think so. It's maybe for like a DC law school band. Faithless Electors. I can see that. Stomach's girls, they have no future whatsoever unless they turn it into something like Scorpions or something like that. Right. And actually, Faithless Electors have no future as Electors because one thing you can probably be sure of, if you change your vote, then you're not going to be asked back to be an Electoral in the future. Really? And you could possibly be fined, depending on what state you're in. Yeah. And you're probably going to be kicked out of your party. You're putting a lot on the line. Yeah. And see, this is the thing that made it all clear to me. Each party has its own electorate. So that's why no one's going to turn. Like, the people that are put in the place as Electors are like staunch party line people. They're not going to turn and vote. The reason they're there is because they know that they're going to vote for either the Republican or the Democrat. They know where their bread is butter. Exactly. Okay, so let's talk about these people. How are these people elected? What do they have to qualify for? Obviously, everyone has to have at least a jurisdictorate, if not a PhD in law of some sort, like a jurisdictorate, some sort of political science degree. And probably they have to have like several hundred hours of community service under their belt. No, that is not true. Are you sure? I set up though, thank you. You're being coy. There actually are no real strict outlines for the Constitution as to who these people are. They are usually nominated by a state party committee. It says in here usually or sometimes to reward many years of service to the party. So they could be big on the campaign trail for you or activists, maybe for your party. Or like a robotiler. Yeah, I guess so. Like the all time robot dialer. But they cannot be senators or representatives. Yeah. And I would imagine former too, although I didn't see that. I don't know. I think active is what it is. Really? Yeah. Okay. You can't be a high ranking official in a position of trust or profit. Makes sense. Yeah. And this one, I love that they actually have to specify this. He or she cannot be someone who is engaged in insurrection or rebellion. Well, this obviously was put in by the people who were like, we can't just leave it to a popular vote. These people are crazy. Yeah. Like, I saw a musket in that guy's hand last week aimed at my office, and now he's an elector. Right. He can't vote. I like that. It's still in there, though. Yeah. That insurrection rebellion thing definitely helps form this country. Okay, so you've got people who are active in their party who've been rewarded. Maybe they're activists sometimes they know the President or President elect. Right. Like, they met him on the campaign trail. Yeah. And that's really about it. Each state has, I think, probably a different nominating process. But overall, when you have a candidate who's running for Green Party, democrat, Republican, as your party, as your Green Party, you all go down together and you pile into the camper and go down and it's the one that runs on veggie oil. Exactly. And you're all very depressed because you don't have a shot at winning. You know Roseanne is running for president for the Green Party. Roseanne Barr? Yeah. Really? Yeah, and she's being roasted right now. Don't think that that's not a media play. Right. So they all go down to the Secretary of State's office and say, hey, these are our candidates. There are electors, candidates for electors. So when you vote for Roseanne, it should have all those people's names next to hers. Or on biparty, it might say, like, Green Party Electors here's other people, or it might not say anything. Right. But when you cast that vote for Roseanne, you are voting those electors. That's who you're voting for. That's who the vote goes to. Not Roseanne. Right. Goes to John Goodman. That's who I would have as my elector if I was Roseanne. What about Tom Arnold? No, Tom Arnold, they had a messy divorce. He'd be the party pres, though. Well, John Goodman was never married to there's just TV. TV marriage, though. That's like sacrosanct. That's just my opinion. Okay. All right, well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh? All right, so where are we? We're talking about how the vote goes toward Not Roseanne, where you wanted it to go. Right. Not Tom Arnold or John Goodman, but Todd Vinemaker and all the other electors. Right. So what's going on here? What's this process? Well, I mean, they literally just make their vote supposedly in accordance with the people's popular vote. Right. And I think what do they give to the Secretary of State? Right. That's who's, like, it's registered before Election Day. Right. Like your name is on the list. Yes. So at the very least, if it's not printed on the ballot, the Secretary of State knows who the electors are, and there's two ways to do it. 48 states have a winner take all system. I get that one. And then Maine and Nebraska have a district system. I'm just confused by that one. Okay, so the district system actually more closely follows the Electoral College system than the winter take off. Now, is this to vote for the elector only? No, that's what confused me, I think. So let's say you have let's do the winter take all system. Okay. Which is so easy, but think about it. So let's say you are in Arizona, all right? It's hot, right. And you decided to stay. You're not moving. Yeah, that wouldn't happen. Well, in 2008, and I believe it's the same in 2012, there's ten electoral votes. Yes. Right. So the Green Party candidate, Roseanne, should have ten electors associated with her. Yeah. Right. The Barack Obama should have ten electors. Mitt Romney should have ten electors. So when that person wins the popular vote and that's certified, then those electors are the ones. Those ten associated with that candidate are the ones that should go down to the state Capitol on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December and cast their vote. Okay, I get that. And also we should point out that in this system, that is the reason why sometimes the name isn't even on the ballot, because there's something somewhere in their state constitution that says a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for these ten people. You don't need to know who they are, just trust us. Right, exactly. Okay. That's the winner take all system. Right. The other system in Maine, in Nebraska, is the district system. So the winner take all system, that's a lot like a popular vote. Yeah. In the district system, you get two votes. The guy who won the guy or the lady or the gender neutral President, depending on when you listen to this episode. Whoever got the most popular votes in the state gets two electoral votes, the two associated with the Senate. Right. Then the other electoral votes that are divvied up by congressional district, whoever won that congressional district gets that vote. Yeah, I get that. And I looked it up a little further and saw that there are scenarios in Maine, in Nebraska, where you could have three different votes cast for three different candidates, but they said it's never happened. Yeah. It's just theoretically possible, mathematically, statistically possible. Yeah. All three. Okay. I don't know, it just seems like everyone should just be all on the same system. But it makes sense. But think about it. The whole reason you have the Electoral College or one of the big reasons is to prevent one region or one part of the state from wielding enough power to vote for everybody else. And I think that's what the district system is set up to prevent, too. It's kind of like, hey, man, you voted for this person, and we want you to have your say in the Electoral College. I think it's smarter. Oh, yeah. I think so. Well, then I do too. You swayed me good. Now. You said to sway John White. I've got his number. You know, he could use this as evidence one day for what's going to happen. What are you going to do? I'm not going to do anything. Okay, but if something happened, then everyone would point their fingers at me. Yeah. Like we heard him say it so on his podcast. Yeah. All right. I won't testify against you, though. I appreciate that. Should we talk about some of the hinky results over the years? Yeah. When things don't go quite as planned or go exactly as planned. Very true. That's a teaser. There have been four presidents POTUS is that what they call them? Four POTUSes that have won their posts without the popular vote. Yes. I mean, that's happened four times in this country, and all the ones up until 2000 we probably weren't as concerned with, because you're like, who cares? They're all old timing. They're all old time. They're wearing knickers. They were just working it out back in 1824 when John Adam's son, John Quincy the queue, he received 38,000 fewer votes in Andrew Jackson. This one was definitely hinky because neither one of them won Electoral college. So if that happens, you defer to what, the 12th Amendment? And that's when the House of Representatives decides who the president is. Yeah. Which would be really weird these days. Yeah. Don't you think? I think there'd be a lot of that would just be bad news. Yeah, that would be bad news. But at the same time, this is 1824, and there were still a lot of insurrecting, rebellious people, so I'm sure it was a little nervous back then. Yeah. So who won? JK. Apparently this is the first time, and I think the only time that small states actually swung the election. Yeah. Hayes carried a bunch of small states and basically with their combined electoral votes, gave him the electoral vote. Yeah. Although he lost the popular vote by a lot. By like, 109,000 no, 264,000 votes. He lost the popular vote. Yeah. We almost had President Samuel Tilden. Yeah. Sammy Tildman. He's a Haymaker. Really? I feel bad for the Haymaker all of a sudden. Yeah, well, I mean, everybody liked him a lot more, but he's cobbled together a win from small states, and Colorado had just been let in. This is the hinky part. And they didn't have any popular vote. There was no vote whatsoever. They just did some electoral voting and it went all to Hayes. So he put it together with Colorado. So with very little popular vote, and then in one state, no popular vote. Isn't that crazy? Anyone? And he went on to be the greatest president in this country has ever seen. I mean, Colorado, I guess they were just like, we don't even have pens and pencils. Can you give us, like can we get a buffer? We're all boxes over here. Yeah, we haven't even started unpacking yet. Exactly. So they said, oh, well, let's just give it to Hayes. Yeah, good on you. Yeah. Who do you got next? 1888, Benji Harrison lost the popular vote by more than 95,000 votes to Grover Cleveland won the electoral vote by 65. And this is one of the cases where they say it worked exactly like the plan, like we planned it to with Electoral College because you can't just overwhelm someone in one region and get the presidency. That's what happened. So in six states in the south, so the whole campaign pretty much was based on, we want the tariff, we don't want the tariff. Well, the north and everybody else wanted the tariff, right? South didn't want the tariff. So Grover Cleveland was like, no tariff whatsoever. And the south voted as a block. They had a bunch of people he won the popular vote by, like, 65%. Huge number. Yeah. But in the other 32 states, he lost by 425,000 votes. No, he lost by 300,000. He had won by 425. Okay, so 32 states were against him combined. Six states were for him. And the Electoral College steps in and prevents the south from picking the president for the rest of the country. That's right. Flawless. And then not flawless. Let's go to the year 2000. Yeah. So Bush B. Gore. Yeah. I was driving across country, moving to Los Angeles during this election, and I made a self made video of my journey, most of which was me singing along the songs on the radio in my you haul. And I've still got this. I should get it digitized and posted at some point. It's pretty funny, but I remember very specifically one part in the thing. I woke up in New Mexico, and you can tell them I'm sleepy. You don't remember going to sleep? I remember going to sleep. Okay. But I woke up and I said, yeah, here I am in New Mexico. It's weird. I woke up this morning and they don't know who the president is. And it's like, captured in time, this moment nice. Where I realized was sleep in my eyes. Like, that's weird. I went to bed expecting because that night everybody was going to a gore well, I think it was called a couple of different ways, a couple of different times. It went back and forth, but when everybody went to bed, it was like Gore all the way. He'd won the popular vote. They knew it was close, but everybody had called Gore. And then they woke up and they're like, Wait a second. And then a huge mess cluster ensued afterward, which involved the court system. It involved hanging chads. Well, not only that, you remember there was this one county where their votes just got lost for a little while on the way to be counted. They were just vanished and then reappeared later on. That kind of stuff. You should just basically be like, no, everybody has to wait. The whole state has to start over and vote again. Yeah, that might have been a good move. There were, like, accusations of disenfranchisement among black voters in black areas. Yeah, both sides had a lot of arguments. Like, when you really start peeling back the layers and researching this, it will make you cry. And there are just like dozens and dozens of factors that many people never even saw on the nightly news. Yeah, like military votes or disenfranchised voters in poor counties. And then I think Gore asked for a recount in only four counties. When people are saying no, he should have asked for a hand recount in all the counties. And in the end, POTUS was decided for the country by less than 400 votes. Is that what it came down to? Well, I mean, it depends because all the different factors, like do we count these votes? What about these these people meant to vote for Gore or Bush? And it was cloudy. And what about these hanging chads? So there's all different kinds of numbers, but I've seen one that said it was less than 100 votes was the deciding factor. Okay, so it came down to 100 votes. But Florida's winner take all. So that means that those hundred votes, since Bush got those 100 votes, he got all 25 votes in the Electoral College for Florida, which just so happened to put him at exactly the amount of electoral votes he needed to win the presidency, which was 271. It's crazy. I mean, I've looked as many people have since then, like the independent studies they did afterward, and it just depends on which ones you want to read today. I saw, like, ten independent studies, and six of them showed that Gore was the definite winner. Four of them showed that Bush was. So it's just confusing and disheartening, but what it did was shed light on a pretty flawed system and how we cast our boats, how they're counted, and they gave us the hanging chad. It gave us the hanging chad joke. Well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. All right, so there was also a bit of awkwardness that came out of that. Just a bit? Well, in one instance, there was kind of an overlooked bit of awkwardness. When the electoral votes are unsealed, they're unsealed by the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate is the vice president. So in the 2000 election, remember, Al Gore was vice president. He was president of the Senate. So he had to read his own defeated Electoral College votes. Did you just yeah. And there was like something of an insurrection in a rebellion among black congressional members who were protesting the vote and protesting, including Florida's vote in the count. And he had to basically be like, it's over. It's done right for the good of the country. Let's move on. But there was, like, no emotion. Even the emotion you just had. It wasn't that. There was less than that. For the good of the country, let's move on. Gore always got tagged as the robot, the robatron. But there was a video I might have talked about before that Spike Jones made of Gore that never was released, a campaign video that I think would have won him the election. Did he have his tie loosened? No, man, he was, like, way funnier and cooler than you would think. He was on 30 Rock. He did a good job on that. Yeah, but that was later. But this was before when he had the bad rap as a robot. But he let him inside his home, and it was just very casual, very laid back. And you're like you saw him as a dude for the first time, like, cracking jokes and hanging out with his family, and it was, like, very endearing. And he was like, do not release this. Yeah, I'm sure. And he lost the election. Did you ever see that Simpsons, where Lisa buys out Gore, one of his books, and the information is transmitted and somebody runs into the I don't know what the vice president's office is called. The trapezoid office. Yeah. And it's like, Mr. Vice President, someone just bought your book. And he goes, well, this calls for celebration. And he turns on the record player and puts on Cool in the Gang. Celebrate. And it's like, Celebrate good times. Come on. He goes, I will. It's perfect. They nailed him. Oh, poor guy. Yeah. So that's Gore. Yeah, that's Gore. So I guess on both sides of the coin here we have people thinking, this is a great thing still and people saying, this is not a great thing. Yeah. For each instance, even the one we were saying, like, the electoral college worked perfectly. There are people are like, no, it's all messed up. He clearly won the popular vote, however you want to put it. And other people say, like, Calm down. Right. That's all. Just calm down. Well, one of the knocks against it is some say it discourages voter turnout because unless you're in a swing state or a battleground state, it's, quote, unquote, predecided. Yeah. But then again, so does, like, the two party system. We're in a very red state. If we were to not vote red yeah. We could make a case that our votes would be thrown away, and that could dissuade voters from turning out, too. And the people for it say, no, this is exactly what we need, because it's a wade system. The states that have the most the states that should have the most influence are the states that are the most populated. Yeah, well, that's how it's divided up. Like, Alaska is great. We love all that land, but land shouldn't be deciding who the president is. Yeah, right. Yeah, okay. No, I'm with. You. It's people that counts, not mountains. People, not mountains. People, not mountains. What do we want? Time travel. When do we want it? It's irrelevant. All right. I like that sign. Where was that sign? I don't know. It's just some random guy who posted on the Facebook page. Everyone thought it was me, though, I guess, because facial hair. Yeah. There's more than me. I see mustaches out there. Yes. And they're all over the place. So, over the past 200 years, over 700 proposals have been introduced to reform or eliminate this process. Is that right? Yes. The most proposals for any constitutional amendment. I could see that. Yeah, I could see that. I think it's probably because executive orders aren't in the Constitution and therefore can't be repealed. Maybe. I know that attorneys, by and large are against it. The American Bar Association polled at 70% in favor of abolishing it, whereas political scientists have generally supported it. And then I could find three popular polls, opinion polls over the years. In 1967, 58% of Americans said they don't like it. In 1968, 81%, late 60s theater is just like, what is it? Government? I don't want it. Oh, yeah. And then in 1981, that declined to 75%. But by and large, the people are saying, or at least up until 1981, we don't like this process. Don't make us incorrect. Yeah. Whoever has the votes, most votes should win is what many Americans believe. Yes. Did we talk about the two elections that were decided by the House of Representatives because there were ties in the Electoral well, we talked about the one. I don't think we mentioned the other. Oh, yeah. But Burr and Adam or Jefferson 18 one. Right. Yeah. There was a tie in the Electoral College and it took 31 votes in the House of Representatives to decide who was the President, and it turned out to be Thomas Jefferson and then Aaron Burr was shot. That's right. That's the sad end of that story. No. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. That's right. Into that story. Right. And that's the sad end to Electoral College. Yeah. Get out and vote, people. That's all we have to say. Even if you live in California and you're a Democrat and you think, hey, we're going to lock up those 55 votes, even if I sleep in and go see my medical marijuana doctor. Get out and vote anyway. Or if you're in a state like Georgia and you're a Republican and you think, hey, we're going to carry this, you get out and vote, too. It's pretty much the fable of the rabbit and the hair that you're talking about. Who's the hair? I guess the hair is the person who visits their medical marijuana doctor and over sleeps rather than voting that day. And how do you oversleep? You mean like sleep until Wednesday, not get up on Tuesday? That's happened, yeah. Have you heard about Ohio? Well, that's a swing state. Yeah, but have you heard what's going on there? No, dude. The Secretary of State, a Republican, has decreed that counties that are typically blue, generally blue counties, are not going to have weekend voting and their early voting hours are going to be short compared to red counties that are going to have weekend voting and longer early voting hours. And there's no explanation for this whatsoever, so that's my problem. I know you probably can't do it. Nationwide, everything is the same, but within the state, every district should have the exact same procedure, the same machines, the same. Like, all of that should be the same. I can't believe there are districts that have like, here you do a punch card and here you scribble it in with the number two pencil. And here you just say it quietly into a booth and there's someone on the other side. Right. Or you blow out a candle. One of two candles. Yeah, that's another sentence. It's pretty messed up, though. I think at the very least, we should be allowed to tarn, feather elected officials who decide stuff like that. Anybody who's responsible for voter disenfranchisement, tard and feathered. I guess that's it. And that makes you an insurrectionist. Yeah. All right. I always knew I was okay. Well, if you want to know more about this weird process we have in the United States called the Electoral College, you can type those words into the search BARHOW stuffworks.com. It'll bring up a handy and out of date graph of how the votes were distributed in 2008. Is it out of date? 2008 was four years ago. Yeah, but isn't it still the same? Well, then it's a snapshot of a moment in time is what it is. Anyway, it's still a good article. Electoral College handysearchbar HowStuffWorks.com? And now it's time for listening to me. I'm going to call this an Englishman. Englishman who went up a Hill and came down a Mole. Came down a mole deers. Chuck, Josh and Jerry. And then Prince sees he actually says a small high to guest producer Matt. Oh, nice. A small high. Yeah. Nothing on full. Hello, my name is Jack Mead and I'm an avid fan from England. I just started listening in October 2011. Just started in 2011. And tonight I just finished the 452nd podcast. I wish we had the sound maker. Yes, the Hay Maker from Grassleen with Josh and Chris Paulette princesses terrible preach update to the most recent shark attack episodes. It's been a wild and exciting ride. You guys have come a long way. I just listened to the first one to see the difference, and not only is it missing the sweet dulce of tones of Charles W. Bryant, but Josh's voice sounds very weird. Yeah. And it sounded like we were recording in a can and I was really aggressive. Oh, yeah. Like, hey, what do you think? I can't even listen to them. Yes, you poked me once. Yeah, sure. Once. Anyway, I just want you guys to know your podcast has become a huge part of my life. Catching up with them has left me both a sense of achievement, but also great sadness. See, I listen to the podcast pretty much any time when I am not engaging with other human beings. I've listened to over nine days worth of your voices. In the space of ten months. I probably heard you two speaking more than my own fiance's voice. I was thinking, man, what a lonely guy, but he's engaged. Yeah, like, dude, you should prioritize here. That's pause going from that amount of awesomeness to just two episodes a week is making me feel confused and frightened. It's okay, Jack. You know, it's strange. It's like, this is a pretty frequent report. We hear it's like a condition. When you bulk up, you bulk listen, and all of a sudden you have to wait like everybody else. Like a schmuck. I just did the Firefly marathon. Yeah. Think how I feel. You watch 14 episodes of that, then the movie, and then you're cut off after four days. There's not another one coming every week. Yeah. So I'm just, like, looking at the walls now, wondering where Captain Tight Pants is. Is that what's going on with you? Yeah, I'm like, sad. I've been trying to figure it out. Everyone else I've talked to has been like, oh, yeah, I'm wearing Firefly years ago, like everyone else. But we know you're paying anyway. You don't have a punk. I'd like to think that I'm your biggest fan in England, but I guess that is statistically improbable. I very much enjoyed Chuck's terrible attempts at an English accent and your attempts at pronouncing our place names. I've been wanting to email you guys since I got into the podcast, but want to catch up first. And what you do is truly amazing and genuinely enjoy life more with the podcast as a soundtrack. Isn't it crazy? I know you guys must get hundreds of emails a day. That's not true. So I don't expect to reply, but I'm just glad to know that you will read this. I look forward to the day that I can contribute information and maybe even get on this in our mail. Yeah. So if I may make a quick suggestion, I would love a special podcast hosted by Emily and Yummy. I have no idea how to spell your wife's names, but he actually nailed it. Did you really? Yeah. Wow. Really? Yeah. Look at that. Wow. And then he wants to hear a podcast how Chuck and Josh were from Our wives and said, it's a long shot, but you never know. It's a pretty long we call that the longest shot. Yes, but a fun idea nevertheless. It is a good idea, emily be like, get your beat button ready. All right, let me tell you a thing or two. Yeah, exactly. Who is that from again? Jack Mead. Thanks. Jack Meed. Wow, that's a pretty awesome British name, isn't it? Jack Mead. It makes me want to put on boxing glove. Drink mead. Yeah. So if you are a fan, who is going to why should we call this condition? I don't know, withdrawal? Oh yeah, withdrawal. Yeah, I guess that if you're going through stuff, you should know addiction, withdrawal and you need help. We will look into forming some sort of support group for you. Let's do that. Any ideas on how to create such a support group? Especially one that would have to be international and global and instantaneous? We're open to that. So we need to hear from you via Twitter at Syskpodcast, facebook.com stuffychildnow or you can send us an email to stuff. Podcasts@howstepworks.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's how Stuff Works. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, you."
https://podcasts.howstuf…k-limousines.mp3	How Limousines Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-limousines-work	The first limousines weren't even cars! Learn all about the history of limousines, how they're made and some of the most creative and expensive amenities you can find inside them in this episode with Josh and Chuck.	The first limousines weren't even cars! Learn all about the history of limousines, how they're made and some of the most creative and expensive amenities you can find inside them in this episode with Josh and Chuck.	Thu, 06 Nov 2014 14:59:32 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=6, tm_hour=14, tm_min=59, tm_sec=32, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=310, tm_isdst=0)	34667695	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetoportscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerome Jerry. Did we say your last name name these days? Jerry? No, we've never said it. Okay. She's like, Keep it that way. Yeah. Jerome jerry Blank. Jerry Blank. That's a real person, right? No, she was on Strangers with Candy. Yeah. Okay. I was like, Man, I know that name. Yeah, they named something that was a character, right? Yeah. She really cleaned herself up and went on to become a spokesperson for Downy. Amy Sudaris, jerry Blank. Yeah. They're one in the same. Yeah, I love Amy Sudaris. I like the Suderis. Yeah, some people don't. Weren't they fighting? Oh, Amy and David. I like a lot of David and everybody else. I think he wrote, like, some New Yorker article about his dead sister. Their sister, who I think I can't remember what happened, but he wrote, like, a memoir about her. And I think The New Yorker, they got mad, and the rest of the family called them out on the inconsistencies and errors and facts. Maybe they were tired of it because all he's done is write about his family. Yeah, I guess they're like that's. It David. Yes. No more. We're done. Cut us in or we're going to cause big trouble for you. I was about to do my David Cedar. I thought about it. Then I realized I don't do a David Ciderison testing. I could, but yeah. Not going to go there. So limos. Yeah. At least some of the Sudaruses ride around in limousines. I bet they have. And I can guarantee they have, because, Chuck, it turns out the definition of a limousine is way broader than you would think. Yeah. It doesn't necessarily mean some super stretch. No, but it can. Sure. Basically, a limousine technically is any car with a roomier back seat than the average car. And if you throw in a driver, there's nobody who's going to say, that's not a limo. You can be like, yes, it is, and be right. Yeah. Technically, if you want to hire a town car to take you to the airport, technically, that's a limousine. Yeah. You know the car services in New York? Sure. Those are limos. That's right. They have me in Atlanta, too. Do they have a car service here in Atlanta? Are you kidding me? All I see are just the worst. Oh, yes. Because there's a special tag. Did you know that Atlanta taxi drivers are the worst taxi drivers on the planet? Have you noticed from experience? It's pretty bad, but I just Uber it now. That's different. Yeah, that's different than the taxis. Oh, no, that's what I'm saying. That's why I Uber it, because they're different than the taxis. So bad. Yeah. Seriously, anybody who comes to Atlanta, if you make it out of Hartsfield, look around at the taxis and how they drive. Your mind will be scrambled. Yeah, it's crazy. I think cabbies are kind of like that everywhere. No, very frequently they are the best drivers in the entire city. They know where they're going. They don't just meander they don't, like, drift into lanes. They don't drive super slow. I've had the opposite experience. Most cabs that I've been in, the driver was pretty great. Usually when I'm in a cab in New York City, I wonder, is this the ride where we hit somebody or some other car? Yes, but you don't and they're going really fast. In Atlanta, they drive 10 miles an hour and hit everything. They just side swipe everything slow and lousy. Come to Atlanta. So anyway, we're talking limousines, man. Let's get back on track. Yeah, I should say, too. I hate limousines. I love a good town car ride or from an airport. But as far as a stretch limousine, I just hate that whole thing. Just a little, kind of, hey, look at me. Oh, it's just dumb. It's longer and it's got a bar. I don't know. I think the whole thing is stupid and, like, just part of that whole narcissistic culture that I despise. I got you. I've got money. So I want it to be in a longer car with a TV in it. Well, for a very long time, if you wanted a TV in your car or a phone, your car better be double the size of the normal version of it. All right. I just had to get on my soapbox. Like, if it's for prom and you're all going in, like, I get, like, a fun thing like that. Or a rent the fur bus for your niece's birthday like we did. That was fun. What, you never done that? No. I thought you were saying, we rented it for my niece's birthday. No, my niece's birthday. You weren't a part of it. This is my family. Yeah, I wasn't invited. Scott invited me. This was before I knew you, my friend. Anyway, I can see the fun of it occasionally, but just as a means of transportation, I think it's pretty obnoxious. I got you. Especially those huge hammer stretches. I just want to dematerialize those with my eyes. I wish I could shoot a laser beam and expose the people within. Just all of a sudden, they're on the street with their bourbon and coke. I wonder what happened to my super stretched summer. I wonder how you'd have to do that. Your laser beam eyes would have to just get label fiberglass, like destroy fiberglass and steel and upholstery and rubber. Yeah. There you go. So I think, as we stated, the limousine doesn't necessarily have to be what you hate. Yes. It can also be just a car that's driven by somebody where you got a roomy, back seat for the passenger, nice big truck. But even before that, even if you want to say, wow, that's a broad definition of limousine, man. Let's go even further back and include clothing as a limousine in the definition of limousines. That's right, because I learned, as I imagine you did, the word limousine comes from a town in france called limousine. Limousine. We'd like to introduce our new principal skinner. Principal seamore skinner. Yeah. That's a great one. That is one of the all time greats. Yes, it was limousine without the e on the end. And like you said, the original limousine wasn't a car. It was kind of like a little hooded raincoat that protected you. Yeah, like, little red riding hood wore a limousine. Yeah, it was a hooded cloak, and it was invented in limousine france. And it became synonymous with limousine france. Because they called it a limousine. That's right. So as people started building coaches that protected the rider, the passenger from the elements, they're like, wow, this is kind of like a hooded cloak in a really weird way. Yeah. Little bit of a stretch. Let's start calling these limousines. Yeah. Even if it was a horse carriage, the idea that you were not driving this carriage and you had a nice little comfy seat that's covered in the back, they called it a limousine. And very frequently, probably all the time is a better way to put it. The driver himself wasn't covered. Like, there was just the passengers that were covered. No, you'll get rained on, and, like, it exactly. If you complain, we'll put you on the rack. That's right. And this continued until they started building regular, as I think jonathan strickland wrote this, what he calls horseless carriages. Very cheekily, aka the automobile. And they called those limousines. And they started, like, very early on in new york city. Someone started a limousine service, I think, in the it's not too bad. And these cars, the earliest limousines were basically built from the ground up. You built a car with the intention of building, like, a stretch, longer car, a limousine, as we understand it today. That's right. And it might not be like a stretch sedan. Some of the early limousines looked a lot like station wagons or like an old model t station wagon, you know what I'm saying? Sure. But very quickly, these companies figured out that it would be vastly easier to take an already manufactured car and stretch it, basically do a conversion. Yeah. And that became the tradition for a very long time. I think starting in the luxury cars, obviously, from the beginning, were the prime targets, because this is what rich people were used to having their fannie sit upon while they were being driven around. So mercedes benz and cadillacs and Fleetwoods and labyrinths were all prime candidates. Even the famed bentley had a limousine, the arnage that they made only 20 of. Did you look at that? It's pretty sweet. Yeah. I got to admit. Yeah, for a nonlimousine guy. Yeah. I was like, that's kind of nice. That's a very nice car. You ever ridden in a Bentley for any reason? No. I haven't either. Now you can get a Chrysler that looks like a Bentley. Was that the 300? I don't know. I think it is the 300. I call him Fentley's for some reason. John Varvatos had a 300 addition. He's a clothing designer. And then the ad for his edition of the Chrysler 300, it's him and Iggy Pop. Just randomly, Iggy Pop is in the ad with them. I guess they were getting wasted together that day that he had to film. Did he have a shirt off? Probably. I can't remember. Yeah, he don't seem with a shirt that much. No, he's very proud of his wiry, muscular body. I don't blame him. All right, I think we've wasted enough time. So let's, right after this break, talk about that limo conversion. Because to me, that's about the most interesting part of Limison. All right, we're back. And we were talking about limo conversion. Like you said early on, they used to build a limo to be a limo. Yeah, like, just some guy would build a car from the ground up and he would build an extra long. And that's where the early limousines came from. Yeah, it was a company called Arm Brewster in 1928, where they Arkansas. I think they're American. They are American. I don't remember if it's in Arkansas or not, but it was actually, I found in a write up on the company from 1987. It says 1923 is when they built their first limousine, and that by at least 1926, they were doing conversions, because there's a picture of an early stretch Buick that they made, and they realized that conversions was where it was at. Right. Let's take an existing car, cut it in half, and stick something in the middle of those two pieces. Right. Because somebody else has gone to the trouble of building the engine, of designing, like the dynamics of figuring out how to put the tires wire and all that stuff. Why do all that? Yes. When you can just cut a car in half, add more car, add more car, and then, bam, you have a stretch limousine. I had no idea they did it this way. No. When I read it the first time, I was like, surely he just made a horseless carriage joke. I know this must be a joke as well. No, that's how a lot of limousines are made. And it's funny. You bring up the 300, the Chrysler 301, the one that looks like a Bentley, because I saw, I guess, a test of one of them that was like, Chrysler builds these 300 stretch limousines. Oh, they do? Yeah. So if you see a Chrysler 300 M limousine, it was built by Chrysler, most likely, which is very unique these days. Right? Yes. Because for the most part, like you're saying, the industry standard is some company will get a hold of a Cadillac or a Lincoln Town Car. Yeah. Cut it in half, like you say, and then add to it. And there's a stretch limousine. Yeah. The process goes a little something like this. They strip that sound like I was going to sing it. They strip all the interior out. They protect everything that's in there, obviously. Strickland says they use fire resistant paper on everything. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Why not? I guess you don't want it to catch on fire while you're doing it. You're going to mount it on a set of rails that can be adjusted to get your car off the ground, keep it all aligned properly. Because when you're adding more car, you have to have it super aligned. And then they cut the thing in two pieces. Yeah. And not length wise. No, that'd be weird. I guess you could make it a lot wider, but you're looking for length. And maybe that's the new limousine. Apparently, the industry agrees that you typically can't go more than double the size, the original size of the car. After that, it's just probably not going to pass any safety tests, which we'll talk about in a minute. But once the car is cut in half, hopefully you remembered to put the car on these rails that elevate it and that some of the rails are attached to a dolly. So you can separate the car to the length you want. If not, you have to basically throw it away and start over. You pull one, usually the rear back from the front, and then you go and add rails, basically the extenders that are going to lengthen the car. That's right. And like I said, your car is temporarily braced to keep it from twisting or moving around. Because you want it to be super exact, obviously, because if the front of your car is half inch to the right from the rear of your car, that's bad. You're in big trouble. Then you're going to add what's called the floor plan, or floor pan. Sorry. And it's basically the floor of the limo, which will later on become carpeted and upholstered and everything. But for the time being, it's just a piece of metal. That is the floor of your new addition. Yeah. And that is after you have done all the other boring stuff, like extending the driveline or making sure you have because your wiring is not long enough. Nothing is long enough. And you just have to no, because you just cut in half. Yeah. Like there's a huge gap. You literally just have to extend all those parts. Right. The brake line, all that boring stuff. You have to just extend all that stuff. Yeah. I got excited about the floor pan. No, I'm sorry, you stick in your floor pan. Well, hold on, I want to say something about the floor pan and the driveway. So you've extended the powertrain, right. The big thing that powers the back wheels, that no one knows what it is. Right. Yeah. But you've extended that thing. Yeah. You just hear like powertrain warranty. And people are always like in the world of power, that's like the steering and the axles and the thing that spins around and spins your rear axle and all that. That's your powertrain. It's true. So you have to add to that because you just cut through it again. Sure. And then you add the floor pan, which is the floor of the limousine. And do you remember that limousine fire from, I think, last year? A couple of years ago they were still killed. A bride to be on the San Mateo Bridge. Awful. Apparently the California Highway Patrol investigated and ruled in an accident. But it was because the floor plan of the limousine that had been added later was up against the drivetrain and the friction created enough heat and spark that apparently there was a crack in the floor pan and that heat came up and caught the upholstery on fire. And that's where the fire came from, was from this modification that had taken place years before. Well, which is one reason why Cadillac doesn't want their name on that limo, let's say because it has been modified by someone other than Cadillac. Right. But Cadillac's name is still on the limo. As far as the US. Government is concerned, once you cut a car in half and extend it, you're the new manufacturer. Yeah, totally. Cadillac says, well, that's great. We've got a bunch of yahoo's running around cutting our cars in half, making them longer. But if somebody sees it on the road or somebody sees a photo of it with the trunk burned out, they see the Cadillac. So Cadillac and other companies like Ford have programs to basically certify train and go back and investigate the people who are doing these conversions. Yeah, because we didn't mention but when you make a car substantially longer and heavier, you might have to modify the brakes some. You might have to modify how it turns. You might have to reinforce the suspension or the frame itself. Because you can't just make a car 12ft longer and expect it to behave the same way. Right. Exactly. The original stopping power was for the twelve foot car, not the 24 foot car. So you do have to do some modifications. Yes, but those companies are super smart to have official programs, I think, because every car, even if it is modified later to be roadworthy, has to pass the Federal Motor Vehicle safety standards. That's right. Cadillac's program is called the Cadillac Master Coach Builder program. It's pretty awesome. Ford has something called the Qualified Vehicle Modifier Program. And so basically they're saying, hey, if you're going to be doing this and you can legally do this, we're going to make sure you do it right. That's right. I guess. What time it is? Time to get in our limo. Not yet. It's time for a message. Click. All right, so we mentioned that the limo, generally speaking, even though they've gotten ridiculous these days, shouldn't be more than twice as long as it originally was. Yeah. And since you can't get that much longer, what you can do is, if you want to impress people and get their business, is trick it out on the interior as much as possible. Yes. With you name it, man. And they've got it. Plasma TVs and hot tubs and bars and sound systems and anything you can think of. It's littered with neon and tacky things. In my opinion. Tacky is the right word, I think. Yeah. Not for me. Did you see if you go to the Ripley's Believe It or not museum in Branson? Have they been there? No. I saw a picture. No. I want to go to Branson someday before I die. Smearing off has his own place. Yeah, I'm going. Sure. Yummy is going to take me. Surprised it hasn't happened already. We've been going other places, but in Branson, there's a 30 foot 1982 pink Cadillac Stretch limousine that has a heart shaped hot tub in the trunk area that also has Josh's 40th birthday written all over the Go. Maybe 40th birthday present would be the limo itself, to own it. Yeah. Just drive around Atlanta. That'd be awesome. Drive around anywhere. You could drive around Branson. It would be fine. You've got, like, a hot tub in your car. I love how Strickland also points out I don't know when this was written. Most of them also have telephones installed in case all 14 of your cell phones are broken. I made note of that as well. All right. There are some other considerations if you want to drive a limo, because you can be a private person and drive a limo. Just like hire yourself out or go work for some rich person. I thought you meant like the kind of person who keeps to himself or herself. No, I mean, you don't have to necessarily work for a limousine company. I got you. You can just buy your limo and say, I'm Chuck the limo driver. Right. Or I want to work, as long as you have the proper hat. That's right. You're fine. And call yourself Bitterman. Yeah. Licensing? It depends on what state you're in. It depends wildly. Some states, you can don't need any kind of special license. Some states will say, Fill out this form. Sure. Probably give us $50. Some say bring your limo. And although how would you do that if you're not licensed? I guess tow truck. Yeah. Get your limo here and take this test in your limo to make sure you can drive. That behemoth blindfolded. Blindfolded part of the test. So it all depends on what state you live in. Safety standards are the same for any other car, like we said. Yeah. And the car that you bought to convert already before you ever bought it, went through the safety tests. Sure. But now that you've converted it, it has to go through safety tests again. Right. So they include things like crash tests. And if you're interested in that, there's limo crash tests on YouTube. Oh, really? Yes. Does it show rich people inside, like, with their drinks flying around? Man. What? You're not down with the 1%, are you? I just think it crashed this on me. And an evening gown might look funny. That's so funny you say that, because one of the ones, I guess, is it Australian fifth gear, maybe. It seemed like it was pretty cheeky. They were clearly drunk on the show. But it was a limo crash test and they put their clothes, their evening gown and tucks on crash test dummies. Wow. Yeah, you have to look up fifth gear, I guess limo crash test is what would bring it up. And yeah, they're clearly drunk because they spend the first, like, three minutes drinking and then mooning people out of the limo. And I'm like, where's this thing from? And I saw it as Australian. All those wacky aussies. But it's pretty cool crash test, because they have some great cameras set up and they don't put seat belts on the dummies, they're just flying around. Yes, it's pretty neat crash test. I do need to see that because that's exactly what I was describing. And there's another crash test, too. It's way more boring. It's just basically a series of still photos, which I guess you can make the case. Like, that's what all videos are. But sure, this is like really slow still photo. And hey, listen, we always say, do what you want to do. I'm not going to poopoo. If you want to go out and hire limo and with your friends and drive around and get drunk and go to a bunch of bars, it's fine. Don't expect me to get in the car. Although I would say the wine country limo is not a bad idea. Oh, sure, yeah. In fact, I think people in wine country aren't too happy about them because it's like a party bus kind of thing. Yeah, basically. Well, hey, man, if you have wine taste things every 5ft I know, what do you expect? Yeah, everybody there seems very cool because you don't want to drink and drive. We went when it was the off season, so I'll bet everybody was a little more mellow. Yeah, because there weren't a bunch of tourists around. Yeah, but you're right. The people that live in wine country, Northern California, they're a nice laid back lot. They are fairly laid back. I think it's a good way to put it. They have the best job in the world. We have the best job in the world. That's right. If we only made wine, we've got some going in the toilet, some Bruno. Gas mileage is a big consideration because you're not going to get good gas mileage at all. And you may, as a company or an individual, have to pay an extra gas guzzler tax on each vehicle in your fleet. On top of that, it's basically like, you know how you pay a lot of money for gas? Well, now you have to pay even more money because your thing uses up so much gas. Although strictly mentions a 32 foot stretch Hummer limo that a guy named Sean Murphy. He misspelled his own name on the cool fuel road trip. He drove Hummer limousine that ran on a bunch of different alternative fuels like biodiesel, methane, ethanol, vegetable oil, sugar. Wow. It could also use geothermal, solar, and wind energy. And they got the limo up to 75 miles an hour, which sounds illegal to me. Yeah, he should not be driving a 32 foot anything 75 miles an hour. I agree. If you are interested in owning your own limousine to be your own private little driver, it depends on what kind you get. Of course, you may get one like a Lincoln stretch for 30 to 40 grand. Sure. Or you may pay 300,000 if you want that super stretch timer with the hot tub. I have the impression that 30 grand Lincoln stretch, like the hubcaps come off when you take corners and stuff like that. You think so? Yeah. And I also bet that the one of 20 Bentleys go for way more than 300K each. Do you ever see someone driving around in an old limo? It's clear. It's just their car. Right. It's like a 1972K limo. It's pretty sweet. It is sweet, but at the same time, it's like that's a really poor choice, especially if you're on a tight budget right. Within the city with streets. How much money do you spend on gas? Yeah, that's true. But I shout to them out the window if I pass someone like that. Should we talk about presidential limousines a little bit? Yeah, because I think those are kind of interesting. They call it the Secret Seven. And this great was it Popular Mechanics article? Yeah. In 1939. The Sunshine Special. And up until this point, I think standard automobiles had been used to drive residents around and shuttle them. But in 1939, this is we need something for the Secret Service. And we have a president in a wheelchair. His name is Roosevelt, and he has certain considerations. Right. Plus, at least one attempt has been made on his life already, so we might want to think about adding a little more security to these cars. Yeah, and that's exactly what they did. It was armored. The body was armored, was built by coach builders in Buffalo, New York, had oversized hinge doors, I guess, to account for that enormous wheelchair that they had back then and lots of armor plating and even bulletproof glass. And 1939, which is kind of impressive. Yeah. It looks like a Capone's car, if you ask me. It's pretty sweet. Then there's the Lincoln cosmopolitan. Yeah. This is awesome. It was a Truman presidential limousine. Yeah. And basically with every new limousine that came along, there were new innovations. It became heavier and more armor plated and just safer. This one came with a bubble top because it was a convertible, but Truman realized that if he had the top up when it was super safe, no one could see him. Right. So he had the bubble top installed. Kind of like the pope mobile. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Is that what it's like? I think so. All right. And that one was retired to the Henry Ford museum, as was the sunshine special in Dearborn, Michigan. So if you've ever been there, you've probably seen a few of these on display. Kennedy's famous car that he was in November 2263, when he was assassinated, was a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible, obviously, but it was still safe. Not with the top down, obviously, but they had certain safety features built in. They had a rear seat that was well, this wasn't a safety feature, but they had a rear seat that can be raised and lowered to give people a better view. They had a metal hoop behind the driver's seat, so when the president's standing up, they can hold on to something. Yeah, but it was armored after his assassination with a permanent bulletproof hard top and then left in the fleet, which really surprised me. I would have thought they would have completely retired that car or just giving it to a museum or destroyed it or something. But yes, leaving in the fleet that's penny pinching. Yeah. And that is in the Henry Ford museum now as well, I'll bet. 1972, the Lincoln Continental. That president Ford and Reagan, the same car that they were both shuttled into after assassination attempts. Famously. Yeah. This is the limousine that reminds me of old Times Square in New York where Basket Case was set. I never saw that. It's worth seeing at least once just to say you saw basket case, right. Old CD, Times Square. I got adjust the taste of that. When I first started going to New York in the 90s, there were still some peep shows and stuff around, and it was just starting to be like Disneyfied. As I said, I missed it entirely. Yes, he did miss much. The man alive. You can go to red Lobster there now. I know. It's funny how people pine, like, remember when it was crappy and those crime and drugs and prostitution? I can understand being like, yes, this corporate stuff is just dumb or whatever, but people are very nostalgic for old crappy times Square. Yeah. The Cadillac Fleetwood was used in the early 1980s. And that one of those it was a pair of them was used in the movie in the Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood. Yeah. Pretty neat. Remember he played the guy who didn't get to Kennedy. In time when he was assassinated, haunted him. Oh, is that his backstory? Yeah. And John Malkovich was, like, a total weirdo. Sure. He was assassinated. Right. Who used a wooden gun. I don't remember a lot about that movie for some reason. It's a lot of detail, Josh. Then there's the Bush era Cadillac Deville, which is I associate that with Bush. Now I'm looking at it. Yeah. It was a GM. Oh, I'm sorry. It was a Cadillac Deville, of course, but it was built on the frame of a GM SUV, supposedly. Smart. Yeah. Five inch thick armored doors, bulletproof glass. So thick it blocks out parts of the light spectrum, apparently. So everything looks blue. Yeah. Maybe from the inside. And you go insane. And it was rumored to feature what they call a self contained passenger compartment with its own secure air supply. Cool. So I guess just like a chamber to hide someone in, inside there. Crazy. And then lastly, check. The most recent one came out in 2009, and it's a Cadillac, too. And it came out, I guess, just in time for Obama's inauguration. Yeah. And this one, they started to be a lot more secretive about how they're made. Yeah, exactly. Makes sense. But they have pretty good speculation that it's armor plated underneath all around. They think it's diesel powered, but they don't know for sure. And good luck. Like, this thing is like a tank on wheels. Good luck penetrating that Cadillac. Yeah. So there's one other thing I want to point out. If you are into limos, especially extreme limos, there's another Popular Mechanics article called Stretch It Out ten Extreme Limos that you sent. Yeah. Like Lamborghinis and stuff. Yes, Lamborghinis monster trucks. And I looked it up. Apparently, there's a lot of monster truck limos. I also found online DeLorean limo. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'd like to see that. Yeah, it's worth looking at. There's a semi limo. Yeah. That one is basically like a large apartment on wheels. Like, you can have a party for 50 people. There are multiple bars. Did you see inside? It looks like an applebee's on wheels. Is it a fern bar? Yeah, there's a lot of, like, polished brass railings and the carpeting and the pollster. It looks like an applebee's. It's very strange. Well, you can account for good taste. It looks pretty sweet, though. Yeah. I'm sure that anybody who there's, like, three different lounges in there. Wow. Three lounges. A Mexican company converted, I think, a 747 or 727 into a limo. It took the wings off. There are TV shows out there that you can view. All these things. Extreme, everything else. Oh, I'm sure there are also TV shows about the people who repo them. Yeah, too. All right. So if you want to know more about limos, you can start by typing that word in the search bar@howsteporks.com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this funny homeless story, if there is such a thing. This. April has been working in New York City, but I gather that she is in Atlanta. She's just there for work for a period of time. Dear Josh and Chuck I miss the old Times Square she did say that. No, I'm kidding. She talks about how she listens to us on the train there in her commute to New York City and she feels really bad for homeless people, but especially when she sees a homeless person with a dog. She says after passing several homeless people in New York People Dog Combos this weekend, my grand plan is to stop at a pet store, get some dog food and treats and have cash available for the next homeless pair so I could help out and hopefully have a conversation with them to make them feel human for a little bit. This is April. You are awesome, by the way. Yes. I bought my supplies in two blocks from the store, I see a homeless man with a husky and I think, perfect. One of my dogs is a husky so I'm partial to them. After having a five minute conversation with Michael, petting his dog, giving him dog food and some money for a nice meal, I get ready to leave and I was about to walk away. He said, thanks for the dog food, but it's not my dog. I'm just watching it for someone in the building. Awkward. I ultimately asked if the dog had a home and food. He said yes. So I asked if I could take the dog food back so I could give it to a dog in need. He agreed and hopefully he was able to get a nice meal himself and appreciated my conversation and didn't think I was too crazy. I then went on to walk 30 blocks to my hotel with a relatively heavy bag of dog food without seeing another homeless pet. Good thing, because it didn't have any more cash with a person and it probably would have been weird to give a person dog food but nothing to help him or her. Me and my bag of food will be walking around various New York City neighborhoods this weekend though, because now it is my mission to help someone out. It's been a good little reminder for me to be thankful for what I have, especially as we approach winter up here. And that is from April Cummings. That is very nice of you, April. Very cool. I hope you find a homeless dog in person that you can help out. Yeah. If you want to share a story about how you're making the world a better place, we want to hear about it. You can tweet it to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com Stuffychannow, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…rban-legends.mp3	Why do we believe in urban legends?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-do-we-believe-in-urban-legends	In this episode, amateur anthropologists Josh and Chuck discuss urban legends, from how they're defined to some classic examples you've probably heard yourself.	In this episode, amateur anthropologists Josh and Chuck discuss urban legends, from how they're defined to some classic examples you've probably heard yourself.	Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:20:29 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=4, tm_hour=17, tm_min=20, tm_sec=29, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=35, tm_isdst=0)	31460862	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the Series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and the Disney Nature Films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus with no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts. Banking with Capital One is like the easiest decision in the history of decisions. Kind of like choosing to listen to another episode of your favorite podcast. And with Capital One's top rated app, you can deposit checks and transfer money anytime, anywhere, making Capital One an even easier decision that's banking reimagined what's in your wallet terms apply. Capital One NA Member FDIC brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry it's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. This is stuff you should know. Let's get to the intro. Yeah. Jerry said we're wasting too much time. In the beginning. Yes. She said that she wished she had a third mike so she could ask a question every once in a while so we could get to the intro. Right. So what you have for lunch, Josh? I have not eaten lunch yet. Actually, it's not true. I had a Garrett ellie square chocolate. Caramel inside. Sure. I had a baby roof, a granola bar, courtesy of Discovery Channel. Thank you. Yeah. Raising the bar. I had a cherry Coke, and that's healthy, my friend. I think that's it. That's all I've had. I've lived forever. I had a green apple and some almonds and green tea. You are all about the almonds right now, aren't you? It's a superfood. That reminds me, I've got to give you a recipe for roasted almonds. One of my friends told me last night. It sounds really good. Don't you just roast them? Well, there's some other stuff mixed together. It's an Alton brown recipe. He's on the Alton brown diet. I watched him eat a seaweed salad last night. I love those. And I was just like, he's going to weep at any moment. Jerry is so frustrated right now. She is. Her calf muscles are about to burst out of her legs. Well, maybe we should send her to Vegas. No, I got something else. Okay. Chuck. Yes? Did you know that National Gang Week has come and gone? Is there such a thing? No. Okay, that just ruined the whole thing. Well, Josh, tell me about National Gang Week. Okay. National Gang Week is when all of the gangs around the United States get together and come up with a clever plan to murder unwitting and innocent people. Some of the crypts and the bloods get together. One imagines with the Mongols and the Hells Angels and the warriors. I'm going to get shot in the head for this again. What is it? I can't remember. Ms 13. Sure, man. Anyway, all the gangs get together and they come up with a plan that they're all going to perpetrate this year, this December. It was a baby, a fake baby, or possibly a real life baby, if they had any female gang members who are willing to give up their infant child for a little while in a baby seat on the side of the road covered in blood, although uninjured, just kind of doctored to look like they're bleeding. In an effort to trap female motorists who would inevitably stop female what? Female motorists. Yeah. Masters by cursed my thick tongue. The driver is by, not to be confused with the drive by, which is a gang activity. Sure. To trap female motorists who would stop and try to see if the baby's okay. Help it. And then out of the bushes comes from gang members who beat and rape and murder her. That sounds to me like an urban legend, Josh. Two urban legend. Two police departments issued warnings about this. Really? This past December? So ridiculous. When pressed about their sources, they both said, you know, actually, we can't verify any of this, so don't pass it along. It was just an idea somebody had. Yeah. You know, the other big gang, when I remember hearing this one myself, was if someone flashes their headlights at you and you flash them back, then it's a gang and they'll turn around and follow you and kill you. The one I heard was if you see somebody driving without headlights on and you flash and they'll turn around and kill you. Yeah, that's what it's part of a gang initiation. So not true. No, it's not. And what we're talking about, obviously, are urban legends. But more specifically, the article is called How Urban Legends Work. We decided to call this podcast. Why do We Believe Urban Legends? Yeah, we'll get to that for sure. Sure. I mentioned Vegas early on, though, because of the very popular old story that the man goes to Vegas and he chats it up with a nice lady at the bar and goes back to the room with her, and then he wakes up dazed and confused in a tub of ice the next day with a side hurting with a note saying, Call 911. And clearly his kidneys have been removed. Yeah. Upon examination, his kidneys are removed. This actually gave me a moment of terror, Chuck, because if you remember in the organ donation podcast, we talked about a guy named Mohammed Saleem Khan who had his kidney removed. Sure. And I thought, did we get taken and passed along bad information, tom, she right. It turns out Tommy was right. I went and double checked his sources, and I saw a picture of the guy with the huge sewn up incision where his kidney was removed. It was an ABC News story. Yeah, that was real. That is pretty much verifiable. Right? But that story was around long before that happened to him. Yeah. And I think we even postulated that the urban legend gave rise to actual facts, right? Yes. And that does happen. Sometimes life imitates art and the other way around, sometimes it's something from a plot of a horror movie, or sometimes an urban legend is inserted into the plot of a horror movie. Right. Like the Hook killer. You want to tell that one? Well, yeah, that one's been around since the 1950s, when teenagers first started going parking, which is when they would drive out to Inspiration Point and make out and neck. And the story goes that they hear the story. It's always someone who's escaped from an insane asylum, right. Back when you who has this word hooked hand. Hooked hand. And then they hear someone scratching on the car, and they don't do anything, and they just leave and they get home later and find that a hook is sticking into, like, the door handle. Right. Not true. No. And the Vegas one, the Vegas kidney one are considered cautionary tales, right? Yeah. Very common hallmark of many urban legends. They are cautionary tales. Right. And most cautionary tales also involve some sort of morality twist to them. Right? Like in the most extreme cases, the guy who was in Vegas who was chatting with the girl was actually married, and he went back to her hotel room. So the moral of the story is don't cheat on your wife. Right, or else something really horrible is going to happen to you. In the case of the teenagers in the 50s, it was teenagers necking, as you put it, old man. And the moral of the story is don't have premarital sex. Right? Yes. Go park your car and do things like this. You shouldn't. What's interesting about this is that urban legends reflect our own morality, our own values, our own fears. Many times think about that from the when the first folklorist, I guess, chronicled that Vegas kidney story. Right. In 40 years, it went from necking to cheating on your wife. Right. And one could argue that our values had expanded like that or devolved to the same degree in that same period of time. It's a good point. Yeah. Did you hear a bunch of them when you were first going to college? When I look back on some of the stories I've passed along as fact, I couldn't be more ashamed. I heard these. I never passed them along. You didn't? Even if I didn't pass them along, I believe some of them, yeah. There's a couple of common ones. One is the be careful if you're in a dorm room and someone you don't know because you'll wake up every day and feel all groggy and like you've been taken advantage of for a very good reason because your roommate was knocking you out and performing indecent acts on you while you slept. Sodomy not true. Very much an urban legend as is. If your roommate kills themselves, you get straight A's that quarter. Which I have to say forms the premise of one of the greatest Zach Morris movies of all time. What's that? Dead man on Campus, dude, did you ever see that? No, that was a great movie. That was the plot, though. Yeah, that was the whole plot. He smokes a bong in that movie. It's kind of startling for having grown up on. Who's Zach Morris? Saved by the Bell. Is that his character name? Is that his real name? Yeah. I don't remember his real name. Oh, Zack was his character. And saved by the bell. Yes, the blonde guy. Zack, if you're listening, send us an email telling us your real name. No, we'll look it up in a second, so don't bother email me. I prefer an email from them. Okay. So, Chuck, like we said, that these things kind of tend to reflect our own morality, our own values, and you said they reflect our fears. And that's absolutely true. There's a lot of urban legends. I would even say the vast majority of them have to do with some sort of fear. Right, right. And that's one reason we pass them along is because they resonate with us. We have loved ones in our lives. There are people we care about or at the very least we're having a good day and we don't want some stranger to fall into some horrible misfortune. So we pass these along and if they're passed along to a person who maintains the same kind of fears and maybe the same level of fears and the same dope believability, they'll absorb them, fear them and pass them along themselves. Sure. Many times. It's also regionalized. So what? Maybe if you're in Seattle, it could be a neighborhood in Seattle where this happens. If you're in Atlanta, it could be East Lake. So they get regionalize and all of a sudden you think, well, it may not be true, but I should tell my friends this on the Internet to send an email out just in case, because it's happening right here. Right. And because it's in a place that you can visualize, it has that much greater of an impact on you fear once again? Sure. I mean, if you can visualize your fear, you can fear even more. Yeah, good point. Thanks. That's going to be on my tombstone. Should we talk about some dead giveaways that you're in fact hearing an urban legend and not the real thing totes it Happened to a Friend of a Friend? That's the classic. Definitely F-O-F is what they call it. And actually if it happens to a friend of a friend, usually when you pass it along, you're not going to say a friend of a friend because you just immediately lost credibility right there. Yeah. So you're going to say, it happened to my friend Chuck's friend, or It happened to Chuck's friend. You know Chuck, it happened to one of his friends who neither one of us have ever met. That personalizes. It a little more, brings it home a little further. Or if I were a real liar or really desperate for attention, I would say, it happened to Chuck, even though Chuck told me it happened to a friend of his. Yeah, but I'm just going to gloss over that part because I really want you to believe what I'm saying. Because if you believe what I'm saying, then I can more easily believe what I'm saying. Right. And people innately want to believe their friends when they hear things, and people innately want to tell a good yarn. So couple those together, spin a good yarn, and then it's called spinning yarn. They have kids. Call it. Put those two together and you get urban legends. Yeah. I actually remember the first urban legend I heard, and my buddy Rad in Montana, my best friend in high school, actually Radford. Radford. That's who told me I remember this so distinctly about the Eddie Murphy and the elevator. It used to be Reggie Jackson. Before that. The story is the lady gets on the elevator and it's some African American with his large entourage. Or it's a dog. Oh, it's a dog. Yeah, it's the crux of it. Okay, well, see, it changes. That's the hallmark of an urban legend, too. It changes per story. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. But the lady will clutch her personal fear, and then later on, she finds out it's at a hotel, that her hotel stay was paid for. It's like courtesy of Eddie Murphy. We got the best laugh I've had in weeks. Because we scared you. Oh, yeah. That's not how my mom told it. How did your mom say it? She said that, and I think, if I remember correctly, she told me that it had happened to a friend of hers or someone she works with. Friends? Well, that's what Rad said. I remember it was his mom. Someone his mom worked with. Right. Well, in this case, it was Lionel Richie or Reggie Jackson. I think the other variation I heard was Reggie Jackson. Lionel Richie. I never heard Eddie Murphy is in a decade. But they're in a very nice hotel that allows huge dogs, and the guy has a dog with him, so he's even more intimidating. And the woman is trying to avoid eye contact, is scared, clutching a person, that kind of thing. And then all of a sudden, the guy goes, Sit, lady. And the woman sits down in the elevator, and the guy's like, I was talking to my dog. And then her hotel stay is paid for by Reggie Jackson. Or Lionel Richie or Eddie Murphy or one. Imagines P. Diddy. Yeah, sure. Or Jay Z. But if rad, if you're listening, you lied to me, buddy. Yeah, way back when, when we were eating turkey sandwiches after school, you lied to me. I remember distinctly, and I'll never forget it. So, Josh, that was a lot of time to give up the one dead giveaway friend of a friend. Really was. We'll go through some of these other ones quickly. Actually, we already did. There are many variations. That's a dead giveaway. The topic is one that is often on the news or one that people gossip about. Yeah, that's a big one. Stuff podcast got a forwarded email about census workers. The census is about to happen. So now don't open your door unless they have a confidentiality agreement and certain other things, they'll murder you. We got it this morning. Okay, was that ironic? But that actually happened when the census worker we thought was killed, but it turns out it's a suicide. So oftentimes it will spin off of a real news story and get morphed. Yes. Which is kind of scary, because a lot of urban legends have been portrayed as fact in the news, in newspapers. Well, that's another reason people believe them is because they trust the news when they ought not. Which is sad, because really, frankly, you should take all news stories with a grain of salt. It's just some dude or chick reporting something, trying to file a story, just like we do. We get things wrong all the time. Clearly. Why are you shaking your head? Gave us away, dear. People know we call ourselves out, but it's true. I think it's funny that we do that. And we need to do that because in this day and age, pretty much our entire job, or at least a significant portion of it, chuck is avoiding giving out false information. We have to go through and verify it, which is getting increasingly harder. Yeah, we try. We definitely do. We were talking about pop culture, and sometimes movies will work it in. Or the other way around. In the movie Goodwill Hunting, remember, they tell the story about the guy who gets pulled over by the cop because he's drunk, and then an accident happens and the cop has to run to the accident and the guy jumps in his car, goes home. The cop comes the next morning and the guy denies that he was ever out drinking until he looks and notices that in his driveway, he had jumped in the squad car by accident. Not true. Right. But it's an urban legend. It was in goodwill hunting. Right. Simpsons. Which one? You know how you always hear the story about, like, a mouse in a Coke bottle? Remember the Simpsons when they, Barney and Homer visit the Duck brewery? And the guys on the line, phil is on the line checking the bottles as they go by. He's like, good nose, good needle. And then he turns his head in, like Hitler's head. It goes by the bottle. Yeah, that's a good one. Did you see the YouTube clip of Hitler finding out that Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat? I did. You sent it to me. Good. Is that an urban legend, or did Scott Brown really win the sentencing? He really did. I thought it was made up. It's pretty much impossible to trace the origin of any urban legend, really. No one ever knows where they come from. One of the reasons why is because it follows oral tradition, or it used to, generally. Right, right. Folklore. It is folklore, and it's actually studied by cultural anthropologist and folklorist, which I think is probably a subset of cultural anthropology. And heyday, have you seen the Encyclopedia of Urban Legends? No. I used to have a cartoon book, though, of urban legends. It was pretty cool. Nice. Well, the Encyclopedia of Urban Legends is fairly anthropological in nature. It's a pretty thick tone. It's on Google Books. You can check it out. But the author of it, Jan Harold Brunvan harold, why are you doing this to me today? Are you talking to your mouth or to me? Both. Okay. The author, Jan Harold Brunvin, kind of laments that the Internet has removed that aspect, the oral tradition, by digitizing it. And now I just click forward. Right. And Broom Van suggests that the golden age of urban legends was the although they've been around a lot longer than that. Right? Yes. Since the they said I found even further back than that. Apparently, F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 20s referred to contemporary legends. Interesting. The critic took to mean the same thing as an urban legend. Sure. And then even before that, I think in the 1890s, there was a French columnist who asked, do cities maintain folklore just as rural areas do? Interesting. The answer there is a big fat yes, obviously. Urban legend. Yeah. So that's when they were actually called out as urban legends. Like we said, it goes back centuries, tradition of folklore. Historians are big on verifying and writing things down, and folklore tell stories with their mouths. Yeah. Like we do. Right. That sounds like a T shirt. Folklore is do it with their mouths. Yeah, it should be. Yes. And like you said, check these things, go back centuries, if not further. And again, all legends reflect the feelings, the fears, that kind of thing in the culture at the time. So before, in the pre industrial age, most fairy tales that had something bad happening to them were set in the woods. Right. Like Hansel and Gretel or Snow White or whatever. These fairy tales were set in the woods because the woods were still very scary places filled with bandits and bears and scary monsters. Yeah. Super freaks. Yeah. One thing I thought was interesting is the famous website Snopes.com. Clearly can put it into a lot of these Internet if you're smart enough to go look at Snopes, these Internet rumors that get started. But one thing I thought was interesting was reading this article, is that Snaps evidently gets a lot of angry emails because people want to believe their friends so much that their friends not made this up, that they will email Snopes angrily and say, you're calling my friend a liar? This really happened. He said it happened to his best friend. And Snaps was like, I doubt they even respond to those in. Like, send us your address so we can send a guy to come hit you with a tack hammer. Right. And I have some swampland in Florida. I can tell you exactly we were talking about the origins of these things, Chuck. Right, indeed. Right. So folklorist, anthropologists, and pretty much any smart person can point to actual events that are maybe misinterpreted or expanded upon, become the source of urban legends. E G. Temporary tattoos laced with LSD. Right. That could have been birthed out of the real practice of chemists who make LSD would oftentimes put it on, I guess still do put it on, like a stamp with a cartoon character. Yeah. And so that might have gotten confused with temporary tattoos. So the word spreads and all of a sudden and what I love is that the story goes is they give them these LSD tattoos to get the kids hooked on LSD. Right. Which is just silly. Yeah. It's not physically addicting at all. Nor psychologically addicting. I doubt it. I imagine it's much more psychologically aversive than anything, probably. So I'm getting nostalgic. Halloween. Lots of urban legends around Halloween. Yeah. With the tainted candy and the razor blades and the apple. You know what's crazy is we were talking about how the organ thief actually probably got the idea from the urban legend. There have been instances of people tainting Halloween candy after the urban legend was around. Oh, really? Interesting. Most of the ones that have, like, razor blades and I have to say this is from Snopes. Right. There's a pretty long article on Halloween candy with razor blades and needles, but most of the ones that have actually been perpetrated were hoaxes or they wanted to get attention or something like that. But poison candy actually has come up many times around Halloween and non Halloween days. The other 364 days where kids have died, apparently. Yes. And this is not an urban legend, apparently in I don't remember what state it was in, but a friend of a friend told me that a little kid died after getting into his uncle's stash of heroin. Awful. And so the family actually sprinkled his candy, halloween candy with heroin from the uncle stash to protect the uncle, to make it look like somebody had really poisoned the kid with heroin. And that really happened. It happened. Wow. What if Snopes is wrong about all this stuff? I don't know. I've had that horrible feeling before. Horrible thought. Set up right in bed and like too roll pops, like snopes is just this one dude. He's like the wizard behind the curtain. That'd be pretty cool. I guess we should point out a few of these email urban legends just so you don't forward them around to your friends and family. Be wary of anything free. Obviously that's a dead giveaway, usually. Well, that's just like the pigeon drop. Yeah, sure, yeah. If anybody starts talking to you about money and you've never met them, you don't want to respond. Right. Another dead giveaway, Josh, is if you ever get an email that starts with a line. If you forward this email, Colin, or if it says, this is not an urban legend colon, then it's probably an urban legend. Yeah. And then of course, there is the famous Neiman Marcus cookies email, which I've actually received. I have received this one as well. I've never made them. Have you? No, they're just regular old cookies. Tom Harris says they're delicious. Really? I think he made them for this article. That is research, pal. Yeah, we'll detail this one. This is a very famous one. So back in, I think, the late 90s, there was an email that was sent around where it talked about the Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe, which made some delicious chocolate chips, they say, right? Or chocolate chip cookies. And a woman apparently asked for Neiman Marcus, somebody at the store to give her the recipe for the cookies and they gave it to her, but they charged her for it. They said 250. And when she gets her bill later that month, she sees that they charge $250 right, instead of $2.50 for this recipe. The woman finds it outrageous. Contact Neiman Marcus and they're like, well, our cookies are really good. We're not going to refund your money. Right. So she decided that to get them back, she would forward the recipe in an email to everybody and spread it around to get back at Neiman Marcus. You are my crutch, Chuck. Not true, Josh. They didn't even make the chocolate chip cookie at the time. In the 80s, it was Mrs. Field, not name of Marcus, and before that it was the Waldorf Astoria hotels. Red velvet cake. Take that, stupid. People who believe forwarded emails. I'm sad to say, not only did my mom pass along bunk information with the Lionel Ritchieredgiejacksonstory sure. But my dad, I found out, is a birther. Really? Are you kidding me? Yeah. He's not in any kind of structured or organized capacity. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even aware of the term birther. Right. But he believed a forwarded email, that was birther in nature. Right, which, again, that was a real occurrence. There were people out there who wanted to see Barack Obama's birth certificate claiming he was not born in this country is what that original. He said that his birth certificate was doctored, that he was really born in Kenya. Right. And therefore he shouldn't be president. Right. Yeah. But that has taken on a life of its own. So out of this original idea, it's become an urban legend and a forwarded email urban legend, which are really the dregs of urban legend society. Yeah, because you're not even taking the time to spend a good yarn at that point. No, and that's why Brunevan was saying, like, it was best from the there's spider eggs and bubble yum and cook hands hanging from car doors. And the call is coming from upstairs. And the great part about it was that everybody was personalizing it because it happened in East Lake or it happened in Peoria, Illinois, depending on where you are. And so it took effort and there was personalization done to it. And so people were engaging in oral folklore tradition without even realizing it, and it kept it alive and vital. Now it's just forwarding. That's it. Well, you and I remember clearly. I remember Rad lying to me in the 9th I'm sorry, 10th or 11th grade. You remember your mom telling me stories like I remember this specifically in his kitchen. Yeah, I remember that day specifically, but I don't remember whatever. Jackass forwarded me the gang headlight thing. Right. Should we talk about a couple of real ones real quick before you wrap it up? Yes. These are great. Chuck. Chuck found some on crackedcom. And the more fantastic ones, we actually did go and double check with Snopes, the big fat guy who doesn't check anything, right? Yes. Okay, so, Chuck, take it away. Well, one of them has happened recently. Is that the famous Halloween when there's all manner of Halloween ones, like we said, where someone hung themselves in their yard? Yeah. What podcast did we talk about that I can't remember. I can't either, but we definitely did. And the story goes that someone hung themselves and people thought it was a Halloween decoration, so the body stayed there for several days until they realized it was real. And this actually really did happen. Yeah. And then there's the one about the couple who spend the night in a hotel room and they can't figure out where the stench is coming from. And when they finally go downstairs to ask for their money back the next morning, the hotel management investigates and finds a dead body under the bed. Apparently it's happened a bunch of times. Yeah. Kansas City. Atlantic City, florida. California. It's very distressing. Yeah. And the Cracked blogger makes a good point that in these cases, and just about all of them, what's insane is that the people spent the night in the room the whole time, almost invariably. They're so great. Tell them the best one. Cracked is awesome. They're so funny. Yeah, I agree. I love that website. I know it's one of your faves. The Funhouse Mummy. This one. Is the best one ever. The myth is that a prop at a carnival was, I guess, in the scary funhouse, was not a prop mummy, but it was, in fact, a real dead body. So if this story couldn't get any more fantastic, you're wrong. Right. So great. Here's how the urban legend goes. The crew for the $6 million man was filming an episode, and they needed a fun house, so they went down to Long Beach to the New Pike amusement park. Right. And there was a dummy hanging in the shot, and the director filmed the shot, apparently, and was like, I don't like that dummy. There's somebody get rid of it. Some guy goes to grab it, the arm comes off, and they notice a human bone inside. Right. You thought, wow, that's pretty realistic. Yeah. And so they did a little more investigating and figured out that it was a real corpse, a mummified, embalmed, human corpse that was actually hanging in a fun house. True being that people took as a dummy. Right. $6 Million Man. Chuck, is this true? It is true. Isn't that crazy? And it doesn't end there, because apparently the body, the undertaker had done such a swell job with the embalming process that he put this body on display for a matter of years. He could pay a nickel to come see this body. And then two guys that worked for the amusement park or no traveling carnival disguised themselves as what? His brothers to come claim the body, and they actually stole the body. And it traveled around the country, eventually ending up in Long Beach. Yes. What's even more amazing is that we know whose body this is. Yes, we do. It was a bank robbing bandit named Elmer McCurdy who lived out his violent career at about the turn of the last century, early 20th century, he was killed in a shootout for $46 and two jugs of whiskey. And like you said, the undertaker did such a good job embalming him, he charged people a nickel to come look at this bandit, and that was that. So when they finally laid them to rest, I think in like, 2006. Really? No, it couldn't have been now. It would have been a couple of years after the $6 million man thing in 76. Right. Okay. They supposedly put cement over his casket so that nobody could dig him up and do the same thing all over again. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. True story. Yeah. So Cracked actually has about eleven of them over the span of a couple of articles, and then I saw other sites that said they had real ones, but again, you can't always believe everything. I don't know if I believe Cracked. No. That's why I went and checked it out. It snaps. And they had the same story, slightly different, but all the facts were the same. Same name, same everything. Friend of a friend. Yeah. Is that it? That's it. Man. We can go on. Urban legends. This could be an eleven hour podcast. Sure, but let's not make it that way. No, if you want to learn more about Urban Legends, you can look it up in the handystarchbarhouselforce.com. Chuck, it's time for listener mail. No, it's not, Josh. What? We are not going to do listener mail today because we are going to plug this thing like a finger and a dike. So Chuck. Go ahead, then. If you're going to do that, let's do it. Well, first of all, we want to plug the new science podcast that we talked about for a while, and it is called Stuff from the Science Lab with our comrades Robert Lam, who you might remember from doing the rendition, the reading of the Jack the Ripper Letter. Yes, dear boy, he doesn't do that voice in the podcast, unfortunately. Yeah. And Allison, they do a great job with Sciencey Stuff hallvanator. And we're going to plug Strickland's podcast tech stuff. Even though he talks smack about us, he really does. We are going to plug stuff you missed in history class with our colleagues. Now. Katie used to be Jane and Candace. Now it's Katie and Sarah Dowdy, full time. They do a great job. Sure. And what else do we have? High speed stuff. Yeah. Scott and Ben. Scott and Ben do a great auto podcast. Very funny. Ben and Matt also do stuff they don't want you to know. Video podcast on conspiracies, which is awesome. Yeah, coolest. Stuff on the Planet is another great travel video podcast. And what are we forgetting? Yeah. Smye or Smithy gals. Yeah, how could we forget? Smythe, did you see the email we accidentally got that was intended for them today? Stuff mom never told you, of course, is some people liking it to the female version of what we do. Yeah, they have a huge following. They do. They're great. They're really funny. Quality stuff. Oh, of course, there's Stuff of Genius and Brain Stuff, both of which feature are esteemed founder martial Brain. Yeah, and Stuff of Genius is really short. And if you're into, like, cool Monty Python esque graphics, you really like it. Yes. And of course, there's the blogs. Always. You can just type in the blogs@howstepworks.com, right. Plug Fest is over. Plug Fest is over. We haven't done it in a while. Now, if you want to send us an email, we probably will do reader mail again, right? Starting next week. Okay. If you want to send us an email on absolutely anything, you can wrap it up and send it to stuffpodcast@howstoughfworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Want more housetoftworks? Check out our blog on the Housetofworks.com homepage. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. 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https://podcasts.howstuf…istory-house.mp3	How to Find the History of Your House	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-to-find-the-history-of-your-house	Ever wondered about the history of your house? In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck give listeners some pointers on determining the history of a house.	Ever wondered about the history of your house? In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck give listeners some pointers on determining the history of a house.	Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:41:17 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=16, tm_min=41, tm_sec=17, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=286, tm_isdst=0)	25177950	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Charles Bryant. Happy Lee Ferrarison Day. Happy Lee Fergson day to you too, Chuck. And that is today is Lee Ferrisson Day. And if you remember, Josh, in our recent podcast on the First Americans, we made a little joke. Do you want to hear it? Let's go back. Okay. Columbus was beaten by a good 500 years by the Norse who found who were in Newfoundland. That's not what we were taught in history. Definitely elementary school. There's no Norse Day. No, that'd be awesome. Actually, no leaf ericsson Day, I don't think There is. Not in the US. So there you have it. And there is Lia Erickson Day. And we both have a little egg on our faces because we didn't know that. And it is today, and it's very ironic. But people that wrote in said, I'm assuming it was a joke, that you were I know. That's how we get away with the errors. I'm going to write them all back and say, you got it. Got you. Yeah. There was actually one guy, if you love delicious irony, who said he was making his Leaf Ericsson Day Viking hat while he was listening to that podcast pretty cool. Where the club is the first American. So, yeah, as you said, happy leaf Ericsson day to YouTube. Yes. So now for your intro, which I'm sure you had planned before I eviscerated you. No, you pretty much you eviscerated me. Really? Maybe. Okay. Well, Chuck, how old is your house, man? My house was built in 1932, I think. 1931 or 32. Very nice old house. Yeah. The one I live in is from 1920, I believe. You always got to show me up. I know. I'm sorry, buddy. Okay. It wasn't intentional. You own, I rent. How about that? All right, well, that's the ultimate show up. Exactly. Thank you for that, Chuck. Sure. And I've often wondered what has gone on with this house? There's this mysterious tarp that goes across the entire property. A tarp? Like a plastic tarp? It's not plastic. It's woven. It looks like, you know what they use for silt fence. It's just like that, except it's not standing up. And it's clearly it was purposefully laid down. And my house is on a hill. So I've often wondered, did they build this over an old dump? But did they even have dumps like that in 1920? This is under the foundation of your house. It doesn't go into the foundation, but it goes all throughout the yard. And like I said, it's on a hill. So it could be just to prevent erosion or something like that. I'm too lazy to ask the landlord what the deal is because they have erosion in 1923. No, they didn't. That started in the Great Erosion fire. Got you yeah. Someone will believe that, probably. Happy leaf. Ericsson day, Chuck. You, too. But my point is, I have no idea what's going on with my house or what went on in my house. Me either. I know it got a roof, like, a couple of months ago, and that's all I know about the house. So the history of your home is I got a roof a couple of months ago? Exactly, as far as I can tell. But I know some really interesting stuff is going on there. Something can't stand for almost 90 years and not have something interesting happening. Agreement, you would hope. Right. And I imagine the same is true for your house. I'm sure there's been squatting that had happened there before. Perhaps. And I know somebody who could go talk to about this. And that somebody is your wife. Yes. She wrote this article. I apologize for that intro. That's all right. Emily wrote this article, and she's a freelance writer for How Stuff Works, proving it's. Who? You know. Josh agreed. In order to get jobs. To some extent, yes. Especially if who you know is hands down the finestrider at How Stuff Works.com and also has the finest hair she knows Robert Lamb. So, Chuck, let's talk about this. Why did I just mention your wife bake it Chuck. I'm trying to keep it on you. I thought we just said because she wrote this article. Okay, I wasn't listening. How to find the history of your house. Got you on houseteporks.com. What did she come up with? Well, should I just get Emily in here? Yes, we probably should, actually. Okay. And teach you how to make soap and how to find the history of your house all at once. Well, there are certain steps you can take, and we're going to go through those right now, starting with talk to your neighbors, this new neighborhood. The neighbors? I don't know anybody. I don't talk to anybody. You mean? I just moved in a couple of months ago. But a classic neighborhood, though, that you live in. It is very much so. And I assume that the neighborhood would be much more community oriented. Everybody's kind of doing their own thing. Right. Everybody says hi when you're passing by. But it's also a thoroughfare for people to get from one place to another. So I think that kind of lends this transient nature to it, right? To get people speeding through your neighborhood. Right, exactly. And everybody's a stranger because of that. At the last neighborhood, it was off of a major thoroughfare, and it was kind of isolated and everybody knew each other. It was really cool. It reminded me of a neighborhood that you'd live in as a kid because you'd go out and play, except playing involved, like, heavy drinking, that kind of thing. But, like, you had friends in the neighborhood. It was cool like that. But there were some neighbors that had lived there since the 70s that I knew of and had spoken to. They weren't old timers, but I guess they had grown up there a little bit. They were like, yeah, this place used to be a hotbed for meth. I found out that there had been a thriving meth lab just a couple of doors down from my old house. The one in East Atlanta. Yeah. Wow. You can learn some interesting stuff about your neighbors. You sure can. Yeah. Just by talking to your neighbors. Exactly. So that's step one. Yeah. That's the easiest way to kind of get the ball rolling. Right. Let's say your neighbors, if you try to go up to their house, and even if you're greasing their palms with some cookies, they're like, Get off my property. Where do you go from there, Chuck? Well, if you want to start your investigation in earnest with records, you should go find the records, which is at the county recorder's office. Right. And Emily makes a good point. She says that although there's a lot of people who are into digging up the history of their home yeah. I get the impression this is a lot like genealogy to some people. Absolutely. That there's not that many resources for old timing information online. No. You can't find a lot of these court records. They're housed on paper in the depths of City Hall usually, and no one has said, hey, maybe we should take the time to scan these and put them online. Right. So what are we going to find at the county recorder's office? Well, what you want to find is the deed history of your house. Okay. You're going to find a guy in Birkenstock, like playing a recorder. You'll probably find that. Sure. You might smell some incense, and you want to get the deeds and trace back the deeds to the original owner, if that's what your ultimate goal is. Right. To find out who originally built or owned your home. You're also going to find on file and what you would take, I guess, is your plot number or your address, which can change, though. It can change, which is why it's a good idea to know your plot number that doesn't change. Right. I would say, actually, if you have a house that's 75, 80 years old, chances are your address did change over the years, especially if they do hold it out, kind of haphazardly. Sure. When somebody builds a new house or something like that, nobody likes to be 735 and a half. Maple street. I was a quarter in La. My apartment. Yeah. It was 27 something and a quarter because I was in a four plex apartment building. I thought below half, they just started assigning letters. Dude, this is La. I think they have eights and 16th people just, like, cramped in linen closets. Right. Another thing you can look for, Josh, is have you ever heard of the Sanborn map? I hadn't until I read this and I went and did a little research on Sanborn. Thank you, God. They were interesting. Yes. The Sanborn Map Company was out of Michigan, I believe, and they serviced and not in any kind of dirty way, the fire insurance industry. Yeah. Apparently insurance maps were big as a whole back then. Yeah. If you were located in Delaware, if your insurance company is located in Delaware, and you had somebody in town, New Mexico, who wanted fire insurance from you, what are you going to do? Send some guy out to look at every single one? Now, you contract with the Sandboard Map Company to make maps of 12,000 cities and towns around the United States from 1867 to 1970. That's pretty common. Hand drawn aerial maps. And these things were detailed. Man, they look like land use maps of today. Yeah. There's not a little tiles drawn in or bricks or anything like that, but I mean, they're detailed. Like, here's the closest fire hydrant. Here's how many sprinklers this house has. Here's where the windows are, right. Here's what the building nearby is used for. I was looking at one, I can't remember what town it was, but there was like the foundry or the old foundry. It said, like, vacant. And then there's the other foundry nearby, and here's the houses. It's a drawing of a city. And they did it all over the place. And again, they did it for the fire insurance industry. But these towns also got copies of these maps, and a lot of them have them on file. Totally. And I said, because it was for the fire insurance was why you get detail like where the windows and doors were. And I think it also says what materials your house was made of. Right. They also did them in Mexico and Canada. They also did maps on sugar refineries in places like Cuba and whiskey distilleries throughout the country because those things tend to explode. Sure. And yes, the Sanborn Company basically made it so that you can find what your house looked like any time during this period or what else is around. It's really cool because they also included street names and addresses. Right. So if your city has a sandwich map, you are in luck. Yes, agreed. The other thing you can do is, well, if you are able to trace the deed back to the original owner, you can go to the Internet. Then if you've got a name, it's always worth a try. Oh, definitely. Because you never know if someone back then was noteworthy enough to be included somewhere in the historical records on the net. Right. And if you can't get the deed. But if you have other records, like surveys sure. Tax assessor, census records, they'll have the names and ages and occupations of everybody in the house. Occupation. That's kind of cool. It is very cool. What would we be? What would we be back then? Yeah. Oh, I was a cobbler for sure. Were you? Yeah. Cooper really? Sure. Wow. I underestimated you. Jerry. What about you? She has no idea. And also, you can find the occupations of the people who own the house through a reverse telephone book. Yes. The Polk Reverse telephone directory. Yeah. Did you know about this? I had no idea. It's just such a smart thing, and it sounds so old timey. Reverse telephone directory. Yeah. And that means you can search by the address. If you don't have the name right, you search by address, and then it takes you over to the name, and that'll be at your library. So now we've moved on from the county court. I'm sorry, I forgot to tell everybody. We're at the library. We're at the library here. That's why it's so quiet. Yeah. So that's where you can find the poll directory, and that's where you can find the occupation, which I think is probably one of the more interesting things. You can in the census records, too. Well, what if you can't find it? All right, so now you've got we're in the library still. Sorry. Now you've got one of the names of one of the homeowners who lived in the house before you. Yes. Now it can get interesting, right? Because I'd suggested the Internet. If the Internet comes up empty, which it likely will or not likely, but it may. It might. That means you need to look at something called microfiche. Yes. And if you're under, oh, I'd say probably 30 years old, you probably have no idea what microfiche is. So microfiche is microfilm. I don't know why they call it microfiche instead of microfilm. Someone will know and we'll find out. Yes. Basically, it's a ton of information on a very tiny strip. And you use a little magnifying glass. Actually, it's not a little magnifying glass. It's kind of big. It's how it's in a machine, right? You can spin through you got this cool little dial timing, and you can spin through and find newspaper clipping. Yeah, I used to use it. I'm sure, too. Right. Yeah. I was never a microfiche whiz. But I have used it. It's pretty fun. But you have to cross reference it. Like, you look for what you're looking for, and then you go through, like, a decade of newspapers on one film and you can find press clippings about whoever has owned your house. You might find that there was a murder there or that there were several murders there. Because frankly, Chuck, isn't that what everybody is doing a house history is ultimately looking for? You know, it's funny. I should show you my note right here. The real reason is to find out if anyone has been murdered. Exactly. That's the number one reason. I would say anyone would look at their house history. I would say, let's cut to the chase. But, man, it took us a long time to get to the ultimate point. I know. Yeah. I do have one more point about microfiche, though. Okay. Because a lot of people think they're like, Google Masters, and I research on Google, and I'm so good at it. Right. You don't know research, dude, until you get on microfiche. Right. That's where it's really hours and hours in the library, and it will seriously test your investigative skills. Yeah. These people who write a book based on a year of experience that they took a year out of life to go do something, and then they wrote a book about it, these people don't know writing a book. Talk to, like Norman Mailer. Go talk to Robert Woodward. Sure. Go talk to these people who actually had to go do research on microfiche and didn't just blog about something they were doing for a year. Right. It's not writing a book. That's called lucking out. It's called dropping out. Wow. So, Chuck, microfiche. Are we done with that part? Yeah, I think so. The library is also where you're going to find the census records that you were talking about. Wait, I thought it would be at the City hall. It could be in both, actually. Okay. If you strike out at the City Hall, you can look at the library. The City Hall. At the City Hall. And the other thing you can look at the library is look up some books. There may be a book called The History of East Lake in Atlanta. Sure. And start thumbing through it, and there may be a picture of your house. And the original mayor of East Lake lived there. Yeah. And when you find that out, try to contain yourself. Remember, you're in a library. Right. Don't shout. Funny you should bring up East Lake, Chuck, because, number one, that's where you live. Indeed. And number two, emily wrote about East Lake. She did some research on East Lake, right? Yeah. I think she in order to write the article, she just did a little digging around about her own hood to kind of live the experience. Maybe she found out some pretty cool stuff, actually. I had no idea she did. East Lake is probably best known now as the home of the East Lake Country Club, old country club host of the recent PGA tournament there. They've been hosting it for a while, right? Yeah. They usually have one tournament there every year, but now I think they finish the season there every year. Okay. Early for now. So Tiger Woods is just in town, huh? He was right across the street from me. He's got a foul mouth. He does, actually. And I was able to make a couple of $100 parking cars in my yard. That's right. Last year, Chuck set up a Bloody Mary stand in his front yard and was able to sell one before the cops came and took the joint down. Chuck Bryant is what we call a hustler. I thought that was a sterling idea. It was a great idea, except you didn't have a liquor license. Yeah, that was the only rub there, so yeah. Shut down. Too. Sweet. So, east like, as it turns out, back in the day, the turn of the century, it was a farm 5 miles outside of the downtown center of Atlanta that was most of America. The turn of the last century? Absolutely. We should say the last century. Sure. And I had two creeks and a five spring watershed, and the owner of a streetcar company in Atlanta bought this farm, he damned it up and created a lake and, like, a beach community around this lake. Yeah. Build hotels. And it was actually one of the first, quote unquote, suburbs of Atlanta, which is funny, because the suburbs in Atlanta now are 40 miles away. Yeah. If you're a fan of urban sprawl, you're going to love Atlanta. Yeah. But East Lake is Atlanta now. It's not considered by any stretch of the oh, very much 5 miles from downtown like that. It's just a neighborhood. Although I suspect the traffic the way it is, it takes as long to get downtown from East Lake these days as it did in 1900. No. You kidding me. No. I just shoot down the Cab Avenue, it turns into Marriott, and you're there. You're crazy. So the horse and buggy, that was quicker. You think? Yeah. Okay. Now, you have hopefully found out the owner of your house, the original owner. You've gotten some information, and you may have gotten some information on the building of your house, because you said the reason you would really want to find out to see if anyone was killed there. There are other reasons, too. Like, you were talking about architecturally. There's all kinds of architectural oddities many times in these old houses that don't make any sense unless you find out the history of the home. Yeah. Emily says that you might find out that your kitchen is where your living room used to be, which explains some of the odd angles. Is she talking about your house? No, actually, we don't really have anything that odd. No. Except for the flooding issue in the basement, which I can't figure out. But something more interesting. Let's say you have a window in this little tiny closet, and you think, why would there ever be a silly little window there? And then you find out that it was a back room distillery during Prohibition or something. You never know. The house I grew up in as a child in Toledo had a secret passageway. No way. I kid you not. In the back of a linen closet, which the walls in the back were painted black. If you push it on the back wall, you went through a little door and you crawled through, and you were on the steps going down to the basement on the other side of the house. How old was the house? Do you know, I don't actually like 70s ranch. I don't think so. No, it's definitely fifty s at least, right? Yeah. But it was fun to play hide and go seek in there. Well, I bet if you have some architectural auditing in your home and you're into this kind of thing, it'd be worth looking into. For sure. Definitely. Also, if you are a renovator and you've been tasked with restoring a house, how else are you going to find out? Yes. If you're really big into conservation and you have an old Victorian home and you really want to bring it back to its former glory, you should respect the original plans of the house. Definitely. And you can also charge an arm and a leg if you do all this extra research to renovate to the original state. Absolutely. And Chuck, one last thing. I wanted to mention ghosts. Sure. I didn't know this. I didn't, either. In California and Hawaii, you are required to disclose any ghostly activity in a house when you're selling it. Yeah. I didn't know that. I didn't either. But if you suspect that there's ghostly activity in your house and you don't live in any of these states, you might go back and find out that there was that murder that you've been looking for. Yeah. And how cool is that? Yes. If you found out someone was murdered in your house, wouldn't that be cool? Yeah, that wouldn't scare me. I think it was neat. Unless, obviously, it turned into like, an Amiability horror type of scene, but sure, you would have known come out of the wallpaper. Exactly. That's a good reason. I would say if you have blood coming out of your wallpaper, that's a good reason to research the history. And the other final reason, I think, is if you might find out that someone famous used to own it, or someone famous might have stayed there and you could potentially get it listed as a historical site and save that house forever. Yeah. I'll bet your house ends up on the register in 50 years. Okay. But I'm going to find out the history of it, though, all right? Are you really? Yeah, I'm going to look into it when I have to. You're not just saying that? Do I usually not follow through my podcast promises? Well, if you have a really interesting history for your house and you want a little more detail, you can read Emily's article, how to Find the History of Your Home. You can type that in the handysearchbarhouseporkworks.com go find a sandborn map just to look at them. Yes, they are pretty interesting. You can find them online. In some cases, not all. And as I said, handy search bar. That means, of course, that it's time for listener mail. Listener mail. Josh, before we do that, I just wanted to say that give a special thank you to the boys and the Henry Clay people. Oh, yeah. I'm holding their all right. If you remember, a few weeks ago, we mentioned that some band in Southern California wrote us and they were fans of the show and I liked the CD, and I tried to get everyone together to go to the performance, which was a few nights ago. And I was the only one able to make it, unfortunately. So I met the boys in the band. I met Joey and Andy, the two brothers, and I met the drummer. I believe his name was Mike. And that was the only other guy I met. Hung out, had some beers. They're super cool kids, very talented. And remember we said that we were going to be at that show and we actually had two fans come out seeking us out? Yeah. And you introduced your friend Justin to them as me. Right. This lady comes up in the lobby after the show, and I'm hanging out with the band, and I think her name was Jeannie. And Jeannie. If I got that wrong, I apologize. I had a few beers at that point and Jeannie and her husband came up and introduced themselves and they were super nice and very complimentary, and they came to the show on our recommendations and great. Josh and Chuck siding. Sweet. So in the city of Atlanta, we had two people interested in coming to see us. It's awesome. Which is pretty cool. Well, that's not bad. It's like 50% of the people in Atlanta listening to us. Sure. And it was cool. I thought, me and my band stuff, I just peppered them with questions about being in a band. Right. We hit it off. I feel like an honorary Henry Clay person. And you may meet them in December if you come to La. With me. I'm not you're not going to be able to come up now. So you got any letters? Yes, I got a letter. Okay. This is from Emily, and we're going to say her last name because it's a special thing emily Fried and all wrote us. I've been a big fan of the podcast since I discovered them in July. I was working a temp job, filing and making binders for 8 hours at a time in a back room of a lighting company. Not fun. The podcast help her get through all this. We get a lot of these emails, people pouring jobs, and she thanks us for that. And then she says, in fact, it got me so excited about how stuff works and the topics you covered, I decided it would be kind of a dream gig to be able to write some of the articles that you covered. So I went online, submitted materials to be a freelance writer, and I just found out a few hours ago that I was accepted. All right. She's a colleague. She's a colleague. Emily is now a coworker, and she says she can't wait to start rolling on a project and have you guys to thank for inspiration and for helping me put myself out there. And I emailed her a few times and told her, congratulations, welcome aboard, and we'll try and pick out one of our articles to podcast. That's awesome. Congratulations, Emily. So she's a coworker. Officially. Sweet. Chuck, is that the only letter you got? Yes. Okay, let's plug Kiva. Yeah, go ahead. So Chuck had the bright idea of setting up a Kiva.org that you should know Team. And if you're not familiar with Kiva, it is a microlending website. It's non profitfit, meaning you don't get any return on investment, but you do get your investment back if you choose. And loans as small as $25 go to fund bigger loans for entrepreneurs in developing countries. And we talked about it on the micro lending podcast. If you want to familiarize yourself with that, you can go listen to that one. It was pretty good. You can go to www.kiva.org teamstepychnow and you'll come to the stuffiest Donations Team page. You can donate whatever you want, as little as $25. And like I said, don't forget this is repaid. The loan is repaid. Right. They also have gift certificates on Kiva.org, and it's a really good cost. Yes. And we've already got $750 donated. I know. And what, like 20 team members? And we're stoked. And we want to call out again, the Lousy Colbert Report. Did you see that warning email we got from somebody? Yeah. Do you know what happens when you call out Stephen Colbert? Yes. You get his attention, which is exactly what we're trying to do. So we're calling them out, and it's Lousy fans who are cheap and we want to bury. They're the ones that cross over between share, of course. So we want to beat them and get their attention and challenge them to a Kiva off. So if you have an interesting story about your house, if there's a murder there, chuck and I definitely want to hear about it. Have any suggestions about the key to Team? Let us know. Or if you want to say hi, unicorns, tornadoes, torpedoes, any of that stuff, send in an email to Stuff podcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Want morehouseofworks? Check out our blogs on the Houseofworks.com Homepage, brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
3f8ec7e8-5461-11e8-b6d0-db9a137dfdda	Selects: What was the Philadelphia Experiment?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-what-was-the-philadelphia-experiment	The Philadelphia Experiment is a bad movie from the 1980s, and also the conpiracy theory that refuses to die, despite virtually zero evidence of its occurance. Learn all about this strange non-event in this classic episode.	The Philadelphia Experiment is a bad movie from the 1980s, and also the conpiracy theory that refuses to die, despite virtually zero evidence of its occurance. Learn all about this strange non-event in this classic episode.	Sat, 27 Mar 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=27, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=86, tm_isdst=0)	46439124	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody, it's me, your old friend Josh. And for this week's, SYSK selects I've chosen a classic episode about the Philadelphia Experiment weird urban legend about a World War II naval experiment gone around Rye that I have to say, I found oddly satisfying to explain away because I used to be really into this whole urban legend when I was a younger kid, back when I had my Time Life paranormal book series. So it was very fun to revisit it and then debunk it. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did. It's from October 2015, so giddy up and enjoy. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. And this is a special edition of Stuff You Should Know because Jerry has transmortified into guest producer Noel, which requires quite a bit of alchemy. It does. And a little bit of alcohol. Yes. And some like a magnificent brown bearded chia pet. There's a woodchuck waving from there. Looking good. Yeah. Jerry's gone on a top secret mission. Can't talk about it, so it makes a top secret. You're talking about it right now. But she's coming back at some point. Don't worry. Yeah. She's not let this forever. No, this is a stint by guest producer. We'll have to make a suite out of it. Yeah. Noel produce shows you should know. Summer Sam death suite. Noel spent nolstint, that sounds gross. How are you doing, man? I'm great. I'm so used to reading ads these days that I just panicked. Like I lost my place. And then I was like, oh, yeah, it's the actual podcast. I can just ramble and stall as long as I need to. Yes. You remember this from you being a kid? Was this in your wheelhouse? Filled out the experiment. The movie was watched last night. Shirt. Did you really? Yeah. Wow. The plot makes sense, but it's like a 15 minutes plot. They manage a lot of chasing in. Yeah. They really draw it out. They really gussy. Yeah, they drew it out. But the idea behind it, especially when, let's see, 1984, I was eight. And this is about the time where I'm like, I'm going to Duke University to study parapsychology when I get older. When you were eight? Yeah. I didn't know what college was when I was eight. Definitely. That was in my wheelhouse. Really? Yeah. Wow. So this was, like, right up my alley. Yeah. Now that I watch it as a child, I'm like, man, I was an idiot when I was eight. Yeah. But it was pretty cool. The special effects are like 80s rific. Oh, yes. They do not hold up. No, but I mean, if you're a fan of Tron or video Drone yeah. You're going to love this movie. Starring the great Michael Paret. Yes. And RoboCop's partner. Yes. Nancy Allen. What else is she in? Famously, she was in a bunch of 80s movies. Yeah. What was her big one, though? Or was she always, like, costarring this email lead? Yeah. I don't think she was ever, like, the lead in a movie. They didn't make movies with female leads in the can't remember. In this context, are we allowed to say female? Or should it be the girl lead? Female lead. They didn't make leads with women as the lead in the 80s. They're all just there to prop up the dudes. Right. Girl. That was in the 80s. Good. .9 to five. Three ladies. All right, I'll take it back. Okay. Few and far between. What? I'm trying to lobby for gender equality in Hollywood. Yeah, well, you should. And you're like, no, look, at nine to five, there were some yeah, I agree with you. I don't mean to argue. You're right. They were few and far between. That's what you call a trap. What about Barbarella? Yeah, that was 70s. Or was it sixty s, I think the 60s. Yeah. Chain fonda. Well, just like the makers of the Philadelphia Experiment. You and I know how to draw out a 15 minutes plot. Hey. Also, I wanted to point out michael Pere disappeared in Eddie and the Cruisers. Was he in that? He was Eddie. Was that based on Bruce Springsteen or something like that? No. Was it based on any real life band? No. I mean, it echoed. He was Springsteen esque. Right. But it wasn't like I think they were just I think the writer was like, who do I like? I like Springsteen. So let's get John Kafferty to sing like Springsteen and put Michael parade to lip sync. Wow. That's Eddie. That's Eddie terrific, too. And I saw John Cafferty in concert in the 80s. What else is he in now? He was the band. He was the real band. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Okay. They sang those songs for real. And I saw them in concert at Six Flags. Wow. How about that? And they've now become the Zach Brown Band. That's right. Right. Who looks like Noel. Full circle. Full circle. We just did it. Can we be done now? Yes. So the Philadelphia Experiment, I guess it was right up Michael Perez alley because it echoed real life, too, in a way. Sure. The makers went back and read a couple of books that purported to be nonfiction accounts of this incredible experiment carried out by the Navy. So incredible. And we should probably let's describe the experiment to begin with. Right. Experiments, we should say. Yeah, that's true. This article gets it wrong on how stuff works. Yeah. There were two separate things, both involving a destroyer ship called the USS Eldridge. Recently commissioned. Summer of 1943 is when it began. July, I think. And what supposedly happened was that there was this ship and there was a big secret Navy experiment. What aim was to make the ship disappear. Yeah. Not just to, like, radar, something like that. But if there was a guy with a periscope, he would look right past the ship because it had been made invisible, essentially invisible. And then, the story goes, that was successful. It was a successful experiment that was carried out. Yeah, it disappeared in full view in broad daylight from the was it the Philadelphia shipyard? Yeah. And then reappeared. There was a big glow, and then it reappeared, and all the sailors aboard were in bad shape. So did that take place in July, or was that it took place in July. Okay. Then it happened again in October within the second experiment. Yeah. Then they retry the experiment. Supposedly, the ship disappeared and popped up in Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia, and then reappeared ten minutes prior. So time traveled back ten minutes to Philadelphia again. Right. Which, again, the sailors were in bad shape, even by teleportation standards. That's impossible. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And supposedly, these shipments were seamen. Some were caught, like, in the middle of the ship and crazed and crazy. Right. So basically, the implication is that they had been some sort of, in some fashion, molecularly disintegrated along with the ship. And then when it was brought back together, the coordinates were maybe off slightly. Right. Maybe the ship and the people were where they were ten minutes earlier. Right. And things just went a little haywire. Like my upper house on the lido deck and my lower house on the other decks on the left. That's the only deck I know. The party deck. The tango deck. Sure. The tango deck. Yeah. And I'm still alive, and I've also gone mad because my brain didn't configure back correctly either. Yes. And this was all possible thanks to Albert Einstein working with the Navy and teaching them all his little tricks on how you can make ships disappear in time travel. Specifically, the theory is the conjecture. The conspiracy theory is that Albert Einstein figured out the unified field theory, which is not true. He did not. Basically, the theory of everything. No. It frustrated him for his whole life. There's this idea in physics that there's possibly one explanation for the behavior of everything in the universe. Right. Now, we've got a pretty good theory, I think. The theory of special relativity ties in three of the fundamental forces in the universe, but gravity is this outlier that can't be tied in through physics formulas, and they think that there's some way of understanding things to where everything ties together. And as I think Mitchaku famously put it, he said that what they're searching for with a unified field theory is with a formula an inch long, you'll be able to read God's mind. So the idea is that Einstein came up with this unified field theory again, not true, and that it was used to understand how to teleport things. So they used this understanding to carry out an experiment with a bunch of Navy semen on a destroyer in broad daylight, because you can imagine the advantage to be able to make your ship invisible. Not only that, if you could figure out how to teleport, it like, you're done, dude. No more war. Because you would win them all, and the rest of the world would just cower at your invisible feet. Yeah, you just suddenly pop up behind your enemy, put them in a full nelson, and be like, you give. You'd be like, I give. And that's it? You just let them go and be like that's. Right. And you teleport out of there. You see how easily that could happen? Nazi unified field theory. All right, so the Philadelphia experiment never happened like that? At least, what, we'll go ahead and not give any credence to the conspiracy theorists out there. Although we'll probably get a couple of people the email then. Oh, man, this is like a nucleus of conspiracy theory. It ties in UFOs. Sure. It ties in theoretical physics. Yes. The US. Government, of course. Yes. Ginormous cover up. It ties in all these different things. And it's really interesting if you go read this stuff to me, it's more interesting than just UFO conspiracy theory or just government cover up conspiracy theory. It's like a clearinghouse of conspiracy theories all tied up into one package on the secret experiment that, if you listen to the Navy's official line, never took place. There never was a Philadelphia experiment. Right? It was also known as Project Rainbow. There was never a Project Rainbow. It just didn't happen. The whole thing was made up out of whole cloth, apparently by a guy named Carlos Mieende. Yeah, and there's a couple of hinky details we'll go over why this thing has survived a little bit later, but there are a few hinky details. Not to make it believable, but that just have fueled the fire over the years. And let's take a break right here, Chuck, because I'm getting a little overexcited. Okay, just put this under your tongue. You'll be fine. Okay. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy, which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yes. LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US. Based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to Lifelock.com stuff. That's Lifelock.com stuff for 25% off your first year LifeLock. Identity theft protection starts here. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. All right. Wake up, buddy. What? We're back. Okay. How much time has passed in your mind? Millions of years. It's only been about 3 hours. Okay. Do you feel rested? I do feel very refreshed. Good. Well, we can continue. So UT is the man named well, he had some different names. Carl M. Allen or under his pseudonym, Carlos Miguel Alante. He's like, hey, let me throw a de on the end. I'll sound mysterious. Yeah. An OS was going to get in the wayback machine, but I don't think we should even bother for this. No. This actually proves there is no way back machine. That's right. So in real time, a letter. And he would go on to send about 50 more letters to an author named Morris Jessup, who wrote a book a year earlier called The Case for the UFO. Yes. Which you can find on the podcast page for this episode. Yeah. And he was an author. He's like a legit dude that wrote a bunch of books. I don't mean legit as in, like, he proved any science behind UFOs. Right, but he authored books for real. Yes. He wasn't printing, man. He wasn't just publishing manifestos online, and he was a conspiratorially minded investigator. But if you read like his writing, it was just nothing but conjecture. Sure. Nothing. There was nothing in it but conjecture fact. And even says there are three basic proven facts about this. And then here's some more facts, and it's like, no, these aren't facts at all, but it's really fascinating stuff. Maybe he doesn't know what facts are. Maybe. So he got these letters, and in these letters, at first, there were some attacks on him from Allen saying, you don't know what you're talking about, man. You're getting this unified field theory all wrong. And I know because Einstein spent several weeks with me teaching me this stuff himself. Yeah. And not only that, so it's like Cuckoo Pot writes crackpot. Right. And he was saying, like, I can prove that unified field theory has been mastered by describing this experiment that took place in Philadelphia in concerning one US. Destroyer called the USS Eldridge. Yes. And he said, I know this because I was there, buddy. I was on a ship in that harbor. And there were other ships in the harbor. That seems to be the only part. That's true. Yeah. I mean, this is a place where ships are being outfitted, like, throughout the summer and fall. It was the war. That's right. So he claimed that he was on one of these ships. He said, I witnessed this in person. I saw this green glow. I saw this thing disappear. Not only that, he could it come back. He could see the field that was created by this experiment. Yeah. The green thing. And he stuck his arm into it. He was that close. Stuff of movies. Right. Stuff of 1980s B movies. Yeah. So he sends these letters, and he sends, like, 50 of them. Yeah. And Jessup said, you know what? Let me investigate this a little bit, because I'm a crackpot, too. I get where you're coming from. Yeah. So let me just check into this. This is right up my alley. Yes. Thank you for this. Let me look into this a little bit. And he basically gave up because the dude could produce he asked him for some evidence or names, anything. He had nothing. He didn't. He just said, here's the story, and it's fact. And he goes, Carlos Ayande, who by then, I think had dropped the pseudonym right to Carl Allen. Who knows? He might have called himself Big Bird right at that point. And he was a very disturbed man. Yeah. I'm joking. But, yeah, he had mental problems. He did. But if you research him and you research even Skeptics of the Philadelphia experiment, the stuff he was coming up with was really interesting stuff. Yeah. He was a good writer, but he was a huge confabulator as well. Sure. So he's saying all this as fact, and he's saying, I don't know what the dates were. I don't know the people's names or anything like that, but perhaps if I were put under narco hypnosis, I would remember all this stuff. So you got any drugs? And about this time, Jessup said, I'm done with this. Right. He had actually moved on because apparently the government had directly addressed UFO rumors. No, Jesse didn't do that. I'm sorry. Another guy did who is interested in researching iende. But I'm sure Jessup was like, I got to get back to my serious work getting UFOs. He did. But then something truly bizarre happened, and this did happen. He got a knock on his door and two researchers from the Office of Naval Research who would have been carrying out experiments like this theory. Sure. Hey, have you ever heard of a guy named Carlos iende? And you probably could have picked MK. Jessup off the floor. I would imagine so, because he was like, It's all true. Yeah, exactly. And he said, Come in, come in, please. Have some tea. Have some opiates. It was at this point, and they said, you know what? We got a package a year ago, and it had a copy of your book, my Friend the UFOs. It was for UFOs? Yeah. It was annotated very heavily by three people well, by three sets of ink and three types of handwriting, which were all clearly from Carl Allen. Well, they were the MK. Jessup who corresponded with Carl Allen for well over 50 letters. Right? Yeah. He said I'm not fooled. This guy Jemmy J-E-M-I who may have been an alien. It's Carl Allen. And Mr. A and Mr. B. Are both Carl Allen. They're all Carl Allen. But regardless of whether they were all one dude, the Annotations had fascinated these two Navy researchers enough that they supposedly, as far as the Office of Naval Research, officially says they took it upon themselves and paid out of their own pockets and I guess took vacation time to go find MK. Jessup. Yeah, I saw a bunch of conflicting reports on that. Whether or not and this is what conspiracy theorists will point to, that either it was official business or they did it on their own. Either way, they say that that means something, and I've heard it explained away as it was just something on their list that they eventually had to get to. That seems like a terrible explanation. I think this adds, like, a real wrinkle to the story, whether purposefully or it's just something that can't be very easily explained away. Maybe it is. It was just these guys were really interested in this. Maybe they were into UFO stuff or whatever. Maybe it doesn't matter. The fact that those two guys showed up gives this thing legs for miles. Sure. It's just awesome that that happened, because that has kept this thing alive in part. Yeah. And the box came to them marked Happy Easter, which sounds kind of funny, and it had weird punctuation and capitalization, all the marks of a madman. Right. But again. Like the stuff he was saying was it was curiosity arousing in these guys. And they actually took and again. Supposedly paid for out of their own pocket. The Annotated version of The Case for UFOs and published it with the Annotations. They had a contractor. A military contractor called Vero Technology. I think. And had them publish it. Which is weird. Especially if they were doing it on their own pocket. But only 127 copies, I imagine it didn't cost that much. I saw 25 even, and they were like spiral bound, so it wasn't fancy. I read a lot of this, and it's really out there. Sure. But I imagine if you're a UFO enthusiast, it might interest you. I mean, if you read Morris Jessup's stuff, it's out there, too. Well, imagine reading that with the Annotation for this other dude. Yeah, I was going to say, I get the impression that Carlos and the stuff is even more out there. Yeah. You can get online. There's PDFs of it if you want to. Oh, the Vero. Yeah. But supposedly there's a lot of forged copies as well. Really? In circulation. Yeah. I don't know. This seemed real. Why would someone take the time to forge a copy of the crackpot manifesto. That's the question we should all be asking ourselves. So Jessup's story ends just a couple of years later. He was down on his luck, and he got injured really badly in a car accident, had a bad breakup with his wife, and he killed himself. He put a hose from his car exhaust into his window. And this is one of the other reasons that conspiracy theory anytime there's a suicide and there's the government involved, it's pretty easy to say he didn't kill himself. The government killed him. Right. It's made all the more suspicious, though, because supposedly that was the day that he was to meet a friend who had told, I've made a breakthrough in the Philadelphia experiment case. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, he turns up dead of a suicide. And the ONR guy showing up at his door definitely has kept this thing alive. It has. Supposedly, his friends came out and said, no. He was deeply depressed, and he had talked of suicide in the months before he committed suicide. But then, I'm sure conspiracy theorists say they paid them off. Man right, because people said, you can let my family go now. Maybe do what you said. And the Eldridge had a pretty well, it didn't go on to, like, great things. It was sold to Greece or transfer degrees, renamed the HS leon used in exercises, and then sold for scrap metal in the 1990s. So no big deal with the boat, right? No big. So we'll take another little break here, and we'll come back and we'll talk about what really happened in the Philadelphia shipyard that day. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy, which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yeah. LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US. Based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock. comStuff that's Lifelock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You aren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down, so you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt, and everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM. Let's create. Learn more@ibmcom. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, Stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the homepage and enter code stuff. Alright. What really happened, Josh? Nothing, supposedly. What really happened, apparently on that day in the Naval shipyard, I guess, either July or October, but July, I think, is the one that people typically, if they just think it was a one day thing rather than two separate experiments, it's usually July that they point to. Which they did in this article, too. Yes. On that particular day, the USS Aldridge wasn't even in Philadelphia. Yes. This is the part I don't understand. It was in Brooklyn. Yeah. So here's the thing. That revelation came out in 1999. We'll get to that in a minute. Prior to this, there is a researcher, he's an astrophysicist and Ufologist named Jacques Fbela. And he was actually the inspiration for the Ufologist Frenchman character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And he was also, like a venture capitalist, a pretty sharp dude. He just had some unusual interests, right? Yes. But one of the things that he dedicated himself to was disproving the Philadelphia Experiment, proving that it was a hoax. He was a skeptic, right? Yes. In some manner he was a skeptic. Yeah. So he wrote a paper, and in the paper he invited people to reach out to him if they had further information about the Philadelphia Experiment. And as a result, allegedly, he was contacted in 1994 by a guy named Edward DuJan, or Dungeon. Looks like Dudgeon. It's a little more pleasant than Dujin. I bet his friends called him the Dungeon. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, that's what I would have called him. So yeah, he responded. The paper was called anatomy of a Hoax colon the Philadelphia Experiment 50 Years Later in the Journal of Scientific Exploration and Dungeon got in touch and said, you know what? I was in the Navy from 42 to 45. I was on that boat, and I can explain what happened, which is pretty exciting. Well, he was on the Angstrom, which was there at the same time. Oh, I thought he was on the actual boat. No, he was an electrician on the Angstrom. But he said he was fully aware of all of the electrical components on the Angstrom and on the Eldridge. Yeah, because they all party together. Sure. Exactly. That actually comes up later. So he basically had a pat and completely sensible and reasonable answer for every single part of the Philadelphia Experiment. For example, part of the Philadelphia Experiment legend is that a brawl broke out in a bar following the experiment and two of the sailors on board the Eldridge suddenly disappeared. They vanished. Yes. Well, Dudgeon says, I was one of those guys. I actually faked my age on my list paper, so I was underage and shouldn't have been in the bar. And the bartender took pity on me and another underage dude and shoot us out the back door and then pretended that she'd never seen us. So they disappeared. They disappeared, exactly. Out the back door. Another one. Well, he explains the whole thing basically. Right. He says there was no experiment like that, but they were doing something that might have seemed freaky to the uninitiated. And that was degaussing the ships. Yes. At the time, Germany and I guess everyone else, really, in the Navies around the world, they had magnetic mines, sea mines, which would find your boat and go, that's metal let me go stick on that thing and blow up. Yeah. And torpedoes that were magnetic seeking, too. Yeah. And they thought, you know what? Let's come up with a way to make our ship hulls and our metal parts nonmagnetic to these obstacles. Right. Which is an established project, I guess, or an established what's the word I'm looking for? Process. Sure. So I was close with project. Yeah. It was a real thing. Yeah, it's called degossing. And it basically either changes or get rid of the magnetism of something that was formerly magnetic, like a ship's hole. It does not make it invisible. No, it does, radar or otherwise. But it probably looks pretty weird. Right. So they wrapped the ships in hundreds and hundreds of meters of cable and then ran a really high voltage electrical charge through it. And supposedly this would demagnetize the ships. Which really came in handy because at the time, just outside of America's coastal waters was called the graveyard of the Atlantic because German Uboats were running the show out there at this time. Yes. And as we learned, the Nazis invade Florida. They sometimes were parked right off the coast. Exactly. So they were taking out our destroyers and our cruisers and our battleships. So this is a big deal to be able to do that kind of thing. Although, and it was classified stuff, it wasn't experimentation in anything that. Hadn't been proven before. It was like we're just demagnetizing our battleships. Yes. They could have had a big sign up, said, degossing at work. Stand back. There was no big super secret thing. Right. But if you're a Nazi, don't read this sign. All right. The other thing that Dungeon addressed was the concept that the Eldridge disappeared from the Philadelphia shipyard, reappeared in Norfolk, and then reappeared back in Philadelphia. Well, that happened, but it just went there and then came back. Right, but it didn't happen in like five minutes or ten minutes or 30 seconds. No, but again, he points out, if you were just casually paying attention, you might have seen the Eldridge in Philadelphia that night and then noticed it was missing late at night and then noticed it was back in the morning. Which would seem impossible because that was supposedly a two day trip. Yeah. Two days, including there and back. The round trip was two days up the coast. But apparently the Navy had a canal that they used, I think the Delaware Chesapeake Canal that only the military could use. And they could make that round trip in 6 hours. Yeah. So in other words, it's easily explainable that it just simply I keep wanting to say sailed, but it's not sailing. I think they still call it that. Do they set sail? Shipped out. Yeah, it's shipped out and shipped back in a regular amount of time. And it just became part of the lore. Yeah. And I mean, you can even take on a few hours there. Apparently Norfolk was where they outfitted it with their explosives, and apparently they could load a battleship in 4 hours. Yeah. So even taking that into account, it's still 10 hours. If it shipped out at 11:00 P.m., which is what Dungeon says. Right? Dungeon, yeah. He says that it shipped out at eleven. It'd still be back by 09:00. A.m. Yeah. So, again, if you're just casually paying attention, what seems pretty mysterious really took on legs over time. It's basically like a game of telephone, like any conspiracy theory. Sure. Maybe there's a kernel of truth. It got exaggerated by some drunken sailors, and then bam, it gets shrunk down to 10 seconds through a teleportation experiment. Well, in these sailors, the drunken sailors supposedly could have been overheard saying things like, they're going to make a ship disappear, they're going to make this invisible, when in fact what they were saying is, they're going to make it more or less invisible to these mines. Got all twisted around. It wasn't literally invisible. Yeah. And so there were apparently tons of merchant semen around the area as well. Yes. So, again, this would have been classified stuff if there have been loose lifts which sink ships. They do. And somebody had said that we're going to make it invisible, like you said, they would have picked up on that. Maybe they were the ones who are just casually paying attention to the Eldridge here, there, and it just seemed to disappear and reappear. There's this guy named Robert Gorman, and Fate magazine article wrote about tracking down Carlos, ande he was from the same hometown as him and turned out that he already knew the guy's father. He just didn't realize that he was Carlos Cyande's father or Carl Allen's father. You're, old man. Allen's, son. Yeah, pretty much. And he managed to interview the family and get a pretty good picture of the guy. But one of the things that he found was Carl Allen's merchant Seaman papers. Yes. So it's entirely possible he was there around the time, or if he wasn't there at the time, he may have been he may have known somebody who was there at the time. I could totally see him have been there. And that's probably how he got the idea to cook it up. Right. Okay. I believe all that. Yeah. And again, all of this lands squarely on the desk of Carl Allen because no one talked about The Philadelphia Experiment. Those words were never put together until his first letter to Morris Jessup. Right. So it appears to have been totally fabricated by him. Yeah. And after the movie came out, people started coming out of the woodwork. This guy, including a dude named Alfred Bilek. Have you been to his website? Oh, yeah. He's something else. He made a video called The Philadelphia Experiment. Part One crossroads of History. And he claims that he was a physicist on board the Eldridge, and he was a part of the team. And not only that, he says he time traveled in 1943 all the way to 1983 during the experiment to tell his story. That sounds extremely close to the plot of The Philadelphia Experiment movie. Yeah, sure. Except it was a little different in the movie, he travels from 1943 to 1984. Oh, we shouldn't mock this guy. It's a fascinating website, but he puts himself squarely at the center of The Philadelphia Experiment. And he also says that he was part of the Montauk Project. Yeah, which they're sort of tied together somehow. We should do one on that at some point. Somehow debunking things. This guy wrote a book where he just basically made this stuff up at a whole cloth. Yeah. He says that the book, whether you take it as science facts or science fiction, you're in for a really great story, even though it's basically loaded with soft facts. This is the author and the preface, right? Yeah. But basically it's this extension that The Philadelphia Experiment was wildly successful. And from that we learned all sorts of things, like getting in touch with extraterrestrials, being able to teleport everywhere, just doing all sorts of really interesting things. Basically, anything you can possibly think of that a conspiracy theorist would enjoy is crammed into this book. And it's given a bit of gravitas by associating it with The Philadelphia Experiment. Yeah. In some quarters, man, some quarters. That definitely gives some gravitas. This green glow has been explained away by most people as maybe an electrical storm or St. Elmo's fire. And it was just maybe just another part of this story that people took and ran with it. Or maybe it was nothing at all. Yes, it also could have been. The Office of Naval Research put out a fact sheet on what they understand about the Philadelphia experiment, and they said it's possible another origin of that specifically was experiments with the USS Timmerman later on after the war in the 50s, where they tried to use a small generator that was higher power than the generator that was currently on board, and it actually caused coronal discharge glow. And they said that no one was injured, no one was enmeshed into the ship. No, it was just a glow was created, which is what you'd expect from a very strong electrical field. Right? Yeah. So they think possibly that combined with the degossing stuff they were doing during World War Two came together and helped this legend take off. But what they say also, though, and what was supported by this reunion of USS Eldridge sailors in 1999 is that even the guy who debunked and discredited everything that Carlos said dudgeon, he was full of it too, apparently. Because the USS Eldridge wasn't in Philadelphia then. It was in Brooklyn. Yeah, they got together in Atlantic City and I read an article on this meeting and they had a good laugh and said that one of them even has something about it on his license plate, just so people ask him about it. And a few of them said they would pull people's legs and say like, oh no, I disappeared and my hand was caught on the ship. And then they would say, no, none of that happened. But they said that was in Brooklyn and the ship's log confirms that. So apparently it wasn't even in that shipyard that day at all. Right. So that's the only part where I'm like, wait a minute, how could they completely invent that it was even in the shipyard? Why wouldn't they just use a ship that was there? Because they would give it a little more credence if there was at least a ship there. But that's what I'm saying. Like Carl Allen. He said all this? He was the one who just came up with it from the beginning. Yeah, but I don't know, it just seems a little weird that he didn't care at all about making it believable by picking a boat that was actually there. Well, that's what I'm saying. He may have been there at the time. He may have known that the Eldridge was there and just fudged the date because he couldn't remember. Because this is like twelve years later, over 13 years after the fact. You know what I mean? Bad memory. Right. So maybe he just got the date wrong. And the thing really did happen. And then the ONR would be like, oh, that experience. Yeah, we teleported a battleship. You just got the date wrong. So we've mentioned quite a few things here. While this thing has lived on through the years, that Jacques Valet theorizes that anytime you have, like, a movie made about it or any kind of imagery, whether it's a photo of the Loch Ness monster to a photo of the Montauk Monster, people are going to have something physical to point to and say, look, they made this movie. And that's when people started coming out of the woodwork, was after the movie saying, oh, yeah, I was there. I remember that now. Michael Parad just reminded me of this thing that happened. My favorite thing on his website is that he met the person that he later realized was the actor Mark Hamill in Hawaii in 1956. But Mark Hamill would have been five at the time. What did he say? He was a little nice little kid. I don't think he was a kid. He said he's a full grown adult. Interesting. What else? The fact that it's the federal government, of course, in the military, people are going to run with that stuff. That's the military's fault, I remember. Yeah, sure. They did secret experiments, still do tons of them, back in 1993. Some stuff that got declassified. And it really opened people's eyes to the fact that the government and the military experimented on uninformed and unwitting subjects, not just in its ranks, but also in the general public. So, yeah, it's totally the idea that the military would do this with its own people on board. Yeah, that's believable. Probably the most believable part of the whole thing. Agreed. And also just throw Albert Einstein in there. Throw in secret scientific theories that haven't been proven, and it's just ripe for the picking when it comes to conspiracies and the suicide, of course, like we mentioned earlier, that definitely doesn't help. It did not help the case any. But this is one that I had a hard time finding, people that still believe this. Yeah, I think a lot of people like it, aren't aware of it even, except for the movie. You know what else helped it get legs? There was a book in it was called The Philadelphia Experiment Project invisibility and it was reprinted in excerpts and papers around the country as fact or nonfiction in 1979. It does not help. Doesn't help things. I personally, with all conspiracy theories, I enjoy reading this stuff. I think it's fun and funny and interesting. There aren't any that I really believe in, but I do think it's funny when people get all up on their hackles and right in making fun of this stuff and you don't know, could be real. Well, that's the other thing, man. I'm glad you brought this up because just being like, no, this is not possible. It's stupid. Stop thinking stuff like that. It's like, no, this is at the very least, people using their imaginations and exercising it in ways that I don't typically do. Sure. And so it is nice to come visit it and check it out and read it. Yeah. Although I claim to have seen a ghost, so what do I know? Exactly. Although I have to say, probably the best excuse against this, there are two things that just say just on its face, this isn't right. One, this happened 70 years ago, and if the military successfully transported a battleship, we would know about teleportation by now and they'd be doing it all over the place. Exactly. The second thing was a quote from Robert Gorman, the guy who tracked down Carl Allen in that 1980 Fate magazine article. He wrote, if we were to believe Carl Allen, our naval hierarchy abandoned sanity and historical president by conducting an experiment of enormous importance in broad daylight using a badly needed destroyer escort vessel. Yeah, I think that kind of sums it up nicely. Agreed. But go forth and read about the Philadelphia Experiment because it is interesting stuff. Watch the movie. Why not do it on Netflix? No, it's on YouTube. Yeah. I can't believe you made it through it. I did. I'm telling you. I was working, too. I had two windows open, but there you go. It was fine. Yeah, it was fine. It's as believable as tron. That's Josh's review. Let's see if you want to know more about the Philadelphia Experiment. You don't have anything else, right? No, sir. You can type those words in the search bar. How Stuff works. And since Chuck said tron, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this email from an up and coming podcaster in Georgia Bulldog. Hey, guys. My name is Bailey. I'm a junior mass media, arts and theater student at Good ol UGA. Gods, Wolf. Wolf. My professional identity aside, I'm also a long time listener and lover of you guys. I listened to my first episode on the bus home from 7th grade. Well, I'm pretty sure it was episode on Brainwashing, so she's in college now. I mainly listen to you all as I'm working on my on campus job, bus driving. Did you ever take the busses in Athens? The student bus? I was so crippled with social anxiety that if I couldn't find a parking space, I would just skip class because I didn't want to get on the bus. Yes. Social anxiety. Really? Like, didn't want to get to know anyone. I just couldn't bear being around peers at that age. Really? Yeah. Interesting. The buses were always a little scary because it was like, here's a 40 foot long bus full of students and it's driven by a student. Yeah, it's scary for me for different reasons, but I can imagine it's scary for that reason, too. Yeah, I took them a few times. I mainly walked. Okay, where was I? Bus driving, so my passengers had the honor of listening to you as well. Oh, I guess she plays it out loud. That's nice. That is nice. That's the party button right there. I guess. So the other day I was driving, I realized it's my destiny to produce and host a podcast on campus. We don't really have anything like that, so I'm excited about it. My idea is to have me and another host be Constance on the show and every week bring in a different UGA professor or Athens professional or general awesome person to talk about the one thing in their field that fascinates them the most. For about 30 minutes, it would include informal conversation between the three of us about a topic highly inspired by you all as Woody Banter. Nice. Anyway, because you guys are my muses, I would want to ask if you have any advice for a Baby Bulldog podcaster. As an MMA major, I feel like I have the basic knowledge and resources for the technical side, but as far as what makes a good episode, I'm feeling pretty shaky. What is your environment like? How much do you prepare for the actual script? Do you have a specific formula for every episode? I'm fascinated. And that is Bailey Johnson. You got any advice? I will give you the same advice I would give anybody starting out in podcasting. Bailey get good. Mike it's worth the expenditure. Make it sound good. They probably have them on campus, I'm imagining. Yeah. If you can finagle your way into a studio with good mics. Yeah. Do it. Yeah. Do whatever you need to do to get that done and then release on a reliable schedule. Those are the two keys to begin with. As long as you're releasing on a reliable schedule, people will come to appreciate what you're doing. Yeah. And my advice as far as scripting goes is we said this a billion times on different interviews, but we don't script stuff out and we don't go over stuff with each other. We just do our own research and try and have as natural a conversation as possible, which I think has helped our show out. That's not to say that you need to do that, but I think being relatable and conversational helps rather than feeling like you're being read a script. I don't know a lot of people that would be as into that. So my advice would be try to make a conversational. Maybe go over it with whoever your co host is. Some at first. She's a theater major, right? Yeah. You should be pretty good at this stuff already, so yeah, I'm sure she's good at adlibbing. She probably finds comfort in the idea of a script. I don't think there's anything wrong with starting out, trying that, but if it doesn't feel right or you're not getting good feedback about it, then try something else. Yes. I guess I would say maybe try it like, instead of a script, try like, an outline that you share with each other. The poor man's script. Yeah. So you've got a little road map ahead of you. And we've been doing this for so long, we don't need that. We don't need it now. We have our own road map that we share via our brainwaves. Yes. Roadmap to the White House. It's not written down 2016. So those are our points of advice. We don't have a specific formula. We just try to talk about things that we find interesting. I think that's a key, too, man. Yeah. Be into what your own topic is, because that will show for sure. Yeah. Although we've also found that just about everything is interesting. If you dig hard enough, everything has a story. So if something's really boring, you, maybe abandon it. But you can also try digging harder. Agreed. So good luck, Bailey. Send us a link when that's up and we'll plug it for you. And since you're doing an interview show, your goal should be with each interview to make that person cry. You know what, Bailey? I'll even be on your show if you want. Whoa. Nice. Yeah, I'll do that. If you get it up and running and you need somebody, I'd be happy to sit in. That is so nice. Why not? I will too, if you want. I don't know if I'm athens? Yes. Not that I don't like to, but it might just be easier to do it on the phone. Okay, we'll see. Bailey. He's laid it out there for you. Get in touch. All right, Bailey. Good luck. Class of 17. That's crazy. Yeah. Who started listening in 7th grade? Goodness me. If you want to get in touch with Chucker I Chucker me. You can tweet to us at S-Y-S kpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffynow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastthouseforks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyknow.com. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…er-principle.mp3	What exactly is the Peter Principle?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-exactly-is-the-peter-principle	The Peter Principle describes how workers who excel in bureaucratic systems are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Learn more about the Peter Principle in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	The Peter Principle describes how workers who excel in bureaucratic systems are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Learn more about the Peter Principle in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:07:24 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=15, tm_min=7, tm_sec=24, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=169, tm_isdst=0)	22633489	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from howstuckworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. There's chuck Bryant about Paul Fleet. And I'm Josh Clark. This is stuff you should know. How's it going? You just went all heat haul. I totally did, didn't I? Got the price tag. I'm a little hat. Did you watch that as a kid? No, I never did. I was a more solid gold guy. Yeah, I see that now. Big time. And Muppets, actually, I think came on before. After Solid Gold. Kel Burnette. Yeah. My mom was a big kilburntia. Me too. I thought Tim Conway was the funniest human being. I know. You're going to bring up Tim Conway? Chuck always talked about Tim conway since it's always about tim conway. Tim conway this. Tim conway that. You know what never happened to Tim Conway? He never got promoted to a job he wasn't qualified for. We've been doing this way too long, Chuck. Way too long together. You can predict my every move. Yes. He can just point, and he knows what I'm about to do. Sometimes I wonder if I actually do things because he's telling me to with his mind. Wow. Yeah. If I only had that power, dude, I'd be in big trouble. Yeah, you would. Yeah. So, Chuck, let's talk about the Peter Principle. Have you ever heard of this before? Well, I read your article when it was initially published a while ago. But, I mean, were you disappointed with it then, too? Actually better than I do now, but I see, I grew up with this like my dad had this book. Oh, really? Yeah, it was like six s. Kind of like intelligent, kind of joke like cocktail party humor. Sure, yeah. And I grew up around that kind of thing. Intelligence. Right. The Peter Principle to me, is something that I've known forever. So it's odd to meet people who hadn't really heard of it before. Well, my parents were both educators, and maybe I knew nothing about business and corporate life and that kind of thing. My dad was an engineer. A trained engineer. Yeah. No, okay. No, he's a mechanical engineer for Untrained. Yes. Let's go. Okay, so, Chuck, what we're talking about is based on let's see, I think it's somewhere in there, and it's called the Peter Principle why Things Always Go Wrong. And it definitely was based on an article written by a guy named Doctor Lawrence J. Peter, who was an educator. Right. And apparently it was an Esquire magazine initially in January of 1967. Yes. There was a huge response to it. Right. And basically it was tongue in cheek. It's an unnatural law, like Parkinson's law, which we'll get to. Right? Sure. Or Murphy's Law, which we won't get to. We've already done that one. Or was that pre Chuck? I think it was pre Chuck. Those days don't exist in my mind. Yeah, I know what you mean. So anyway, Chuck, it's kind of tongue in cheek, but it actually does reveal kind of this rye observation that all of us have seen at one time or another, that eventually, if you promote somebody based on good work, you're going to promote them to a point where they're so far out of their field they've become incompetent in their current job. That's pretty funny. There's one sterling example that comes to mind. I don't know, back in the heady days of 2005, maybe late August, early September 2005, a little thing called Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans with a vengeance. Yes. And there's this I think it's a federal agency, and it's charged with handling natural disasters or disasters of any kind that occur in the US. That would be the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA. FEMA, right. And it just so happened that in late August of 2005, FEMA was headed by a guy named Michael Brown, who you may know and love is Brownie. Right. So Brownie was running the show when Hurricane Katrina hit, and basically it took days for the Feds to respond. I remember reading an article or several maybe, where Bush was questioning whether it's even the federal government's role to help out in this kind of disaster. Right. Well, sure enough, FEMA finally gets around to helping. I think they got a few bottles of water down there and truck some people out, that kind of thing. And amid this complete cluster of a rescue humanitarian mission yeah. Mismanagement. Totally. In every form of the word. Yeah. The good people of FEMA, we want to say we're probably working very hard, but it was a top down type of day, and just ease off. I'm going to bail Brownie out here in a second. Okay. But amid this bungled crisis rescue mission, bush goes down to New Orleans and says, brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. Which he wasn't. No. And he even knew he wasn't. No. This is not judgment on our part. Right. I think even while the rescue operation or the crisis alleviation operation was going on, brownie famously said, Can I quit now? Made me feel bad for the guy. Yeah. No, I agree. He was in way over his head. I feel bad for him, too. And he was in way over his head. Why? Because of the Peter Principle. Because he was promoted to a position he was not qualified to manage. Correct. Period. He was formerly his job right. Before the head of FEMA, he was in charge of the commission on judges for the Arabian Horse Association. Right. He's good at it, too. Yeah. He excelled in that position. Right. That was part of the reason why, I think maybe a little bit of helping your buddy out sure had to do with it, which everybody does. I mean, I got this job because of a friend. Did you really? I got this job by my own. Blood, sweat and tears, pal. Blood, Sweat and Tears. Josh great band. Agreed. So it was Earth, Wind and fire. Right. But Earth, Wind and Fire won't get you a job. Blood, sweat and tears will Agreed. So we'll call in the gang. Okay. So, Chuck, you're right. There is a certain level of nepotism. I'm not sure what it's called when you get friends jobs. Is it still nepotism? Yes. I'm not sure that we'll figure it out, but Brownie doesn't fit the classic definition of the Peter Principle because he got his job in large part because he knew the president. Right. Is it usually someone who's promoted from within? Is that the distinction? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So what happens is, I use the example in this article of a web designer. Think of one of the guys in Dev, right? Right. So you're just excelling at your work. You're working your tail off. Everything you do is just golden. You're a born developer, right? Right. Well, if you do that long enough and you get to know the people around you long enough, you'll probably get promoted to a position of manager, right. Where you're still over the Dev department, but you're now telling the Dev department what to do. Right. Conceivably, if you're of a certain ilk, you would be able to kind of carry that out. Well, yes, if you're capable of doing that. But let's say that you are kind of good at that, and you excel at that, but you're still really you're walking behind other people and fixing their mistakes, that kind of thing. Right. You're still doing developing. Let's say you excel in that managerial position, and you get promoted eventually out of development, and maybe you're over development, like you're the CTO, but you're no longer developing now you're managing. You're working with budgets, you're hiring people, you're firing people. Completely different skill set. You're likely going to be incompetent unless you're a born manager, and you're good with budgeting, dealing with coos and CEOs and stuff like that. Right? Yeah, that actually happened. Same exact scenario in my last job. Did a really web developer, and he was great at that. They promoted him, and he was not a good manager of people. No, I think it takes a certain kind of person. It's like sales. Sure. Right. I can't sell anything. Come on. No, I'm telling you sold me, buddy. Thanks, dude. No, I can't. Like, I'm no good at sales. I also suck at serving. I was a terrible waiter. Yeah, I was a decent waiter. I sucked at it. That's good. Thanks, Chuck. Why is that good? Well, because that means you don't have to be a waiter. That's true. Well, you are good at it, and you're not a waiter. Well, true. I'm a writer. It's only one letter. Different. Indeed. So let's say you do get promoted to CTO, and you're doing hiring and firing. Now, here's where the Peter Principle, which has just occurred because you've been promoted to your level of incompetence here's where it becomes a vicious cycle. Right, right. Do you want to take where it goes? Okay. Since you're hiring and firing people, you're probably also likely promoting people. Right. So if you're an incompetent manager, then you are probably going to make terrible decisions on who to promote. So the problem with it is that eventually, in a hierarchy which all businesses are based on, it's a top down process for pyramid. Most of the work is being done by the lower levels, the base of the pyramid, and then you go further and further up, and the least amount of work is being done by the people at the top, supposedly, I hear. Right. So eventually the top of the hierarchy becomes populated exclusively by incompetent people, in a worst case Peter Principle scenario. Right. But this is what I found most interesting, is that unless you are what he called super incompetent, quote, unquote, then you won't get fired. No, you'll just continue along. And basically what happens is mediocrity takes hold, doesn't mean you're awful and that you're going to make decisions that will destroy the company, but you're mediocre. And since there isn't a process of demotion in this country, or maybe there isn't in any country in the corporate structure, at least you can't be demoted without it looking like you failed defaled. Exactly. Yeah. Like they can't just say, you know what? This isn't quite right. You're better at your other job, so why don't we just put you back there and you'll even make more money doing so well? That's a real solution to the Pewter Principle is, number one, installing a mechanism where if you're not working out, you get to go back to what you're doing, but without the stigma of failure. This is the one I subscribe to, is offering increased compensation without promotion. I subscribe to that as well. Well, think about it. I mean, like, most people accept promotions and be based on the increase in salary. Right, right. I really want to manage somebody. Well, usually I really want to go make more money. Yes. But those are probably people who are born managers. Yeah. But I would say the prestige and the title and the money is even above that. Yeah. The money's at the top. Right. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. So if you could set up your business in such a way that you are paying people, you're giving them increased pay, vastly increased pay, like the kind that you would get if you got a promotion without promoting them, then you're going to avoid the Peter Principle altogether. The problem is that you basically create a class structure where there are just people out there who are executives, and that's what they do. And then you have people out there who are just developers. Right. It's actually very socialistic in nature. It is Parkinson. Yeah. So there's another dude, an english historian. His name is C Northcoat Pawkinson. Nice. Great name. Nice touch. Thank you. And he wrote in The Economist magazine in 1955 his first law, which was work expands so as to fill time available for its completion. I think most people have heard this. Yeah. And I think I might agree with the guy. Oh, yeah. If you give somebody a week to do a project, they'll take a week. If you give them two days, they'll get it done in two days. Sure. Same project, too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like Murphy's Law. Yeah. It's unnatural law. Exactly. Why Chuck just mentioned that is because there's actually a contrary theory to the Peter Principle. Oh, is this Lizair? Yeah. Okay. He wrote an article, not a book, called The Peter Principle a Theory of Decline. And he put the onus for responsibility onto the employee rather than an incompetent manager who incompetently promotes somebody who shouldn't be. Right. Right. He said that what happens is you have your average employee who's looking for that promotion probably because they want more money, right? Probably. So they're working like, 80 hours, weeks, and just putting in all this time, neglecting family, all that. And once that's noticed, after a certain amount of time, usually they will get a promotion. Right. Thing is, that's not sustainable behavior. Right. Well, that's when the trouble hits. You rest on your laurels once you finally hit that promotion. Yeah. And once you've gotten the salary. Because, again, businesses don't have any kind of fail safe put in to knock you back down when you do do that. Right. You either get fired or you just keep doing the same job. And most likely you're not going to get fired. You're just going to do a mediocre job. Right. But Lazier said that it was the employees basically creating a deception that made people who shouldn't be promoted because they're being promoted based on their work ethic. That was actually an artificial work ethic. Right. That's kind of cool, too. I like all this stuff. I thought you hated this article. Oh, I was just pulling your leg. You shouldn't toy with me. It's much more interesting when we talk about it than when I read it, to be honest. I agree, Chuck. We've taken some kind of fluffy articles and done some cool things. We should start a podcast. What a good idea. I like talking about it. I don't even know what a podcast is, dude. You know The Peter Principle also doesn't just apply to employees, right. It applies to innovation as well. Is that right, buddy? Yeah, it's the same exact principle. And this was an essay called The Peter Principle of Innovation by Nitin. I've never heard that word. Nittan Borg Car. Yeah. What a great name. Yeah. And he basically said the same thing applies to innovation. He or she proposed that a young company has room to innovate, producing new ideas, advancing old ideas, and the same thing happens at some point the innovation turns stagnant. Yeah, the reason why it turns stagnant is because eventually you hit a home run and you say, okay, well this one thing we just did just made us a billion dollars. Let's keep doing it over and over again. Right. And everything else kind of falls to the wayside. So yeah, innovation becomes stagnant. What happens is the people who are still innovators go off, found their own company and do the same thing and it just keeps happening exponentially, this cycle of innovation and stagnation. I think Google might be a good example. It's like they've completely mastered search on the Internet at this point. Sure. Seemingly. And they've innovated their company structure and their company model to a point where people have left Google and started their own company. Sure. I don't know that it's a lack of innovation though. They do a lot of I don't think they've hit stagnation yet. You don't think so? No, man. They're throwing so much money at new ideas. They've got like a Google reader where they're trying to scan every book in existence and get on the web for free. That's true. There's the Google Takeover, the Planet project where they're all going to put microchips in our brain while we're sleeping. They're strolling. So yeah, I think they're still innovative. No, they are in different directions. I think. I was probably just thinking of the Google base model, but yeah, you're totally right on the market. So Chuck, we were talking about ways to fight the peer principle and there's actually one more way and that's actually up to the employee. What, to just have to go get them to do good work? No, it's to have the smart and wherewithal to actually say, you know what, this guy is about to promote me into my level of incompetence and I'm not going to do it. Think again, buddy. So you can just turn down a promotion. Yeah, but it's so unheard of in the state. It goes back to the money thing. Now, if it was the kind of thing where they would give someone raises without the promotion, I think people might be more inclined to do that. Well, yeah, it has to go hand in hand with the companion piece, which is living without as much money as you could have. Dude, I'd be all over that. More money and less responsibility. I think that the Peter Principal actually did speak to my dad because he loved drafting, he loved drawing HVAC specs right. Really? That was his thing. And actually towards the end of his career, he got tired of HVAC, so he went over and learned refrigeration, which is apparently totally different. I would have thought that it would fall into the same category, but I guess not. But after like 30, 40 years, he got bored with HVAC. But he didn't try to move up, he just went to refrigeration and he actually I don't know if he ever turned down a promotion or not, but he made it very well known that he was quite happy doing what he was doing. He did well for himself and he never became an executive. He just didn't want to. Sure, that's cool. So, I mean, it can be done. And I'm wondering just how much of an effect or impact the Peter Principal reading the book had on it. But yeah. This is called Peters Perry, which is basically turning down a promotion. If you don't have the guts to turn on a promotion, or if your spouse would murder you if he or she found out that you turned down a promotion, you can actually self sabotage. Yeah, sure. Do you want to hear a couple of examples that Peter gives? Yeah, I'd love to. One is basically wearing too much perfume or cologne. Really? Nobody wants to be around you like that. But it's not such an obvious social disgrace. Yeah, I got another one. Because they're going to say anything. Yeah, I know what you're going to say. Go ahead, Chuck. Parking in the company president's reserve parking space. Yeah. Again, you're just showing like, I don't really care. I'm not going to look out for you unnecessarily. My favorite one is to kind of subtly give the impression that you lead a morally questionable personal life. Kind of like we do. Yeah. Which we do every week. Right. Twice a week, actually. I might have a bit of self sabotaging. Me, too. Neither one of us want to manage anyone. You know, I was avoiding that because the Perry I fell on one side, I go to the self sabotage side. I don't want to manage anybody either, Chuck. No. I have a hard time managing myself. There you go. Peter Principle. Peter Principal. It's done. If you want to learn more about it or if you basically want to read the article, check it. I just covered 110%. You can go to Hofstepworks.com, our beloved website, and type Peter Principle into the handy search bar. Which means since I just said handy search bar, that it's time for listener mail. Listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this one Frightening listener mail. Yeah, I don't know if you read this one because you usually email me and say, did you read this one? And I didn't get that on this one. Okay. I'm writing to share an experience I've had, and this related to the deja vu episode. And this is from Drowsy. Doug and his dreadful dreams in Portland, Oregon. So Doug says, at times when I'm sleeping, my mind wakes in the middle of the night, but my body does not. My eyes open and I can see the bedroom from a sideways angle. The dark shadows of the dresser, the tree outside the window, my arms and legs curled up below me, yet I cannot move. The frightening thing. It's already frightening if you ask me. The frightening thing about this is that though my mind is aware of the reality of my situation, it vacillates in and out of the subconscious, creating visions that seem all too real. So he goes on for a minute here, but I'm going to skip down. One particular moment which stands out in my mind is this. I opened my eyes in the middle of the night. I was lying in my bed on my back, paralyzed, watching the image of someone standing at the foot of my bed in a pig suit. What? Yes. In a costume animal. I was waiting for that because he actually put that in parenthetical. I know that I have my eyes open because I slowly came to consciousness, the pig man fading into the darkness like a blurry image. And I hadn't closed my eyes the whole time. It was as if my mind just projected an imagined image onto what I was actually seeing. Once I even got up from my own bed. I walked into the bathroom, and in the darkness, the reflection of my own face was stretched and contorted, and I was bleeding black liquid out of my mouth. But then I woke up and I was fine. Okay, so Drowsy. Doug says, now, I'm sure you get lots of weirdos writing you, but I assure you, I'm a pretty normal guy. All except for this terrifying waking nightmare syndrome. I don't believe in possession or ghost or anything like that, so I'm not supposing the supernatural. Yet the occurrence of these dreams both fascinates and terrifies me. I've come to recognize the exact creeping feeling of it coming on. Yet by that point, there's nothing I can do but try to talk myself into waking. Is this common? Have you ever heard of this? And why can't they be about Hollywood hotties and not strangers in big suits? So why can't I see Giselle at the foot of my daughter in a big suit? He actually does suffer from a recognized condition, and sadly, I don't know what it is. Yeah, it sounds cool, but when your mind wakes before your body does, this is pretty conscious of your surroundings. It is a recognized condition. Seeing fur suitors, I don't know what that is. And seeing yourself bleed like black ooze. Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of self loathing there. It's frightening. You got your armchair psychiatry. Yes. I literally have my arm on a chair right now. And then I asked him if you'd seen the movie Donny Darko, because I don't know if you saw that, but it was very reminiscent of that. A guy in a rabbit suit. Sure. And frankly, Rabbit, which is one of my favorite movies. That's a great movie. It is. So well done, Drowsy. Doug. Dude, good luck. Wish we could help you. I wish we could help Doug, too. If anybody out there has any clues to Doug's mystery, any suggestions on maybe what Doug could do CG drink Valyrian root tea and hope for the best. That kind of thing, right? Just email us at stuffpodcast@housetuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Want morehouse of works? Check out our blogs on the Houseofworks.com homepage. Brought to you by The Reinvented 2012 camry, it's ready. Are you?"
44240f48-53a3-11e8-bdec-8344c60fa6ab	How Sweepstakes Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-sweepstakes-work	Sweepstakes were invented as marketing tools to drum up interest for a product or sales. But winning them can be fun and as they’ve proliferated an entire subculture of people who enter hundreds of them a day. Enter the fascinating world of sweepstakes today!	Sweepstakes were invented as marketing tools to drum up interest for a product or sales. But winning them can be fun and as they’ve proliferated an entire subculture of people who enter hundreds of them a day. Enter the fascinating world of sweepstakes today!	Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=22, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=266, tm_isdst=0)	49197211	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comsysk and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the series, season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney Nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. And you may already be a winner because you're listening to Stuff You Should Know. The podcast. I was going to say a version of the same thing. Hey, that's the spoils of doing the intro. That's right. You may be a winner. Yes. Chump sweepstakes. Yeah, man. So I was aware of sweepers before that there's a group of people out there, hobbyists people who enjoy sweepstakes, and we'll talk about them later. But as I got more and more into, like, researching sweepstakes, I'm like, wow, that's pretty interesting stuff. There's a lot more to it than even that. Yeah. I have never, I don't think, entered any contest. Well, you know what? I fully take that back because almost every year I enter the HDTV dream home. Do you really? Yeah. Well, that's like, one of the big sweepstakes in the United States. Yeah, every year that I can sort of remember. I haven't had cable TV for a few years, so I'm not reminded as much. But that's one of those, like I mean, have you ever entered have you ever seen those houses? Yeah, I've ran across them during this research, and, yes, they're very beautiful. Not only that, they don't stop with the house. They'll give you, like, a GMC Yukon and, like, here's half a million dollars in cash. Yeah, it's gotten crazy. Now here's a couple of snakes that are really exotic and expensive. I think they do a green home as well now. Yeah, I think there are a couple of them. And one of them, I think the greenhome one year was Saran Bee here outside of atlanta. Yeah, I think one of them was at Sarah B. Yeah, there's one that they gave away in the last year or so down on Merritt Island in Florida where I've been. And then there was one in, I want to say Miami or something, and I read about the person who won, actually, it was written in the Miami Herald. I don't remember where the house was, but they couldn't afford it. They won. And they were like, I can't afford the taxes on this house. Yeah, that's what growing up everyone's dad, basically. Well, you know, you got to pay taxes on that stuff. Right. I would find a way to work that out if I want an HGV GTV, Greenhome or whatever. But I mean, if you all of a sudden we're like, I don't have $15,000 for taxes. No, that's true. I think you same with game shows and stuff, right? Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, Chuck, you can read all about that in our chapter on the Perfect Prices right. Game, which is in our stuff. You should know. Colon and Incomplete compendium of Mostly Interesting Things book. That's right. And I got to tell you, I'm trying to think I think of all the chapters in that book, that might be the one that I was most jealous of from the podcast standpoint. What do you mean? Like putting it on as a podcast. Oh, I see. Rather than being a book chapter, I was like, oh, man, I still want to do that as a podcast. Maybe one day we can. Yeah, I don't think there's anything stopping us from doing that. We might want to wait a little while. No, we're doing the next week. I don't want to undercut the book sales. Well, no, we definitely won't, but I think we're totally fine to do any and all that. One out of all of them will be the most difficult because it's such a straightforward story, but I'm sure we'll find a way to plump it up. I wonder if that would incentivize people to buy the book if we did an episode from one book chapter and said, do you want do you want more? Yeah. Like, how many more? How many chapters are there again? For 27? Yes. You want 26 more stories for your reading. Get the book pleasures. Especially if you put it all awkward and vaguely hostile like this. Yeah, I think that's the old publishing trick, right. Hostility. Right. Or assertiveness. PO moved a lot of books that way. He did? Oh, yeah. You can order a book now, pre order anywhere. You order books, including Indiebound. And didn't you come with the bitly? Yeah. If you want to support Blackown bookstores, you can go to Bit, Lee S Yskblm and order it from there. Yes. So that's our spiel, which actually was organic. It's not at all scripted. Don't think that. If you did, then you obviously missed the clumsiness in all of it. But we're not talking about our book today. We're talking about sweepstakes. Sweepstakes. And in fact sweepstakes, chuck, the word itself, sweepstakes, is hundreds of years old. I think they found its origin at least in the 13th century. Yeah, because back then you had steak in it like you would buy it was kind of like a lottery. You would get a bunch of people to throw in money for a ticket. You probably wouldn't even a ticket and some person would win and so they would sweep the stakes. But it's not like that a competition in the UK, a contest in Canada, sweepstakes in America, those are different because they are always no purchase necessary. That's the differentiator. Right. The one thing that they have in common with those is that the winner takes all. That's the point. There's like a grand prize where this one person wins the prize, you sweep the stakes. Right. But that is totally different from a lottery. And a lottery is self sustaining, so much so that you fund educational systems with lottery proceeds. That's how self sustaining it is with the sweepstakes. It's like, well, there's one person putting up the prize, but then somebody else comes along and wins it. What does that person who puts the prize have to stand to gain from it? And the answer to that question is the heart of sweepstakes, which is basically publicity. That's where they came from. Sweepstakes are, like you said, competitions in the UK or contests in Canada. They were born in maybe the for sure as a marketing and advertising tool that some companies and salesmen came up with to basically move more stuff. At the very least get people interested in some item or product that would have otherwise have been overlooked in a regular ad. Yeah, and sometimes it was, and still can be very blatant in that there is like a code on a product. Well, it says no purchase necessary. But sometimes you can actually buy a product that has a code that you can then enter like a UPC symbol or something. Sure. So sometimes you do have to buy things, but sometimes it is literally just we have and it doesn't have to be a new thing, but oftentimes is a new product, maybe from an old stable, like a new kind of toothpaste from Pepsi or something, or colgate. And they're just trying to drum up PR. And a good way to do it is to give away 50 grand and get people just in that aisle of the store, right, and have them say like, well, I need some toothpaste, I normally get colgate, but oh, Pepsident has a $50,000 sweepstakes right now. I'm just going to buy the Pepsi at this time. I'd be a fool not to. Yeah. How can I lose? And hopefully from that point on, they'll keep buying Pepsi, right. So that's a way to drum up sales. But you said something that was really important. One of the things that differentiates the sweepstakes on purpose from, say, like a lottery, is that there's no purchase necessary to win. And in the United States, no purchase necessary is like just common vernacular. Everybody knows that phrase. That came from what's known as sweepstakes law, which is to get around rules and regulations against lotteries in the United States. Yes. Gambling. One of the ways that they did that was to create this other way to enter. Yes. If you bought this tube of toothpaste, you automatically had your entry form right there because it came with the package. But if you didn't want to buy the toothpaste but you still want to enter the sweepstakes, they had to afford a way for you to get an entry form and enter without any kind of purchase whatsoever. And then that entry had to be as valid or eligible to win, had the same chances of winning as somebody who did make the purchase. No purchase necessary to win. Yeah. The other thing is sweep stakes will do is give you and this has changed over the years, obviously, but give a salesperson the lead. You got to get those Glengarry leads or you're on the way out the door with no job, basically. So in the old days, let's say it was like a sweepstakes. If you bought a blender, if you didn't buy the blender but you entered the sweepstakes, at least there would be your information to blender salespeople that would be like, well, they were looking at blenders, I know that much, or else they wouldn't have even known about this. These days, obviously, like with social media, that's a big way that it's done. It's all done virtually. So they know that if you just click on something to enter a sweepstakes, then all of your information can be sent to whatever company that is. And that's why you're going to start seeing if you enter something like Rei sweepstakes or something. Don't be surprised when in your social media feed you start seeing nothing but ads for outdoor gear. Right, exactly. But it's kind of updated for the 21st century. But it's the same principle. You're saying, I'm interested in blenders. Please send me all the advertising you can find on Blenders. And that was how it was before. When you send in your info by hand or put it in a box in the store, it's the same thing. Now, when you enter to win an online sweepstakes and you share your contact info like that, it's just now we call it data mining. And rather than the blender salesman getting in touch with you to see if you still want a blender that you didn't win, it's some third party marketing company that is getting in touch with you because your information was sold to them because you entered into that Blender sweepstakes. So it's different, it's updated. But the point is the same sweepstakes are there to increase brand awareness, to generate buzz or hyper on a new product. It's a form of advertising, and it's a way to generate leads, for sure. The thing is, they were huge in the reasons that they took off was because of Reader's Digest, actually. Yeah, reader's Digest, the little tiny magazine that everyone's grandmother had and that you would read laughter is the Best Medicine. And what was the other one? There was a couple of very kid friendly regular things. The joke one Methmeth meth I i think it was mathematicmoth. All exclamation points. Right? Now. That was another thing. It may have been, like, true stories that were also funny, but I remember reading Readers Digest a lot as a kid, which is hysterical because it's so not kid friendly. So the point is, they go through and read magazine articles and then condense them down to, like, abbreviated versions. It's just the broad strokes, right? I think so. I never got that back then, but I think it's sort of like a dummies version of the Utni Reader. What? I can tell. Man, it's so bizarre. Yeah. What a weird concept. Is it still around? Oh, yeah. Reader's Digest is definitely still around. I guess it's like the antithesis of long form, where they're just like, we don't need all that stuff. Here's the main point. I'd like to get my hands on a Reader's Digest and see what it's like these days. And a shawl. Nice toy because it gets a little chilly. So that was always the joke with growing up in my church was whenever the teenagers, which is what they call the old folks it's adorable. Would have an outing. The lady this one woman would get up and say, it'd be like July, and she'd say, remember to bring a sweater at the end. Didn't matter what time of year. That's adorable. Got to bring a sweater. And of course, that's Aegist to make fun of. Dude, it's so funny you said that 1015 years from now, we're really going to have our backs against the wall when a new thing yeah, no, that's not what I was saying. Okay. I was saying we're going to get called out for our agents offhand remarks. I know. And we're going to be cold both because we're going to be old. That's right. Bring a sweater. So Reader's Digest had a form, and they were very upfront about their sweepstakes. It was pre printed. It had a number there, and you could just fill it out and mail it back. And Reader's Digest was trying to sell subscriptions and Publishers Clearing Houses, obviously, the elephant in the room, the big daddy of all sweepstakes, which is another weird, weird company, when you think about it, very especially today. Yeah. I mean, magazine subscription sales. But that's where the company started out. It was a magazine subscription salesman who went door to door and said, you know what nuts to go in door to door. I'm just going to drum up a brochure and mail it out to people. And he started getting responses like that, so much so that he put this company, Publishers Clearing House, together. And then when they became like a household word was when they attached sweepstakes to it. Like Reader's Digest had demonstrated was so effective because, like, with Reader's Digest or Publishers Clearing House or whatever, ultimately at the end of the day, they're trying to sell you something. Like you said, Reader's Digest is trying to sell you as a subscription. They're attaching the sweepstakes to it because they're using the age old lever of, hey, everybody, check it out. It's a big deal. We're giving away a million dollars. And also, here's everything you need to order as many subscriptions as you like from us. Do you have any magazine subscriptions? Yeah, we've got Dwell, which is no longer to my taste. Like, I don't like current modern design and architecture and decor today right now. But we also have one from L Decor. That one is very much up my alley. There's a lot of color and stuff like that. We have men's health and GQ, I think. Oh, really? Yeah, which is not paying off right now because I dress terribly and I'm overweight at the moment, big time. She gets a few home magazines, I think, like, you guys, we both share our love of architecture and stuff like that, so we, like, looking and fantasizing about these amazing places. That's why I entered the dream home thing every year. I know it's kind of like a little mini vacation to go through one of those magazines. It is. It really is. It's also fun to judge and be like, oh, you paid a million dollars for that? You jump once you get some taste. That's what I say to the magazine. What I'll never be, though, is the person on HGTV House Owners that walks through and goes, jeez, I don't know about this place. Look at that ceiling fan. Do they do that on house owners? I mean, it's all set up anyway. House owners, they already have the house when they go on the show. It's a big scam. But yeah, there are people that say, like, this ceiling fan or this wallpaper? And, like, that's really easy to change, my friend. The producers off camera, they're like, can you actually stick your finger down your throat and make yourself vomit? It will really pay off. All right, I think we should take a break and come back and talk a little bit more about sweepstakes. How about that? Let's do it. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno sesame and chocolate covered goodness with real time. Data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM let's create learn More@ibm.com consulting incredible story of what seems to be a large military transport plane that's crashed in a remote region south of Ankara, Turkey. Witnesses authorities are on the hunt for a suspect after two men went to blows atop a fireworks, bark wreck cards and destruction. Witnesses claim an unknown assailant left from the tram and evaded the scene after a high speed carjack. The identity of this man still unknown. What do you know about the Sierra program? Reckless mystery man you guys sent in when you can officially send anyone else. Brave man. I got an urgent locate and destroy Sierra six stone. Asset of considerable value to the agency. That could be fine. The man's got some street cred. Has something they really want. What's? Your gut. It's going to be my funeral you're going to next. I'm about to put a hit so big on your boy's head that even his most loyal allies won't hesitate to drop a time. Nameless assassins with limited morality. What could possibly go wrong this summer? From the directors of Endgame and Captain America winter Soldier. You hurt me. I mean, my ego is a little bruised. Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana De Armas and Billy Bob Thornton. Want to make an omelet. You got to kill some people. The uncatchable meets the unstoppable. They can kill anybody. Maybe not anybody. The Gray Man. Only on Netflix. July 22. Rated PG 13. May be inappropriate for children under 13. Want to learn about a terrorist? Word up, Jerry. Okay, Chuck, so we've been talking about that HGTV dream home giveaway, and there's good reason because it is one of the big ones, but it's also one of the easiest to understand. If you go and read up on Hctv's dream home sweepstakes, you're going to find there's a very clear reason that they give away this huge prize with all of this money and cars and all this stuff, because I guess they build the home over the course of, like, a season, and then they give it away. Part of the TV show wrapped around it, right? So they're generating viewers for the TV show, which is supported by advertising. And the more viewers you have, the more you can charge for ads. So the sweepstakes is just basically being used to generate buzz for the TV show now or vice versa. Maybe both. But the point is, it's paying off for them, which is why they keep giving this stuff away. But I have a soft spot in my heart for this one because they are one of these few giant sweepstakes that just say, here's how it's done. Ask us whatever questions you want. This is all very much on the up and up. Yeah, and it's also just a big advertising bonanza, period. So not only are you getting that GMC SUV, it's like frigid air and I guarantee every single thing in that house has some sort of sponsorship attached to it. Like from the siding down to the dude who poured the concrete. I'm sure they all donate that stuff for inkind advertising. That's a Tommy Thompson brand concrete job. It's double stamped, but yeah, HDTV is very cute. I think they actually have a regular drawing, not even a computerized drawing. Like, they do it the old fashioned way. Right, dude? Yes, they should. But I just had a stroke of genius. We should get HGTV's Dream Home Sweepstakes to sponsor this episode. That would be great. That would be full circle. Yeah. And maybe put your thumb on the scale for one of us. Yeah, right. With the Dream Home giveaway, the way that they hold the sweepstakes is through what's called a random drawing method, where if you enter, you can enter by mail, I believe, which is the old fashioned standard way. You can also do it online, which is far and away we're much more common way to do it now. That's the way I do it. But either way, you're going to have your entry placed into a bin. They have actual physical bins. Like, I get the impression it's a 55 gallon drum and your entry, your physical paper entry, goes into the drum, or if it's online, it goes into a virtual bin. And then at the end of the contest, these bins have maybe like 50,000 entries in them each. And then they're sealed off in a new bin, started, and each bin is numbered. Right. And then at the end of the contest, they put the number of ping pong balls is there are bins. Put those in a lot of machine, pick one and all of a sudden you have your Vin number. And now things are getting for real, are they not? They are. And I think that's what I like about it, too, is the old school nature of it, where you're getting selected out of a hat, essentially. And you have just won a house. Well, no, not yet. Your bin has just been picked. You haven't necessarily been picked yet. You got to tell them how old school and low five this is. Oh, well, yeah, once you get to the bin, don't they just, like, dump it on the floor and literally pick it out? Yeah, when they seal a bin, they give it a good shake in a roll and all that, so that the first entry isn't necessarily any better off than the last entry. They're all mixed together pretty well. But then, yeah, they dump it onto the floor and they take an HCTV employee, blindfold him or her them, and push them toward the pile of envelopes, hopefully without them falling down. Although if they do it's on a pile of envelopes, it's not too bad. And then they just grope and grab one and that's your winner. If it's a physical one, if it's virtual one. A computer program runs through all the names in that bin and then the employee presses the space bar and stops it. Either way, it's a random person picked, and I love it. You might as well be conducting like, a Catholic Church fair drawing at that point. When you have somebody blindfolded grabbing at a pile of envelopes, that's the level that you're at. Yeah. You know what would make it even better? If they did that. But instead of choosing the winner, they chose, like, five different names. And then they had those people come in and they had David Bromstad holding up five match sticks with his hand in front of the camera, and each person had to draw a match stick and the longest stick wins the house. Who's David Bromstad? Is he from? Stranger Things. No, he's HDTV. No, that makes more sense than me. He's the guy that's, like, now covered in Tats. That didn't used to be covered in tat. No idea. Was he the trainer who recently had a heart attack, but now he's on this blood thinner? I don't think so. Now another show he does is the lottery dream home? Like, he gets lottery winners and tries to sell them or shows them houses. I've never heard of that pressing show, actually, because yeah, we've done one on Lotteries before, but did we touch upon how tragic most lottery winnings are? Yeah. Okay. I think so, yeah. So I can imagine that shows a bit of a downer, if you really think about it. It can be. Yes. That's all I'm going to say. I might have to start watching that. I'm in the market for a downer TV show, so thanks for that. Well, you would think a lottery a dream house show would be like, nothing but awesome and excitement. I think sometimes just the way people like to spend their money can be depressing. Yeah, I'm with you. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. I don't want to judge if that's there. I don't want to yuck. Their dream house. Yum, sure. Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought you meant like, I just bought one 17th of a share of the Dallas Cowboys. Probably pretty valuable. So that random drawing method is pretty standard. That's kind of, from what I can tell, the gold standard of sweepstakes. There's also one that's one of the original ones called the pre selected method. And this is the one that was used to great effect for many decades. And it's the one that Publishers Clearing House frequently uses. Too. Where the winning number is selected first secretly and held in confidence. And then a bunch of numbers that have the same number of digits as that winner. Including the actual winning string of numbers are put onto mailers for Publishers Clearing House and mailed out everywhere. Which is why they can say. You may already be a winner because you could conceivably be holding the winning envelope because the winning numbers already preselected. Yeah. As a kid in the we didn't really fully get that. No. We saw an envelope with Ed Mcmail's. Ed McMail? Ed McMail. He should have been Ed McMail with his name and face on it. You may already be a winner, some fake check written out to you. Sadly, a lot of people thought those were real checks. There have been stories about that. We'll talk about them. So I didn't really fully get that. But I guarantee you that the people that participated in these things knew that it was a preselected winner. And if you are lucky enough and you got to pay attention because what they kind of counted on was that most of these omelets get thrown away. Most of these prizes go unclaimed. I think that 10% of the prizes were ever even awarded for those early Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes. Yeah, not even publishers clearing house. I think this might have been lower than this is like Colgate Palm, olive and oil companies and soap companies and toothpaste makers were all using this preselected method. And they would get all of the attention and all of the advertising, but they would have to give out none of the money because the chances are that the winner or the person with the winning package didn't go to the trouble of actually taking it back to the store. And so they would get all the advertising without having to give up any of the money. And so this actually got a lot of bad press. It led to FTC hearings. It later led to congressional hearings that created some legislation we'll talk about later. But the upshot of it is that it caused companies that have sweepstakes to create what is called a second chance drawing, which is, let's say you pre print all of these entries and send them out. And one of them has this preselected winning combination that dilutes the chances so tremendously that the chances are the grand prize is not going to go anywhere. But with the second chance drawing, you have a smaller price, say, like the grand prize is $10 million. Second chance drawing grand prize might be 1 million. And you select the winner from the entries that were returned. So it's guaranteed that somebody is going to win that second chance drawing. That seems to have appeased the town folk with their pitchforks and torches. Yeah, because a Publisher's Clearing House grand prize winner is the odds are astronomical. Like the $1,000 a day for life is one in 6.2 billion. Powerball is a great deal when you compare it against something like that. Yeah. PCH is pretty tight lipped. It's hard to get a ton of information about exactly how it works and why it would be 6.2 billion, because it's not like there's that many people entering. There's no way that's happening. No. And genuinely, I look so high and low in the weirdest little. Crevasses of the internet trying to get an answer to this and I could not find it. The only thing that I can imagine is that it has to do with the number of entries put out there. But they're certainly not printing out and sending 6.2 billion mailers. No, but is it the sweepers, like doing this thousands and thousands of times each? It's possible. It's possible because I did see people say, like, the chances are so high because they get so many entries, but what you're talking about is that would be almost every single person on Earth entering, which isn't the chance, which isn't happening, or every single person in the United States entering 17 times. I guess if you have some hardcore sweepers and enough of them, it could drive the chances up that high. But it just seems like there must be some other something to do with the randomly generated number, something that has to do with driving up the six. Because like you said, powerball seems like easy street Powerball's. Chances are one in 292,000,000. This publisher's Clearing House is one in 62 billion. And the reason for this huge discrepancy is because they're structured differently. When you play Powerball, you have to pick five numbers from a pool of 69 numbers and then one Power ball from a pool of 26 numbers. And when you calculate the factorials together, which is are words that I put together, I think I combine them accurately, but I have no idea what I'm talking about at this point. Any combination you choose has a one in 292,000,000 chance of being right because there's 292,000,000 possible combinations. Yeah, it's very black and white. Yeah, totally understandable. Even if you don't know what factorials are and how they work, you can get that. But again, with Publishers Clearing House, it's like, wait a minute, how is this possible at all? One in 6.2 billion. I cannot find out how. Yeah, well, one thing is for sure. If you do win, and this was kind of made me feel a little bit better if you do win, they're going to find you. And I thought this is sort of the opposite of how it would be. I thought they would be like, now you got to come to us, and we're really not going to make much of an effort. But they do. They find you. They will use a private detective to find you and track you down. Thompson concrete pouring and private detective agent. There's a PNG executive who testified during those FTC trials in the late sixty s. It says they exhaust every resource to find anything. Any winter over $500 and usually the winter comes forward. But I guess it's good to know that they do make an exceptional effort. And you can't have grown up in the without knowing about Ed McMahon and Dick Clark and the Publisher's Clearinghouse Prize Patrol coming to people's houses with balloons and confetti and champagne and a giant check and knocking on your door with a camera crew that was as much as of America as like a baseball and apple pie, basically, for sure. And people talk about the Mandela effect and the Berenstain Bears effect and all that. A lot of people associate Dick Clark especially, but also McMahon especially, but also Dick Clark too with Publishers Clearing House. They never once pitched or worked for Publishers Clearing House. Getting that buddy to this day, even back then I saw a contemporary article that was like, confused them with Publishers Clearing House. They worked for American Family Publishers, which was a knock off. Also ran for Publishers Clearing house. They never once pitched for Publishers Clearing House. Publishers Clearinghouse has always had that prize patrol that shows up at your house, and that's always been Publishers Clearing House employees. And they apparently are legit. Like, if you win, they don't get in touch with you ahead of time. They just show up at your house. Or if you're not home and you're on vacation, they'll show up where you're vacationing, they'll show up at work. Wherever you are, they're going to show up with these camera crews and give you this grand prize. So that apparently is legitimate. Yeah. And if you want to be a party buzzkill pedant along the order of it's actually the low on the totem pole as the prized place to be, then just start floating that American Family Publishers back to people that you meet. Is that right? Because I love that one. Oh, man, I'm not going to be able to help myself. I think if I was at a random party, if this had never happened and I was at a random party and said something about I told a great story about Ed McMahon and Dick Clark and Publishers Clearing House, and someone said, well, actually, they worked for American Family Publishers. I don't think there's any way to frame that in a way that makes that person look good or fun. It's all in the delivery. Laugh along and be like, that's crazy. But get this, it's even crazier. I've never even worked for Publishers Clearing House. And everybody triple laughs on top of the laughing they're already doing. It just goes dead. And you're left going but I framed it correctly in an engaging way. I said, well, actually with my finger up. And then I would say, yeah, but what about that Bloopers and Practical joke show? Then everyone will be laughing again and you just slink off in the corner. I would. And that's my typical party behavior. Anyway, do you remember that show, though? Yeah, totally. It was called Bloopers and Practice, I believe that's all it was. It was like the title was the description. That was great. Remember they had the Aragona's cartoon guy who come in and sweep the stage? Oh, totally. I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Fantasy island. Do you know they rebooted Fantasy island. Yeah, I didn't watch. It was supposed to be super dark. Well, the first one was. No, it wasn't. The original Fantasy island was super dark. I need to go back and watch that because I don't recall that at all. Yeah, like almost all the fantasies ended up being scary and taught the person a lesson on what they should really fantasize about. Well, I was, like, four at the time. I didn't pick up on that. It is, by the way. It is TVs bloopers and practical. TV Bloopers and Practical jokes. Yeah. All right, let's take a break and we'll talk about the very, very few sweepstakes that are in existence today right after this. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system so you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feel like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM. Let's create learn more@ibm.com. Incredible story of what seems to be a large military transport plane that's crashed in a remote region south of Ankara, Turkey. Witnesses authorities are on the hunt for a suspect after two men went to blows atop a fireworks bars, wrecked cars and destruction. Witnesses claim an unknown assailant left from the tram and evaded the scene after a high speed carjack. The identity of this man still unknown. What do you know about the Sierra program? Reckless mystery, man. You guys send in when you can officially send anyone else. Great, man. We got the urgent locate and destroy Sierra six stone asset of considerable value to the agency. That could be fine. The man's got some street credence. Have something they really want. What's? Your gut. It's going to be my funeral. You're going to next. I'm about to put a hit so big on your boys head that even his most loyal allies won't hesitate to drop a time. Nameless assassins with limited morality. What could possibly go wrong this summer? From the directors of Endgame and Captain America winter Soldier. You hurt me. I mean, my ego is a little bruised. Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana De Armas and Billy Bob Thornton want to make an omelet? Got to kill some people. The uncatchable meets the unstoppable. They can kill anybody. Maybe not anybody. The Gray Man. Only on Netflix. July 22. Rated PG 13. May be inappropriate for children under 13. Word up, Jerry. By the way, Chuck, TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes has a 53 on IMDb, which is wrong. Really? Yeah. That was a great show. Oh, man, and I bet you that dumb Sagget show has got like, a nine out of ten. Well, these days it's Alfonso ribiero. Is it? Yeah. I've never been a fan of those. They're okay. Do you ever watch. Ridiculousness. No, I never saw that. That's all it is. But it's much more painful to watch, like skateboarders getting racked. Yeah, just really dumb stuff, but it's mesmerizing. And somehow they have an infinite limitless supply of episodes of it because it is on 24 hours a day on MTV. Is it really? Yeah. I think I've told this story before. But I like to put it out every five or six years in case the person listening is this person is when I was at UGA one day and I saw a guy completely busted on a bicycle on the sidewalk. And his books went splayed out everywhere. And the very first thing he did was put his and he was laying down on the sidewalk. Was put his hand under his chin and act like he was reading a book. Oh, my God. That's amazing. And like, if you're out there, dude, please send us an email stuffbodcast@iheartmedia.com, because that was one of the best reactions I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, that's a sharp, dude. That's pretty great. Sure. So before we broke, I was being coy about the very few sweepstakes that we still have today, because surely these went out of style in the not true. There are about 400 million annual sweepstakes in this day and age. Isn't that nuts? And I'm sure that counts. Every dumb iPhone app sweepstakes to win $0.10. But that's still 400 million. Yeah, that's still a sweepstakes that you can go play. Whereas before, I think at its first payday in the mid sixty s, the FTC calculated there was something like 600 national sweepstakes. And yes, 4 million is a lot more than 600. What's crazy is those FTC hearings actually tried to put a clamp down on everything and it didn't work. And they ended up expanding and exploding even beyond that. But one of the things that has kind of driven that, I don't know if it's got to be a chicken or the egg kind of thing, like, has it been these people who are called sweepers, or in the UK, they're called compers, who their hobby is engaging in sweepstakes. Did they lead to the proliferation of it, or are they encouraged by the easy access to sweepstakes like never before? What do you think? I don't know, because I didn't know if sweepers existed. I didn't know that there were people that would spend sometimes a couple of hours a day, randomly, not randomly, very pinpointedly, looking for and registering for all kinds of sweepstakes, using spreadsheets, using their auto fill on their computers just to enter, to win over and over and over again. Yeah, but they're out there, and it's a subculture that I'm surprised. There may be a documentary about them. I don't know. I haven't run across any mention of one. There's a really good Zachary Crockett article. Zachary Crockett, amazing writer who I don't know if he still writes for price anomics or not, but just amazing. He, of course, did one on the subculture, but he said that like a good normal sweeper, somebody who's like a genuine hobbyist is doing this for hours and hours a day and entering up to hundreds of sweepstakes every day. Hundreds? Yeah, hundreds. To win a major reward like Christmas story. That's what they call them, I should say. There was a Slate article from 2003 and it had a lot of just blatantly factual errors or blatant factual errors and was really arrogant and dismissive toward this group. So it's possible they don't call a major awards, but that's where I got that from. But the lingo was ma that they're after the ma, big cash, payouts, cars, boats, major awards that are not necessarily Fred Giley. Yeah, and it's still the same sort of like we said with social media, it's a little bit different how it goes, but it's still the same kind of aim, which is to build brand recognition. You see major brands doing these sort of fun games like Jeep hit those tiki torches. This is sort of like a scavenger hunt. You had to go around and find these torches. There were clues on Facebook. You went a wrangler if you found all the torches. And that's good for Facebook, it's good for Jeep. It's probably good for tiki torches, right? But every department store on the planet has some sort of even very minor, like, here's a $50 gift card kind of thing. If you retweet this or whatever. Those are just all over the place now. All over. There's a site called Sweepstakes. What is it called? Sweepstakes Hub? I think so. I mean, if that's not what it's called, it might as well be called that. I can't find it right now. We'll see if we can call it out later. But I went to it today and I mean, dude, there's a sweepstakes for everything. There's a new podcast out and they're giving away like an Amazon Alexa just to generate interest and awareness of their podcast. It's like everything has some sort of sweepstakes. Like if you got a new book, giveaway five books. We should do this. You give away five books and then hopefully everybody's like, well, I didn't win, but that book sounds pretty great. I'm going to go ahead and buy that book. Or at the very least now I'm on a mailing list for this publisher because I've just shown them that I like books enough to enter into the sweepstakes. Is that podcast? Let me ask you this, can you listen to it on itunes? I Heartmedia App or wherever you find your podcast probably interesting. They're doing something right. Yeah, they are. I'm going to find the name of that podcast because we can't I know that would mention a podcast like that and just never give the name. So I'm going to do a little researching while you tap dance for us. Okay? Okay. A one and a two. So, yeah, at least 400 million sweepstakes today. Now, like you said, the FTC got involved, they held hearings, and everything is on the up and up. Now, you have to and I'm sure this is all very much spelled out as far as you have to clearly explain the rules and clearly explain your chances of winning. And I'm sure that's very much mandated on what clearly means. They're not just like, yeah, whatever you think is clear is fine with us. Yeah, congress actually got involved and passed an act. When was that? Okay, yeah, that's what Congress does sometimes. Right. But the reason why is because there are a few cases that sort of trouble people, to say the least. Yeah. They passed the Deceptive Male Prevention and Enforcement Act, also known as the Sweepstakes Act. And there was one case in particular that really pushed everything over the edge. This old guy. Yeah, this elderly man in his 80s. He lived in California, and with his own money, he flew not once, but twice to Tampa, to the American Family Publishers headquarters to claim his prize money because he got in a mailer that said that he was already a winner. Apparently the actual label said, final results are in and they're official. You're our newest $11 million winner. And then if you read the fine print, it was like if you have the winning number. This man flew twice to Tampa to collect on two different prizes because of mailers. Twice. And they finally said, enough is enough. I can just picture him on the plane and, like, telling his seat mate, like, what's going on? And then not knowing what to do, quite frankly. Well, yeah, imagine being the seat man. He's like, See, check this letter out. And you're just like, oh, no, this is not going to go well for this. Yeah. What do you do there? Honestly, I wouldn't know what to do because that hits me right where it hurts, which is to be kind and empathetic, but also to not let someone go through something like, terrible. Right. That presents a real ethical quandary for me. Well, I think at that point you kind of say, I'm going to be late. I have to go to American Family Publishers headquarters before I come to the meeting because I got to get up this guy. Yeah, that in Coronavirus, right? No, really, I just don't want to take the chance of being next to someone going to pick up their grand prize that doesn't exist. Part of that 1998 Congressional Act is that you really need to be a lot more clear about the odds of winning. You have to say things like, no purchase necessary, or another phrase is buying won't help you win. But the whole thing, from what I understand, the whole thing and by the way, American Family Publishers is now defunct. They went under. Fortunately for Publishers Clearinghouse, they got all sorts of free press because people used to just think American Family Publishers was Publishers Clearinghouse, but they also got all the bad press too, because people would think that anything American Family Publishers did, it was actually Publishers Clearing House. So it was really weird, I think it is where like two alternate universes kind of came together right there. Now, which one was it? That there was one case where they had the entry entry envelopes, the entree envelopes. Yeah. It's very packaged in such a way that you could tell the envelopes where people actually did buy a subscription and where they didn't, even though they were both supposed to be entered, which very easily allowed them to just throw away the ones where they didn't actually buy something. Was that PCH or the other? That was publishers clearing house. And they were found they had blood on their hands, too, then throwing away hundreds of entries that had no check. Because again, remember, what they're trying to do is get you to subscribe to a bunch of magazines or now they sell vitamins or housewares or something like that. And if you hadn't sent a check in, apparently some big chunk of entries got just thrown away. Well, and you talked about sweepstakes law. They did have to settle a lot of lawsuits over the years, civil lawsuits from contestants. So there were people that were wise to it and there were attorneys out there very willing to take those cases, I'm sure. Yeah. And I think over time, part of it was because of that preselected thing where people were like, what do you mean nobody won the grand prize? People really paying attention to that kind of stuff, and they would get sued. And I saw that they paid tens of millions of dollars to settle some of these and fight some of them, too. But they're still in business, which means that they're still making so much money that it's worth holding these sweepstakes not just to give the prizes away, but also to fight off litigation as well. Yeah. And one way that you can really kind of fight off litigation is by hiring what's called sweepstakes administrator. Yes. There are companies that will fully execute the contest from beginning to end. You hire it's like hiring a caterer. You don't have to worry about the little stuffed mushrooms, like they're going to do it all. They're going to come in and administer it in a way that's above board and legal. You don't have to worry about the hassle, you just got to pay them. They're vague and you're all set. Right. It's hard to believe that there are companies out there that do this, but there are. So as much as PCH seems a little hustley, it is a legitimate sweepstakes company. It's not a scam, but there are plenty of scams out there. And in fact, PCH has to warn the public how to look out for scams. One of the biggest ways is that if you are contacted via email, phone, Facebook, something like that, saying that you won a big prize, that's automatically wrong because they send their prize patrol out for their biggest prizes. And that's really legitimately how you would find out as they show up at your house. Yeah. And these are all they seem like no brainers to people like us, but to a lot of people, they fall for this stuff. And it's really sad. If you get anything that says you've won something, all you got to do is prepay this tax anything, asking for credit card information, any kind of payment whatsoever, is 1000% a scam, right? Every time, anytime. A lot of times it's upfront for, like, malware. They might ask you, like I said, for your Social Security number. Your credit cards just don't fall for that stuff. Don't give anyone information like that. No. And you will need to give them your Social Security number eventually if you win any prize over $600 for tax reporting. Because remember, taxes are a thing, but they're not going to hit you up over Facebook Messenger and tell you you won a prize. So give me your Social Security number right now. The thing is, a lot of people who play this are elderly and they are preyed upon and there are a lot of scams out there. I saw some figure in the tens of billions of dollars that is lost to scam sweepstakes every year in the United States. That's insane. It's an insane amount of money that's being lost. And that's just sad. It is super sad. So the name of the podcast is called The Authority with Brian S. Arnold. And what's sad is they're in week eight of their eight week giveaway sweepstakes giveaway. And so this will come out long after the eight weeks is up. So sorry about that. But there was a sweepstakes. That the Authority project with Brian as Arnold held to win a speaker. And, you know, it's interesting, and this is not off topic, but over the years, a couple of times we've had a couple of dumb ideas like, hey, why don't we give away a thing to listeners for just doing something? And every single time, like the legal department of whatever parent company we had was like, no, we're not going to get involved in this kind of thing because then it's a contest. We're like, well, it's not really a contest. This is very low fi. And they're like, you can't do that, right? You have no idea what kind of worms you're opening up. Yeah. Because there's a whole branch of law called sweepstakes law, and it involves following the letter of the law and also helping people sue people who are suspected of not following the letter of the law. Yeah. So as attorneys, they just kind of always squashed it. Sure. So I just want to give a big shout out. We never said, I don't think why people do this real quick. Chuck. And there's a woman named Sandra Grouushoff, and she is probably the world's leading expert on sweepstakes, at the very least, america's leading experts on sweepstakes. She runs the balances sweepstakes pages and just legitimately knows what she's talking about. And she just said it's excitement. It's as simple as that. The idea of getting a check or getting a prize affidavit in the mail is very exciting. Other people have called it a high, and Grouchoff says, yeah. It turns out, though, if you're thinking about sweepstakes every day and how to play them better and all that stuff, you may want to get evaluated for a gambling addiction, because it can kind of easily trapeze into that, I'm sure. Yeah. Who knew gambling addiction would make an appearance? So if you want to know more about sweepstakes, well, go forward and check them out. And since I said that it's time for listener mail, I'm going to call this how we helped somebody out recently. Hey, guys. I just want to say thanks before even telling you why. I honestly cannot thank you enough. My name is James, 21, and I'm from Glasgow, Scotland. Yesterday, while at work, I received a call from my dad telling me that my grandma had passed away suddenly during the night. Obviously distraught, I left work, headed home to be with my family. I know that nobody enjoys crying, but I really hate it. And as I end up with these very intense headaches, well, through the tears on my drive home with your podcast playing through my car, I was able to laugh and to smile, despite the circumstances. I couldn't for the life of me tell you which episode I even listened to, just that it made me laugh and saved me from the literal headache and the heartache that I was feeling, and for that, I'm so thankful. I must have listened to around 200 or 300 of your podcasts in the past month or so. So please keep doing what you're doing. And that is from James M in Scotland. That's great. Sorry to hear about your grandma, James, and glad we could help. Our condolences, James. But yeah, it is very nice to hear that we can help people in times like that in some small way. For sure. Makes us feel like real big shots. If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo listings made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics. For digestive health, find us at chewy, amazonandhalopets.com."
4393dd7e-53a3-11e8-bdec-831cb1bd6f92	The Massacre at Tiananmen Square	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-massacre-at-tiananmen-square	Tank Man. An indelible image burned in our brains. But what led to this extraordinary event? Chuck and Josh walk you through the days and weeks leading up to the massacre at Tiananmen Square, which is more of a cautionary tale than we realized.	Tank Man. An indelible image burned in our brains. But what led to this extraordinary event? Chuck and Josh walk you through the days and weeks leading up to the massacre at Tiananmen Square, which is more of a cautionary tale than we realized.	Thu, 04 Jun 2020 13:01:23 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=4, tm_hour=13, tm_min=1, tm_sec=23, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=156, tm_isdst=0)	59235349	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Hey there, everybody. It's your pals Josh and Chuck. And we wanted to record an intro to this episode because when we first recorded it and got it ready to publish and edit, things were a lot different in America because it was like a week ago. Yeah, exactly. And I think the events of the past week or two have taught us that something like this podcast episode is more relevant than ever. And it just kind of worked out that way. Yeah. And we also wanted to say that we grieve the death of George Floyd and everybody who's ever died unfairly at the hands of the police. And we stand with Black Lives Matter and anyone who's fighting for justice in the United States. Absolutely. So when you hear this episode on Tiananmen Square and think, well, that could never happen, much less in the United States, be careful, because that's the kind of dangerous thinking that can get us all in trouble. And I'm with the show. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there. And it's just the two of us. Chuck and I decided we can make it if we try. Just the two of us, Chuckers and I. How long did you plan that, buddy? It just came pouring right out of my brain, through my mouth and just laying it with a thud on the desk. Yeah. Rip. To the great Bill Withers. I was thinking more Austin Powers. Yeah, rip to him, too. What? Austin Powers? He died a long time ago. Right. You got me there for a second. Mike Myers had passed. I thought Mike Myers had passed. And then I was like, wait, did Dr. Evil die? I was like, wait, Doctor Evil is not real. It was really confusing for a second there, ma'am. I last night did one of the things that I love doing as part of our work, Chuck, which is watch a really great documentary and get paid for it. Don't you love that? Great. I love it. There's a really good documentary by Frontline PBS show about Tank Man, which you probably girl Tank Man. Totally different kind of thing. This is not Lori Petty. This is an unknown person who no one as far as anyone knows, knows their name. But even if you're familiar with Tank Man, just the name you probably, if you live outside of China, seen this picture. It's a picture of just a lone man wearing a white kind of dress shirt and black pants holding a couple of shopping bags to the side, staring down a column of heavy tanks that he has stopped single handedly just by standing in front of him. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those indelible images that if you were it still resonates, obviously, but if you were cognizant of the news in 1989, then you could not escape this image or forget it. Yeah. And I mean, what, you were close to around 18 or so, so I'm sure this really had a big impact on you and it was going on, right? Yeah. I mean, just had graduated high school, so this must have really kind of raised the hackles on the back of your neck and got you pretty worked up like the rest of the world, I would guess. Yes. I remember it being kind of one of the first big political events that got my head out of my butt. Yeah, it did that for a lot of people, too. I mean, like what happened that day or those days, like June 3 and fourth of 1989, the communist regime that had an iron grip on the country and still does today, maybe even more so today, almost fell, was almost toppled by a popular uprising. And to stamp it out, the government went to the most extreme measures possible, which was commanding the army to murder citizens unarmed, peacefully protesting. Citizens were gunned down in the streets like they were enemy combatants, basically in their own city in Beijing. And it was just a horrific thing that managed to kind of trickle out and definitely captured the world's attention, pulled the world's head out of its butt, as you would say. Yeah. So to tell the story, we need to go back in time a little bit. And big thanks to our pal Dave Ruse for helping us out with this one. This is very good. In fact, it was on a different laptop, and I kind of forgot it was sitting in my folder when it had been in there for, like a month or so. Right? Yeah, it's been there a while. And then I saw it, and I was like, oh, wait a minute. We got Tiananmen Square on the burner. So, yeah, Dave did a great job, and we have to travel back in time to previous to the sort of feeling among students in China was that, you know what? This communism isn't working out so great, and we want to start making a little bit of noise. And we're not saying to topple our government or anything like that, but we're saying, let's get the corruption in check, and let's maybe get some free speech going on and some free press and free expression, and they thought they could get there. They thought they could get there. Which is what makes this really sad, among many other things. Yes. And then even sadder than that, to me, is they almost got there. This was close. This is like a hair's breadth away, where they brought this so much to the government's doorstep and laid this at their feet, that the government had to at least consider, if not openly, to one another, at least to themselves. Like, do we just bow to the will of the people and just say, okay, we kind of do things differently? Like, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. And I guess preemptively, we should say we're going to do our best with some of the pronunciations of the names. They're really tough. They are tough. And as usual, we'll do our best and probably fail and stop short of being perfect. I think we learned our lesson on the underground city. At least we're not going to pronounce X. Like X, right. So the students had a little bit of wind in their sales because they're college students, and that's what college students are like. That's why we love them. And they thought they had an ally who was a pro reform leader and pretty high up in the Communist Party. In Hugh Yalbang. Sounds about right. Okay. He was forced out of power in 87, though, and when he died in April, April 15 of 1989, the memorializing in the morning of his death is what really kind of kickstarted this whole process that led up to June 3. Yeah. And in the late 80s, what you call the President of China was named Deng Xiaoping, and he had been in charge for a while. But in addition to the president in a Communist country, you also have the leaders of the Communist Party. They're not exactly like lateral, but they're pretty high up. You have, like, a prime minister, you have the leader of the party, the General secretary. Then you also have the president of the country. And Deng was the president of China at the time, but within the party and within the leadership of the country, including Hugh, and Hugh was kind of the face of this movement. There was this idea that, okay, the Maoist revolution happened. Mao was great, but we can't run a country just living by these kind of lofty principles that Mao espoused. We need to kind of get a little more loose gripped here, at least economically. And there was a whole contingent led again by Hugh that basically said, maybe we should kind of ease up on the government planning a little bit and let a little bit of free market go and see what happens. We really think that there's going to be a lot less starvation, a lot less poverty, if we just let a little bit of this stuff into there. So there was this kind of progressive movement. But then when these protests kind of started in 1987, they basically showed Hugh the door, like you were saying, he was removed from office because he had kind of demonstrated that that level of loosening of the grip on the people would lead to things like protests and demonstrations. But it was too late. They had opened the door now and then, like you said when he died, that was kind of the lip match that got thrown onto this powder cake. And I take it you're on a first name basis now because it's easier to pronounce. Hugh is actually his last name. In China, they say last name first. Yes. So I'm getting away with it both ways. I'm having my dumpling and eating it, too. Oh, man. That's the best way to have it. Duckling. And I learned something new today, too. Thanks, Chuck. That's basically why I wake up in the morning. So what happened is he died on April 1589. A bunch of students, like thousands of students, got together in Tiananmen Square to mourn his passing. And Tiananmen Square, we should say, is an enormous place. It's the largest public space in the world, right in the middle of Beijing. It's the town center unlike any town center in the world. Yeah. There's, like, no trees anywhere. It's just flat and then edged by enormous public buildings. It makes you feel very small. Yeah. And it's also a perfect place to get, like, thousands and thousands and thousands of people together. Yeah. And this is what happened during the funeral celebration in Tiananmen Square. And it didn't go on for too long before students started to sort of use this as an opportunity to not only mourn someone that they believed was going to champion their cause. But they said. We can use this now. And let's just camp out and let's hold some speeches and let's sort of start giving our demands for political reform. Like throwing peace signs and just basically peaceful protests that you would imagine students from. And most of them came from Beijing University, which, from what I understand, is the premier elite university in the entire country. So these were like the children of the elites, as it were. So there's definitely a measure of tolerance of this going on. Whereas had it been just a popular uprising or popular protest from the start, they probably would have been treated a lot more roughly, and it certainly would not have been allowed to have go on as long as it had. Yeah. And it's interesting you mentioned the sort of split and ideologies within the party, which is really interesting to think about now, but they were split about what to do about these demonstrations. This was the biggest civil protest, longest running since communism had taken hold in 1949. And there were some people, it wasn't just like, all right, let's go in there and mow them down. There was a complete faction within the Party that was like, you know what? These are students and they want what's best for us, and maybe we should listen to them a little bit. Yeah, because it's like you said, they weren't saying down with Communism, down with the Chinese Communist Party. They were saying, like, down with corruption, and we want a little more free speech, like some really basic stuff that didn't require the entire system to be overthrown, which is, I think, another reason why they were kind of allowed to continue. And then yeah, like you're saying there were sympathetic members of the Communist Party high up in the party who were like, no, we should just maybe hear him out or just let this thing fizzle out. But then on the other side was a guy named Lee Ping, and he was the antagonist in this whole thing. Most people paint him as the villain, but I read an article about how he's actually the fall guy, that it was really Dengjia Ping who was the President, who was the true architect of all of this, and that Li Peng, while he gets all of the notorious credit for this whole thing, he wasn't the architect of it. But he also didn't stop his boss, Deng Ping, from carrying this out or from being the architect of it, too. So it's not like he was a good guy. He was easy to hate, I think, from what I read. And it made him an easy target of the protest and then the aftermath as well. Yeah. And I think people it's easy to paint a good guy and a bad guy in a situation like this. Right. And he was painted definitely as the bad guy. And again, we're not saying that he was some awesome person, but on the other side was the Communist Party general secretary, and his name was Zaoz Yang, and he was the one that was more sympathetic to the cause, basically. Yeah. And so he was kind of holding back Deng Zhou Ping's worst impulses and saying, no, we just need to kind of, like, approach this peacefully, or whatever. And he got removed, too, which I really think kind of highlights just how much crossing or opposing Deng Xiaoping where it would get you removed at best. And actually, when he was removed from office, he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Because, I mean, that's what happens when you are removed from office there. They just say, Go home and don't leave again. You're under political quarantine. Yeah. So they had seen this happening all around them. The Soviet Union was crumbling. They saw countries, communist countries, people just like these students kind of rising up and saying that they've had enough. So they were nervous. And when Zaoz Yang, he went out of town, basically went on to Korea on a state visit, this is when Lee Ping said, all right, now's our time. This guy's out of the country, and he's like, basically, we can start the first piece to toppling these students. And it wasn't initially a violent piece. It was an ad. It was in April 26. It was an ad in the People's Daily, the state newspaper, and it was an editorial, basically, that just denounced the demonstrations. And that was their first sort of shot fired, was, Your friend is out of town. Well, they didn't say that, but because he was out of town, they said, we're going to run an editorial denouncing this. Yeah. And they basically said, look, these students are being misguided, that the whole thing started earnestly as a memorial for Hugh, but it had been taken advantage of by probably outside agitators, maybe even, like, plants from other governments who were fomenting like a popular uprising out of this genuine sorrow for this guy who was a real advocate for them. But regardless of how it started or what's going on, we can't abide this any longer. And if we do, there's going to be I think they put it, we'll never have another day's piece unless we act. They didn't say brutally. Oh, resolutely unless it's checked resolutely, they said. And then in the margin, it said C brutally. Right, exactly. Checked resolutely is against a popular protest. That's menacing stuff. Should we take a break? More menacing stuff. All right, we'll take a break and we'll come back and talk about the effect that this editorial had right after this. All right? So they ran this editorial. They said that they would be checked resolutely if they didn't disperse, and they thought that would do the job, basically. But that had the complete opposite effect. Yeah. Like, literally overnight, people all over China, 400 cities across China, had people coming out and protesting because they were invigored by these students and what they saw going on in Beijing and I think it says Dave had an estimate here of one in ten citizens took to the streets. And these were people of all social strata, all walks of life in China. Yeah, one in ten in Beijing. But then tens to hundreds of millions of protesters all pouring out into the streets and cities across China. They had a huge problem overnight on their hands. People were like, that editorial was the exact wrong move. Yeah, it was the wrong move. And things just kind of went on this way for a little while until, I think about mid May, when Gorbachev was coming to visit in China. So they said, this is the perfect chance. Let's stage a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. And this was not a good look for the Chinese Communist Party. They were not happy that this was going on. What, Gorbachev was going to pay the visit? Yeah, because you wanted to impress Gorbi. He was probably the most popular guy in the world right then. In 1989. Yeah. They lost faith, and it was a pretty well done move on the part of the students who carried out the hunger strike. But that editorial that kicked all this off, that really kind of changed things. There was a huge turn. There was a sea change in the entire thing when regular people started taking up this protest, because it started out as a student protest, and now all of a sudden, it was an everyday Chinese person protest. And that apparently changed the entire attitude of the government toward this whole thing that was no longer paternal and kind of head patty and patient. It was like, Wait a minute. I saw on this Frontline documentary that somebody said it was like, the workers are the ones who put the Chinese Communist Party in power. And now it suddenly looked like the workers were about to take the power away from them. And this scared the bejesus out of them, because, again, they had an iron stranglehold over their population, and there was a lot of corruption in the government, too. So the whole idea of being removed from power had a lot more at stake than just losing power. These people had done quite a bit that they might have to answer for after they lost power. Yeah, big time. They were officially worried at this point, right? You still had Zouw calling for cooler heads to prevail here. And this is before his removal. Just before. But Liping said, you know what, the only way to take care of this is by kind of cracking the whip in a hard, hard way. Martial law should be imposed. Students heard about this, and this is when the big protest at Tiananmen Square, I think they estimated like over a million people, 1.2 million people, students. There were police involved. There were some military that were protesting. And this is when everything really started to gain some momentum and what students thought was the right direction, but it turns out was a bad move, probably. Yeah, sure, yeah. Now. But at the time, it was like, okay, we're going to go to the mattresses. Rather than backing down, they said, okay, we're going to escalate on our end as well. If they're going to amass troops and invade Beijing, which is what they did, we're going to meet them and try to drive them out. And at first, it actually worked. There was a first incursion into Beijing of about 300,000 Chinese soldiers. The Chinese military showed up in Beijing in tanks, armored personnel carriers, troop transport trucks, the whole shebang. Like, imagine 300,000 soldiers showing up in Atlanta and just basically being like, everybody needs to go home. The thing is, everybody would go home. This first incursion, I guess, into Beijing didn't actually make it to the city center because the people in the suburbs came out and swamped these army convoys and prevented them from moving forward and actually kept them there in gridlock of a sea of humanity for about four days, I think. Yeah, it was a huge victory, kind of right off the bat. They went after these personnel carriers in these tanks. They had children, they had older adults. They basically kind of paralyzed what they were trying to do and then decided to do a very kind of brilliant thing, which was appeal to the good nature of these soldiers as human beings. Right. I saw one article that kind of guessed that about 60% of the PLA soldiers were illiterate. They were uneducated, they were from out in the country, and these Beijing City folks would approach them and they would bring them food and they would bring them things to drink, and they would send their children out to talk to them and say things like, you should be defending us, you shouldn't be attacking us. You should join us. And some of them did. Some of those soldiers stepped down and kind of quit on the spot, knowing full well that would not end well for them. And the majority of them obviously didn't. Right. But even if they didn't step down and quit, some of them did step down and mingle and talk. And I saw footage of them when they finally left on the fourth day, they turned around and retreated away from Beijing. A good third or half of the troops on these trucks that were driving away were waving to the people of Beijing who just spent the last four days feeding them and talking to them and basically trying to change their minds about this. Because I don't know if we made it clear when the people from the Beijing suburbs swamped these trucks, this is a big nonviolent form of resistance. It wasn't violent. Yeah. It was a charm offensive. It was just straight up nonviolent resistance. And it worked. Like, it totally worked. On the one hand, it worked because the Chinese government hadn't given them orders to fire on anybody and probably gave them orders not to carry out any violence against the people. And that's really why it actually ultimately works, because if you're being met with that kind of resistance and you can't meet that resistance with violence, it's not like the soldiers were going to explain their position or the government's position to the Beijing residents and change their minds. There was nothing they could do but just sit there and then finally turn around and leave. And so at first, the residents of Beijing were kind of tough with themselves. That really worked. This nonviolent resistance turned back 300,000 troops from China's equivalent of Arkansas, who just showed up in China's equivalent of New York and kept them from invading, basically. Yeah. So the government sees this happen and they're on high alert now. They're fully worried, and they see the writing on the wall that this could be the end of the Communist Party as we know it if we don't squash this thing once and for all. And so they said, all right, here's what we're going to do. Let's send the army in again, just like we did the first time, except now you're going to get to Tiananmen Square and squash this uprising if they come out and meet you in the suburbs, take care of things however you need to, to get to Tiananmen Square. Like full authorization to use deadly force. Yeah, and I saw again on that documentary, they were saying that they were given guns and ammunition, and the ammunition they were given were thumb sized bullets. The kind of bullets that, from what I could tell, they were. What's that kind? That like turn into circular saws inside people. What's it called? It's like a really common word. Everybody knows hollow point, I think. Anyway, they were meant for, like, combat. The bullets they were using, these weren't rubber bullets. They weren't even regular bullets. They were like combat grade bullets that these troops were given. And you have to remember, too, Chuck, by this time, there's nobody now because Zow has been removed. There's nobody arguing against this impulse, at least not openly. And so this impulse is allowed to go and check. Nobody stopped and said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is crazy. We're talking about going in and slaughtering our own people. We have to find another way. Nobody was saying that. And in fact, Lee Pang was at the very least keeping his mouth shut, if not supporting this whole thing as well. Yeah. So the students get word that this is what's coming, basically a second wave. They were victorious in that first wave. So they were like you said, they were tough. They were probably like, all right, bring it on. Let's do the same thing again. We're going to charge you again. Yeah, pretty much. And they did the same thing. They improvised. These barricades at the entrance points, they blocked off roads with people with buses, like stacks of tires and stuff. And on June 3, the 9, June third, the tanks roll in, the personnel vehicles roll in. By this time, there are some rocks being thrown and some Molotov cocktails and stuff like that, and things start to get a little unruly and the PLA just charged through. And at 09:30 p.m.. The first shots rang out. And it was very clear very quickly that they were just going to mow people down. Yeah, but apparently, even though it was clear to some people, to other people, it was so surprising and just so utterly unbelievable that it took way too long for it to sink in. What was going on? Oh, I'm sure everybody was shocked. Yeah. So some people, I think, just started running when they saw people falling and bodies starting to pile up, but other people were still throwing rocks and it hadn't really sunk in yet. And then ultimately, eventually, everybody got it and they started to turn and run. And then as they would turn and run. The soldiers would fire into their backs, keep firing into crowds that are running away. Unarmed crowds. Maybe have rocks, maybe a Molotov cocktails, set a bus on fire. But they don't have guns. They don't have machine guns. I was looking and apparently, Chuck, China has one of the strictest gun policies in the world. Like, if you're just an average Chinese person, you are not armed. You could get a gun if you apply for one, and the government gives it to you if you have a real need for it. Like, maybe there's bears that live around your house that keep killing your livestock or something. But if you live in Beijing, you don't have a gun. And it makes me wonder, like, would this have erupted into civil war if Beijing was armed, or would it have been even worse? Would they have fought back a lot more if they had had guns? Who knows? But the fact of the matter is, these people did not have guns, and they were shot in the back running away by government troops from their own government, from their own country. And this is just the first time this happened. This wasn't an isolated incident. Yeah, so I read this article, I think, about three years ago. There was a sort of first hand account from a writer from England named Sir Alan Donald, and it was declassified three years ago. He wrote this account on June 5. So we'll finish up on what happened June 3 and Fourth. But it was a very fresh account of what happened. He was over there, and he got his information from a source who had spoken to a very close friend in China state council, who apparently previously had always proved very reliable, very even handed, and very factual. And the things that he would, I guess, leak out to his friend and the account of what happened is just like, mind boggling. That there were snipers shooting people on their balconies that weren't even not down on the street protesting. They said that there were snipers using street cleaners and things just sort of as target practice. There were young women who were begging for their life that were bayonetted through the chest. There was one account of a three year old that was wounded, and the mom was racing to try and help it, and they mowed her down. They were hosing body parts and entrails into the drains of the street. They were mowing people down at like 40 mph, just running people over in these personnel trucks. And it just can't be overstated. What a complete and utter massacre this was. Yeah, I mean, the end result of this was on the high end, maybe 10,000 people, civilians almost to a person, were killed overnight from June 3 to Fourth and the violence that took place. And then on the next day, June 4, unarmed, many of them shot in the back, just killed. And including. Yeah, like you say, some people weren't even down on the street. They were in their apartment. They just had the misfortune of having an apartment whose windows looked out on to TNM and Square, and who had caught the attention of a sniper on nearby rooftop. It was just ghastly. One of the worst things that any government has ever done to its own people. Certainly in modern times, it doesn't really get much worse than that. Yeah. So, 130 a. M. The army is finally in the heart of Beijing. They have surrounded Tiananmen Square. Not all of them, I'm sure some people got out of there, but most of these protesters are still there. They are ordered to leave. They opened fire again. I think at this point, they sent in something called the 27 army, which is the best I could find is that just was a very loyal division, apparently, that they knew that would just obey the orders no matter what. And so now they're in Tiananmen Square, they're throwing rocks, they're getting strafed by machine gun fire. And within a few hours, most of Tiananmen Square had empty out. They were down to about three to 5000 students. They took a boat. The student union basically said, do you want to go or do you want to stay? And most people wanted to stay, but the leadership said, no, we've got to get out of here, otherwise we're all going to be killed, basically. Yeah. They just said, the girls have it, let's go. And in retrospect, that was the smartest possible thing they could have done. There wasn't anything that would have been gained necessarily by the slaughter, but they were all very surprised that they weren't just indiscriminately slaughtered themselves. A lot of people have been killed in Tiananmen Square already, and they were cornered by the military. But then, rather than just mow them down like had been done to everybody else, they were given an ultimatum that they could either leave now and just drop the whole uprising thing, or they could be jailed, prosecuted, and probably killed. So they decided to go. And it makes you wonder, like, would it have had an effect if they had been killed? Because these must have been the very students from the elite Beijing University who were the sons and daughters of the elite leaders in China at the time. So what repercussions would there have been had they died? But ultimately, it was the right move. It was the smart thing to do. And the best thing to do is for the leadership, these students themselves, they were in their early 20s tops, to say, we should leave. And they did. Yeah. So Tiananmen Square itself gets all the press, and the historical record kind of lies in Tiananmen Square. But it was all over Beijing June 4, like this. On June 3. On June 4. Some say that's where the most loss of life happened, and some of the bloodiest. I was about to say battle, but it wasn't even a battle. The bloodiest part of the massacre happened the next day in the surrounding streets. Yeah. For Tiananmen Square to have, like you say, all the press, very little actually happened there. It was mostly in the area around it, in the rest of Beijing. But the street that actually runs in front of Tiananmen Square, it got the most coverage and has the most record of what happened, because there happened to be a high rise hotel along Sheenan Avenue that housed a bunch of Western journalists who were surreptitiously, recording and photographing this whole thing and documenting it. Yeah. So that was very fortuitous because we'll get to tank man later. But on this avenue, the protesters gathered, and they started to get on the PLA troops demanding answers. The army said, all right, you need to disperse again or face the consequences. And once again, just like in the other instances, the army just opened fire and they just barrel down the avenue, and people were scrambling. They were getting out of the way. They were hiding behind trees and buildings, and there would be a little period of calm, and then people would gather up again. And this is what makes us all so tragic, is the people would continually get the nerve to try again over and over. Yes. And a lot of those people the next day on avenue were the parents of these protesters who they wanted to get into Tiananmen Square to find out what had happened to their kids. They hadn't heard from them yet. They thought maybe they were dead in there. So I think that might have been what drove them to come back over and over again, even after being fired upon. And I saw footage of this after that first wave, maybe even after the second wave, this whole thing went on a dozen or so times where the people would come back up and confront the military. The military would open fire, and they'd run away, and then the people would gather their courage up again and go do it again. At least after the first or second wave, there's an ambulance that's shown, like, rushing to the scene, and they fire on that. And they seem to have either killed or possibly injured the driver because it like it veers off course and runs into, like, a booth or of some sort. So they were firing on ambulances that were coming to help the injured, who they fired on just a few minutes earlier. Yeah, I saw one report that they I'm not sure how it's split up, but one troop fired on their own officer and murdered him because I think he had shown a little bit of resistance. Or maybe the way I read it, it was kind of even just like, hey, what are we doing here? Like, a little bit of self doubt about their mission and so they murdered him. Wow, man. I mean, imagine this whether you're in America or the UK or Australia, imagine your own army doing this to you, like, showing up in your city and just opening fire. Like, what a nightmare situation that would be. Yeah. Should we take another break? Yes. All right, we'll take another break and we'll talk about Tank Man and sort of the legacy of the master at Tiananmen Square right after this. So, like I said, Chuck, there was about, on the high end, 10,000 residents of Beijing killed June 3 and fourth. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, the account from the one guy said that it was at least $10,000. Wow. And that was from his supposed source from inside the Chinese government. And that's just killed that's not killed or injured. That's not just total casualties. That's killed the government of China. Whenever they did acknowledge that this even happened, which we'll get to in a little bit, they said I think it was like 241, like 200 something is what they said. And they included in that a lot of soldiers and officers. And it is true that there were reports of some of these barricades that people had put up around Beijing where there were enough people that they overran, like, troop transports and killed soldiers on board. So there were some soldiers that died, but far and away the most casualties were on the civilian side, unarmed civilian side, keep in mind. Yeah, I think I saw the Chinese Red Cross initially said $2,700, but that was quickly squashed, and that even seemed super, super low. Right. So that was June 4. That the worst of the massacre happened. It was in broad daylight, and then June 5, things had calmed down some in the sense that there was not necessarily indiscriminate mowing down of people in the streets anymore. People had just basically resigned to give up and stay inside the Tiananmen. Protests have been completely squashed. And it was, I guess, calm, as calm as could be, considering that there were still plenty of tanks and martial law in the area and on Avenue, like a column of, I think eight tanks or a few tanks, I'm not sure how many there were, gathered into a line and started going down the avenue. And then just out of nowhere, this one guy, Tank Man, steps out of nowhere and just stands in front of the lead tank, and eventually the tank just comes to a stop. And I guess this is right in plain view of the Western journalists of a lot of people who are watching this, waiting for the tank to just run this guy down or just shoot him with the machine gun, just basically treat him just like 10,000 or more other people have been treated in the last day. And to everyone's great surprise, it didn't happen. Instead, the tank just tried to move. Yeah. So he stops the tanks. He's motioning like, kind of get out of here. He's kind of sweeping his arm around. And this footage is just remarkable to look at even today. The tank tries to go around them, like you said. Then the guy gets in its path. The tank stops again. The tank goes to the left. They're doing this just surreal dance of the tank moving and the guy moving in front of it. And then finally the tank stopped again, cut its motor, and the guy climbs up on top of the tank and starts yelling at the soldiers. One of the dudes in the tank pokes his little head out, and they start talking. And I say little head. I think he had a normal sized head, but just from the vantage point of the footage, it was a little head. Sure. Who knows? Maybe he was a tiny headed person. It was smaller than normal. You can never say. So they start yelling at each other and having an exchange, and the guy gets back down on the ground. Tank man does the tank starts his engine, and he gets right back in front of front of it again. And that is when that very famous photo from Charles Cole is snapped of him just standing again with those shopping bags by his side, just as defiant as a human being has ever been. And I mean, this is after 10,000 of his fellow Beijingers have been killed in the street. And this guy said, this is enough. That's the thing to me. The guy said, this is enough. I'm sick of this. You guys need to go. That is very clearly what the guy was saying. But the beautiful thing about Tank Man is you can't hear what he said. You can't see his face nearly enough to even tell who he was. There's no way anybody saw who this guy actually was, at least not from a camera or anything. So you also couldn't read his lips or anything. So it's left up to you and your imagination what this guy was saying and what he was doing. And that actually comes through in the fact that China, right after this incident, broadcasted on TV. But they broadcast it as clear evidence of just how much restraint the Chinese military had shown in Beijing and how all of the casualties that had actually come out of it were the fault on account of these rebellious anticommunist uprisers, and that the military had really done a good job with this. But it really kind of underlines. Like, you can put in the Tank Man what you want, but far and away, the vast majority of the world, because that Charles Cole photo quickly got out. And we'll explain how in a second, the vast majority of the world was inspired by this guy showing that's how they took it, that this guy was saying, enough. You can do what you want to me, but I represent the real, true feeling of the people of Beijing or the people of China, of all freedom loving people in the world I represent, how they feel about you in that tank and all the people who sent you here right now. Yeah, it was remarkable. So Charles Cole takes this picture. He is seen by some security officials that are on a rooftop across the street, and he knows this, and he's like, they're going to come for my camera for sure. So he very smartly, pops this roll of film out and hides it in the water tank of his toilet. In his bathroom? Yes. I wish I stood it. Oh, I don't know. Can you imagine? I think the keystroke would be sought out sooner than the toilet tank. I guess you're probably right. The first thing they did was probably bend him over and see what he had. So they did come and they did confiscate his camera, and they confiscated a roll of film, but it was from the day before, and he came back the next day, and that roll of film was still in the toilet tank. I got it. Otherwise, the world may have never seen this image. Yeah, no, I don't know that that's necessarily true, because there's that video footage of it that shows the whole thing true. And did we say also that have we gotten to the part where he's hustled off? Who? Cole? Tank man. Oh, no. Okay. Well, I just spoiled it. So, I mean, there is a video of it, but yeah, that photo that the world got to see because of Charles Cole's quick thinking that became, like, the symbol of the Tiananmen Square uprising, like Tank Man just standing defiantly. I wonder if do you know the release date of the video footage? No, I don't. I know that stuff leaks out pretty quick. I imagine that everybody was kind of like, hom, I'm just leaving Beijing for no good reason. I'm a western journalist just traveling to Shanghai to fly back to London for no good reason. You don't need to search me for anything, and just got out of there as fast as they could. I just wonder if they released the footage after the photo had become released. I'm not sure. I know that there were a lot of journalists watching that at the time, including just text journalists, writers, I guess you'd call them. They were witnessing this and writing about it and memorizing it and documenting it and the fact that they were left alive. Let this idea get out because we'll see the Chinese government squashed a memory of this. It bears a lot of resemblance to the Tulsa race massacre. Yeah, it just follows a lot of the same key points. But to sum up Tank Man, or to wrap up his story after, like you said, this weird dance goes on for a little while, and he's just standing there, and they're in a standoff. It's between him and the tank. A guy runs it, comes up on his bike, and you could tell he's just kind of like, okay, you need to get out of here. This is not going to go well for you. And that kind of queues up a couple of other guys who run into the frame of this video footage and just grab Tank Man and hustle them away. And there's some debate over who those people were and what became of Tank Man. Some witnesses say, well, they were clearly members of the Communist Party, secret police, and he was taken away and executed. But if you watch the footage, to me, these are people who are getting him out of there to help him. That's how I that's what it looked like to me, yeah. Yeah. So they think the fact that the Chinese government did not parade this guy around hold a public trial and probably a public execution to make an example out of him. And the fact that no one has any idea what his name was. And no one has ever said it was this guy definitively makes people think that he is still alive and hadn't told anybody that he made it out of there alive. Basically, yeah. I really wonder. There have been various accounts over the years of who they think it was. Some people have even named individuals. Some people have said that, no, he was executed. Some people said, no, he wasn't. Some people said he was incarcerated, never to be heard from again, and there's really no way of knowing. It is interesting to read, though, all the accounts of what people think might have happened. Yeah, I like to go with that. He was absorbed by a crowd and disappeared to live? Not disappear, disappeared from the government's radar. Yeah. Like at the end of Victory, the great World War II soccer movie. Oh, I never saw that one. Well, should I spoil it? Sure. I think I kind of did. They win. All right, if you want to see this movie, don't listen to this people. Okay. But the whole deal is they staged. The Allies, prisoners of war, staged the soccer match against Germany, but the real plan is that they are to escape during a tunnel in the locker room. Oh, no. This ragtag team of soccer players that the prisoners assemble, featuring Sylvester Stallone as the lone American in goal. And they think that they can win the soccer game at halftime, so they don't escape. They decide to not go and to play that soccer match. What? And they win. And it's amazing. And the stadium field is stormed, and they are absorbed by the crowd, and you see images of them getting hustled off and having street clothes put on them over their soccer uniforms. Right. And that's the end of the movie. It's great. So they were very fortunate that the crowd treated them that way, but they didn't know that that was going to happen? No. That was one of the dumbest decisions ever made by a group of human beings in the world to try and win a soccer game instead of escape, because it doesn't matter. The soccer game doesn't matter, but it doesn't escape the freedom that matters. That was so dumb. Such a good movie. Is that based on a real life true story? You know, I have no idea. I don't think so. It has to be. I hope so. Okay. So anyway, we don't know what became a tank man, but his image, or they say, actually inspired a lot of those protests in Eastern Europe that had made the Communist Party so nervous for a while. Chuck that they actually inspired those protesters to go all the way and actually led to the downfall of the USSR. What he did not lead to the downfall of was the Chinese Communist Party, because they won. They went as far as they needed to go to make sure that they hold on to power. Like, they went far beyond any reasonable point and engaged in not civil war, a massacre of their own people just to hold on to power and keep things the way that they were. But one thing that really changed, that directly came out of this June 1989 popular uprising was a shift toward economic reform that they had said, okay, you want some economic reform? You want a bigger shot at life? You want to make more money. You want luxury brands to build malls and open up stores here, we'll give you that. And they did. They opened up China to foreign investment. And, I mean, we all know how that story went. This rise of China that we're seeing now and have been seeing for the last couple of decades directly came from the June 1989 uprisings and the decision for the government to say, okay, we'll open up some economic reform. Yeah. And in the end, like we said, up to and perhaps more than 10,000 people murdered, at least 1600 people imprisoned. God, I think it was much more than that. But that's from a human rights group called the Dai Hua Foundation and imprisoned for crimes against the government reeducation camps, life sentences. Supposedly in 2016, a man was supposedly the very last prisoner from the Tiananmen massacre to be released 27 years later. But who knows the truth? And a lot of public executions, like making examples out of people, scaring the bejesus out of the population, saying, like, this is what happens. Look what happens if you're anti government. But again, they were doing it in a way, saying, like, there was just a few people who are really against the government. We know you would never do this. And it really had this huge, chilling effect on that. And so they said, we'll give you economic reform. Do not ever ask for political reform again, because this is what happens when you do. We're in charge. We're keeping things the way they are, but we'll make it so you can have more money or whatever. And now China is basically, like, much wealthier. There's a huge middle class than there was before, but there's also a tremendous amount of inequality that wasn't there before. But you can also say, on the other hand, everybody was equally poor. Now there's a lot less people who aren't poor, and even a lot of the poor people are way better off than they were. But they still live under one of the most repressive regimes in the world, and that was the trade off. That was the bargain that was made. Yeah. And you know what? There's one thing that I think I really learned from this, and it was that you have to nip corruption in the bud before it takes true root. Because if you let your government and your leaders get away with corruption, they're going to try to get away with a little more and a little more and a little more. And then before you know it, corruption is so entrenched in your government and in your society that the people who are in charge have so much to answer for, have so much that they've done that they would not want people to know about, that they can't ever afford to let go of power. And so they will do anything to hold on to power, including murder their own people who try to take them out of power. This happened in China, but if it reaches that point, you could make a pretty good case that this could happen anywhere. Yeah, that's what I took from it. You cannot as a society, you cannot as a political group of citizens, a citizenry, put up with corruption, no matter how big or how small, in your leaders, in your government. You can't do it. Yeah, man. What a time. But like you said, it's a cautionary tale forever. Agreed. One more thing, Chuck. They showed a picture of Tank Man to some kids from Beijing University when that documentary is made in 2006. And either they pretended they didn't know who it was or they legit did not know what they were looking at. Yeah, it looked real to me, man. Yeah, but you could also make the case like that this is such a taboo subject that you would pretend on camera to some Western journalists with government mineral sitting right next to them. You have no idea what it was. Yeah, well, that's Tiananmen Square now, you know. And if you want to know more about it, there's a lot to read about it all over the Internet, thankfully, as long as you live outside of China. Yes, but say all over one Internet, right? And since Chuck said one Internet, it's time for listener mail. Which one should I read here? So, you know what? Let me read this. This one just came in. This was a listener mail prediction that puts Jared from subway to shame. Did you read this one? No, I don't know which one that is. Well, just sit back then and hold on to your seats. Okay. Hey, guys. My family and I live in Oregon, have been in lockdown for the past ten weeks. My husband is a firefighter paramedic, so we are really staying home so we can minimize the risk of spreading the virus because he has so much exposure due to his job. I am a substitute teacher, and I'm not working right now, but I'm homeschooling. Our kids age two, six and eight. We are very lucky. My husband's job is essential, though, because we're not in a position that so many Americans are in with losing both of our jobs. And when I'm not homeschooling, I get to listen to as much stuff you should know as possible. So on to the reason I'm writing this. I was listening to the Globe of Death episode from December 2017, and I went back and listened to this. In fact, maybe we should play this one again. The whole listener mail. Well, let me just read this. We'll see if we need to we'll play the entire episode in this listener mail? No, just the listener mail. I got you. Okay. The listener mail on this episode was really eerie. It's a woman who predicts the next global outbreak will be a flu pandemic, and it calls on the government for cutting CDC funding to prepare for an event like this. It's very strange to be listening to the listener in this situation after being in quarantine. I know you guys love it when your show predicts events, so I thought I would throw this out there. Thanks. All that you do to keep me sane and that I'm able to hear other grown ups talking about interesting topics. My kids are always asking what I'm laughing at and then asked to hear what Josh and Chuck are saying. Thank you, guys. That is from Tiffany Hallock. And should we play a portion of that? Yeah, we should. All right, well, here's the listener mail from 2017 and see if this sounds a little eerie to you. I'm going to call this flu epidemic. Okay. Hey, guys. I'm a masters of public health candidates in Atlanta at Emory. Nice. We spent a good amount of time discussing the flu. I remember you mentioned the Spanish flu and wonder if such an epidemic could happen again. Bad news is it can, and it probably will. According to public health scholars, that is. The culprit is our meat industry, which keeps an overabundance of fowl and pigs in tight, unsanitary quarters. Because of the way this industry is growing, and some might argue due to its lack of regulation, these unsafe conditions led to the rapid mutation of the virus. This, coupled with the ever decreasing CDC budget, makes it harder and harder for vaccine scientists to create accurate vaccines on top of all that, the fluicine is a low threat by most of our society, rendering us illequipped and under prepared. Most people are scared of Ebola or other difficult to catch viruses. However, influenza is a rapidly mutating and highly aggressive virus that is easily transmittable and is right here on our doorstep. Scientists predict the flu might be the next most deadly epidemic if we're not careful. My recommendation to our Congress people, stop cutting the CDC budget. Prevention is key. I know I probably sound like a quack. Not to me, for real, but just wanted to spread a little knowledge and say hey to my favorite podcasters. Thanks for putting on such an amazing show. And that is from Jasmine. Wow, that was pretty eerie. It turned out to be Dr. Deborah Burke's herself. Well, thanks, dude. That was a good listener mail. And that was from Tiffany, you said? Yeah, that was from Tiffany. Thanks for that one, Tiffany. Thanks. Good catch. And thanks for letting us know that you guys are doing okay. Hang in there with the home schooling and hang in there, everybody whose job was not essential. It's on furlough or beating up the unemployment office website. Hang in there, everybody, because things are going to get better and we will be here the whole time, too. Okay? That's right. Okay. If you want to get in touch with us in the meantime, to say hi or whatever, well, you can do it via email. How about that? Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom and send it off to Stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you've you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…orist-threat.mp3	What was America's first terrorist threat?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-was-americas-first-terrorist-threat	From the moment it was established, the United States had headaches with terrorism of the pirate variety. For decades, the federal budget even include bribe money to pay them off. Learn all about this early threat on this episode of Stuff You Should Know.	From the moment it was established, the United States had headaches with terrorism of the pirate variety. For decades, the federal budget even include bribe money to pay them off. Learn all about this early threat on this episode of Stuff You Should Know.	Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:41:11 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=21, tm_min=41, tm_sec=11, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=3, tm_isdst=0)	26445207	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. I'm talking weird like a radio announcer, which means it's time for Stepping You Snow podcast. That's right. Welcome, sir. How are you? I'm good. Welcome to you as well. Great. I'm good. You? I'm fantastic. Are you sure you're feeling high? Is that a trick question? Yeah, I'm feeling high. Good, man. Feeling high. Feeling gay. Feeling ready to go. Good. Well, let's do this. All right. Okay. Chuck. Josh. Yeah. Wait a minute. Wait. Let me relish this. There's no plugs. There's no lead ins. There's no nothing here. Wow. Pretty good. Okay. Chuck? Yes. Have you ever heard the word terrorism? Terrorism? No. Terror. I know. I have a thick tongue. Terror. Terror Isam. Yes, I have. You have? Yes. Did you know it's from the French? I did not know that. Pretty surprising, isn't it? It is to me. It's from the French. Terrorism. That's how I assume it's pronounced. You have to say it like you're condescending. Sorry. Yeah. Nice. But it was coined during the Reign of Terror in the 1780, 917. 90. During the French Revolution. So did it have the same meaning, like unconventional means of warfare that involved citizens? It was basically it did have roughly the same meaning in that it involves citizens. This is the one thing that terrorism is always pointed to. It's when citizens innocence are casualties, are directly involved in big problems. Yeah. And not just of course, there are casualties all the time, including nowadays with US. Drone strikes and our own wars, but literally abandoning the rules of war, which we've done a podcast on in favor of homemade guerrilla tactics to fall outside those rules right. And to terrorize people. And to terrorize people. But you're directly targeting normal, everyday citizens. Yeah. Which therein lies the terror. Right. So terrorism, it's been around the last couple of hundred years, although in the US. Here, only in the, I guess, the 50s, it started to become kind of a household word. Definitely. By the 80s, once a hijacker started taking over airplanes all over the place, we knew what terrorists were. Yeah. Boy. Remember that? Hijacking was such a big deal. I used to be terrified of that. And of course, that was a central component of 911. But, like, hijacking, as far as just taking over the plane, that was, like, a big deal back in the day. Yeah. Remember that very iconic image of the terrorists holding a gun to that pilot's head on a tarmac? Yeah. Man, I think Cypress leaning out the window. Yeah. It was scary. And that was before they had the good sense to keep those doors secure or use metal detector before you got on the plane. So you couldn't get a 45 onto a plane. Yeah. You're just on the plane smoking your cigarette with your gun. Right. Exactly. The pilot's door is open. If you want to tour the cockpit, just come on up, right? Yeah. If you mind taking your burlap hood off so we can see who you are. Man, things are so lax, so weird. We came to understand terrorism from maybe the on, but the United States has been dealing with terrorism literally since the moment it was born, especially if you call piracy terrorism. And for our purposes today, we will. Yeah. To fall in line with the title of this article. We're going to yes. From the moment we gained our independence from England yeah. Before then, because Europe was dealing with it as well. He's on the North African coast. The Barbary coast? So name for the Barbarosa brothers. Yeah. Cahair and Dean. No, sorry. That's one guy, car Adin was one Barbarosa. I'm not quite sure who he was, but there were brothers Aruge and his ear. Yeah. And Barbarosa. Barbara Beard. Red Beard. Red Beard. Just like the Ferrari testa. Rosa the Red Testes. Exactly. And former quarterback Benny Testa. Verde. My friend used to call him Benny Green Balls, so that was pretty funny. And he played till he was, like, 50. So he probably did have said he played for the Bucks, right? He played for a bunch of teams, but he was known to play for the Buccaneers. Yeah. And then later with the jets, and he was all over the place. Oh, really? Yeah, I was just associated with the Buccaneers. Yes. I think he played a portion of his career there, but when you play for 25 years or whatever, you're going to get around, you know? There was never a better heyday for team logos in the, like, the old Raiders logo, which I guess is still around. Yes, the Raiders stay pretty consistent, but the Buccaneers used to have a great one. The New England Patriots had, like, that mint man who was ready to hike the ball. Loved it. They were just great. The Pittsburgh Pirates had probably one of the better ones of all time. Well, yeah, they were baseball. Of course. Sure, I know. Yeah, I said sports logos. Okay. I think I said sports. Yes. You're talking about the old stovetop hats. That the fire for the flat caps. Yeah, those are awesome. With the yellow bands. Yeah, they were terrible. So, speaking of pirates, we were talking about the brothers Red Beard Barbarossa, and these guys were actually Turks. Right. But the Spaniards were the ones who named them Barbarosa. And the Spaniards were well versed in the school of the blade, taught by Aruge and Jazir Barbarossa. Yeah. And these pirates specifically were helping out Muslim Moors driven away from Spain by Christians. And this just reinforced to me, like, Christians and Muslims, man, they've been fighting for a long time. Yeah. Like anything you see on the news these days, it's like yeah, this has got quite a bit of history here. Yes. 1492 is a really big year for Spain, sent Columbus over here to the New World and drove the Spanish Muslims, aka. The Moops, from Spain. Are they the Moops? No, the Moors. Remember that Seinfeld where he's playing Trivial Pursuit with bubble boy and he's like the Moores? He goes, no, it's the moops. Yeah, I forgot about that. And I feel silly because I thought, yeah, Spaniards like Moors, moops, who cares? Okay, so after this happens, the Mediterranean Sea right there between North Africa and Southern Europe all of a sudden, because it was such a heavily traveled trade route, became a haven for piracy because there was lots of stuff to booty, lots of booty to pillage. Yeah, because at this time, that was the route between Europe and the East Indies, and that's where Europe was making all of its money from the spice trade and all that. And so to get there, you had to go through the Mediterranean when the Christians drove the Moors to North Africa. Yes. And of course, the North Africans are like, hey, we're living here. The Barber folks. Is that where Barbara comes from? No. Barbary comes from barbarosa. I thought it said it was so named for the Barber people. No, the Barbarosa brothers. Those guys were so bad, they named the entire North African coast after them. Wow. The four states of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and Tripoli, which is what we now know is Libya Liberty. That's the Barbary coast, named after the Barbarosis. Wow. So you've got all this piracy going on. It's stepping up in earnest after 1492, and everybody's just getting taken every which way but Sunday. That's right, every which way. So Muslims and Christians were both getting in on the piracy game. We don't want to slingstones. Good point. Only the Muslims. But because of where it was, it was just a haven for it. And I think you point out this is your article, right? Yeah. In the 17th century, at one point, an estimated 20,000 people were captured by the Barbaries and held in Algiers alone. 20,000 kidnappings. That's like a couple of good size cities back then. Yeah, that's significant. So they were doing a pretty good job. Yes. It's the piracy. Yeah. That's like the average attendance on a Tuesday night of a Pittsburgh Pirates game in the late 70s. Tuesday night, late 70s. Pittsburgh Pirates, 20000. Yeah, they were pretty good. Yeah. Roberto Clemente era. He can fill those seats. He was earlier than that, but yeah. The Willie Stargal era. That's what I said. Let's call it that. So European. They did so much pirating, they thought, you know what? We can make more money if we start to extort people. Not only can we pillage their booty, we can extort money from them, aka. Getting tributes paid. Yeah. Which is really just extortion. It's a protection racket. Yeah. We will protect you from ourselves. These guys are like Sicilians all of a sudden. It's like, hey, we wouldn't want anything to happen to your ship to give us some money, we'll make sure it doesn't. But they weren't even as sly as the average Sicilian. They said, if you don't give us money, we're going to attack your ships, take your goods, and kidnap your cruise. And they had certain things. So in addition to tribute and then capturing goods, kidnapping a person could be kind of lucrative, no matter what the person's station was socially. Well, yeah. Well, first of all, pay us and we won't kidnap you, and then we will kidnap you and then try and get you to pay us the ransom. Right. Or if you won't do that, then we'll just sell you as a slave, and we're going to make money one way or the other. One way or another, yes. If you are a member of a Barbary State and you're a pirate, you know how to make some coins. Yeah. And it was such a racket that nations included line items in their budgets to pay these tributes. It was like an actual, I guess you call it, legit. It wasn't legitimate because it was plundering, but it legitimately included. It is like, hey, we got to pay these guys off exactly this much money per year. So we just got to think about that. Yeah. And I think the United States, in its 1784 fiscal budget, had 80 grand set aside to pay as tribute to Barbary government. Yeah. That is crazy. That was actually small at first, too. Well, yeah, I think you're pointing out it goes up to a million dollars by 1795, and they paid $1 million annually for 15 years. That's a lot of coin back then. That was 10% of the federal annual income. No. At the time, no. The reason it went up so much was the Barbary states actually had tribute on a sliding scale. The European nations, right at the time, if you think of them as corporations, because essentially that's what they were. Like, the British East India Company was pretty much one of the same as the British government. Yeah. They would use the Barberry pirates to they would use the diplomats to get the Barbary pirates to attack. Some nations leave theirs alone. They would pay some tribute. But it was definitely part of the political maneuvering, was to just kind of keep this Mediterranean shipping channel open for the superpowers and squeeze out the little guys. Well, the Barbaries were like, yeah, we like making money from you, but we also want to make it from the little guys, too. So we're going to establish the sliding scale, and based on the size of your economy, that's how much tribute we are going to extract from you. And when the US. Was born, they were like, oh, you're tiny. Just give us, like, 80 grand. How about that? Right? And then within ten years, they're like, oh, yeah, you guys have a whole continent of raw material. Yeah. You show no scruples. That stealing it from the natives who are living there. Right. So how about a million a year from now on? So they did that for 15 years. One of the main reasons they did this for so long was because they were trying to form a navy. They didn't even have a navy at this point. Who? The US. Yeah. And in fact, this is why the navy was born. It would have been born at some point anyway, because you need a navy. But this is what really spurred the creation of the navy in the US. And Thomas Jefferson comes along and was, like, told John Adams, dude, we can't be paying this old world stuff and worrying about paying off these tributes to these guys. We got to expand west, brother. Like, this is where it's at. We're sitting here playing these old games, paying these guys money, and trading over the Atlantic. Screw that. Let's just stay over here, expand westward. And that's where the future of this country is. Right. He also made a pretty good point that it would be more cost effective to take that million dollars and put it into a navy and pound the barbary states into submission. Then they just keep paying them a million dollars a year at infinitum. I wonder what the because this is why they were doing this concurrently. They were building a navy to try and stop this. If that was 10%, I wonder how much it cost to build the navy. Like, a substantial portion of the federal government's funds was tied up and stopping this at the time. Sure. Including building the navy, paying these ransoms or tributes or extortion fees, depending on which way you want. And it was a big problem, like we said, right out of the gate. But it wasn't handled for a while because Jefferson's ideas, I guess, his westward expansion concept, and then building a navy rather than paying tribute. He was in the minority. He was the diplomat that succeeded Benjamin Franklin, who was the America's first diplomat in France. And Benjamin Franklin, he took the tact that most people at the time took, which was this was just part of doing business with the East Indies, and we'll do what we can. Before, we used to be under the protection of Great Britain. Well, we split from Great Britain. We're not under the protection anymore. We're still kind of a fledgling nation, so we needed protection of superpower. So Franklin knew how to charm the French, and he set up the treaty of amity and commerce of 1778. Yeah, it just directly addresses this. Pretty much, yeah. It actually mentioned the barbary nations by name in the street and basically said, france, you guys help us out here in the Mediterranean. France said okay. They did say okay, which is good. So Jefferson, he doesn't have any real pull at this point yet. It was not until he became president that he actually really enacted his plan, which was to get out of this whole mess. Yeah. And once he did, he basically said, you guys are toast. Yeah. I mean, as soon as he was sworn into office, the Turkish ruler Pasha demanded an extra $250,000 from this new administration. They were like, well, you're the new guy. We just need a bonus payment because you're now in office. Right. And I looked this up. I was like, that was so much money back then. It was about $3 million. It was less than 3 million, which is not that much. Yes. You never hear about this. I didn't want this in high school. No, I know. I remember getting out of high school and realizing, like, there's so much more to history. Yeah. Well, I didn't realize what else Jefferson was doing in Paris. He was doing a lot of crazy stuff. Yeah. And some not so crazy romantic things. Sure. But you didn't learn about that in high school either. No, about himings. I wonder if they teach that stuff now. I'd be curious to sit down on a high school history class. I imagine it's very much the same. Yeah. There's a certain school of thought that you're indoctrinated into, and there's stuff you need to know and things you shouldn't know and you don't need to know about that. Sure. We don't like to talk about that kind of thing. And then college is where I first started getting my real education. I had some really good history teachers. Yeah. All right, so where are we? We are in office as Jefferson. Yes. And he already hates the Barbary states because he's been trying to get everybody to turn against him for 15 years. He finally got the power to do something about it. That's right. They had taken control of a couple of crew members, captured American ships, and they said, you know what? We'll release these guys if you increase your tribute. Right. And Jefferson said, enough of this crap. We've got ships now. Six of them, I think, at first. Is that right? Yes. That's cute. You got to start small, and we're coming over to pay you a little visit in our ships. And the first Barbary war from it was a pretty happening war. It was mostly at sea, and it lasted four years. Right. Yeah. But at one point, they captured well, they captured because the USS Philadelphia, I think, ran aground and got stuck. So this is one 6th of the entire US. Fleet at the time. I think so, yeah. Wow. So I got stuck in working order still. So they captured the ship, take control of the crew, and they used the ship as a gun battery against us because it's just parked right there, I guess cannons aimed out toward the sea. Right. So they just used it that way for a while. And it was Steven Decatur lieutenant Stephen Decatur of the Navy led some marines and recaptured the ship and burned it so they couldn't use it. And that guy is I think there are 46 communities in the United States named Decatur, including one where you live right here in Atlanta. And Jerry. Yeah. And Jerry So, named for Steven Decatur. And there's a statue is that Decatur or Jefferson? I think there's a Decatur statue right there. At the one that we shot at, though, was that Jefferson? Was that Jefferson? The guy writing, you know, Man, I don't even know. That's sad. Like, molested the statue. We're sitting here at this. We don't even know what statues was. Yeah, but I know there is a Decatur monument in the center of Decatur. Sure. But yeah, this is where he really kind of proved his stripes as an admiral. Apparently, he came very close to being killed, but one of his crew members, when they were going to attack the Philadelphia, one of his crew members threw himself in between Decatur and a barbary, I guess, pirate. And he survived, but he threw himself in between the Sword and Decatur, and Decatur went on to do even greater stuff. But yeah, so they destroyed the Philadelphia. They get out. Very daring. You said Marines were there. Yeah, I mean, led by a naval officer. But it was definitely the Marines dirty work. And that's why, if you listen to the Marine Corps hymn in the first line, it's from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. This is what they're talking about. Pretty cool. So the first Barbary War last from 18 one to 18 five. It was mostly with Tripoli. They're the ones who are giving us the most trouble. Tunis and Algiers basically said, you know what? We're just going to stand over here for a little bit. We're fine all of our alliances with you. We're not going to break them. We're pirates. We're all pirates, everybody. What did you expect? And then several years later, Thomas Jefferson retires to Monticello and James Monroe comes into the presidency, and we have trouble again. But this time it's with Tunis and Lgiers. Yeah. And James Monroe takes a totally different tack than Thomas Jefferson, I think, because we had a much bigger Navy by then. For the second Barbary war. Was that just a little more aggressive? We just went in to the coast of Tunis and Algiers and pounded their cities with our cannons, and they said, okay, okay, sorry. Right now. Right after that, the US said, no more. We're never paying you another dime. Yeah. In the first war, you pointed out that they used the tactic used by the Green Berets, which was to find local insurgent groups to help them do the fighting. And I think in this case, there were some Greeks and Arab and Bourbon mercenaries that we, like, enlisted to help fight against them on land, what little fighting there was on land. And it worked. And it was the first time a US. Flag was ever raised on foreign soil. Yes, thankfully. Man, I am just overwhelmed with jingoism right now. Are you a jingoist? For the moment. You and Toby Keith? Yeah. Throwing around that guy. What happened to him? He's around, I'm sure. Okay. I mean, I don't keep up, but nothing's happened to him. As far as I know. He's still jing, going it up. Okay, so is that it? I got nothing else. I've got something else. So we were talking about how you said Christians and Muslims alike were not shy about resorting to piracy, enslavement, all that stuff. And the Mediterranean had seen piracy for millennia, but it all really started in the Crusades, and that's when one side was just capturing the other people. I'll cover that at some point. The Crusade? Yeah. It only has to be an overview, obviously, because we could do, like, ten shows on the Crusades. Sure. But throughout this time, there's this order called the Mathurians, and they are a French Catholic sect, and their whole gig was raising money to use to ransom sailors who couldn't pay their own ransom to keep them from being sold into enslavement, which is a pretty noble pursuit. And these guys were like they took vows of poverty, so they weren't hoarding any of the money themselves. They weren't getting they really used it. And over three centuries, they ran some 90,000 sailors that were captured, and one of those guys turned out to be Miguel de Cerveontes, who wrote Don Quixote. Really? Yeah. He was captured in the Mediterranean and I suppose wrote that after he was freed? I don't know. I would say so. That's just a guess. Isn't that cool, though? That is cool. Captured by the bank. I actually thought about one more thing, too. Apparently, the slaves. I mean, it was not great to be captured as a slave, but it wasn't like European and American slaves. Like, you could actually gain wealth and possession and status as a slave in Africa. Yeah. African slavery is much different than Portuguese style slavery that we're used to here in the city. Yeah. And most of the time it was not, like, a great thing. But you could I think one guy even rose to a position of advisor to a king of algae. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I used to I meant aware of and disgusted by, accustomed to. Is that it? Yes. Okay. Well, that was America's first terrorist threat. Pirates. That's the answer. The Red beards. If you want to learn more and read the article that I wrote, you can type in first Terrorist threat. There's a lot of terrorism stuff. We should do one on how terrorism works in general. Have we not done that? No. You can find all that stuff by typing terror into the search bar house the force.com. I'll bet it'll bring up some surprising stuff. And since I said search bar with no mail, not quite yet, my friend. Okay. Quick little TV show plug. Yes. By now, everybody knows we have a television show coming out on Science Channel at 10:00 p.m.. Eastern Standard Time on Saturday, January 19. Yes. And we're very excited about it. Yes. We are following the Cedaries three premiere of Idiot Abroad with Carl Pilsington and Richard Your Base, which is pretty pumped up about and then comes our show. And if you don't have TV or cable, you can still get this on itunes. You can purchase each show each week, I believe, the following day for buck 99. And the first show is free. Yeah. So saturday, January 19 at 10:00 PM is the world premiere of Stuff You Should Know. Television show. And then at 10:30 p.m. Is episode two back to back episodes on January 19. It will be a big deal. So listen to meal time now. Yes. Okay. All right, Josh, I'm going to call this asexual healing. You're not. Did you make that up? Yes. That's awesome, guys. When I first saw the podcast on Asexuality, I figured it had to be about asexual reproduction, like single celled organisms or sea sponges. It was a little trepidatious when I saw it was actually about asexuality as a sexual orientation. Often I am not particularly happy with any brief overview of any subject you care about or have much knowledge about. I was pleased I had no such negative reaction to your podcast, so, in fact, it was extremely uplifting. You described much of the difficulty I had growing up. The talk of being confused by your friends suddenly being in the girls was particularly evocative in high school and college. I also had a lot of really awkward or negative interactions with people, especially girls, who just didn't get what I was. I even had a female friend stop being my friend when I turned down her sexual advances. I can only guess as to why, but I always felt like she just didn't believe me and that really sucked. It also made me realize that at 31 years old, I'm not as okay with my sexuality as I'd like to think I am. No matter how much I've told myself and others I'm asexual, I'm cool with it, I've always had that. Itch in the back of my head that has told me that I'm crazy or delusional or there's something wrong with me knowing that this is a real thing. With such a relief, I'm now looking into aven and finding all sorts of exciting stuff. So thank you very much for covering the subject. Nice. Yeah. Congrats. That is an anonymous listener who got something out of the show which is nice. Got asexual healing out of the show? I hope so. That's really cool. That is what we do, man. That's why we do this. We've asked for it before. We'll ask for it again. If Stuff You Should Know has changed your life one way or another, especially for the better, we want to hear about it. You can tweet to us if you can fit the whole thing into 140 characters or less at podcast, you can join us on Facebook.com stuffysheno, and you can send us a good old fashioned email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom. Send it off to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out. The sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarriff and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2016-11-03-sysk-action-figures-final.mp3	A Partial History of Action Figures	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/a-partial-history-of-action-figures	Action figures have a long and glorious history. From GI Joes to Star Wars figures, these offshoots of dolls came along at just the right time to capture the hearts and minds of children everywhere. Learn all about the partial history of action figures ri	Action figures have a long and glorious history. From GI Joes to Star Wars figures, these offshoots of dolls came along at just the right time to capture the hearts and minds of children everywhere. Learn all about the partial history of action figures ri	Thu, 03 Nov 2016 07:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=7, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=308, tm_isdst=0)	69977739	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you were a major transit system facing cyber attacks? So you partner with IBM to keep your data network and apps protected. Now you can tackle threats without coming to a halt. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM let's create learn More@ibm.com summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's right there to my immediate right. And that makes this stuff you should know. The podcast. The podcast. That's right. I'm excited about this particular podcast. Chuck put together this episode, I should say. Well, do you want to go ahead and announce the title for people that maybe didn't read it? Well, you're going to select the title. What's the title? Oh, jeez. I don't know. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About, actually, some stuff about action figures that you May Already know and some stuff that may delight you. That's a working title. Yeah, but we're talking about action figures. That's the point of what I think that exercise just was. Yeah, I was going to say Everything You Wanted to Know, but I'm sure there are entire podcasts on action figures. For sure, yeah. And if you have a podcast on action figures right in, let us know. We'll tweet it out for the people whose boat is loaded. This one definitely follows in the vein of the Barbie episode, which I have to say is one of my perennial favorites. I love the Barbie episode. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Barbie actually makes an appearance in this one. Do you like to play with dolls? I like to play with action figures. I play with Barbies. I had older sisters, so I played with Barbies whether I wanted to or not, so I made the most of it. I don't remember my sister having Barbies, but surely she did, right? Yeah, she was a girl in America from the 60s on. Yes, she had a barbie. Oh, no. My sister grew up in the Soviet Union. Well, there you go. She had a Martina. There probably was a Martina. But, I mean, that was a pretty good episode. And this one is kind of similar. It's got it all. And like I said, Barbie kind of pops up in the beginning. She actually inspired action figures, like, basically directly. When mattel, I think it was Ruth Handler who invented the Barbie doll. Right? Yes. And when she and Mattel released it, it was just a huge, enormous hit. And one of the big reasons Barbie was, number one, such a hit, and number two, so appealing to toy companies was that when you bought a Barbie, your buying experience wasn't over. There were always, like, more clothes and shoes. My sister had the pool that you could hang out with, and it had, like, a shower that actually worked. There's just a ton of extra stuff to buy. And so when you bought a Barbie, you wanted all the other stuff, too. And toy companies wanted to figure out how to do that with boys toys, but they just couldn't quite figure it out because no one had ever come up with a doll for boys. And that's kind of what it required. It was coming up with a doll for boys and knowing to crack that nut. But Barbie made the whole thing all the more appealing, I guess. Yeah. Finally, this dude named Stan Weston who actually knew Miss Handler, and he was in the toy racket. And I guess I shouldn't call it a racket. It's a bit of a racket. It's a bit of a racket. So he said, like you were talking about, there's tons of money to be made here. He was a military history buff, and so he had this the light bulb went off over his head, and he says, what if we could come up with a soldier doll or perhaps even a series of soldier dolls and maybe not call them dolls? Actually, he didn't come up with the name, to be fair. His boss at Hasbro, VP, don Levine or Levine in 1963, he was pitched this idea, and he went nuts over it. And he's the one that said, maybe we should call them action figures. Right, yeah. Stan Weston approached Don Levine at the toy fair and said, I got a great idea. And apparently he gave him $100,000 just for the idea. And then since he worked with Hasbro, he's like, Guys, I've got a good idea here. So that roughly translates into about $782,000 in today's money. Which is good, though, for an idea. But of course, any time you're the schmuck that comes up with the idea that you sell for even 782 grand and it goes on to be, like, hundreds of millions of dollars business, you probably always kind of feel like I got taken for a ride. Yes, a little bit. I'm sure Stan Weston was like, I'll have millions of good ideas like these that I can sell for $780,000 a piece. I'm sure he may have. Yeah. I don't know. It was certainly not one like GI. Joe. Right. Well, that's what we've been talking about. We talked about GI. Joe a lot on the show, so it feels appropriate that we sort of go down that rabbit hole if we're going to be talking about action figures. Well, yeah, because GI. Joe was the one that started, literally started the action figure craze. Every action figure that's out there from like Action Jesus to the Marvel superhero action figures, every action figure came from GI. Joe. And if you want to get feminist about it, every action figure, including GI. Joe ultimately came from Barbie. That's a good way to look at it. All right, here's the deal that I never knew. GI. Joe debuted in Before Christmas. It's almost as if they had planned that. I knew all this stuff. The original was twelve inches and had 21 moving parts. And the thing I did not know was that GI. Joe was the collective name of all four of these Armed Forces dolls. You didn't know that? I thought the guy was Joe. No, for my era, the main guy was Duke. And for your era, the main guy was Rocky. Well, it depends on which one you had. Okay, so there was Rocky, the army and the Marines. Skip was the Navy guy, and Ace was the Air Force guy, the fighter pilot. Right. So they ran out of names after name three circle back to Rocky, they ran out of names, and they all were identical except for their clothing. Yeah, as far as I know. Right. Wasn't their head different, or was it the same face for each one? It was literally just their clothes were different. I don't know. I'm going for my own memory, which is that they were all the same dude and they were all Franco Harris. Well, no. Well, they came up with an African American one at one point in the late sixty S, I think. Yeah, they changed with the times, but to my recollection, those original dudes and maybe I got in on the second wave. Maybe the original sixty s ones were different, but I only knew Franco Harris. I got you. So maybe I just had Rocky. Maybe. So, Rocky or Rocky? Which one? Yeah, I had Rocky. Not Rocky. So they come out with this toy, and it's the first one of the big differences with GI. Joe because there were toy soldiers before, but did you ever have those, like, little plastic ones, a little plastic green men? We dump them out of the bucket, and one had a bazooka, and he was always the best one, but they were on like, little molded plastic stands, and you couldn't do anything with them except slide them around or whatever. Those have been around forever. Well, you could do a lot more with them if you had imagination and a lighter and a can of hairspray. Actually was delighted. It was Toy Story, right, where they had those guys come to life. Right. That was really cool to me when I saw that on screen, because like you said, you could never move them. I see those little dudes actually come to life. Was pretty awesome. You were like, yeah, I've been dreaming of this day. I got it was thank you. DreamWorks. Oh, that's where they got the name. Was it DreamWorks or was that pixar? Pixar, right. I got it wrong. That's right, it's Pixar. We're still going to get emails anyway, even though we just corrected. They're all working dreams. They are. So I read this great article called what was it called now? You know the history of GI. Joe and knowing it is half the battle. From Smithsoniancom written by Jimmy Stamp. Was that his name? The Stamper? The stampster. So I didn't realize this, but you can't copyright a figure, like a human figure. So that was sort of an issue when people started to do knockoffs of GI. Joe, but apparently early on in the process, GI. Joe was well known for that scar on his face. And I didn't even know this. He had an inverted thumbnail. And both of these were because of errors in production. But those flaws were what allowed them to go after people for copyright infringement. That's right. That's crazy. Yeah, it is. I guess they were natural. Like, they didn't plan them or anything like that, but they just were happy accidents, I guess. Yeah. And actually elsewhere. Chuck that GI. Joe was so successful, as we'll see, that by the 70s, there were so many knock offs that Hasbro released its own line of knockoffs of cheaply made GI. Joe to compete with the knock offs and dilute their market share. Yeah, it was called Defenders, and they were just these really cheaply made versions of the big GI. Joe's. Well, it was a huge hit, though. It says here that they accounted for almost 66% of Hasbro's profits in 1964. That's insane. That is nuts. And that was the year it came out, right? Yeah, like right out of the gate. It was a really big deal. And again, one of the reasons why is because you had toy soldiers before, but this guy could move. You had to think like 28 or 29 moving parts or different parts, and he was articulated so he could lift up his hand and karate chop you. Although he didn't get the kung fu grip until the mid 70s. Yeah, that's where I came in. Okay, so he had Kung fu grip when you knew GI. Joe. Yeah, very much. Got you. It was so kung fu. Right. But he still looked like Franco Harris. But he still looks like Franco Harris. Yes. And then the other big innovation was not an innovation at all. It was following the Barbie model, but for boys, it was this doll, which no one called the doll. In fact, I believe Hasbro wouldn't do business with you if you were going to call it a doll as a retailer. They would just be like, well, you don't get any GI. Joe. This is an action figure. That's right. But on the package itself, and I don't know if you remember this or not. I don't, because I wasn't born yet. But there were pictures of the other dudes and the other outfits you could get. So when you bought one GI. Joe, you as a kid were made immediately aware there are other GI. Joe out there and I want to collect them all. Some little kid came up with that collect them all phrased just in his little brain. Yeah, some little kid named middle aged marketing executive Don Levine. So not only that, but like Barbie, they had all manner of other things that you could collect and buy. I had the jet pack, which you would attach to a string to simulate jet packing and send flying, like, between two trees. Got you. And then I had the submarine. It was like a seawolf. It was really cool. How big was the submarine? If you're playing with twelve inch GI. Joe to take up the size of the family room, well, this is not going to mean anything to anyone at home, but it's about the size of this lamp on our desk. So it's like a one man sub. Yeah, I can't remember exactly. I feel like it was about the size of a little smaller than a bowling ball. How's that? Like a child's bowling ball. Yeah, because he had to sit in it. You're right. And he was a big dude. Even though you were in a seated position, he was smaller. And then I had the six wheel or eight wheel, I can't remember. All terrain vehicle. Well, that's nice. And that's about all we could afford. But that was probably quite an outlay from your parents. No, it was great. And that was over time. Right. Several Christmases, right? Yeah. And this was like I said, I came in on the 70s, but in the 60s, GI. Joe did not do very well because of the Vietnam War. And I think it actually went away from production for a while. Yeah, it did. They just basically retired them. I think the Vietnam War hurt sales, so they took them out a little bit and then they re released them again and kind of rebranded them, I think, too. Rather than a soldier, they rebranded them as an adventurer. Right. Yeah, totally. This machete is not for cutting off the hands of sherpa who leads us into danger. It's for cutting through vegetation on a jungle adventure to save sherpas who are, for some reason live in the jungle now. Yeah. And like you said, they call them adventurer, or the naval officer was called an Aquanaut. And I very much remember that being the deal. Like, I didn't think of him as a soldier. I thought of him as well, I thought his name was Joe because it was a dumb little kid. But I guess Rocky the GI. Joe adventure guy. Right. Franco Harris. Right. And GI. Joe actually was taken from a 1945 movie called the story of GI. Joe. That's where that came from. Did you ever see that? No. Have you? No. Okay. I was just curious. So, Chuck, GI. Joe, he starts to do kind of poorly because of Vietnam. They take them out, they re release him, and he doesn't do very well when they bring him back out, even though he's an adventurer, right? So GI. Joe left they stopped making GI. Joe for a while, and it left this big vacuum that was just waiting to be filled. And it was filled by a little company named Migo. And we'll talk about Migo after this break. How about that? Sounds good. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You aren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. 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Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock.com stuff. That's LifeLock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. Alright. Is it Migo or Mega? I've been saying Mego in my head just because I'm a dumb American. Well, I think Mego is probably how they say it in the UK. Was that where it came from? No, they're American. I say Migo. To be honest, I have no idea. I'm sure there is a right way that Tommy Migo would love to tell you about. Or Tommy Mego, but yeah, I've said Migo in my head, but I don't know which one is correct, to tell you the truth. All right, we'll just proceed thusly. I'll say Mego, you say migo. Let's just call the whole thing off. So go ahead with me. Go. So GI. Joe is gone. But again, you said it accounted for 66% of Hasbro sales just in the first year. And he was a hit year after year after year for many years. Right? And even when they brought them back sales were terrible compared to the initial stuff, but they were still making money off of them. Right, so the world's first action figure made a huge impact. And when the world's first action figure wasn't around anymore, well, there was a void that was to be filled. And this company called mego decided in, I think that a pretty good place to start, would be releasing a line of action figures. That were based on superheroes. And they released a line of superheroes called the world's greatest superheroes action figures, in, I think. And it was a pretty big hit, like, right off the bat. Yeah. And what they did was they were super smart and kind of had a lot of vision and said, I think where it's at is not necessarily creating characters from whole cloth that kids don't know of, but licensing very famous characters and selling them. So they got a hold of licenses for spiderman and the hulk and batman and wonder woman and iron man and captain america. Yeah, if you'll notice it's DC and marvel characters in the same line, like, that's unheard of today. They did not discriminate back then. They did it's a wonderful time. And not only that, but they said, we're making money hand over fist selling these action figures. Do you think kids would actually buy villains like the joker? And do you think they would buy side characters like robin and batgirl and other villains like the riddler and things like the batmobile and the bat cave play set? And before you knew it, they were pumping out things like bruce wayne's foundation building. I know. That was a real thing. Or what was the other weird one? The store. Oh, they had an exclusive with the montgomery ward store. So it wasn't a store, but at montgomery ward only. Oh, you could buy the non superhero versions of superheroes, like peter parker and bruce wayne, which is like, all right, you sit there in your cubicle, and that's what you do while the rest of us are saving the world. That's what you do with that action figure. All right, that makes much more sense. I thought they had a montgomery ward play set. That's what I thought at first, too. Bruce wayne worked there or something. Of course, he didn't even work. I don't know what I'm thinking. No, he just gave orders. They were making tons and tons of money. In 1973, they moved into movies with their planet of the apes line, which was some plastic primates, and then the astronaut that was taller, and that was a huge hit. Yeah. And the other thing about migo, too, was that all action figures have been like twelve inches tall up to that point, and migo's line was eight inches. So action figures are starting to shrink a little bit now. That's right. And the one I actually had, even though I have no idea why, I had the star trek enterprise bridge oh, yeah. And then I guess I know I had Spock and Kirk and a couple of others, but I'm well known to not have ever seen any Star Trek at all except for maybe one movie or something. So I have no idea why I got that if it was a cool action figure. Like, I had a weird wizard action figure when I was a kid. But you're into weird wizards. You still are what I am now as a grown up, I wasn't as a kid. I was like, what is this thing? Got you some weird wizard. Well, I don't know why I had it, but the Star Trek, their collection, that was another big hit. So they were just they literally kind of I mean, G. I. Joe and Barbie, of course, kind of spawned this thing, but it seems like Mega really took it to another level. Yes, action figures were cool, and GI. Joe had really started something. But Migo, yeah, they established it forever, permanently. And they also showed other companies, too, like, hey, man, go get yourself a license and stick to it. Like, get creative. Like with the Star Trek license that they had. Clearly, the toy designers had actually watched Star Trek episodes because one of the playsets was from one of the sets from an episode of Star Trek, the Apple episode. You don't necessarily see that. You didn't see that before with action figures. It was more like, hey, you know this guy. Just buy them. This is like, you're into Star Trek and so are we. And here is some awesome play sets based on your love of Star Trek. So Migo definitely broke the mold in that sense as well. But they also they were it for action figures. Nobody could compete with Migo. They would buy stuff from Japan and then turn them into new stuff here. There was just no competing with Migo in the US. Even though a lot of people were. But they also dropped the ball in the most spectacular fashion anyone could ever drop the ball in the action figure world. Yeah, it's almost an elegant end of the story because it literally makes you cringe when you read it. And there's two different versions, but both of them are like, oh, man. Yeah, I think there's really only one version. I literally could not find a single source other than this one guy's blog who claimed the other version. But what we're talking about and if you know action figures, you probably see this coming. They declined the Star Wars brand and allowed Kenner to pick it up. Yes. So how, though? Which story is true? Well, the story that I think is true is that they didn't want to invest, and they said that we're not going to throw our money at every little thing that comes along. It will be a little more discerning. Yeah, that one hurts. That hurts more than the other store. The other version was that the people who could sign the contracts were out of town when George Lucas came by to offer them the franchise. And now that I'm saying it out loud, yes, that's a ridiculously dumb story. Them actually turning down the Star Wars line is even better. It's even sweeter. Like, man, what were you guys thinking? But I mean, there's lots of stories like that. Somebody lacking foresight. Yeah. The other story is completed by supposedly they weren't there. So Lucas went to Kenner, who was in the same building in New York, and I guess the people that could sign their name were there. Right. But I can't find that anywhere else except for this one blog where this guy says it's true. But I would love to hear from someone if they have inside Verifiable knowledge of that. Oh, for sure. George Lucas just let us know. And I mean verifiable. Not what I heard. I read the same blog. Exactly. I knew your nerd voice is going to come up in this episode. Well, sure, of course. So if you have a love of migo or you just want to know what we're talking about, also go check out the Migo Museum online. M-E-G-O museum. And it's just basically like this wonderful online museum dedicated to everything that migo ever put out. It's pretty cool. I wasn't even around when these things came out, and yet they still somehow make me nostalgic. Exactly. All right, so let's jump back a little bit to 1966, and we're going to explain how they went from eight inches even though they were still making the eight inches after 66, how they eventually got down to the three and three quarters inch GI. Joe was licensing their stuff out to other countries all over the place. There was a UK company who released it under the name Action Man, and eventually they licensed it to Japan to a company called Takara. They went on to create some action figures based on GI. Joe, and then due to the oil crisis in the early 70s, they started developing smaller versions. So at three and three quarters inches, they developed microman. Released him in 1974, and that kind of led to this new thing, which was smaller. Dudes and kids didn't care. No, not only did we not care, so now we're starting to enter my wheelhouse. Not only do we not care, these smaller ones are vastly superior to the older ones. Oh, you think? Yeah. So we have a lot of stuff, but I would say this is the one thing that divides us more frequently than anything else is whether the original big GI. Joe or the second wave small GI. Joe are better. All right, let me ask you, sir, have you ever held in your hands and played with a twelve inch GI. Joe with a kung fu grip? I would not touch one. So you can't even say that. Have you played with the small one? Yeah, man, I had tons of small action figures. Okay. All right. Did you have the Star Wars stuff? Oh, yeah. So you think the big one is superior? Yeah, it's twelve inches. It articulates 19 different ways. I like the small ones. I always will. Even after playing with the big one, which I have not and never will. I just know that the small one is vastly superior. I don't know if it's because I am nostalgic for the small ones and the old ones seem weird and dusty and moldy or something like that, but the small ones seem better to me. All right. At the very least, you have to admit the wave of GI. Joe that were released when I started playing with them, just the line itself was better, regardless of the size of them. Right. Well, let's go ahead and talk about because GI. Joe changed a lot once it became a cartoon, and we're going to talk about some really cool political stuff that had no idea went into this. But GI. Joe became a cartoon series. This is in the early 80s, so this is when I had kind of quit playing with action figures, for the most part. Okay. Because 83, 84, I was, like, 13, and I was moving on to check out this mustache. Yeah, I was skateboarding by that point, and I thought it was, like, super cool skateboarder. Yeah. Maybe I still played a little bit. Only your neighborhood best friend knew about it. Your school friends did. Exactly. So GI. Joe was a cartoon then for the first time. Basically, it became a commando team, an anti terrorist commando team that had all kinds of characters, and they had finally had a common enemy, which was, of course, Cobra yes. Led by Cobra Commander. And this was your right in your wheelhouse, correct? Yeah. So in 1983, I was, like, seven. So, yeah, I was really just primed and ready. Let's go, Joe. And plus, also the other thing, too, that I had that you didn't have was the cartoon that not only blew up the backstory because this new wave of GI. Joe, when they released it, each character now had its own name. And it wasn't Rocky or Rocky. It was things like Duke or shipwreck or blowtorch or barbecue or dusty. And then the bad guys had their own names, too, like Cobra Command or Pentor. Tomax or Zamat, the whole gang. Right. Tojis who was that? Tomax and Zamot. They were evil twins who were if Cobra Commander had hired Patrick Bateman and then cloned him a mere version of them, it would be Tomax and Zamot. Interesting. None of this stuff, right? Okay. So I do, because I grew up with it, but I also had it pounded into my head every day after school watching the GI. Joe cartoon. And that was the huge innovation that really just created this other world for. Kids like me to just lose yourself in with the action figures, because now you didn't even need to use your imagination. You could just be like, oh, I saw this on the GI. Joe cartoon today, so let's act that out. Right? And none of this would have ever happened had it not been for Ronald Reagan. That's right. And that sounds weird, but here's the story. So in the late 70s, there was a lot of concern about kids and advertising, about advertising two children. So the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, got a task force together and they said, should we ban or regulate this marketing to children? They put together 6000 pages of testimony from 60 the oral testimony, 60,000 pages of expert testimony from all these experts on child psychology and health and nutrition because it had to do with food and sugary candies and stuff like that too. And the conclusion across the board was that young children cannot, they are cognitively unable to understand the intent of selling ads. They can't distinguish that from reality. Right? Like, if you dress up a cartoon as an ad, the kid, he just thinks it's a cartoon she does. Exactly. Or if the ad is a cartoon right. Rather than the kid doesn't know. They just think, I'm still watching cartoons on my TV. My brain hasn't made that switch. But man, could I go for some Smurf cereal? Exactly. So it was a big deal at the time. So there were all these recommendations basically on how to regulate and restrict advertising that they basically said it was unfair and deceptive to kids. For older kids, they said they can tell the difference, but maybe we should have warnings on the ads and disclosures saying that this is a commercial message. Right. What happens when you do this in America? The private sector said, no, I want to be able to sell as much sugary garbage to kids as I want. You can't restrict free trade, free trade in business. And so we're going to raise a record at the time, $16 million to lobby against this. And they were helped out in no small part by getting the right guy into the White House. Right. So in 1981, of the first things Ronald Reagan did was he appointed a new chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. And this was a move that basically said, you know what? There's going to be no regulation whatsoever. You got to leave these markets free. You can do whatever you want. And that is basically how all of these cartoons were born, right? GI. Joe, Transformers, Smurfares, Care Bears, Rainbow, Bright Shortcuts, yeah, you name it, it basically became marketing and selling things in cartoons became one and the same. Finally. Yeah. And one of the other things that definitely helped GI. Joe too. Was the I don't know if it was formal or informal. But there was basically a ban on warlike cartoons and warlike toys that was brought back under the same ease of restrictions by the FTC so that I think the percentage of warlike toys that was sold in the early 80s went up like 350% from one year over the other. From like. 1983 to 84. I think. Whereas before it was like, no GI. Joe is an adventurer. I remember it's like no. GI. Joe is going to cut Cobra's head right off. So that's one of the first big things Reagan did when he got into office. FlashForward to 1988. In November 1 of the last things he did was he vetoed a new measure. Because basically they saw what was happening. All of a sudden, kids were being bombarded with war cartoons and just terrible sugary packaged food all over the place. The restrictions were nowhere to be found. Right. So Congress came back and said, you know what? This is out of hand. Here's a measure that will restrict once again and impose some legislation on this programming aimed at children. It passed the House by 328 to 78. It passed unanimously in the Senate, and Reagan vetoed it. Basically, one of the things they were trying to do, they were trying to limit programming to advertising to 10.5 minutes an hour on the weekends and twelve minutes an hour on the weekdays, and also require broadcasters to provide educational and informational programs as a condition of renewing their licenses. So Reagan vetoed that and said, no way. We're not going to do that. We're going to keep it as is. People that were in favor of this went crazy. Basically, they were saying, like, how can you guys say you're the party of the children in education and then veto something that is clearly going to help protect our children? Yeah, it messed up, man. I had no idea about that one. Yes. And not only that, what happened was, along with this deregulation, the toy companies and the cartoons, actually, they kind of got in bed together and they said, you know what, if you schedule as a broadcaster our cartoons that sell toys, we'll give you a profit on those toys. Nice. If you run these GI Joe cartoons, then we'll give you a little cut of what we're selling. Plus, also we'll buy ads on those cartoons or on your network, too, to sell those toys when you show these cartoons, I imagine. Yeah, because I remember watching GI. Joe Real American Hero, the cartoon, which I have to say it was created in large part to sell GI. Joe. True. But it had great story arcs. It had overarching story arcs that went from episode to episode. The individual ones were good. Like, the voice acting was good. The animation was pretty good. Same with Transformers, too. It was pretty good cartoon. So at least they were putting time and effort and thought into this. But, yeah, it's pretty despicable marketing to kids in general. Actually, I read a blog. I'm certainly glad you were a satisfied viewer. Yeah, but I read this blog that basically said that, man, I wish I could find it. Maybe I'll post this when we release it. That the deregulation killed the creativity in children's cartoons? Well, yeah, and that they said that before you know it, they were just like things were knock off of one another. They didn't care about, I guess. I mean, you were a kid, so maybe you didn't realize it. I was too stupid to know what was going on. They said that you can see a clear, demarcation line between really good storytelling and then storytelling that was clearly just geared to sell things. I guess I'm trying to compare, like, what cartoons were in the they were great. They weren't high art, though. Again, I'll go back to that hair bear bunch. Well, they loved the hair bears. They were drug fueled. Yeah, that was a big one. But their plots were pretty simple. It was the same plot that you would see on a Yogi Bear cartoon or, like, a Huckleberry Hound cartoon. Scooby Doo was interesting, and it was pretty cool, but it was basically the same storyline every single time with Scuba Doug. And I'm not trying to argue in favor of corporate America marketing to kids and ruining creativity, but there weren't any overarching storylines aside from Scooby being crazy for Scooby Snacks and Scooby Doo. And there definitely was in G. I. Joe, like, when they went around the world and took the DNA of all of these great dictators and conquerors like Alexander the Great and Napoleon and put them all together and created Sir Pentur, who is actually the new guy who is in charge of Cobra because Cobra Commander was a bit of a coward. Did you not know any of this? How do you not know this stuff? I was trying to kiss girls in the roller skating rink at this point, and you thought girls were gross still. It's true. But it definitely helped shape me, and I am nostalgic for it in that sense, and I am appreciative. But, Chuck, I propose that sooner than later we do an episode on marketing to kids because this whole deregulation story is just fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I didn't really know anything about it because I was still a dumb kid when this is going on. Let's do it, though. Okay? Agreed. So that was GI. Joe shaped my childhood, you know what I say? But prior to GI. Joe, the first three and three quarter inch action figure in the US. As far as I know was the star wars line. And the star wars line. Again, when Migo passed it up, they quickly realized that we really screwed up. They released, like, a Buck Rogers line and a black hole line. Do you remember that movie? The Black Hole? I do. From Disney. It's really creepy even still. So they tried to catch up, and they ended up going bankrupt in 1983, basically as a result of losing this star wars line. Sad Kenner picked it up, picked up the star wars line instead, and they released them. And right out of the gate in 1978, which I believe was the first year that they released these things, it's three and three quarter inch star wars line of action figures. They made $100 million each year from selling those, they sold about 40 million units a year. And from 1978 to 1985, which I think was the whole run of the Star wars lines, the original run with Kenner. Kenner sold 300 million units. So if they're selling 40 million a year and making 100 million each year from that, they sold 300 million total. So Kenner made some serious bank off of Star Wars. Yeah, off of me and my lawn mowing fund. Yeah, for sure. I feel like I had at least doubles of most of the major characters. Many of the minor characters. The Tie fighter, the X wing, the death star. Oh, you lucky. The landspeeder. I also had the big dolls. I don't know if they were twelve inch, but what is it with you and big doll? They're huggable. Yeah. I had the big Luke and the big I think the big Luke and the big Vader and maybe like one other, maybe Chewbacca, but not all of them. And basically whatever I could either get for my birthday or Christmas or save my allowance to buy right. I would get. And I was all in. I didn't know that these were collectible, of course. I ripped right into them to play with them like normal children do. I didn't put it in a box on a shelf to try and keep it in mint condition. But that's weird to do though, as a kid. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe there were kids doing it. I didn't know any. We all played with them. Sure. I mean, that was originally the point. I think it wasn't until much later that it became evident that you could sell them to people who wish they had them in the package still for a lot of money. Yeah. And should we close later on with some of the more valuable ones? Yes, for sure. So that's a tease. Okay, everybody take a break. Yeah, we should. Was that it? About Star Wars. You think? I don't have anything else. Really? I mean, there's a gazillion other things we could talk about, I guess, but what more do you need to know besides that they were huge hits? That's it. All right, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back and talk a little bit about how these things are actually made. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalancho demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lined jackets? 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And now you can find pretty much any kind of action figure you want, from politicians to older movies and TV shows and things you wouldn't even imagine. People would like, welcome back, cotter action figures. Yeah, and I didn't realize this, but apparently companies intentionally will release like a very limited run of some where they're missing their thumb or like it's mislabeled on the package to make these things, to make them valuable for the aftermarket. The collector's market, which seems really untoward to me, like gaming the collector's market by manufacturers, that's just the opposite of what you're supposed to do. Is that verified? That sounds urban legendary to me. Well, it was in one of the articles you sent, and I took it. The person who wrote the article sounded like they knew what they're talking about. Really? But was it the same article from the guy who said that I don't know, that Kenner couldn't sign the contract because the right people weren't there? I don't know. Because the first thing I think of, if they're doing that, then what's to keep them from artificially manufacturing something that's going to be valuable and just keeping a bunch of them themselves? Well, most companies like money now rather than a little more money later. So that would probably do it. That's true. All right. So you want to talk about how these suckers are made. Yeah. Again, you found some good stuff here when you put this together. Yeah. I thought, this is pretty interesting. It starts with design, right? Right. Which means pretty sensible. You say, Give us a Thor character, you sucker. And they're talking to an artist, a sculptor when they say that. So the sculptor gets to work, like, creating basically a skeleton. It's called armature out of wire. And the wires in basically a position Thor likes to run holding his hammer. So he'll be kind of like in a crouched running pose. And then they slap some clay around it, maybe bake it a little bit to make it stiff. And then they mold very roughly the general body shape and head shape of Thor. And then they kind of start to get to work from there. Yeah. Rough Thorness right. Is what they look for early on. And it depends on the action figure. There are all different kinds that have varying levels of movement, and depending on what you're going to end up with, is really going to inform the process. But let's say you're Thor and you want to move your arms, move those big pipes a little bit. They may choose to sculpt the arms separately or maybe the leg separately. They almost always do the head separately because it's got all these fine detail, and you just want to work on that by itself. Right. When you're messing with the head, your wrist is like going into the chest that you just finished. And why do I always do this? Not to start over, pretty much. So they're working with this torso, perhaps only put him aside. Work on the arms, work on the hands, work on the head. And eventually, once you've got this head and face like you want it, you're going to attach that back on, build a neck and build some hair. And if it's one that's completely plastic, you're going to do the clothes and everything in the suit. Sometimes you have real cloth, though, like in a cape. You're not going to carve that out, obviously. No, they'll add that later. And sometimes an actual figure will come with, like, a breastplate or boots or Thor's hammer. Maybe they gave Thor kung fu grip, so you'll have to mold that also separately. But then sometimes, and you'll know this already, probably as the designer, they're going to be like, no, we don't want any of that weird cloth. It's like a big GI. Joe. And that just weird people out. We want it plastic and molded. So they'll basically carve the clothing out of the original sculpture as well. Yeah. And this all takes about two weeks. Of course, it depends on who you're working with, but two or three weeks to carve this dude out to its kind of raw form. Yeah, I'm always incredulous and stuff like that. Who does it take? Two weeks? Is that really an average, like, how many action figure sculptors did you pull to find out that it was two weeks? They probably just talked to someone at the company, and they say, how long does it take? And they said, about two weeks. Yeah, that's good enough for me, then. All right. As long as they spoke to somebody. All right, so now you've got your little dude, and you're going to use a plastic resin when it comes to the actual materials of the thing itself. There's something called absrylino. I thought I got it. You want me to try it? Sure. I think it's acrylainitrile, butydiain styrene. ABS. Nice work. Three types of plastic and one that's right. So that's the harder plastic for the main body. They may use something like polypropylene or polyethylene for the various parts or pieces. You got your fabrics if you have capes and things like that. So weird. Well, no, I mean, even the little small figures had, like the jaws had capes. Not capes, but cloaks. I know, I remember. Weirded me out too. And I think finally I understand what it is that I don't like about the large GI. Joe. They had fabric clothing, and it was ill fitting clothing too. I don't know if you had it or not, but the original GI. Joe, some of them came with a raincoat, but it didn't look like a raincoat. It looked like he was wearing a sleeping bag that had a drawstring around his face. You sure it wasn't a sleeping bag? I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be a raincoat, but I think that's what it was. This is creepy. Yeah, that was all, I guess. It's not actually the size. It's the creepy factor brought on by this clothing that didn't fit quite right. It's the kind of clothing that you would make for a son who was a serial killer, but you didn't want to turn them in, so you just keep them locked in the basement. And you got to make his own clothing. You have to make clothing for him. This is the kind of clothing you would make him. That's, I think, what creeps me out about it. Well, you're working through some stuff, so I'll check in with you at the end. We'll see exactly what it is you hate about the mold. All right, cool. So the manufacturing process, you got to create the mold. Next you want to master mold, or maybe it might be more than one mold. And this requires the most time. They send this article, about two thirds of the whole time is spent making these molds. Yeah, which makes sense. And it takes a few months. Again, is that arbitrary? Who knows? Yeah, this guy's, like, probably just takes a couple. And then once you have the mold and you also have to make a decision when you're making the molds, do you want to make the torso and the legs together? Is he going to move his arms? If so, you probably want to do two different molds for the arms. So there's a pretty decent amount of decision making work that goes into just coming up with what molds you're going to make. And then once you make the molds, then yes, you have to make the molds. You have to operate them, and then you have to decide what kind of what's the word I'm looking for? Where you actually make the plastic figure molding, which I should have been able to come up with because we were talking about molds at the time. That's right. So there's different kinds. I looked up one kind called rotational molding. Yeah, I guess that's what Star Wars was going to try at first, but they lost too much detail on the figure, so they went to, I think, an injection molding process. But with rotational molding, you've got a mold, and it's on this computerized arm, and this arm just kind of spins around inside an oven, and inside the arm is like powdered plastic resin, and I guess it just melts it by kind of slowly spinning it around. I don't understand what the problem is, but I guess injection molding is far superior. Yes, I guess so. I mean, the deal with injection molding, they pump it into two pieces, and then they apply pressure to those two pieces to mold them together while it cools and hardens. But I think what you get there is which is why probably they wanted to use the rotational molding, is if you have those little Star Wars guys, or imagine GI. Joe. If they're injection molds, if you look at their body from the side, it's into pieces, and sometimes you can see a little seam on their head or on their arm or something, or probably on their arm because those were separate. But yeah, sometimes you could see the seam or where the two halves were pressed together. They wanted that smooth look for the rotational molding that that provides. But I guess the detail is the trade off. So that's the rotational molding, you don't have seams, but you lose fine detail. With injection mowing, you can get the detail, but you can see the seams of where the two sides of the mold came together. I guess. But, man, I mean, how bad could that detail have been? Because when you look at those early Star Wars figures, the detail is not great. Had I been Mark Hamill being like, this is what you think my face looks like? Yeah, I mean, it's gotten way better. Like, the stuff they're making today is amazing, but it's almost too good. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's some amazing stuff out there, but that was one of the great things about these, especially the three and three quarter inch guys. They were meant to be played with. They were meant to have imagination bestowed on them and little child's hands not supposed to sit on your desk at work or something like that. Just as adornment. Like they were meant to be played with. And they were subtly downgraded from the stuff that's out today. It was downgraded to an upgrade. Yeah. Like John Hodgman is literally screaming right now into his earbuds because we're nostalgic about something that was sorry, John. Decidedly crappier. Sorry. But it's true, though. For me, I think that they were great. Have I told you how I feel about the three and three quarter inch GI. Joe? No. We should talk about that some more. All right, so you've got this mold. Now press together. If it's injection, then you have to assemble it. If you have the arm separately, perhaps, or basically anything else that doesn't come on that original mold, you're going to have to assemble it together, put all the little finishing details, maybe the clothing that you hate so much, maybe they're painted with a little more detail that you hate so much, and all the things that make a better action figure that you hate so much. It's not that I hate it. I don't know. I'm not quite sure how to put it. Yes. I don't hate it. I just really don't like it. The final key to this whole thing is packaging and shipping. So you think, big deal. What's the big deal with the package? But a lot of thought goes into the packaging. Like you were talking about earlier with the GI. Joe actually advertising the other dudes on the package. Right, but that classic cardboard backed, clear plastic casing. Yes. The shell that was sort of became the standard. And what everyone came to think of is an action figure package. Yeah. And, man, that was another thing that, with the wave of GI. Joe that I played with, really put a lot of time and effort and thought into the packaging. And that was definitely part of it that really helped sell the action figures in a lot of ways. Yes. Even though I could go right into it. Like I said, I disregarded the package. Well with the later GI. Joe, there was a card on the back that had their code name, the specialty, their backstory, and you clip them out and collect those as well. It was definitely part of it. I collected the Star Wars trading cards, too. It's funny, I went back and got all my old cards not too long ago, and I didn't collect a ton of cards. I thought, like, maybe there'll be some Ken Griffy rookie card in here with five grand. Foolishly, I thought I had something of value, which I did not. But I went through and I had some weird cards that I don't even remember collecting. Like I had welcome back Cotter cards. No. Oh, yeah, that's twice. That welcome back. Cotter made an appearance in this episode. I was not expecting either one. I like the show a lot, but I don't remember buying these cards. I had jaws, the movie cards. I had lots of star wars cards. Some weird like, I had football cards. I didn't even collect football cards. I didn't think. Yeah, I did the same thing you did. I got all the boxes of baseball cards from my dad's house, and I was like, where did I get all these football cards? Who even collects football cards? Untoward. It's weird. But the cool thing about the 70s cards is just the look when you could like, you had to back the camera off so you could fit the afro into the card. And all these great haircuts and hairdoes that all the guys had back then. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Why is he holding that fist? Aloft and then Chuck, after the packaging, it goes to the stores and little kids like us buy it and love it. That's right. That's the end of the manufacturing process. Wow, what a journey. Yeah, that was something. We went all the way to China and back. He did. I don't think we pointed that out. A lot of times the molding process is in Asia, so that's one reason it takes so long. Right. Because they put them on slow boats. That's right. So you kind of tease us. Earlier, you found a list of the rare star wars figures. Yeah. And I looked at other lists, and they listed different figures. So I don't know if that's something that changes a lot as far as which ones are the most valuable, because I literally saw at least two different ones that were described as the holy grail for star wars figures. Yeah. So there can't be more than one holy grail. Nobody knows that. I do look forward to hearing from those in the know, but instead of saying these are the most valuable, let's just say we'll talk about some that are pretty rare and fairly valuable. I think that was pretty smart. So no one holds our feet to the flame. Right. Yak face. I had not heard of yak face. Had you? No. So yak face is one of Boba Fett's. Either guards or mercenaries, but he worked for Boba fett. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Star wars people. Stop. Stop. He works for job of the hut. He's not the same person. You just cause three car accidents, three Toyota priuses. Right. Liberty mutual is going to be like this. Josh Clark, we got to work. Yes. He was part of the power of the force line. He was canceled. And you'll find that here's a common thread here is rarity is what makes something valuable, and something can be a garbage figure, and they don't make many of them, and then it becomes valuable. Right. And I think he wasn't necessarily a garbage figure. He was just released at a. Time when, like, Star Wars figures, sales in general were waning, so they sent him over to Europe. And this thing says that he was never released in the States. I saw that he was, but it was in for a very brief time in a very limited run. And then they sent them to Europe, I think, in 1985 got you, where Return of the Jedi had just come out. So they were crazy for anything that had anything to do with returning the Jedi. America was already like, who cares about returning to Jedi? We're into Temple of Doom. Oh, yeah. Which I read an article about that recently. Supposedly, Temple of Doom was so dark because both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were going through breakups at the time that they were writing and making it. So we said, what can we do here? Why don't he pull out his heart and eat it? Right. That's what I feel like, because that's what Tina did. All right. Weekly. So this is another job at the Hutch guards. Are you sure you didn't get those confused? I specifically went and looked up Yeck face, and he works for Job of the Hutt. They even gave Job of the Hutt's full name. And I just remember the job apart. Oh, he had more than that. Yeah, the Hutt. He was a member of the Hut, like the Race of Huts or the Tribe of Hutts. So his job of the hut. Like Chuck the American. Got you. Well, I think I'm on record as being like I'm a big Star Wars fan. Loved them, saw them many, many times. Collected the things, but then it ended. I'm not of the other half that really went down the rabbit hole. We're still into it as much as before. Yeah. And even back then, like, new things like Java the Hutt's full name. Yeah, I never knew that stuff. I never read the books or anything like that. I did have some of those comics, though. I remember that now. I never had the comics. I was aware of the books, and there was a lot of books in there. Yeah. They still write them, too, I think, don't they? Sure, if it's a good thing, sure. Right? Is that good? I think we associate the people who are into the books. All right, so Weak Way is another guard. Apparently, it's not super rare, but there is a limited edition version that is worth more. So the Carted mint condition Power of the Forest line in the 90s is worth a little bit more money. It's $35. That's what it's worth. No, that's what the normal one's worth. Okay. The one that has a special freeze frame slide, which I don't know what that is. Got you. That one's worth ten times that amount, according to this guy. All right. I remember the vinyl capes jawa was always worth a lot of money because they came out with a cloth cape. I know it's creepy, so I'm going to throw that in there just off the top of my head. There was also, I think, of vinyl cape and a cloth caped. Imperial Guard. Remember the Emperor's red cloaked. Guards And I think Return of the Jedi. Maybe Empire Strikes Bank. I don't know. I'm afraid to say anything out loud now. Yeah, I am, too. Let's just press stop. Let's skip that. Next one goes straight to Boba Fett. How does that sound? Okay. Boba Fett. Very famously, in 1979, there was a Boba Fett that actually shot a missile, which, as every parent knows, is a chokable is the parent's worst nightmare. Is that the term, chokable? Something you can choke on? Is that a real parents term? Yeah. That's awesome. I did not know. Yeah. Supposedly anything smaller than the size of a toilet paper roll tube. What is it? chokeable smaller than that? Yeah. So, like, if you can fit something through a toilet paper tube, then your kid can choke on it. Got you. That's what they say. Who said that? I don't know. The Today Show. Dumb parenting blogs. Makes sense, though. Yeah. Can't fit a football through that. Can't choke on a football. That's correct. The system works. You could choke on a tiny football, though. I guess so. All right. The chokable, boba Fett, obviously, they said this is a choking hazard. So they scrapped the plans and redesigned it. And so they did eventually release the figure. But it had that, and I had this one. Not the one that shot the rocket, because they never released that one. Right. I specifically remember being in the same room with one that shot a rocket. Are you sure it wasn't hacked? Here's the other possible explanation. I saw it on an ad, and I'm confusing reality with television again, because it says here they never release them in stores. I saw that, too, but I'm like, I swear I saw one of these things. Or maybe we were just playing with it and we're like, this thing sucks. If it actually shot the missile, it would be so much better. And I imagine what that would be like and then accidentally formed a memory. Who knows? I'm 40 years old now. I can't remember what was going on when I was seven or eight. As far as how valuable these things are, if you can get your hands on one, I've seen things all over the place. One was sold for $18,000 last year. Wow. But then I also saw one where supposedly $100,000 offer at a Sotheby's auction was turned down. What? So I have no idea the value of these dudes, but it's a lot of dough. Is that the Holy Grail one? Well, this is one of the Holy Grails. Do you remember what another Holy Grail you saw was? Yeah. The other one is supposedly the most valuable is the double telescoping lightsaber for obiwan Darth Vader and luke. And I think Luke's is the most expensive. If you remember the little did you have any of these? I had a couple. So the lightsaber guys had a thing on the bottom of their arm, a little groove cut out with a little plastic knob that you would shove up toward the wrist, and a lightsaber would come out of the hand as if it were turning on. Right. The double telescoping, because that's a telescoping feature. The double telescoping means that you could extend it even further out from the original telescope. And those supposedly are super rare and worth a lot of dough. So that one I saw actually online. Oh, man. I can't remember the site, but it's a great Star Wars action figure site, and they had a picture of it. Have you seen it? Yeah, I thought I had one, but I can't find it, so I just think I do. The regular lightsaber that they had was just fine, but then the double telescoping part was just, like, this extra thinner, pointy piece of plastic that hung down at, like, a weird angle. It didn't keep going straight. Yeah, they always kind of bent, and it looked broken. Yeah. But even if I did have one, it's well worn, so it's not like I think all of these things. It's always, like, mint condition in the package. It's worth this. Don't even talk to me if it's not mint. Yes, that's the slogan. So I would love some of this cleared up by experts. Oh, well, we'll hear from them. The Boba Fett matter. Yeah. I don't even know why I'm asking the matter. Which one is truly the holy grail? Happened with the Migo star wars deal. Right. And did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? Yes. We need answers, people. You got anything else? I got nothing else. This is a big overview. There's clearly many more stories to be told. I got a couple more I just want to give shouts out. All right, yojo.com. Okay. If you were into GI. Joe's and you want to feel nostalgic, go check that site out. It's amazing. And then I created a gallery a few years ago called hilarious knockoff Legs of Beloved toys. That was great. And it's just, like, the slideshow of toys from around the world that are it's pretty obvious what they're supposed to be, but they're not. Like, the name is just a little off. They tried to come up with a new brand altogether, but it's just some cheap version of something great. So go check that out too. It's kind of cool. Yeah. It was fun to put together. I bet. And that's it, man. I got go watch the GI. Joe PSAs by Eric. Fenceler again. They still hold up. Oh, yeah. Do you remember those no. Where it was, like, just weird dubs of those GI. Joe PSAs? Like, now you know. Knowing is half the battle. Yeah. You haven't seen these. I don't think so. Okay, I'll send them to you. You're going to die laughing. Good. Yeah. You'll love them. You've been trying to kill me for years. It's a delightful way to do it, but this time, I won't be wearing gloves coming at your neck. That's it for me, man. Yeah, that's it for me. Okay, well, if you want to know more about action figures, you can type those words into the search bar of your favorite search engine. Since I said search engine and didn't do any buzz marketing, it's time for listener mail. We're going to plug Kiva, which we haven't done in a long time. It's a good idea. Kiva is a micro lending website that we've had a team now stuff you should know. Team for jeez, how many years? Six or seven. I think it was 2008 or 2009. Eight years. Seven or eight years. Wow, it's been a while. All right, so this is from Jordan, and then I'm going to go over a little bit more about how our team is looking. Hey, guys. Once I listened to podcasts where you promoted Kiva, I decided to Google the Kiva donation thing and eventually found it correctly. As Kibacom. I immediately loved the site. It's the epitome of how to take the globalized world and use that for good. So often, donations come in the form of awkward late night infomercials or five second quips at the grocery line where you begrudgingly make an enemy out of the 17 year old clerk for saying, no, I don't want to give a dollar to needy children. While all types of donations are generally good, kiva makes you feel it even more personal. And once one can certainly give their money to needs that are important to them, you probably get your money back, which is great, but no way did that motivate me to loan. And I suspect that most people use Kiva would also be happy to have their money go to those in need without getting a return. However, if I do decide to receive my money back, I will certainly use those funds to circulate that Kiva site again. In other words, reload. That's one of the keys. I think I'm feeling preachy now for writing you an email on the basis that I just loaned what amounts to a small amount of cash. But I just want to thank you guys for sharing that site and allowing people like myself to make their lives better. It's from Jordan bachelor who claims to be a US. Defector. You can move from the US. I can't remember where he lives now. Oh, it's being cheeky. I got you. So we started this Cuba team a long time ago, and right now we have over 9000 members, and we are almost at $4 million. Dude, that is insane. $3,993,325 loan. That is 143,155 loans. Average of 16 loans per member. And just to give you an idea of how it works, you donate money, you will most likely get paid back, and then they say, you can check out and take your money back, or you can roll that into another loan for sure. I started off with a couple of $100 way back when, and that now just because I keep reinvesting. It has grown to 1125.47 loans, and my default rate is only 4%. Nice. Yeah. The default rate is not bad at all. It's not bad. You can take $25 even and keep reloading that in a few years, five or six years can be hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Reload to people. Right. Really makes a big difference. We did our research on Kiva. They're not perfect, but we think they do a really good job. Yeah, for sure. And we have a stuff you should know. Team. So we would love to see people sign up for it, push us over that $4 million mark, which is crazy. Yeah. We're not exclusive, we're not snobs, and neither is anybody on our team. It's a very welcoming group of people who are really active on the board. They're led unofficially, but de facto by Glenn and Sonya, who have emerged to be these great team leaders that just keep everybody going and motivated and moderate and make sure everybody's on the up and up. They send us emails and reminders about how we're doing. Hats off to those guys. Thank you guys for that. Yeah. So, Kiva.org, I think it said.com earlier, and just go to the team section Search stuff You Should Know. Join the team, throw $25 somebody's way. You can give to people that are doing things that are close to your heart or maybe countries you've been to that you want to help support. You can give to women or men, and it's just you can really dial down and give very specifically how you want to give. Yeah. And if you want to know even more about it, you can go listen to our episode on micro lending, and we've written a couple of blog posts on it, and I think there's something on Hospital even that they published of ours. But I think why we land on Kiva and it really addresses a lot of stuff that people have raised, and we've said, hey, man, it's still totally worth it. Go check it out. All right. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at Syskpodcast or you can hang out with me at Joshua Clarke. You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charlesw. Chuck Bryant? Or you can visit our official Facebook page@facebook.com, Stuffyteanow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@houseetworks.com. It is always join us at our home on the web stuffyhallow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days that's where True crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistics made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com."
20d7f8f4-121b-11eb-85ed-e74b30a51eba	Short Stuff: The Body in the Cylinder	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-the-body-in-the-cylinder	In 1945, residents of a Liverpool neighborhood found a desiccated body in a long cylinder they’d been using for years using as a bench. It launched a mystery that’s still alive today.	In 1945, residents of a Liverpool neighborhood found a desiccated body in a long cylinder they’d been using for years using as a bench. It launched a mystery that’s still alive today.	Wed, 24 Feb 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=24, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=55, tm_isdst=0)	13613819	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck and Jerry's lurking there on mute, just hanging around being a weirdo, looking all weird. And this is Short Stuff, as I said already, Louis should tell everyone. The other day, it was kind of funny. We were recording, and about five minutes in, jerry somehow unmuted herself and she was in some sort of a conference call. Yeah. We couldn't get a hold of her, and it was just like, Shut up. Yeah. I mean, she wasn't recording, but it was very distracting to us. And that's the important thing. Yeah. I have a thing in my brain where there and this happens a lot when you have a kid like, you'll be listening to music, and then she'll come in with some dumb toy that's playing different music, and it breaks my brain and makes me want to break things. It's not good. I don't know what it is. It's a big trigger. Yeah. Well, I like the anecdote. It was very charming. But now we're not going to be able to get to the end of this episode. All right, let's do it. We've wasted a minute. All right, well, let's start by talking about The Blitz, because that's kind of where the story technically begins. And The Blitz is like the German bombing of England, and Germany really bombed England in general, but most people think of London being bombed the most as the Blitz. That's not entirely true. Well, London was for sure bombed a lot. We don't want to take anything away from what they suffered. But Liverpool, I think, was number two in England, is getting walloped by the Germans. And there's a place in Liverpool where, after the bombing, I think it's near what was then called Great Homer Street, and after the bombing, they kind of left it that way for a little while, because I think everyone was just recuperating from the war. And then in 1943, some American soldiers finally started clearing out this area and found a little something interesting. Yeah, well, at first, they didn't think it was interesting. It was part of the rubble that was cleared out by those American soldiers. But it was a long tube, a cylinder. Let me say this. I found something that would prove to be interesting. Right, exactly. But we are in agreement that at the time, they didn't think it was interesting at all. No metal chamber, sort of. Right. Yeah. It just looked like a tube. I think it was a little under 7ft long, less than 2ft in diameter, and it was just made of steel. It just looked like some big, dumb thing. But apparently it was heavy enough and big enough that rather than being removed with all the other rubble, it just kind of got left in the area and became kind of a fixture in this little part of the neighborhood. So much so that people would, like, sit on it as a bench sometimes, and children would play on it and roll it along and all that stuff. And that's the way it stayed for at least a good two years, between 1943, when they cleared out the rubble, and 1945 when something kind of big happened. Yeah, I think one end was sort of factory sealed and one end was kind of stamped shut by the bulldozers and stuff that we're clearing stuff out. And over time, over those couple of years, that end that was sort of stamped kind of worked its way loose a little bit. Just enough for a little kid that was climbing on it to see a bony skeletal foot. Yeah, a little boy named Tommy Lawless who appropriately found the skeletal foot in the cylinder on a Friday the 13th 45. Yeah. So the little boy who went on to become Ringo Star went and fetched a cop, the local cop, robert Baile or Bailey. It would be Bailey, I guess, but I've never seen it spelled that way. B-A-I-L-L-I-E. Yeah, sure. That's Bailey. Right. And he said, well, this is way above my pay grade, rather famously, and went and got the detectives and they all kind of came together and said, what is going on here? And this mystery was launched. That's right. I think it's too early for a break, but it is a good cliffhanger. I thought so, too. We can do whatever we want. We're god's here. That's right. Let's take an early break since you set it up so well, and we'll come back right after this. All right, great cliffhanger. They find this thing, they find the skeletal foot they need to get inside of it, so they get a welder to open it up and they get some corners and some forensics people in there. And what they end up finding was an entire skeleton of a man, about six foot tall, dude, Victorian dress, and it was a little bit of hair, still less even on the skull. And here's one key that kind of flummoxes me, that I'll kind of harp on a bit later. Yeah, me, too. There was a brick wrapped in burlap as a little pillow, which to me kind of confuses a lot of the ideas they had of what might have happened to this guy. It really does. And it's weird that the brick was there and wrapped in burlap. I don't know if it was the guy who writes Passing Strangeness, which huge shout out. This is actually kind of a somewhat well known mystery. The body and the cylinder is what it's called. But Passing Strangeness did far and away the best job of kind of getting this point across. And that guy describes it as a pillow, so I don't know if it was just him or if that's generally what it's like, but it is very weird that it was there and in that position. Do we have his name, from what I can tell, the guy who wrote that and probably the guy who has the blog Passing Strangeness, which seems to be defunct, which is a shame because it's pretty interesting. His name Paul Dry. At the very least, that's the name of the person who's accepting compliments on the comments under the blog. But you want to hear something truly bizarre, Chuck? Sure. There is a little tag called Trackbacks. One of them is Indonesia blowing up boats in CGI pompeii. Another is Fishing Shop. The third one is SYSK internet roundup. Really? Isn't that cool? Does that mean we covered this before? No, I think this guy is just a fan. I don't think the trackbacks mean anything. I think he's saying, like, go check this out. Maybe. I hope. Let's find out. Well, that's a small world. Yeah. All right. They've got this body in there and there's a lot of other stuff in there, and we'll kind of just list out what else was in the cylinder with the skeleton. They discovered a London Northwestern Railway notice that had a tag about arrival of some goods that was dated June 27, 1885. I think there was a postcard from Birmingham dated July 3, 1885. A couple of diaries which they couldn't read. It was illegible, I would guess. Just sort of damage to time would be my guess. And then they found some papers, and this proved to be, I guess, the biggest key. They found some papers under the body, one of which was a receipt and account sheets for a company, TC. Williamson company, and then some other kind of stuff that didn't prove to be useful. Right, right. One of the things that got me, though, is that it was found in a bunch of grave wax, like a pool or puddle of grave wax from the body decomposing onto the papers. Is that what it's called, grave wax? Yeah, grave wax. I think we ran into it first in our Urban explorers episode because people find it in catacombs. But what's astounding is that these coroners from the mid century were able to kind of get the papers back in tax so that they could read them again. That's astounding, to me, pretty cool. They also did find that his skull was damaged, but I think they thought that was kind of due to the bulldozing and trying to get the body out of there. That's right. Or the cylinder, rather. Yeah. So there didn't seem to be any evidence of violence. There was just a dead body. So I have no idea what happened to this guy. And at first, I guess the coroner thought this is like maybe a ten year old cadaver that we're looking at. Everybody else said, what about every other piece of evidence that you've discovered along with this guy? And he's like, well, technically, somebody could have dressed up like a Victorian person and gotten a bunch of old papers and keys and stuff and a ring and died within the last ten years. And I think everyone kind of said that's bosh. The coroner wasn't ready to give that up yet. They actually investigated a theory that it could have been a man named TC. Williams son whose name was also TC. Williams, and maybe it was him, and he just happened to have some old papers with him. And they said, I think we already said Bosh to that. Yeah. Because I don't think we mentioned there was a paint manufacturing plant in that area that was owned by Thomas Creegan Williams that fit the time period. So they're like, It can't be that guy. Like you said, maybe it's his son, but they ended up finding him. Is that right? They found the son his body, yeah. The son had been buried back in 19 nine and lead, so he was accounted for. But what's strange, Chuck, is that the older man, his father, had not been accounted for. The man who owned this manufacturing plant in the 1870s and 1880s in this area of Liverpool had suddenly just vanished right around 1885. Right. They did end up kind of figuring out that the tube and the cylinder itself was part of a ventilation shaft, which to me sort of only confused things a little bit. It was put forth. And I don't know if this was Paul who kind of put this forth. No, it was ringa or general evidence that perhaps this man was despondent and suicidal over the loss of the factory and crawled into the shaft for final privacy. That seems a little bit of a stretch to me. Yeah. It also seems like a stretch that a ventilation shaft should be closed off on one side. What kind of ventilation shaft is that? Yes, I guess, but don't they all end at some point? They're supposed to end into the open air. I guess so. I think that's just really weird. Like a one ended ventilation shaft. I'm sure there's some kind out there, but it just escapes me. And then the pillow also seems a little weird. That brick burlap pillow. Yeah, that's the weirdest part to me is that is clearly some sort of a purposeful thing that someone has done right. For comfort. Yeah. But also, it's like, do you hate yourself, too? Like, a brick wrapped in burlap is not a comfy pillow. You could use almost anything else on the planet and wrap it in burlap and it will be more comfortable than brick. Yeah. And they had pillows back then. Yeah, right, exactly. There was another theory put forth that it wasn't Williams. It was someone else that was maybe murdered in retaliation for that factory closing. And maybe they stuffed them in there and Williams maybe just, like, disappeared after that, changed his name and skip town. Who knows? Yeah. So I think they finally closed the case in 1947. 45, actually, right off the bat. They closed the case. They said we're never going to solve this or we've totally solved it, we just can't say with 100%. But they basically said we don't know who it is, we don't know how he died. But you can probably surmise yourself. And the prevailing theory is that it was TC. Williams upon the ruination of his paint business, possibly took his own life. The fact that he wrapped a pillow or a brick and burlap and took it into ventilation shaft with them, with all this other stuff, would suggest he didn't accidentally go in there and get stuck. He probably died by suicide or it was somebody else made it seem like TC. Williams. But the astounding fact is that this happened in 1885. He was in that ventilation shift all the way up and through the bombing of Liverpool during World War II and used to be rolled around the playground by children until they finally figured out he was in there. Yeah, I'm sure there was more than one adult walking around that remembers playing on that too. I know. And then a very special shout out to Josh and Chuck from the past, because it turns out, Chuck, we did talk about this in an internet roundup, which explains the track back. So this is probably the last time we'll ever talk about the body full memory of that. I think this is the best version. I don't either. Plus no one saw Internet round up anyway, so I think we're all good. I enjoyed that show, but big thanks and hats off to Passing Strangeness for making such a great blog post. And if you haven't been on that blog yet, go, it's very good. And since I said that, that means short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-02-02-sysk-virtual-sex.mp3	What's the future of virtual sex?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/whats-the-future-of-virtual-sex	In the not too distant future, sex may not involve being in the same room as your partner. In fact, your partner may not even have to be a human. We're talking virtual sex here. Couple VR with high tech, smart sex toys and intercourse as we know it may be	In the not too distant future, sex may not involve being in the same room as your partner. In fact, your partner may not even have to be a human. We're talking virtual sex here. Couple VR with high tech, smart sex toys and intercourse as we know it may be	Thu, 02 Feb 2017 08:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=2, tm_hour=8, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=33, tm_isdst=0)	54684268	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Sex. Sex. I was going to say we should do a COA, but maybe that qualifies. I think so, too. Parents, this is going to be a show that you may not want your kids to listen to. We'll just go ahead and say that. Yeah, it's about some adult business. That's right. Yeah. Freaky stuff. Goodness. How are you? I'm doing good. I still have a little bit of the nose juice for the most part. I'm good. My energy is up. I have to show you. Next time I blow my nose, I have to show you what this looks like. No, it's like cheetos colored and intensity. I've never seen anything like it before, and it's coming out of my head. That's weird orange, orange and yellow day glow. Well, I might as well talk about my sickness. Yeah. How are you feeling? Well, I had, as you know, and as you also even further know, about once a year I get a stomach flu. Even though I think I took last year off, I don't think I ever got it last year. I don't think you did either. So my daughter waits 18 full months before she throws up for the first time, which is a nice run. Sure. And she comes in the kitchen the other day. She's like, Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah. Really? Long run, too. She comes in the kitchen and just projectile vomits all over the place out of nowhere. Oh, my gosh. And isn't feeling well and has some diarrhea going on. Well, this shows. Really getting off to a gross start. Sure. But two days after that, I'm like, I'm invincible. I've avoided this. Oh, that's a bad thing to think. I hope you didn't say it out loud. I think I might have. And then two days ago at 04:00 p.m.. I was like, I feel a little weird. Five minutes later, I was throwing up, and then 6 hours after me, it hit Emily. So she was able to at least care for our child until she went to bed. And then she was like, I'm not feeling so good either. And then my mom, thankfully came through and took our child from the sick house. And then Emily and I literally all night long, we each had a bathroom at our disposal, and it was just like every 30 minutes, somebody in the house was like, gross, man. It was really bad. I mean, it was one of those things where we pulled the curtains and we just didn't even want to look at each other. It was just gross. Yeah, but it's a 24 hours thing, generally. Yeah. You said you told Jerry that it was like 24 hours to the minute. Pretty much. I mean, I started feeling better at about four or five yesterday. That's great. But I'm just weak like it just takes a lot out of you. And I feel like I'm not big on the AB workout, but I feel like I know. You look ripped. Oh, dude. I feel like I really might have pulled muscles in my rib cage from wretching. It's funny. All right, so no one else is listening anymore. No. Let's talk about virtual sex. Yeah. We chased everyone off. This is a good plan. Hats off to you. Yeah. So, Chuck yes. People invented the Internet, and within about, I don't know, eight or 9 seconds, there was a porn site up, right? Probably, yeah. And since then, apparently, it's been largely overstated, but most people associate the Internet, at least in part, with pornography. Really? Are you kidding? What do you mean associate? Like, when you think of the Internet, you think, well, that's a vast repository of pornography. I don't know if that's the case. I think a lot of people do. Okay. There's a lot of pornography on the Internet, and in fact, the Internet has helped just foster pornography into by light speed. Yes. It's just burgeon. Right. But it turns out, apparently one study I saw in 2011 estimated that only 1.5% of all Web pages are sexual sex based. I was really surprised to hear that. Yeah, but, I mean, that's just a numbers game. Sure, there are literally millions of porn sites, but doesn't that seem low, though, even considering yeah, the point is, people still do like sex and pornography, and they like the Internet, and when they were put together, everything just blew up. Like, apparently now the Internet porn industry alone globally is worth something like $40 to $50 billion. Wow. I saw that in a 2015 article in The Economist. That's a ton of cash, man. It is. That's how much, like, the Disney company is worth. They're not going to like that their name is associated with in any way. No, I just pulled that out of the air. Yeah, good choice. But one of the things, like I said, when the Internet furthered pornography, it hasn't stopped, it hasn't plateaued. It's like, oh, great, here's a website that's got porn on it. We've achieved peak internet pornography. Some of the most innovative thoughts to developing the Internet further has been based on pornography. Yeah. Just when you think they've covered it all, somebody's like, hey, you like to take a Christmas ham and carve out a hole and put your foot in it? We got a website for that. Your foot, huh? Called Hamfoot.com. Oh, man, you better hurry up and trademark that before we release this episode. By the way, this article was written by Robert Lam, our own colleague here, of stuff to blow your mind. When you read it, did you like how did you feel just hearing it in Robert's voice? In my head? I don't know. Maybe that's it. I just wanted to take a shower with Robert. If he typed the word lovers, like, one more time. I've never liked that word. No, I'm with you. Especially not coming from Robert. I think he used the word lovers in here like six times. Yes. Like, you know, he was wearing a silk robe when he wrote this. Yeah. I can't imagine how much, like, graphic stuff got edited out from his first trial. But we're talking about the future of simulated virtual sex, not necessarily robot sex, because that's a different thing. We did a whole episode on that, remember? Yeah. I think it was called, like, Will We Marry Robots? Because we were trying to be above the board. Right, but we talked a lot about that. But that's not what this episode is about now. This is a little bit more about using technology to either simulate sex or to. And I found out in a lot of cases, and we'll go through it as we talk about some of these specific things. A lot of them seem geared towards at least they're marketed as like, hey, are you in a long distance relationship? We can help bring you closer by sort of synchronizing phone sex in a way, like just a super advanced form of phone sex. Right. And that's definitely like the genteel way of putting it because I think probably more to the point, it's, hey, do you like to have Internet sex with people you don't know? Well, we got some technology coming down the pike for you. Yeah. And they don't say, hey, are you super lonely? It's easy to laugh about the lonely dude in his house, but they're genuine phobias. And this could be a benefit to people who aren't like, literally aren't able to certain conditions to go out and have real sex. Sure. Yeah. But it could prove to be a real benefit. Yeah. Hoarders are going to love this stuff. The other thing, though, that almost sounds like what you just said is like a midterm goal of the future of Internet based sex. Right. But ultimately, from everything I'm seeing, the ultimate goal, or maybe not even goal, but what will probably prove to be the ultimate reality is that sex will be so improved and perfectly refined by science and technology that we will end up preferring it. The normal, average human will end up preferring simulated sex over the actual real thing. Not true. I don't know, man. That sounds like one of those things that people in 50 years will look back and be like, what idiots. They got that really wrong. But it also seems like, I don't know, people like good sex. Yeah, but it's like simulated sexist to real sex as soylent is to food. So I guess we can talk about it now. The basis of it is not like everybody's just going to be just completely what's the word I'm looking for this crazy promiscuous people just having anonymous internet sex with people all over the internet. There will probably be a very real possibility. I mean, it already is, but this actual, virtual, convincingly, simulated sex will eventually be a possibility. What I've seen that will be more likely is that people will be in monogamous relationships like they are now. But rather than doing it, you will go with your separate rooms and do it remotely using the simulations. Right. Or it potentially could be a way to maybe relieve the inclination to step out on your husband or wife and say, you know what? I'm not going to cheat on you. It's just a very technologically advanced form of masturbation. Sure. But also, I can definitely see couples where, say, like, that's fine, that's great. Go get your rocks off with the computer lady. But I also see, like, no, that's terrible. Yeah. And I think that's already an issue now. Are you sure? What's, porn sites or porn sites or Webcam people like, whatever. But when you add this element and this is ultimately what we're talking about, Chuck, is the progression toward adding actual physical sensation to Internet sex. It just opens up the whole idea of cheating, like, even further. You wouldn't have to use your imagination any longer because your body is being physically manipulated to recreate the sensations of having sex in real life. I feel like we should take a break. I think so, too. I think we really set this one up so high that we can't possibly deliver from now on. All right, well, let's take a break, and I'm going to go have a talk with Robert Lamb, and we'll be back right after this. All right. Robert Lam points out that every lovers embrace is essentially since data. That's right. And that's true. It's touch, smell, sound. It's like all the sensory data that we get from eating an apple or something is the same with the sexy times. Right. But he asked a very pertinent question here, and that's kind of what we're after, is how far can you go to digitize and transmit that information? And touch is probably the best the obvious starting point. Right, exactly. Because if you step back and you look at the landscape of Internet sexuality today right. Yeah. All of it is visual the entire thing. I mean, there's audio, too, so it is oral and visual and joking. I mean the A-U-R-A-L. No, I had a joke. I had to really fight to not say out loud. Well, email it to me. All right. Okay. So basically, the current state of Internet sex uses your eyes and your ears and that's it, right? Yeah. And everything that we have is based on that. But that's not to say that that's not going to play a part in the future of sex. It's just that's the bedrock the basis that's been laid, and now they're trying to develop it based on that bedrock. And like you said, the next step is touch. Yeah. And if we're going to talk about technology in touch haptic technology, which we've talked about. We've talked about this before, haven't we? In some capacity, surely. Maybe it was a transcranial, the thinking cap. I don't know. It doesn't ring a bell to me, honestly. All right, well, anyway, haptic technology that's going to have a lot of applications, essentially. I mean, if you're talking about non sexy time stuff, it ranges from tele surgery, like literally a doctor being able to perform a surgery that's not in the room, which could be amazing in a life saving technology or like military training, space, NASA, space exploration, stuff like that. But it's essentially technology that it's wearable. I mean, they talk about gloves a lot, but it can take the form of a shirt that you wear that sends pulses of stimulation through that device, whether it's a glove or a shirt, to your body. Right, exactly. So it recreates the sensation of touch. Right? Yeah. And the weird thing is, when I started researching this, I was like, what is touch? You take it for granted, but one of the things that they're going for is when you touch something, what you're really doing. Like, let's say you pick up a vase. Yes, you're picking it up. But as far as your sense of touch is concerned, that vase is exerting pressure on the inside of your hand. And haptic gloves in particular are concerned with recreating that pressure against the inside of your hand to make it feel like when you're looking online and you're virtually grabbing a vase, that in real life, the pressure that you would normally be feeling is being recreated by a number of different means. And they've got a lot of different technologies that are competing right now in the prototype space for coming up with this kind of haptic technology that can recreate it. Did you see that thing I sent you about the haptic glove that uses ultrasound? Yeah. That's out of the University of Sussex in jolly old England. And it's called skin haptics as a system. And yeah, it uses ultrasound pulsing this focusing basically this haptic feedback onto the surface of your skin. So it feels like right now it's not just like sexy stuff. They're talking about an interface that doesn't exist in front of you. Right. So there's a couple of different ones. One actually uses ultrasound to disturb the air in mid air. So when you go to press a button with your finger, the ultrasound a nonexistent button. Right, exactly. Yeah. The ultrasound creates enough air turbulence where your fingers going that you get a bit of resistance from it. You feel pressure, which is awesome. Yeah, it's amazing. The other skin haptics version actually sends the ultrasound pulse through your hand so that you feel it's pulsing from the back of your hand through your hand, and then the sensation is being felt on your palm. So it's recreating. It coming in the reverse direction. But it feels like that you're picking up a vase. Yeah. Now, is that with a glove or is that just the ultrasound through the air? That second one is with the glove. Okay. The other one is like, say, a screen that's mounted next to an oven is using ultrasound from the screen on the countertop to disturb the air above it in mid air. That's different. Right. The glove is sending it from the back of your hand to the front of your hand. And I keep saying it's like you're grabbing a vase. But really, with what we're talking about, they're trying to recreate what it feels like to say, Grab a boob. I mean, that's what they're doing here. Right. The Connect controller. Yeah. I think Microsoft came out with it for Xbox a few years back, and literally within a month, it was an open source controller. It still is. And within a month, somebody released a Connect porn game. Sure. Right. And so if you look at the videos of this, did you see any of them of the Xbox thing or that other thing? The Xbox one? No, I did not see that one. So it's basically the demo is a guy, like, kind of feeling up a CGI lady. Right. Okay. What he's doing is it's all visual. What they're trying to get is with Haptic devices is that visual thing. But then you will feel what you're seeing on screen. That's the next step that people are working on as far as Internet sex is going. Yeah. Trying to synchronize well, we'll get to that, but yeah, trying to synchronize these things to where you're looking at something and it just matches up. The feel and the visual all matches up. Right. So you got the visual to begin with. That's already done that. Now you have, thanks to the same VR Connect, you can move your hand in this world and it translates onto your computer, the virtual world. And then so that's done. The next step again is recreating the sensation of touch from that virtual world into this world. Right. So I thought you were talking about that website, the sex game website. Oh, three DX Chat. Did you go to that one? Yes. Holy cow. Yeah. Warning. Very graphic website. Yeah. We're not saying that to all the 14 year olds, because I think every 14 year old live has been there, but the 45 year old had not. Yeah, I hadn't either. I had no idea it was a thing. I was like, what is that? Kept popping up in research, and I went and looked. I was like, no way. Yeah. That is a sex game. And you have an avatar, but you're using that loosely. It's almost like Second Life. It's like a hangout, like virtual chat. Like Life, basically. Yeah. You design your dude or your lady and you go into a bar and you're hanging out, and then you take that person back to your apartment and you have really graphic animated sex. Right. But the person you're picking up is an actual person in real life as well. It's their avatar. Right. It's not like you're picking up a SIM or something. Right. That's apparently, like, really big right now. $92 a year. That's what it costs. Yes. That's a weird number, man. I know. It's not even 92. I round it up. It's like 91, 99. I don't know. They found that was the tipping point. Yeah, exactly. No, they won't pay 99. They'll pay 91 50. We pulled a few perverts in our town and they said $100. No way. But they got confused around the 91 mark, so we want that. So, Chuck, we were largely talking about with haptic devices, the glove. It's not just the glove. That's a big first step. But ultimately the goal is going to be basically a haptic full body suit to where the pressure and senses and warmth and everything that has to do with touch is recreated all over your body. Yes. Because your hands are great, but they're still just your hands. As far as Internet sex is concerned, that full body haptic suit is going to be the Holy Grail, and apparently it's not that far off. There's a guy who founded a company called Shadow robot Company. That sounds creepy. Well, actually, they make anthropomorphic robot hands for people who have had a limb amputated. It's like a legit robot company. He just happened to be quoted creepy. Right. His name was Richard Greenhill and he said that I think it was last year in an article, he said that full body haptic suits are just a few years away, probably. Wow. Yeah, that'll be huge. But in the meantime, there's been these baby steps that have been taken over the years, and one of the first, I guess, kind of prototypes of a haptic suit was a haptic shirt called the Hug Shirt. Yeah. I went to their website and I didn't see I mean, it said Buy it now. So I clicked on it to see how much it was, and then it didn't come up. So I don't know if it's not at market yet. But the idea is it's a shirt. And this is the most G rated part of this show because it's a shirt that simulates a hug. Yeah. Which is pretty sweet. UK company called Cute Circuit, and I think they came out with it back in 2001 or two, and I think they released them for sale in 2005 or six or something like that. But basically you are wearing your Hug shirt. You're connected to the Internet via the Hug shirt app, and then you're your man. I was going to say Little Sweetie was on the other end, but lover is fine. And they're wearing their Hug shirt connected to the app. So when you simulate a hug right, you hug yourself wearing the Hug shirt. It transmits that hug to your lover. Right. And they feel the sensation of the hug you just sent transmitted through their hug shirt. It's awfully sweet. Yeah. I want to know what this feels like. I wanted to sample one. Yeah, well, I mean, we're on a pretty great streak of not doing the stuff that we're talking about, so why start now? Well, I tried to buy one, but I didn't see where you could did you see a very nice man named Don Kent who gave us plenty of the Elder before sent us a box of soylent? Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Let's try it on air. Okay. Oh, man, that's a great idea. We'll have to set it up in another episode just so that it has all the proper introductions. We'll just say this so that everybody can get really excited about it. Yeah, I'm excited already. Okay, so the other simulator that is in prototype mode, there's something called the Kiss Transmitter from Kajimoto laboratory at Tokyo's University of Electro Communications. And did you see this thing? Yeah, I was very much turned off by that. Yeah. At least right now, unless the prototype is advanced, it's supposed to simulate French kissing, but it was a box, and it looked like a bent drinking straw that just went around in a circle. Yeah, and they showed some poor undergraduate having to demonstrate it, and they were doing close ups of his mouth and this thing swirling around with him. It's not pleasant at all. No, but the kissinger well, hold on. With the Kiss Transmitter, I think the idea is eventually that straw will be a tongue, which would make a lot more sense. Sure. But the trick to this is it doesn't just spin in a circle. What it does is it works with you. Like when you are moving your tongue around, it is reciprocating in likewise fashion. So it's not just willynilly spinning around in a circle. It's smarter than that. Yeah. So there was this other thing called the kissinger. I did see that. That was really creepy. So this one makes a lot more sense to me. It's actually the PhD project of Emma Yan Zhang out of the City university of London. And this thing, it was originally a box that connected via USB to your laptop that you kissed, and it had, like, kind of almost cartoonish lips attached to it or whatever. And then the newer prototype is this thing that you connect to, say, your iPhone. And so it's connected to the web through an app, and it's got this I guess the mouse interface is just this almost a touchpad area that you kiss. Right? Yes. And as you're kissing it, it is taking in the movement and pressure of your lips, sending it through the app to your lever on the other end and recreates the kiss to them. But what's cool is it's bi directional, so while they're kissing you back, you're receiving their kiss. Yeah. The disturbing part to me is that it comes in the form of, like, a little round bunny rabbit. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't see it. That was the first version. Oh, the second version is the second version. The second version is much less like they basically threw out any attempt to make it look like a mouth. It functions like it it doesn't look like it. Because I think they probably you're probably in the majority of people I'm not kissing that thing. Well, yeah, I mean, it looked like a little round, like, furby toy with a big set of lips on it. Yeah. And the other disturbing part was you had to hold it down because it was constantly trying to get away, but it was like, why did you make that design choice? That's very creepy. Yeah, we'll get to really creepy stuff later, too. By the way, are you talking about televillonics? I think we should take a break before we talk about that. About teledeyledonics? Yes. Let's take a break. All right, we're back to talk about telodylani. It's funny. Like, I can't say lover, but I have no problem saying telodel. Donna yeah. So of course they called it that. It needs some, like, 90s club, like, background beat with, like, telodiodontics. Yeah, maybe we'll see if no, whip us up one. All right, so teledildonics is the development of automated sex toys controlled by either a program or remote user. Right. So technically, if kissing, it could be construed as sex. The kissinger is a form of telodyldonics. Yes. And the basis of televis, as you have some sort of sex toy, I guess, is a good way to put it. It's a great way to put it. And that sex toy is connected to the Internet, and like you said, it can be controlled by somebody else on the other end or a program or like a video that's preprogrammed to interact with your sex toy. Right. Both of those are going to be huge. But it seems like the progression is more toward remote sex. Right. So the upshot of it is that you have two separate sex toys with some distance between them connected to the Internet, and the people manipulating them on either side are receiving the sense information, the tactile information from the others sex toy into their sex toy and is responding to it in kind. How is that? That's good. You navigated those waters. Thank you. If it sounds like the word itself sounds like something from the 70s, it's because it is. It was coined in 1975 by a guy named Ted Nelson, and he was talking about a future where you have remote sex with those real feelings of touch transmitted through computers. So he was really kind of ahead of the game there. And one thing they compare it to, it's also cyber Dildonics or teletildonics. One kind of non sexy thing that they will like. And it, too, is the vibrating video game controller. Oh, yeah, like the N 64 Rumble Pack. Yeah, but I mean, they all have it now, and if you play video games, that's a big part of it. It adds a lot to the gameplay when you feel like the rumble of, like a car crash or an explosion or something. And it's kind of subtle, but it's just such a part of gaming now, if it went away, people would be like, what's going on? It's not nearly as good. Right. Okay. So now imagine that like your controller rumbling a little bit. Sure. And the effect that has on you if you think about it, especially with the N 64 Rumble Pack, the first one, I believe, which is Haptic technology, right? Yeah. I remember when that came out. It was pretty awesome. It was awesome. But if you think about it, basically your controller just shook. And it didn't necessarily faithfully recreate whatever it was supposed to be recreating, but that extra sense that was being manipulated caused your brain to just go wild. Your imagination just ran wild, and it really enhanced it, like you said, right? Yeah. It's gotten a lot better, too, with how they do it. Now imagine you take that out of your controller and out of your hands and apply it to, say, your sex toy. Right. And now you're developing sex toys that have an amazing degree of precision in recreating temperature, moisture level, pressure, attention, torque, horsepower, all this stuff. Right. So the sex toys are advancing and then their ability, their bidirectional ability to receive information and transmit information to another sex toy, which is then capable of recreating and then sending its own information means that you can have virtual sex across the Internet using sex toys and experiencing a real tactile sensation from it. Yeah. And these are the ones where mostly I saw that they were trying to target couples that are in long distance relationships or when you're away from each other for business travel or whatever, that you can sync up your sex toys in real time. So the things that you're doing are being felt on the other end. Exactly. A good example of this is the Love Pals, which, if you're a sex toy manufacturer, step up the names, shall we? Oh, it's always been that way. Love pals with a Z? Yeah, of course. But they came up with a pair of sex toys called Zeus and Hara, and they're exactly what we're describing. And from what I can gather, they're basically the cutting edge of it. Yeah. I mean, I looked up they list a few in this article. Real touch from 2009. Seems like it completely went away. There was one in 2011 called Levins, not with a Z, surprisingly. And they had the eye man and the eye lady. Right, yeah. And I looked that up. They had Max and Nora, which were there was a male master batter, which is. A machine that does it for you and a female stimulator. And they named the maximums. It's very cute. And they worked through Bluetooth in your phone app. But the last I saw was an indiegogo from a couple of years ago that was half funded and closed. So the only one that I've seen that has, really and I don't know about taking off because I don't know their sales, but it seems like it's a legit thing. That's out there is the love pals. Well, did you look up the one? So we got that article from the website of a company called Kiroo. Kiiroo, yeah. And they have their own thing going that's actually doing well, too. The Onyx. Yeah. The onyx and the pearl. Yes. And the onyx is the male buddy. Right. Pearl is the female buddy. Yeah. And these things look like they're right out of the Apple Store. I don't know if you saw pictures, but they're obviously trying to take them out of the back rooms of Spencer Gifts and bring them to the forefront of, like, look at this thing. It looks like any Apple device you would find it's. Right, exactly. It's futuristic looking. You can put it in your dishwasher, you can leave it on your coffee table, and your parents could come over. They'll have no idea. Exactly. Doesn't have any weird spikes or nubs. Right. You don't get, like, a free trial of simulated pot with it. What's that stuff called? I have no idea. You know, like, simulated, like, fake pot that you could buy at a head shop. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. I can't remember what's called spice. Yes. You get a little baggy of spice for free with it. They're like, we simulate everything. All right, so we're joking around a lot, but there's a man named Dr. Stewart Milloy, and he created something called the Orgasmatron. Orgasmatron. And again, that's kind of a goofy name, but he created it in 2008. And this one actually sends an electrical pulse through the nerves of the spinal cord. And basically the idea is it could potentially help women who either cannot or lost the ability to experience an orgasm to regain that with this device. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yes. Well, I should say he named it after the machine in Woody Allen sleeper. Right? Yeah. But apparently he stumbled upon this idea because he is a pain doctor, but he uses electrodes in the brain to cut down on pain and chronic pain patients. And he was working on one woman, and apparently during the procedure, so he knows where the electrodes should go. The patient has to be conscious, so they just give you a local anesthetic and take off the top of your head. And then he gets in there and fiddles around it's like hellraiser, basically. And as he was doing it, he hit the spot and he said that the patient began to, quote, exclaim emphatically. And he stopped and he's like, what's going on? What are you experiencing? And she's like, you need to teach my husband how to do that. And he's like, People would love this, but I was reading Chuck, the New Scientist article on it. Yes. And they said that his orgasmatron received a limp reception from the scientific community. They're better than that. They said, limp reception? They're better than that. Apparently not. So we've covered. Touch touches are going to be a very important one pretty soon. There's this thing called the illusion VR bodysuit, and it's basically a hack together version of what will ultimately be what everybody's wearing in the future, which is a full haptic bodysuit with VR. Really important next step as well. Sure. Pornography combined with some sort of sex toy that works automatically. A teledonic. Yeah. So the idea I mean, you've heard of Oculus Rift, probably the most advanced VR system going now, at least as far as I know. I'm not up to date on the latest with that stuff, but it's supposed to be great. So you're talking about a future where you, I guess, sound is covered with the invention of headphones. It's kind of all you need there, but throw on the headphones, throw on the Oculus Rift strap into your telodildonic system, telodildonic. And the range of things that can happen there are either just long distance sex with your lover or potentially weird things like, hey, do you want to have sex with Jennifer Lopez? Well, we've got a program you can pay for and do that. And Jennifer Lopez is really mad. Or I think another potential that a lot of people are worried about from this is VR especially gets more and more realistic. Are people just acting out there, just darkest fantasies? And there's a lot of debate right now over ethically, morally, and legally how acceptable that is. Absolutely. So one of the big discussions about Internet pornography right now is as we're reaching this ability to pretty accurately simulate, although a lot of it is not very accurate, like, even good CGI is still clearly CGI, and some of it dips into the uncanny valley. But as we pass out of the uncanny valley and get more and more realistic, the question is, well, if you have people who are engaged in victimizing other people in real life yes. Out of compulsion or something like that, there's a lot of debate over whether pedophilia is actually based on brain chemistry, which would take it out of the realm of choice. Right. So let's say you believe that pedophiliax people yeah, pedophiliax. Pedophiles. That's right. If you believe that pedophiles don't have a choice in their decisions, their compulsions, and that they have to carry this out right. Just basically castrate themselves, is it morally acceptable to give these people a virtual simulation of that? Yes. In which case it will satisfy their compulsion while at the same time preventing them from carrying out this compulsion in real life. So in real life, no one is being harmed, but you're still giving over a virtual kid for a pedophile to do whatever with. Yeah. That is the slippery issue of slopes. Yes, it is. Because if someone were to argue that someone very rightfully would argue that, who's saying that, satisfying that and not building up to act out on that for real. Yeah. And that's a lot of concern coming from the other end as well, is that as we get more and more into this incredibly rendered VR section, that you can actually feel and sense and all that as well, the fact that it's VR will make people who otherwise in real life wouldn't have said, what happens if I choke this avatar to death while we're doing it? Let's see what that's like. And then they'll find out that they actually like that and they might want to try it in real life. Oh, yeah. I mean, as soon as this stuff is out there, there's going to be someone selling rape and murder fantasy software, and I just don't see how that could lead to anything good. Well, that's the long term debate. People have said the same thing about violent video games. There's never been a body of study that shows that violent video games actually do lead to increased violence in real life. So, I mean, is the same thing true for sex? Freaky sex? Well, all right. People can turn it off because Chuck's opinion is coming. Avoid. People don't like it when I say opinionated things. Some people do. I don't remember if I covered this much on our episode about video game violence. But I've played a lot of violent video games more in the last two years. And my feeling is that you may not be able to pinpoint that as a cause. But I think it can be a factor and a tipping point to someone who is teetering on that edge of carrying out a violent act. Yeah. I firmly believe that because I am a nonviolent grown man and when you play these games enough, you find yourself driving around and having these thoughts, like, not that I really would do these things, but they pop into your head just like at the same way you said Tetris dreams when I played Tetris too much. And I would not even dreams, like waking dreams. I would walk into a room and see boxes, be like, oh, you could arrange these in a different way. It has a way of kind of taking your brain over and then you take out your aggression on the boxes. But I think it definitely, absolutely can be a factor and a tipping point if someone is close. Yeah. Again, I mean, it's anecdotal but you prefaced it with the fact that it's your opinion, just my opinion. And that's your experience, too. Yeah, and I'm not saying, like, ban violent video games because the lion's share of people can play these things with no problem. Yeah, but I don't know, it's tricky. One of the other problems with it, too, Chuck, is that as we get more and more into recreating the sensation of sex through VR, the possibility of sexual assault is expected to just skyrocket. Virtual sexual assault? Yeah. And apparently it's already happened. There's a writer named Jordan Belair, and she was playing a VR game called Quiver in multiplayer mode, and she said that her voice sold her out as a woman or revealed she was a woman, but other than that, her avatar looked like a man. And then one of the other players just started chasing her and groping her and rubbing her where her bathing suit covers. And she said that she felt genuinely violated by it. I'm sure this is without any kind of haptic technology whatsoever. This is strictly visual and she still felt violated. So was she wearing, like, a haptic body suit so she could feel what her avatar was feeling? What's the difference between somebody doing that in real life and somebody doing it virtually? I think to me, the answer is none. There is no difference. For the end user, for the victim, is another way to put it. Yeah. The victim is going to experience is the same. Because your brain is relying on sensory input to determine, say, whether a touch is comfortable or welcomed or unwelcomed or violating, and whether it's being recreated by a computer, your mind isn't going to make any distinction from that. So the violation is through and through real. Yeah. And again, there's that potential where, because it's not in real life and because of the anonymity that the Internet affords, the possibility of that happening can just really explode. Yeah. Somebody needs to come up with a game called a game like that called Affirmative Consent, where everything is just above board. You introduce yourself and you get to know each other. You say, I'd like to be your lover. Yeah, I'd like to be your lover. Can I touch you there? Sure. No. Okay, well, I'll just back out of the room slowly. So the one thing we haven't talked about is smell, as far as sensory experience goes. And some people may discount smell or the importance of smell and sexuality, but I have always been long championed smell as one of the underrated senses when it comes to sexy times. And if you do think, oh, like, it's not that big of a deal, think about if you've ever had a time where smell has ruined something in sexy time. So if you do think smell is not that big of a deal, don't think of just good smells like, oh, somebody's perfume or cologne. Think of, like, bad smells, how that can turn something wrong. Well, Robert actually makes a pretty good point in this article. He says that one out of every 50 genes lover in the human Genome concern sense. Oh, yeah. Or smell. The sense of smell. Yes. I think every husband has been told at some point, like, why don't you go take a shower first? You were just working in the yard. Sure. There's nothing sexy about that. Yeah, the smell of grass is pretty great. Sure. But there was a company, Chuck, a few years back. I think they went under around 2001 or 2002, and the company is called Digisence, and they had something called the Eyesmell, and it was connected to your computer. And the whole idea was that they had just say how you have cyan magenta colors, yellow and black. Is that right? C NYK. Yeah. And you can make millions and millions of colors based on those four pigments. These guys were trying to do the same thing with smells, come up with four basic sense that you could make virtually any smell with. Right? Yeah. And it's amazing. It's so sad to me that it didn't go anywhere, but it's like, Come back. Did you sense do it now? Like, we're ready. This would be so amazing. The whole thing was you'd be on the Internet and there'd be a little pixel on the web page that triggered your eye smell to produce a certain scent, sent the information how long it should be there for, how intense, whatever. So you're looking at elephant pictures and you can smell the elephant poop right there in the room with it. Yeah. There's this other cool aspect Robert points out, too, which is the addition of the smell and taste to this experience. And touch, even it lightens the burden on the visuals. So it's something called cross modal attention effects in science communities. And it basically is the way the brain prioritizes sensory inputs. Like, if you're sitting on this and this is a great example used to if you're sitting on the sofa and you're just sitting there, you might feel the sense of the sofa cushion under your arm and under your butt. But then someone comes over and kisses you and your brain goes, well, hey, and you don't feel the sofa cushion under your butt anymore. You feel the lips against your lover's lips. Yes. And your bow tie spins around. But that's a real thing. It's cross mode all attention effects. It's like, literally, the brain prioritizing sensory input. Yeah. And apparently also one of the aspects of it, too, is that when you have the more senses you have giving you information about a particular thing, the less any one particular sense has to carry the load. And again, up to this point, our sense of vision and our sense of hearing have been doing all of the heavy lifting. So if you add smell, if you manage to add taste, if you manage to add touch, just how visually stunning the VR pornography has to be, it comes down several notches. It doesn't have to be as good, because these other senses are making up the slack. Well, I mean, phone sex was just audio, right? I mean I said was I imagine that's still a thing. But did you ever see Shortcuts? The Robert Altman movie? Remember Jennifer. Jason Lee was a phone sex operator. She's, like, feeding her baby and ironing. And her husband's Chris Penn is in the other room, god rest his soul. Oh, Chris Penn died, huh? 2016. Oh, no. Years ago. For Chris Penn. Yeah. But anyway, that was always kind of thought that was funny. Like, anyone who thinks the phone sex person is enjoying themselves like you are, yes, they've really sold themselves. And, Robert, I do want to read this one great sentence from his article here. There are people at the University of York's Audio Laboratory who are working to employ this cross modal attention effects and really just fine tune it all. And he said here, in his last minutes, they've even considered employing a mouthpiece to simulate different textures against the tongue and mouth for virtual food chewing, they claim. Man, I think Robert navigated some pretty tricky waters himself. No, he did well. It's a good article. The lovers thing. Yeah. You got anything else? No, sir. I want to give a shout out to Tracy Clark Florie from Vocative for the ethics of VR SEC stuff, kiru, who gave us the teledildonic stuff, and of course, our own Robert Lamb, who wrote the whole article. Right? Yeah. Stuff to blow your mind. Good show. If you want to know more about future sex, you can type those words into the search bar, and what comes up will be wow. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm doing something I don't normally do because I didn't have one prepared. I'm just going to randomly pull one up. We have to do administrative details again soon. Yeah, we do. I've got some good stuff, by the way. Thank you to the people that sent an email saying that an English speaker saying junta is completely correct. Whatever. I know you like to show off your flair, your Latin American flair. My heat. My Latin heat. All right, I found one. Hey, guys, for starters, I love the show. I got hooked on S-U-S-K. People still do that? Occasionally. That's funny. SUSK and even had itunes to do the download all. And I'm turning through them all. Just got done listening to the Soil episode. In the list of mail, you mentioned how the breastfeeding episode was so well received. So was there an episode and stuff? You should know history. He said SYSK the second time. By the way, that was chock full of hate mail. Would be a cool factoid of what your greatest bomb was. Maybe parallel that with your top five shows of all time to smooth it over. Well, I'm not going to do that. Yes, seriously. But it's a lot of asks. Yeah, that is from John. And boy, you know what? We got a lot of bad mail recently about artificial sweeteners, I've noticed. Oh, yeah, people are kind of mad. Some people are. I think they're all like from the Splenda family. But yeah, that one set people off to an extent. We also got a lot of kudos for that one. The one, John, to me, that stands out, that we got the most hate mail for is not necessarily our biggest bomb, but it was homelessness or homelessness episode. Sure, we got tons and tons and tons of negative emails from people who are basically like homeless people are there because they're lazy, stop telling people to be nice to them. And probably more than any other episode we've ever done, I would say that's the one that has that we got the most hate melt for. What about you? Yeah, probably so. Yeah, I think so. I think objectively, that is the one by far that we got the most paid out for. Yes. And we've been on record about that. And we even got a mail just last week about that episode saying, hey, I know you guys get a lot of flak for this one. And they sent us an email of support, which is nice. Thank you to whoever wrote that. That was very nice. Yeah. So I'm going to say artificial sweeteners and homelessness. Yeah, it's not like those emails made me reconsider my stance on how I feel about homeless people or whatever, but it just sucks to hear angry stuff from that many people about something that you think is kind of brain dead. Well, all right, if you want to get in touch with us like John did, thanks for the email, John. You can tweet to us. I'm at Joshmclark and at S-Y-S Kpodcast chucks at Charleswchuckbryant and at Stepheno on Facebook. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. And as always, hang out with us at our home on the web stuffyouw.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Erkart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1229712623377hsw-sysk-midnight-regulations.mp3	How Midnight Regulations Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-midnight-regulations-work	After the election in November, outgoing Presidents have an opportunity to pass last-minute (often unpopular and unpublicized) legislation as 'midnight regulations.' Learn more about midnight regulations in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	After the election in November, outgoing Presidents have an opportunity to pass last-minute (often unpopular and unpublicized) legislation as 'midnight regulations.' Learn more about midnight regulations in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=0)	23974295	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. comSK and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts. Banking with Capital One is like the easiest decision in the history of decisions, kind of like choosing to listen to another episode of your favorite podcast. And with Capital One's top rated app, you can deposit checks and transfer money anytime, anywhere, making Capital One an even easier decision that's banking reimagined what's in your wallet terms apply capital One NA member FDIC brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from househopeworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. Chuck's, here I am, as always. How's it going? You're the Andy Richter to your Conan O'Brien. As I like to say, I look a little more like Andy Richter, right? There is no Conan amongst no tall, seven foot tall, lanky, red haired Irishman. Yeah. Pale man. It's pale. He is, yes. Okay, so this is stuff you should know if you couldn't tell by now. And we're going to talk about midnight regulation today. Chuck, what do you think? I think that's a great topic. Okay, so, Chuck, let me paint a scene for you, right? Okay. Anytime a president is leaving the White House and a new one is coming in, there are transition teams set up, right? Right. Basically, you have a bunch of people who have been doing their jobs directing federal agencies, carrying out new policy, talking about new policy ideas, and they basically need to pass this information on to the next administration so that there's a smooth transition of power. Ideally, this is what happens, right. They don't just put it in a folder called how to be the President and leave it on the desk of the no. That would be really bad. And some transition teams are more successful than others. President Bill Clinton had a terrible, terrible time with it when he came into power. When he was leaving, though, he gained a little more confidence when he left George W. Bush the second Bush took over. Right. And when his transition team showed up, they found, surprisingly, that most of the keyboards in the White House offices, the letter W had been removed. I love that. I think that's hysterical. It really is hysterical. Just the thought of and not politically speaking, but just the thought of a president playing practical choke on the next one. Yeah. And all of his aides. There was a whoopi cushion left in the chair of his office. Chair, right. Yeah. Kick me, sign. Right. So that was awaiting President Bush when he took over, and there was a lot of other stuff awaiting him as well, in the form of midnight regulations. Clinton actually published 26,000 pages of new regulations. Yes. That's the number that we're waiting for his successor. And every last one of them ran contrary to butcher's policies. Right. So before we get into that, what are midnight regulations? What's the definition? Well, I'm just going off my brain here. I don't have a definition to read, but it's basically legislation that a president leaving president will try and slip through in the waning months of their tenure, during their midnight period, which is from the time that the election is held November until they leave office. Basically. Yeah. Until the inauguration. And every presidency has a midnight right. There's the end of a presidency. It's those last few months, but some are way worse than others. Usually the worst midnight periods, the worst transitions, come when one party is losing control of the White House to another party. Right. And they do fine. They do everything they can to sabotage one another. So it's kind of rough, so unfriendly. And it's hostile. Yes, it is. It's a little disheartening, but not surprising. Basically, if you leave thousands of pages of new regulations, basically what you're doing is you're either extending your influence as President beyond the time that you leave the White House you could be doing it to hamstring or handicapped into the next administration, basically tying their hands, especially when a Democrat is taking over from a Republican, or vice versa. The views run so contrary, supposedly, that you want to keep the policy making going. Right. And it's actually, with a midnight regulation, it's actually exceedingly difficult to reverse. We'll get to that in a minute. Right. Many times, actually. Your legacy as a president has a lot to do with these midnight regulations. Yeah. A lot of times, it represents more radical fringes of a presidential agenda. Just amazing that the last two months of an eight year tenure can have more of an impact than the previous seven years and ten months. Yeah. Well, the weird thing is you can sit there and watch midnight regulation going on. Right. But it's not an openly acknowledged activity. Right. Okay. So to prove that it exists, some political scientists have actually done studies on the Federal Register. The Federal Register is the complete, comprehensive guide to federal regulation. Right. And actually, they publish addendums to it every day. So some political scientists went back and looked at when the amount of pages published in the Federal Register per quarter. And they found that in the midnight of a presidency. Especially during the transition of power from one party to another. The page volume increases. Like. 17% it's odd to think that you would have to go prove it. But the President's like. Well. I'm just going about my midnight regulation right now. Right. It's such a cynical and sinister Democratically speaking tool because the President is no longer accountable. Right. So many people don't even realize it's going on. No, I know. And it's going on right now. I know. You have a couple of things you wanted to mention, right? Yeah. I mean, I've got a list. There's actually a great website called Propublica.org that's PR opublica.org. And you can get a full list there of the midnight regulations that President Bush is trying to get through and not drawing judgment on any of them. It's up to you to decide. But that's a good website you can go to to actually read them and get a status on whether or not it's open for comment or closed for comment, or under review or approved or finalized or in effect. And we'll get the comment part in a little bit, too, right? Yeah, we will. Let's talk about how it works. Right, so basically, the legislative branch identifies a problem and says, well, we could create this agency to address that problem, say the Environmental Protection Agency or the securities and Exchange Commission or whatever. The FDA. It doesn't matter. All of those were created by congressional mandate. Right. But it's up to the executive branch, the President's side, to make sure that these mandates are being carried out. And how that's carried out is left pretty much to the discretion of the President. Congress can threaten to withhold funding or something like that. They can also repeal laws. We'll get to that in a second, too. But for the most part, the President issues regulations or the executive branch issues rules and regulations on how federal agency should act. Right? Right. So if you have a really pro business president, they're probably not going to give the SEC a lot of power. Right. And if you have somebody who's very much pro consumer, the SEC will likely look out for investors more correct. Through these regulations. Right. And it's a lot more than just investors. I mean, just about every aspect of our lives as Americans is impacted by these regulatory agencies. Yeah, big time. The EPA, you and I, have to go get admissions tests every year before we get a new tag. That's EPA. That's a federal regulation. We can't run around shooting heroin between our toes. DEA looks out for that kind of thing. Then there's just a lot more like profanity on television. That's the FCC. Right. So we're impacted in many ways. This isn't like just some high up hierarchy thing that's going on. Politically speaking, federal agencies are actually where the government and the public touch. Yes. Okay. That's a good way to say it. Thanks a lot. I appreciate that. Hey, everyone, when you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office, then? You could be using Stampscom. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer, no special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. Okay, so we're impacted by this, and a President's views will direct how much we're impacted. Right. Okay. So these new rules are created the Office of Information, information and Regulatory Affairs, they review these things, right? Exactly. Especially if it's big money involved. Yeah. $100 million impact or more on the economy annually. Right. That's when they get special attention. Right. So the OIRA is supposed to look at these things, these new proposals, these proposed rules, and they're supposed to look to see if these things are cost with the cost benefit analysis. Sure. They're supposed to look if the rules even needed. Right. If there's any way to use market forces to stimulate the change that these rules are meant to address, and any competing theories that may actually be better competing alternatives to the proposed rule. So you can imagine for each proposed new regulation, this is supposed to take a lot of time. Oh, yeah. If the OIRA signs off on the thing, an announcement gets published, and they actually publish an announcement in the Federal Register when they're first considering it, then they publish another announcement saying what the outcome was. Right. Once the OIRA signs off on it and it's published in the Federal Register, either 30 days for kind of smaller things, 60 days for big regulation, it becomes law. Right. And that 60 day time period is pretty important because what a President will do when they're leaving office, if they hit their deadlines and get these through quick enough, the 60 days is up before the next President comes in, and it makes it a lot harder to undo what they've done. Yeah. Once it's become law, the process to repeal it is pretty much the reverse of the process to have it become law. Right. You have to provide studies. You have to provide alternatives. The President doesn't just come in and wave his or her magic wand and say everything my predecessor just said is wrong and it's gone. Right. Good try, but no. And that's actually been a proposal to solve midnight regulation, is to allow incoming presidents to repeal any law passed in the midnight period. Right. This is not necessarily the case. This has never been entertained, as far as I know. Seriously, there are some things you can do as an incoming president right. To stop this regulation. Right. What you got? So once the new administration is in, they have to show that why repealing it is a good idea. And a lot of times you have to provide an alternative form of legislation. Right. And then Congress actually has a tool as well called the Congressional Review Act. And it came about 1996, which is ironic, because the President that signed that bill into law was the most prolific midnight regulator of all time. Bill Clinton. Correct. He had, like, 26,000 pages published in the Register. Second to him was Jimmy Carter, right? Whose presidency the term was coined after because he just took this old fashioned tool to a brand new level. Right. But yeah, clinton signed the CRA into law. Right. Right. Which basically repeals new regulations allows Congress to repeal these new regulations with a simple majority in the House and Senate. Yeah. And it still requires the President's signature, though, so it only works sometimes. And the only time that it works is when the President and Congress are controlled by the same party. Exactly. Right. Because if you have a President who is coming in and Congress is of an opposite party, congress isn't going to take up the CRA to repeal anything because they were with the old President. Right, right. And then if you have a President who's carrying on the same party from the old President and Congress is new and of the other party, they may take up moves to repeal anything, and the President is not going to sign off on it. Right. Which explains partially why it hasn't been used that often, even though in 2001 that was the case. I think it was only used one time officially to repeal one of Billy Boys. Yeah. To repeal a regulations that would prevent repetitive workplace stress injuries. Interesting. Yeah. I think one of the things that I thought was interesting when I was reading this was one of the reasons, because I thought, why is it so easy to get these laws pushed through at the final minute? And that's exactly why. It's because they're overloaded with, like you said, 26,000 pages, but they're not given any extra staff or anything. Right. And I think I read one stat on one of these environmental laws that Bush is working with the EPA for. They did the average time, and it was 90 seconds for the amount of employees that they had and the amount of comments. 9 seconds to read one of these comments and respond to it. Yeah. They went to 200,000 public comments on one new piece of regulation in four days. Right. So that kind of answers your question why it's easy to get these things through. Yeah, because don't forget, the OIRA is part of the Office of Management and Budget, which is a White House office. Right. The federal agencies are directed by the President. The group in charge of reviewing these proposals are directed by the President. It's basically the executive branch running the show on this new regulation. And it is it's very easy to get pushed through. Like I said, it's very cynical use of power. The President is no longer accountable. Another proposal for ending midnight regulation is not to allow the president to propose any more regulation during the midnight period. Like, you can't make new laws anymore. Sorry. You've either served both of your terms and somebody else has been selected, or you've been ousted because someone else has been selected. Either way, your presidency technically ended on November 5. Yeah, I think that would be more effective because basically what you would do there is you would have a president who I think a lot of times, administrations kind of hold these in their back pocket because they know why, trying to introduce it as law when it can be debated or when I can be impeached. Yeah, when I can be impeached. I'll just kind of hang on to this until I'm on my way out and then just kind of sneak it through the back door. Bush actually, I heard it called an 11:00 regulation flurry. Oh, really? Yeah, because his chief of staff, Joshua Bolton, apparently sent a memo out to all agencies saying, if you want new stuff in, prepare it by June 1, so we can have it passed by November 1, which is well before the deadline. Well, I think they did that because President Clinton famously did not get his through within the 60 day period. He waffled until the end, and he did well. He was busy with defending himself a lot of that time. Yeah, that is not making excuses, but there was a lot going on in his final years, let's just say that. Yeah, that's absolutely true. So, yeah, he didn't get his head on time, and so President Bush was able to come in and get a lot of those turned back. Well, Bush, like Clinton and Reagan, issued an executive order that says just anything that's under review right now that hasn't been published in the Federal Register, it's suspended. Right. But you can't just do that. You're fighting a political fight. A lot of times when Bush came in, one of the things that Clinton had left for him was a new regulation on acceptable arsenic levels in the water supply. Correct. Just one. That was just one of them. It would have an impact on business. And as we all know, Bush is so pro business. You could also make an argument that he's anti consumer and he's just always kind of been on the side of business. Right. Right. He didn't like how it impacted things like mining, the mining industry, the water boards who would have to step up their water purification, not waterboarding. Don't get confused. No, they came later. Right. So he basically said, this one in particular is suspended and I'm going to fight it to the death. And he spent a lot of political capital after he came in fighting this regulation that he ultimately had to bite and accept. Right. And he ended up eating 80% of them. Well, I think he was on record saying that was a big mistake on his part. Correct. Yeah. Because he became painted as basically an anti environmentalist from the get go. But that's not necessarily to say that that wasn't a deserved reputation from what he's doing right now. Right. If you go to this ProPublica site, most of the midnight regulations he's trying to get through has the letters EPA at the front of them. So regardless of what side you're on, they are environmental issues. Yes. Trying to stay fair and balanced here. I could read a few of them to you just by title. We won't get into them because it'll take too long, but power plants be exempted from installing pollution controls. The EPA may ease restrictions for power plants near national parks. EPA may allow certain hazardous waste to be used as fuel. I read another one about rocket fuel being allowed in drinking water. Fisheries. I've been doing a lot of research on fisheries right now because I'm writing about fishing quotas. Sure. And there's a lot of work being done to basically allow to push the science out of it as far as studying fish populations. Yeah. There won't be any independent scientific review. Right. Right. It's basically saying deciding whether it has an environmental impact. Well, the fisheries are going to be deciding that. And I think we all know the fisheries are probably going to say, hey, let's keep fishing. I read somebody who is part of a special interest fishing fishery group who is saying, no, that's not true, we'll self regulate. But I think it's one of those things that's yet to be seen. Yeah. I'm a bit of a cynic when it comes to things like companies self regulating themselves. I've been a lot of proof over the years to kind of back that up. I got another one for you. What's that? Financial planners will no longer have to disclose any conflict of interest in the advice they give to anybody. Sounds like a good idea. Yes, it's a good one. And there's one called the Right to Conscience Rule. Basically it says that if you are a health care provider, you can't not hire somebody if they would refuse to provide birth control. Right. Which basically then you have protection. It's a right to conscience. It's based on abortion and doctor can refuse to you can't force somebody to perform an abortion, in other words. Right. They have a right to conscience. So basically this extends that to contraception, which now kind of equates contraception with abortion, which has a lot of people a little nervous. Right. I don't think it's the same one, but it's another one that has to do with abortion. It's federally funded. Institutions can turn people down for an abortion for moral and religious reasons. Yeah, I think that's part of the same one. It's pretty expensive. Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff we have a lot of big changes to look forward to. I also heard there's some oil drilling going on now in a polar bear habitat. Right. But yeah, we'll look to see what Obama can do because a lot of these things very much fly contrary to things he's publicly said he opposes. They fly in the face of his views. Right. But he may have a hard time doing it because Bush did it. Right, it sounds like. Yeah. I think regardless of what political spectrum, what side of the spectrum you fall on, it's just fascinating to look at the push and the pull of the transition between administrations. It's fascinating. It absolutely is. And also, if you think about it, what Bush did with the right to conscience thing, he basically just set Obama up for a national fight about abortion right out of the gate. So it's going to be really interesting to see how it's handled because he didn't have enough to worry about. Exactly. Here's this, too. Yeah. So midnight regulations. There you have it. Yeah. And you know what time it is, right? It is time, Josh, for listener mail. All right, so what do you have? I've got a few quick ones today. I've got a couple of corrections. Because we get stuff wrong, people. You might not realize that this is largely unscripted, so we'll bring up something we didn't even know we were going to bring up, and sometimes we don't have the exact fact on that, so we count on the listener to point us in the right direction sometimes, right? Yeah. That's exactly what happens in this case. Daryl Kowalski of Denver sent us a message about the OCD podcast, and he says he wants to make a correction on something about when I mentioned Chris Jackson, the basketball player changed his name to Mamad Abdul Raoul in 1091, and he actually had Tourette syndrome, not OCD. Yeah, there's kind of a big difference, actually. There's not, really. Yeah. So I will school you like school, Darryl, in my email reply, we're like Chris Jackson at school, both of us, in basketball. Yeah. Actually, I'm not bad. I'm pretty sure Chris Jackson could yeah, well, if he's done tying his shoes, which is part of the problem. Tourette and OCD actually are often misdiagnosed as one to the other because they have a lot of the same symptoms. I got you. So one of his deals was he spent so much time tying his shoes or they hit the perfect shot before he left the court. So that was actually Tourette's at work, but they're very similar to mine. Hey, brief aside, have you ever seen the documentary Twitch and Shout? No. It's about Tourette's. It is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen in my life. That's my cue. Yeah. I have another one on gorilla gardening. Someone wrote in from the Netherlands. Our friends in Holland, Dave N, says that Josh's comment on bowery being a Dutch farm is wrong. That was true in the old days, but that word is long gone, basically in the Netherlands. And now the word for farm is pronounced you gave me an English pronunciation thinking border, eye or bordering. And that's what a farm is now in the Netherlands. I need to brush up on my Dutch. So we were wrong there. I could really make my way in, like 16th century Netherlands. Apparently now they'd be like, what the hell are you talking about? Right? And I've got a final quick one from our fan. Devon Wallace wrote in. Basically, he was one of these guys that writes in and says, hey, see my name on the air? And I wrote him back and said, no, Devin, that's not how it works. You need to give me something. So I requested that Devin ride a haiku. And if you did that, then we mentioned too, didn't he? So here's his haiku. Mountains and rivers, red squirrels hiding in trees, huge rocks in the park. Beautiful. And depending on whether you think squirrel is two syllables or one, I'm debating his squirrel. Well, I say one syllable, in which case this is not a haiku. Square roll would make it a high cube. Yeah, a high cue. We'll go with that. Right. So thanks, Devin, for the haiku. Yes. Well done. Squirrel roll roll. Well, if you want to learn more about squirrel rolls midnight regulations, of course. And actually, we have a great video on tourette's on the site. Sure. You can find all that stuff@howstuckworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseoffworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite trees crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ace-elevator.mp3	Can we build an elevator to space?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/can-we-build-an-elevator-to-space-1	With the end of the shuttle program and an International Space Station still in need of supplies, the aerospace industry is working the kinks of out of a century-old idea to build a service elevator from Earth to outer space.	With the end of the shuttle program and an International Space Station still in need of supplies, the aerospace industry is working the kinks of out of a century-old idea to build a service elevator from Earth to outer space.	Thu, 02 Aug 2012 19:01:19 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=2, tm_hour=19, tm_min=1, tm_sec=19, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=215, tm_isdst=0)	29154980	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e
null	null	null	null	null	null	null	null	null	null	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetoporkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles. Www. Chuck Bryant. And that makes this stuff you should miss. Did you hear Sneeze Dog son got a football scholarship? No way. Yeah, and actually, Sean Cones was the first to happen. It was about a month ago, and a lot of people got upset because they were like, we shouldn't be paying for this multi millionaire son to go to college. I should see that. But it was all explained. The sports guys came out and really dependent and said, it's not you paying for it. It's athletic scholarships that are earned by athletes. They're paid for clubs. Well, probably, but basically, it's not like some kid is missing out on education because Pete Eddie son, earned a football scholarship, okay? He should be treated the same, and so should Snoop Dogg son. Was there an outcry about Snoop Dogg son? Not as much, because he's the g, you see. Right. No one likes puffy, right? What going on with paper that I don't understand? He seems like a nice enough guy. He's friends with Biggie Smalls. I was in his house once. Did I ever tell you that? No. I was working on a music video with him and I had to deliver as a PA something to his home in Beverly Hills. And I went to the door and I rang the doorbell and some really large guy in a warm up suit and, like, a Kangole hat invited me in and took my thing and then escorted me out. Nice. I was, like, in the little foyer and it was like, lots of white marble and I mean, it could have been like, the king of France living there, as far as I know. Yeah, there's like a fountain of Sarakbag. It was really, like, pretty plush. Of course he's rich. If I took your thing, is that legal? Are you talking about everything above the board? Oh, yeah. It was like a video cassette for the shoot or something like that. Cool. I wouldn't be delivering anything illegal, but I didn't know if he did something illegal to you by taking your thing. Oh, no, it was all in the up and up. Good going, Chuck. Anyway, I haven't been to Snoop's house yet. Although I did see him one night in Atlanta. You did? Yeah. I can't tell that story, though. Oh, really? I'll tell you, he lives here part time, doesn't he? I don't use to, I believe. I'm not sure. What a weird start for the show. Yeah, it is a little weird. Especially since we're talking about space elevators. Nothing to do with it. This is not like we're talking about like, pea funk or George Clinton or anything like that. Or even Bill Clinton. Although I bet George Clinton could build a space elevator in his mind. He has many times. Chuck. But I've got something. I have an actual okay. A real intro. Yeah. It seems kind of stupid now. Let's hear it. Well, okay. 05:57 A.m. On July 21, 2011, about a year ago, something big ended, something that really helped with our childhood, like, really was an icon of our childhood. I'm not even going to let you guess. Okay. The space shuttle program. Of course the program ended. It started in 1981 and it went all the way to 2011. Yes. 30 great years. She had a good run. Yes. More than 100 missions. 135. Wow. And actually, there's this awesome thing on Gizmodo. You can watch all of the space shuttle launches at once. Really? It's just like 135 little tiles on the screen, and it's like starting from countdown to lift off and it's got everything. Well, they probably don't have the one ill fated attempt. There were two accidents. Yeah, it's there. I think I found it. And it just goes dark at about the time the Challenger exploded. But this was a huge deal for our childhood, but it was also a huge deal for the space program, because when they launched the first shuttle, I think it was Columbia, it was the first time that anyone had ever shot a spacecraft into space and then brought it back intact. Yeah. Reusable is huge. Yeah. We're not talking, like, a capsule where, like, Larry Hagman comes down and splashes into the sea and then gets out because the capsules weren't reused. This is like we have an appropriately named space shuttle. Yes. There and back, basically. Exactly. It even looked like a plane. So it was a big deal when this happened and improved, like, okay, we can go to space and back using the same equipment. It brought costs down tremendously. Sure. They're still pretty high. And then the space shuttle program ends, and everybody's like, how are we going to get to space and back? Now, Obama, did you think this through, right. And Obama didn't say it, but I'll bet he was thinking it when he was kind of skulking away after being shouted at for basically closing NASA. Not true. He probably thought, have you ever heard of the space elevator, dummy? He should say that. Yeah, that's what we're going to talk about. Josh and I thought this was a thrilling article. You thought the article itself was thrilling? No, the concept of a space elevator. Well, it is. Yeah. The article itself was a little it was a little 2005. Yes. It's a little outdated, but it's pretty cool. So you mentioned the space shuttle. Even though the space shuttle took place over the span of, what did you say, 30 years? Yes. 81 to 2011. The price of getting the thing going didn't change a whole lot, which was pretty remarkable. Yeah. It stayed about $10,000 per pound. Right. And they originally predicted when they were working on the shuttle program before it started that it was going to be about 50 million emissions. Yeah. It came to about 500 million emissions in every mission. They spent half a billion dollars on the shuttle mission. And that $10,000 per pound. 90% of that is fuel. Yeah. Is that per pound of everything on there? Yeah, I think it's just like that kind of equation. So a lighter astronaut would be cheaper. Symbolic, yes. I think it's more like if you take the full weight of this yeah. And divide it by the money spent yes, I get it. So in theory, a lighter astronaut would make it cheaper, but not really. Not really. Okay. Because I think they had those astronauts, like, way down to the gram, exactly what they wanted in the way. Sure. Like, they would probably be like, you need to excrete because you're about to suit up. Go excrete. Yes. You need to pee 6oz right now. I'd be a great astronaut then because I can pee on command. Can you really? Almost always. Okay. So I've got something for you. About 6oz. Have you seen the little diagram of the solo cup? You know the lines on a solo cup? Yes. They're measurements. The bottom one are they really? Is an ounce. The top one so, like liquor. Yeah. The middle one 5oz for wine. And then I'm not kidding, the lowest top band is Fort wine. That's the 16 ounce. No, it's 12oz for beer. I never knew that. That's ingenious. It is. I love little tidbits like that. Like, the amount of matches in a matchbook is equal to the amount of cigarettes in a pack. I didn't know that. Makes sense. Sure. We should just talk about those things all day instead of space elevators. No, let's talk about space elevator. All right. Let's talk about it quickly. A space elevator. And we'll get into the specifics here, but what it basically is it's a carbon nanotube composite ribbon right. Anchored to a platform offshore way out in the Pacific Ocean. And it has a counterweight way up in space, 62,000 miles. And they basically would that would be the elevator shaft. And they would send stuff crawling up and down this ribbon to outer space. Yes. Have you ever seen somebody like a piano mover lift a piano into a second story apartment bath except in space? Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't like the comparison to the game of Tetherball here. I thought it was a terrible, terrible analogy. So let's just skip it because it didn't make much sense to me. Yeah. I think you said it like basically we're connecting a line between a platform in the ocean and the satellite up in space, and we're putting something on it that can go up and down. Yeah. And the whole thing should just stop right there. The cool thing about this is to me is that every single part of this is feasible right now to do except for the one thing that they need to do it, which are the carbon nanotubes that go 62,000 miles into space. Yes. They are around. Right. But we can't make them that long. Yeah, right. I think that's a really good point. All of this is just waiting. And I saw a little video that Mitchell Kaku or Kaku made about this, explaining it. I saw that. And he was saying, like, everything's been surmounted. Now it's all in the realm of physical possibility. There's just a few more breakthroughs, and it's all carbon nanotubes. We've talked about graphene before, right? Yeah. Strongest substance known to man or humankind. That's right. It's one atom thick layer of carbon, incredibly strong. It's like 100 times stronger than steel at about one fifth of the weight. And a carbon nanotube is a layer of graphene rolled into a tube. Yeah. It looks like chicken wire. Exactly. Like a soccer ball. Chicken wire? Yeah, like if you spread out a length of chicken wire and then roll it up. Nanotube. Yeah, carbon nanotube. And we say soccer ball because the shape of the traditional soccer ball, not these crazy ones, are using these days. I don't even recognize it as a soccer ball. Yeah, but the old school soccer ball, that shape is the same shape as these carbon atoms, which is the key to its strength. Exactly. I've seen it described as stiff but flexible, like a steel guitar string. So it moves, but it's still super strong. And even though it's just a few atoms across, they are 10 million times as long as they are wide once you get this thing going. Right, so like a guitar string. Yeah, because these are nanotubes. So their diameter is like a few billionths of a meter, I think. 1,000,000,000th. Is that right? Yes. Because the nano is a billion. A billionth? Yes. So it's very thin. Very thin. That's the point. And ultimately, I saw that the 62,000 miles cable, it could be as thin as a piece of Saran Wrap, but it would still be strong enough to not snatch. So crazy. Under its own weight, 62,000 miles. There is no quality of material outside of this that wouldn't just snap like a hair. Like pulling one of your hairs in half. Yeah, agreed. This one will. But the problem is you don't make carbon nanotubes. You grow them. Yeah. There's a really cool Nova video, too, on YouTube where it shows a guy in the lab pulling a braided forest of carbon nanotubes. And he starts pulling it, and you see it all coalescing together, and he gets, like, 10ft away, and then it finally snaps. Yeah. And then it's, like, smaller than a human hair. It just floats away almost. Okay, so that's longer than I've seen. The record that I saw was 4 CM in length. Yeah. Well, I think it was stretching. I don't think it was the original. I got you. Okay. So the carbon nanotubes grow and then after that's, the world record 4 CM, which is like 1.6 inches. Right. That's short. And then it just stops miles right, exactly. One of the problems with them not being able to figure out why it stops growing is that scientists don't know why it grows in the first place. They have no idea. They're just like, oh, this happens when you do this. Right. And they figured out that there are some things like hydrogen gas in certain amounts, makes it grow longer. If you do a little too much hydrogen gas, it won't grow at all. So they're figuring this out, but they still are really at a point where they don't understand carbon nanotubes at all. They were only officially discovered in 1991. Yes. Which is a blip in the scientific community. But we're making headway, and like you said, once the carbon nanotube technology is able to be made into things that are maybe several meters long, or they can figure out how to basically wrap it smaller pieces together in, like, how you insulate wires with plastic, something like that, without the alloy coming away, then we'll be able to make this space ribbon. Ribbon? For the elevator. The space ribbon, which essentially is going to be like they would braid these things together like a row slope, correct? Yes. Which would still be tiny, though. Yeah. So it'll either be, like, several meters in length braided together, or really short ones braided together. But either way, they're not just going to make one continuous 62,000 meters, 62,000 miles strand. Yeah. The one thing I didn't get, though, if it's so small, like, it needs to be a certain size to have these lifters attached to it. Like, it can't be a human hair. Right. What could you attach to that? They have to gain traction with it. Okay. So, yeah. It couldn't just be as thin as plastic wrap, even though strength wise. Right, it could be. So that's one of the things they're working on is bulking it up. I guess so. Because you have to put the lifter on it like you're saying, so the lifter from now on, everything like this all exists. We can make this today. You and I can make it right now. Well, let's get it into space first. What? The idea is that they would spool this thing up once they've created it. They would shoot it into space with some kind of spacecraft. Right. Once it's in space, they would start lowering it back to the Earth, toward the platform out in the middle of the sea. While it's still going out into space. Right. They'd start lowering in the ribbon. Yeah. But the spool would continue. It's still going in two opposite directions. It'd be like some kid walking the dog. And eventually it gets lowered and there's a dude standing on a platform saying, all right, back it down. Then he would take it and clip it onto a C platform, although it would be much more complicated than that. Think about that operation. So this platform is going to be like 400 miles from any shipping or airlines, which is important in the equatorial Pacific. Yes. And a 62,000 miles long strand, a rope even, say, as thick as like a cable, one of the cables holding the Golden Gate Bridge. Okay. Imagine catching that. I mean, it's obviously not going to be checking it, but still, like there's somebody piloting machine that like I know. I don't know how you would move the counterweight around the spool, so that's how are you going to get the thread? This is the most difficult aspect of the whole program, if you ask me. I think so. Grabbing that ribbon and connecting it. Although they act like they've got that all figured out. They're like, we had this nanotube that was this long, we're all set. They're like trust. Like they've got a guy out on a platform just sitting around waiting for this thing to come down from space. So that guy catches the ribbon, ties it off, probably with a pretty decent sailor's knot. Yeah. And then you attach the lifter to it, right? That's right. The lifter is a robotic thing and basically it's sort of like a train track. It uses these traction tread rollers and it would clamp onto this ribbon and through something a little more advanced than a gasoline engine, I think. What are they using? A free electron laser to create the energy to do this? Basically what they're doing is they're going to put solar panels, but made of stuff that really absorbs light from a laser on the bottom or on the top, probably on both sides. And then they're just going to shoot lasers up and down the ribbon. And then that laser just powers it's basically like directing sunlight on the photovoltaic cells and then converting that to electricity. It's the same thing. Then it's just plain old mechanical energy. It's like a little motor that would crawl at 118 miles an hour, mind you. Exactly. A crawl that's 190 km. It would shoot up this ribbon into space to the final destination, which would be anything. I think at first they talked about capturing an asset destroyed to serve as the counterweight to what I think is smart, which would potentially be a satellite or the spacecraft that brought it out there to begin with. Yeah, just unfolding or reconfiguring or whatever. And then all of a sudden, bam, there's your counterweight, there's the other end of the string. Right. Oh, dude, that's it. I mean, after they get this going, they're saying it can basically be a constant operational elevator to the sky, lifting as much as 13 tons of payload at a time. In some cases humans, maybe eventually, yeah. Crazy. I guess the whole point now would be to shuttle stuff to say, the International Space Station supplies, that kind of thing. Gruel food. Yeah. Or if you had some sort of asteroid mining operation, you could take your daily haul to the space elevator to be brought down. The point is, this thing could be used for trips to lower Earth orbit every day, several times a day, because I think lower Earth orbit is between 501,500 miles. So that's like four to 12 hours trip, basically. And they're talking about going further than that though. Right. But lower Earth orbit is where that's where all the action is, generally. Sure. The problem is that's also where all the space debris is. Yeah. And I don't think we mentioned what the best part about all this is that it would cost about the closest estimate I've seen is about $200 a pound to deliver stuff to outer space. And what was the space shuttle cost? $10,000 a pound. So that's why they're pursuing this, is because it's much more affordable. They likened it to the transcontinental railroad back in the day. Right. Linking space to Earth. Yeah. Okay, so the problems, Josh, avoiding junk, flying around in space, like it would suck if you got this thing all hooked up and some asteroid came flying out of nowhere and snapped this thing in half. Well, not just asteroids. Apparently space debris largely refers to junk, man made junk. And lower Earth's orbit is lousy with it when there's a satellite, an old out of use satellite collided with a new in use satellite recently and blew it up and all of a sudden two pieces became 4000 pieces. Yeah. And that's nothing. That's a drop in the bucket. It is. So the problem is even a small 1 CM diameter piece is a threat to the space elevator. Yeah. So right now, NORAD tracks things as small as 10 CM. Did you know that? I didn't want to read this, but I was pretty shocked. But they're going to have to start tracking stuff down to 1 CM. So this is another kind of challenge that I don't think people talk about is tracking space debris or they're also proposing that we just go up there and get rid of it. Like paid contractors to go to space and bring these things down and clean up RMS. Exactly. That'd be a unique approach. Right. It's called active avoidance. And it's pretty amazing that you could actually potentially, because this thing is tethered to a C platform, move the C platform to dodge these things. Yeah, but that would mean that there's like some guy whose job it is to like yeah, joysticket. Yeah. That's crazy. It sounds very far fetched, but it's supposedly not super far fetched. No, I mean, this company, LiftPort, they're one of the private firms that have been I think they partner with NASA for a while. Until NASA, their funding has dried up to a large degree. So they had to scrap things like partnering with LiftPort. But LiftPort, as of now, I think I read in 2011 they have sort of scrapped not scrapped, but they put on the back burner the space to Earth version, and they're working on a lunar version. Oh, yeah. So they want to put one of these on the Moon, which can be done right now if they have the money. That makes sense to me. Not as much gravity, so they don't need the carbon nanotubes. Oh, really? Yeah. They could use stuff called Xylon. It's a synthetic polymer, and apparently they could do this within the decade. Everything's in place. It's just a matter of doing it. Wow. So, yeah, I thought about having one that goes from the Earth to the Moon or one that goes from the Earth to Mars. Well, and then from the Moon to Mars, you could connect them. Right. Like Station One is here, then you have another one that goes there. And the idea is they are going to build a bunch of these. Right. That's the idea. Because if one goes down because of some space debris, hey, no problem. We've got another one that we built even cheaper over here in this part of the ocean. Right. So that's the idea. What's awesome is this is far reaching. It sounds futuristic. It's actually pretty smart, simple idea, like where it's going to build an elevator that goes to space. And it's actually kind of an old idea. There was a Russian scientist named Constantine Siokovsky who proposed this in 1895. Yes, I heard about that. And then I think everybody thought he was a crack pot for a while. They thought DaVinci was, too, though. Yeah, actually. Did they? No, not DaVinci. They think he was a genius back then, too, probably. Okay. Except for his flying machine, I think. Well, that's what I lost. Credibility. Yeah. But then Arthur C. Clarke comes along and writes about this in Fountains of paradise in 1978, and he very clearly saw, like, the big problem was the ribbon. If you could figure out the ribbon, everything else would be fine. Which is still the problem. Yeah. Arthur C. Clarke way ahead of his time. So that's pretty much it. If they get this lunar going, they're talking about deep space exploration from a lunar based system, which the benefit there is is it cost a lot of money to get from here to the Moon. If you could shuttle the components of a rocket up to the Moon and just get it going up there, it'd be a lot cheaper. Right. We talked about that with asteroid mining. That was another idea is you could launch things from these asteroids or whatever, because a vast majority remember, 90% of the weight of a space shuttle is in the fuel. Almost all of that is just used within the first 10 miles. Then after that, you start to escape Earth's orbit and exactly. Yeah. If you could get rid of all that, you just dropped the cost tremendously. Pretty cool stuff. I know. I'm curious to see within a decade if we're going to have a space elevator from the moon to something else, we will be riding one. You think so? Yeah. Well, it all depends on funding. These ideas are all great in practice, unless you have billions of dollars to get it going. But think about Jeff Bezos has billions of dollars. Sure. Elon Musk. Cameron. Cameron, Elon Musk. These guys have cash and this is what they're putting their money into, this kind of thing. So I don't think it's going to come down to NASA funding. I think it's going to come down to the will of guys like Kurt Cameron. Well, Kurt Cameron does not have billions of dollars, but he does have a fine collection of faith based movies direct to video that you can check out, but not the dirty kind of direct to video. No. I guess that's about it, right? It's pretty much I'm looking forward to it. Private space exploration is definitely the way of the future. We should put in a request for this article to be updated, but I'm afraid to think they'll be like have added yeah, I'm afraid to do that. Well, if you want to read a hilariously out of date article on how stuff works, it still captures what's going on with the space elevator. Yeah, sure. And with some cool artists rendering of stuff. You can type in space elevator. That's at the handy search bar and a great little website called Householdworks.com. And I said search bar, which means it's time now for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this Dead Sea follow up, and I should mention we got a lot of emails from Dead Sea visitors and tourists and a lot of photos. And one thing we did not cover, because I haven't been there and experienced this, but we said swimming in the Dead Sea a lot. There ain't a lot of swimming going on in the Dead Sea. There's a lot of floating and flailing because they just say it's really disorienting because you're so used to the way you move in water and all of a sudden it's totally different. Cool. So people are like gasping and eventually they'll learn to trust and relax and float on their back. You don't want to go in your stomach, you don't want to try and swim and you don't want to get it in your face because it will really sting your eyes and it tastes really bad. And we had this one whose husband was suffering they advise you not to go on with cuts or open source, obviously. Yeah. Her husband was suffering from a little it's called many different things when you walk a lot and you get chafed between the legs. Oh, yeah. It goes by many different crude names. But he had a bad case of this and didn't tell his family that he was traveling with his wife knew and he went in the Dead sea promptly got out, and the family was like, Where did the son in law go? And she was like, Maybe he's just not into it. All right, so this is from Daniel, but thanks to everyone else who wrote in, I just finished the Dead Sea podcast. Had a couple of interesting tidbits. You briefly mentioned the Great Salt Lake when talking about the high salinity, the Dead Sea. These two lakes actually have quite a bit in common. Both lakes are located in the desert region, although the elevation is drastically different. Like the Dead Sea, the Great Salt Lake here in Utah has a very high salt content, about 27%, making it hard for anything but halophilic, bacteria and some brine shrimp to grow. This guy is a graduate student, by the way. BYU. Both lakes are fed mainly by a smaller freshwater lake roughly 50 miles away. The Dead Sea being fed by the Sea of Galilee to the north by way of the Jordan River. The Great Salt Lake is fed by Utah Lake to the south, also by the Jordan River. Coincidence? Not sure. In both cases, the water leaves the lake only through evaporation. And like the Dead Sea, there are many areas, the Great Salt Lake that are quite stinky at times, mainly in the muddy waters where the level is low. The Great Salt Lake is also dense enough for you to float with little to no effort. So if you are not able to ever make it over to Europe to visit the Dead Sea, I would say the Middle East, wouldn't you? Sure. Okay. You can head on over for a float in its little American cousin out here in Utah. I keep up the good work, guys. I really enjoy the wide variety of topics. It's from Daniel, who is a grad student at BYU studying microbiology. So good for you, my friend. Nice. Much smarter than I am. Yeah, well, yeah. Grad students. All you have to say. English undergrad microbiology. Grad. That is a well rounded human being. Agreed. Oh, wait, you're the English undergrad. Yeah. Let's put the two of you together. You're a well rounded human. Exactly. If you have some ideas of how to put me and Chuck together to form another superhuman, we want to hear them. Also, if you just want to say hi or you have something cool or interesting to tell us a great fact. We love those. Love them. That you'd like us to tweet. Yeah. Or put on Facebook. You can send those two via Twitter, s y Escape podcasts via Facebook@facebook.com, STUFFYou know. And you can send us an email, electronic mail to stuff podcast. Hit discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ar-wax-final.mp3	Earwax: Live With It	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/earwax-live-with-it	Despite tons of people using cotton swabs each day to clean the earwax from their ears, cerumen (as earwax is clinically known) is actually quite beneficial to the health of your ears - and even kind of ingenious as your body's defense goes.	Despite tons of people using cotton swabs each day to clean the earwax from their ears, cerumen (as earwax is clinically known) is actually quite beneficial to the health of your ears - and even kind of ingenious as your body's defense goes.	Thu, 19 Mar 2015 14:52:48 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=19, tm_hour=14, tm_min=52, tm_sec=48, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=78, tm_isdst=0)	34787650	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's Charles WTO. Bryant. There's Jerry. Yeah. It's stuff you should know. He just shrugged. Like, what are we going to do? That's what we are. Episode number seven something. Yeah, I have no idea. In the 700, folks, if you think there's only 300 because you're on itunes, you're in for to be doubly surprised. Yeah, well, somebody tweeted recently, I just found out how Stuff Works app, and there's way more stuff you should notice than there is on itunes. I hate you guys. Now, wait, I was cool with 301, but that's it. I had someone ask you the other day if we feel like we're running out of things, topics. Clearly we are, because we're recording on earwax today. Exactly. What did you tell them? Look for boogers in the near future? No. I said no. That sometimes it feels a little like, oh, my gosh, what are we going to do? But there's gazillions of topics in the world, at least. And gazillions are scientific. That's right. What is that? How many? Zeros. Is that a real number? No, I don't think it is. Let's say 90. It's a real number if you're eight years old. Right, but watch, it probably is a real number. Yeah, I think a Gillian is a real number. A Bazillion. A Jillian definitely is. I would guess gazillion is by now. I might actually look that up. I mean, there's just, like, a handful of mathematicians who are in charge of naming that kind of stuff. Chuckers? Yes. While you're looking at up, do you have earwax? Do you have problem earwax? No, I don't either. No, I wouldn't say so. It is a little distressing, though, even though we will find out it is awesome and exactly how it's supposed to work when it just sort of falls out of your ear onto your shoulder. Yeah, that's ideal, actually. Yeah, because earwax and your physiology in general doesn't care about what social group you're a part of. No, it's just like, here's some earwax on your shoulder. Deal with it. Although, and I didn't look up why this is true, apparently in northeastern Asian countries like Korea and China, their earwax is a little different. They're more likely to have the dry ear wax, which can be hard in red to black in color, which sounds gross and flaky or pale yellow. Whereas over here we have that nasty, gooey orangey mess. Wet earwax is what it's called. Yes. And the reason why actually is because of the ABC Eleven gene. Oh, is that why? Yeah, they isolated the gene. That was the reason causes the type of earwax that you get, and it turns out that, say, the W mutation or the D mutation, dry earwax is recessive. So the only way to get dry earwax is if both of your parents have dry ear wax. Both carry the D, Jean or Demutation of the ABC eleven Gene. Well, I have both. Most people have are WDS. Okay. Yeah. So you have to get two dry earwax alleles to have dry ear wax yourself. If you have a W and a D or two W's, you're going to have wet. And for some reason I have both. Like one year is dry and the other is wet. No, if I get the old cotton swab out which now you're introducing something way beyond genetics that's not even epigenetics, that's human intervention. Point is if I get the cotton swab out that's when I'll get out the orangey wet stuff. But I'll also have the dry flaky stuff that falls out sometimes probably, I would guess. And I'm no serum and expert. Yeah, I'm no serum. Minist. Now what's the word? I actually looked it up for someone who studies this. Oh really? It has to have to do with Saramen. I can't find it. No. So Sarah Menus isn't ringing a bell? No, it's wrong. I can't find what it is, sorry. Okay, well, I'm not a person who studies earwax. Okay. But what I would guess is that when you're digging in there you're getting to the fresher earwax. That's what I think. And then as it works itself further and further out your ear, which is the natural process, it's exposed to drier air, that ambient air and it dries out and flakes off. Which is what it's supposed to do. Yeah, I think so. I don't think you have both. I think if you have both the stuff inside your ear would be dry. Would be dry as well. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well that makes sense. So what earwax is or seruman C-E-R-U-M-E-N is the scientific name but I'm sure they call it wax. It's the third chubby angel. It is made up of secretions of a couple of little specialized glands in the skin on the outer third of the ear canal. Yes. So you have your sebaceous glands and they're going to secrete and these names all sound so gross really? But they're perfect for describing what they are. Yeah, they secrete sebum. Sebum. And then you have an apocrym sweat gland that's modified that produces it's got a hemi. Yeah. It combines with the sebum and that's where you get your ceremony. And so sebum in and of itself is fairly normal. If you like take your fingertip and rub it alongside where your nose falls into your face. Yeah. Get a little dry skin there. Well, if your stuff is at all oily, that oil is sebum. Okay. So apparently it mixes in your ear with that kind of apocrine gland like you said, to form ceremony, which is its own thing. It's not just sebum. Right. But all of it is basically a fatty oily lipidy compound that's secreted by these glands in the skin cells. Specialized glands. Yeah, about 60% keratin, which is a protein. And then, like you said, the fatty acids. You've got dead skin cells, you've got hair follicles, dead bugs. Little bugs. Yes. Lots of stuff that comes out in this. And like you said, dust. Probably dust mites then, too. Sure. And like you said, it's produced in the inner third of the outer ear. Outer one third of the ear canal. Okay. Yeah. And when it's produced in there, it migrates outward, thanks to the motion of the motion. Right. And you talking and chewing. Oh, is that what it is? Yeah. I couldn't figure out, like, how does your ear wax move? But it's just from jaw movement, normal jaw movement moves or the newer stuff outward. And as it's coming out, all the gunk and stuff that's protected your ear from are moved out with it. So the stuff that flakes off and falls on your shoulder that everybody points and laughs at the party, that is filled with all the stuff that your earwax caught along the way. It's a beautiful, elegant process. Probably the most beautiful aspect of the entire human experience. Well, I think you're making a joke, but I really do think that it's the little things like that. I'm amazed about the function of the brain and of course the organs and all that, but just something as simple as that. Mechanical talking and chewing will work. Ear wax out of your ear, it's just so basic. And I think it's awesome. I think it's really cool, actually. I know what to mean. I agree with you. So some people produce a lot of this I was going to say gross stuff, but have you seen Paddington? The movie? Yeah. No, I heard it was really good. It's very good. Super cute. Really well done. Why did you see that? Just because it's a cute movie. Really? Yeah. Saw it in theaters and everything. All right. Please tell me you took you. Me? Yeah. And as a matter of fact, it was just me and you. Me and the whole theater. But if it's just you and no kids right. Then it's like somebody might want to call the security. And they did. I'm just a Paddington fan, but I am now. Yeah. So anyway, there is a part where there's a part featuring earwax in Paddington. Oh, really? It does not celebrate the beauty of earwax. It's the exact opposite. And actually, Yummy was like, oh, really? It got hotter. It was really gross, but awesome. So anyway, go see Paddington. Is that a spoiler? No. Okay. I don't think so. Maybe for like, a five year old. So, like I said, some people produce a lot of the stuff. Some people don't produce as much and they don't really know why. But they do know that sometimes stress and anxiety can increase production of your wax, which makes it interesting. Hormones. Sure. Hormones affected your glands go off. It also said that some drugs can increase your earwax production and I looked all over and couldn't find the drugs. But if stress and anxiety does hiahuasca, I imagine yeah, cocaine would probably make you produce more earwax or something. Yeah. When you put that stuff in your ear. Yeah. Or something that makes you like to your jaw lock. Oh, sure. They could probably get more earwax out. Yeah. Interesting. I never thought about that. I couldn't find anything else as gross as you might think earwax is though, it actually is a great thing for your body and there's a very good reason why you have it because there are four main functions that your ear wax is going to serve, my friend. Okay. One of them is it creates an acidic environment that's great. That kills helps kill bacteria and fungi. Oh, even better. Number two, well that's a big deal too, because your inner ear like that is really the place where fungus and bacteria will thrive because it's moist and dark. And what we always say about moist and dark places, fungi thrive. That's right. The thing is it doesn't seem like that'd be a big problem to have fungi in your ear, but it would because it would affect things like your balance, nausea, ear aches, it just wouldn't be good. So the fact that earwax produces an acidic environment alone makes earwax a beautiful thing and to be celebrated. So we could just stop there. We could, but you can go on. Like you said, there's four and that was just one quarter of these benefits that your existose. Secondly, it is a lube. It lubricates your ear canal, basically to keep it from drying out. And you don't want the inner ear becoming all itchy and dry and craggedy. No. And you want to hear something weird? That I have a new personal hygiene thing I have to do as of yesterday. Starting yesterday. Something I'll probably have to do my whole life. Hair. I have to moisturize my ears. Now. I thought you were going to say hair inside the ear. I was like, I have been doing that for a while. It's getting I got a little fro inside ear fro? Yes. But no, like taking moisturizer and rubbing on my ears because I got a haircut yesterday and my ears were exposed and all of a sudden I'm like, wait, why is like there's a streak of white on my ear and they're bright red and I realized my ears are chopped and that is brand new or else I just noticed it. So I'm in ear moisturizer now. Yes. You had that 70s earmuff hairstyle cut off of your ears. Right. So your ears were exposed. Yeah, it was pretty 70s, wasn't it? Well, I was growing my hair out to create like a blank slate that could be worked with. It was kind of longish for you. It was really long and it was that 70s like your muff thing wasn't quite it was getting there. It looks good. Very nice. Thanks. Sure. Did that make you uncomfortable? No, I was fishing for that the whole reason I brought that story up. You looked either sheepish or really uncomfortable with it. A little bit. Both. All right. Got you. All right. Number three on top. Four things that earwax does is your ceremony and your hair fall. Just like Letterman. Exactly. It's going to discourage everyone's worst nightmare, which is a spider crawling in there, which I covered. That happened to Emily. I think I talked about that on one of the shows. Right. That was genuinely one of the most awesome things that I've ever experienced, because it did not happen to me. Wasn't there a picture? Didn't you post a picture of it or something like that? No, but I think I posted a picture of happen to some woman in China. I think that was frightening. And it was a picture of a spider looking out of the woman's ear canal. Right. Yeah, but Emily, if people haven't heard the story I think it was in the middle of the night or something, she was like, I got this weird fluttering in my ear, and I don't know what's going on in there. And I was like, Well, I took her in the bathroom and shined the light, and I was like, Holy crap. And the spider, I think, worked, didn't it? With the flashlight? Remember, if you look at your I don't know, you're saying yes. Yes. Okay. So there you go. Well, all I remember thinking is, Emily, I don't want to have to break this to you, but you have a spider in your ear. You didn't, like, chloroform her first. I should have. Yeah, you should. She was not excited about that. She was not pumped. What was the process for getting it out? Well, I looked on the Internet super quickly to see how and they said to flush it out. Oh, my gosh. You did use tweezers. Yeah, and I put the water in there and it kind of loosened it up and went in there and got the tweezers. And I was like, look at this. How big was it? It wasn't huge, but it was enough spider for her taste. More than enough. Right. I can't imagine that some people sleep with Vaseline in their ears to keep bugs from crawling in. Yeah, that is the thing. People don't want bugs in their ears. No, but that's taken. I mean, that's severe paranoia, I think, if you're sleeping with earmuffs or vascally in your ears. Yeah, earmuffs. I hadn't thought about that. All right. And number four, finally, is your earwax is going to trap some dead skin and hair cells and basically all of that junk to carry it back out, to keep it clean. So it sounds sort of counterintuitive to trap that stuff, but it's trapping it so it can carry it out. And if you didn't have your wax, it would just go in there. Right. And if you choose things like celery and you talk, then the earwax is going to work its way out in a slow process where all this stuff is cleaned out and you don't ever have to do anything with it under ideal circumstances. Not always our circumstances. Ideal. And we'll talk about how things can go wrong after this. Okay, Chuck? So ideally, you don't have to ever think about earwax or anything like that because to brush it off your shoulder, right? Sure. But for some people, ear wax can build up and become impacted. A lot of times it's because people mess with it. Like with cotton swabs on a stick. Yeah. You may have seen the advertisement on the Big game. I think they're just called cotton swabs. Right? Yeah. Okay. If you use that, a lot of people use those to clear out their earwax, right? Yeah. You're not supposed to. No, it's doing the exact opposite because your ear wax is created and moves from the outside third of your inner ear. When you rub a cotton swab on it, you're actually pushing it in further than it's supposed to be, and it can't get out as easily there. So what you're going to do eventually is have earwax build up. Yeah. And it's so hard to get people to not do that because it's so rewarding when you get out of the shower and use that swab and you get that orange gunk and you're like, oh, man, I'm so glad that's out of my body. But it's got a purpose. Leave it there. You're supposed to leave it there. Plus, using cotton swabs can lead to other kinds of dangers, like you can push too hard and perforate your eardrums. I think it really is true. You're not supposed to put anything larger than the end of a football in your ear. You can also clean it too much. It can result in something called swimmer's ear, where basically, for people who spend a lot of time in the pool, their ears are constantly irrigated and the canal becomes basically free of earwax, and as a result, bad things can happen. Yeah. And they say if you do have swimmers here, put a few drops of slightly acidic, not acid like hydrochloric acid. Just put a 55 gallon drum of hydrochloric acid acid in there. What is a slightly acidic fluid, I wonder? Maybe lemon juice, that's what I would guess. That's probably what I would do. I hope we're not advising something that's really dangerous now. As a matter of fact, maybe you should go look up what you should put in there or go to your doctor. Yes. But they advise some slightly acidic fluid in the ear after you swim, and that reestablishes what should be a normal acidic environment. Yeah. Because when you strip out that ear wax, you lose those big four benefits, and all of a sudden your ear is dry and cracky and you've got fungus and bacteria growing in there and you get ear infections and it's not fun. The big Four back to creating a build up of earwax. You get what's called serum and passion, and that is when you have a bunch of earwax pressed against your eardrum, and it can result in all sorts of stuff, like headaches, nausea, ear aches, coughing for some reason, and that can be from using Q tips. People who use hearing AIDS run into this a lot. And when your serum becomes impacted, you have to go to the doctor. That's right. Which my sweet wife had to go to the doctor when she was a little girl because really, ear wax impacts and she said it sucked. Well, when you go to the doctor, if it comes to that, they're going to have quite a few techniques that could use ear syringing. Is one of them painful? It does. I don't think it is, though. I bet it's actually quite a relief. Yeah. It's not how I hear it. Really? Is it painful? Yeah, yumi says it really is not fun. Well, I didn't know if that was like, a five year old. Yumi. Yeah. But even as an adult, she remembers it as not being very fun. Is this Paddington? Yumi. Maybe that's why she had such a reaction. Maybe they'll use other instruments. Sometimes you use a microphone. I'm sorry, a microscope. That'd be weird. To magnify the ear canal. They shout into it to shatter your ear wax. And some people have a more narrow ear canal. Or if you have a perforated eardrum or something, that can be a problem. Basically, you want to go to a doctor, you could try some home methods, like peroxide or maybe mineral oil. Yeah. Apparently warm mineral oil kind of breaks it up a little bit. Yeah. That's one of my most pleasing memories as a kid. When I had ear aches, my mom would heat up mineral oil and put in my ears. But that was nice. It felt really nice. Very warm. And for some reason, I like the feeling of water closing my ear, like when I get into a pool. Oh, yeah. Probably because of that. Yeah, maybe so. Didn't think about that. Do you like that? Or is it what I would just imagine you just like, crawling to the feet. Why is Chuck just floating in the pool like a baby? No, I've never had much of an affinity for water in my ears because some people hate it. I don't hate it. I don't like it. Yes. And like, I'll bang on the side of my head if it feels like there's like a drop of water in there. Does that work? It can. Not always. I think normally the water just has to dry. Right. Sometimes I get dizzy in my head. It hurts. I used to see when I, like, guarded, I would see swim team members do that. Though. And I was always like, I don't know. That just doesn't seem right. Once in a while it does, and it just goes and all of a sudden you can hear normally again. Interesting. I didn't see the reason for this, though. But they did in this one article I saw have cautioned people against irrigation if you had diabetes. What? Yeah. Why? I have no idea. I meant to follow up on that. So we don't know what drugs cause an increase in earwax build up, and we don't know why. If you have diabetes, you shouldn't do you canal irrigation? I don't know. They said not to use irrigation if you have a perforated eardrum. Yes, I get that. A tube in the eardrum, a weekend immune system or diabetes, I have no idea. I have to follow up on social media and let people know. Okay. But they do say if you do want to clean your ear, it's not like you can't clean your ears, but just wash your external ear with a cloth. But you should never stick something into your ear canal. Right. It's just no good. But it's interesting that the cotton swab business is huge if you think about it. I don't want to say they shouldn't be selling these things now. I know what you mean, though. Yeah. Apparently I couldn't find out how much people spend on cotton swabs every year or how many are produced. We couldn't find out that either. But for 2011, apparently Americans spent $63 million on ear cleaning stuff, home ear cleaning stuff, and I imagine a lot of that went to cotton swabs, but also like, home irrigation kits and stuff like that. Yeah, because you can get those at the drugstore. Right, right. And those are fine, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, everything is upside down right now. No, I think the irrigation is fine if you don't fall into one of those categories that I mentioned because you're not sticking an object into your ear that and then if you don't do it too frequently to where you're stripping the ear wax out of your ear. Right. Because it's not like that thing just replenishes overnight, guys. I know. And I used to cotton swabs not a lot, but occasionally. But I'm not going to do it anymore. But like I said, it feels so good to get a big hunk of that stuff out. Yeah, I've never been into those. Yeah, I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm going to tell only two. I'm going to burn all that stuff. All I do is I take some soap and lather at my hands, do the outside of my ears, and then I guess I just kind of follow the contours of the inside of my ears. And I'm trying to remember, like, do I go into my ear canals? And I think I intuitively stop with your fingers. Yeah. At about the outside. So I don't really go into the ear canal and then rinse it out and get off and get out of the shower. And then now I moisturize my ears afterward is the last step. That's great. The other thing, too, that, of course, you should never ever do, like cotton swabs is one thing, but like a car key or bobby pin or like, a toothpick? What is wrong with you? I don't know. You should never, ever stick something like that in your ear because you're just asking for trouble. Big trouble. All right, well, after this break, we are going to talk about ear candling. All right, so, Chuck, you teased everybody with ear candling. Why don't you tell everyone what that is? It's hokum. Okay, describe the hokum. Well, ear candling and a lot of people don't know this, I think. I think a lot of folks say, like, oh, my gosh, it's the best thing ever. It is also known as auricular candling or coning. And it is a procedure. Once you put a waxy cone shaped device in the ear canal, it's got usually like a plate underneath it between the cone and your ear. Right. And you light it on fire. And supposedly what it does is it you stick the thing in your ear and then light it on fire. Yeah, supposedly what it does is it creates a vacuum to pull out impurities. Right. Because the flame supposedly needs oxygen, while the flame definitely needs oxygen to burn. And it's getting its oxygen by sucking it out of the ear canal through the cone. Right. Hence creating a vacuum. And as it does, like you said, it sucks out impurities and ear wax and supposedly also clears your sinuses, clears the plaque out of your dendrites and all sorts of stuff like that. Yeah. This one article by Lisa Rosen, MD. Said she went to and this is in the 90s, but she went to a Discovery Expo in Atlanta and said that they had ear candlers there in one of the exhibitions. And the ladies said they ran the booth, quote, it cleans the whole head, brains and all. They're all connected, you know, is that quote in there. Oh, yeah, nice. End quote. And of course, it was in Atlanta. I'm like, oh, great. Although that doesn't necessarily mean that could be anywhere. Yeah, you're right. Sure. But there are a lot of people that think it's a cleanse for your ear, and it does connect to your brain and it clears your head, and it's a spiritual thing, and they don't know where exactly it came from. But China and ancient Tibet and pre Colombian South America. Atlantis. Yeah. They all are cited as places where it might have happened. Yeah. No one has any idea where this stuff originated. It could have been created in the US. And the all anybody knows should we read some of the things that supposedly helps? Yeah, we should probably also say if you haven't been able to tell by now, science is thoroughly debunked. Ear candling. That's right. And this is from that article dr. Rosen and some of her colleagues got together and kind of step by step took down the idea. Yeah. There's a list of, like, 40 things. We won't go through them all, but release vertigo, clears the eyes, purifies the blood, AIDS sinusitis, relieves ear aches, opens and aligns your chakra, releases blocked energy, reduces stress and tension, stabilizes your emotions. It does none of that because it has just been proven to be an outright not only fraud, but dangerous. Right. And here's why. The first one is that you can't pass liquids and gases through an eardrum that isn't perforated or ruptured now, so it's not sucking anything out of your inner ear or your lymph system or your sinuses or your brain. That's why your ears pop when you're on a plane. Right. If you could pass air through there, that wouldn't happen. There would be no atmospheric pressure going on. Right. So that means that sticking an ear candle in your outer ear is not going to suck anything out because it can't pass through that's .1. Right. That's .1.2 is oxygen. It will create that vacuum and suck out the impurities. Yeah. And that is just not true. Yeah, apparently. And they tested it, and yet during trials of ear candles, they weren't able to create a vacuum in any of them. So there's no vacuum created. That's right. There's also the idea that if a vacuum were created, it would suck impurities out. Apparently, after ear candling, at least one of the same trials studied the stuff, the residue that was found afterwards, like, I guess in the stump of the ear candle. Well, yeah, and that's what people point to, because there's all this gunk, and they're like, look at all the stuff that came out of my ear. Oh, my God. Right? So what it turns out to be is ash from the ear candle and leftover wax from the ear candle. But not just the ear candle. Not ear wax. No, just the candle residue. Yeah, like they tested the substance that is not cerebrum. Okay. In any form or fashion. What about the idea that it's safe and effective? I think we took care of the effective part. Yeah, but the safe thing, apparently there's a lot of injuries you can get from it. You can be burned is one thing. Sure. You can perforate your eardrum, you can get infections. You can get build up of the candle wax to replace whatever wax you think you're getting out. Yeah. It can have the reverse effect. Exactly. And then one woman actually died from a fire that was caused in 2005 from ear candling. I looked it up. She was doing it, I guess, by herself on her bed, and the ear candle fell out of her ear and caught her bed sheets on fire. She made it. Out of her house. Fine. But she was asthmatic and had an asthmatic reaction to the smoke and died. How did it happen that fast? I don't know. I guess she had some bedsheets or something. Right. They were made out of some flammable material. There is a company, I won't name the company, but one company that made it, and if it came with a 75 page manual and a 30 minutes video tape, I guess this is a while ago, it was a video tape and candles and plate guards and flame retardant cloth and oil. And then odoscope. And if you read the flyer with this kit, it says, quote, it supplies you with everything you need for a safe and effective session of entertainment. Right. For entertainment purposes only. Yeah, because apparently I think it says that Canada regulates those things, or the US does medical devices if they make any health claims. Yeah, I think they're illegal in Canada outright. Got you. Or at least they were. I'm not sure if they still are, but yeah, the FDA won't even I mean, you can't make any kind of claim on the box. If you get an ear candle at your little health food store, just read it carefully. They can't make any claim for entertainment purposes only because it's a hoot to put a candle in your ear and light it on fire. There is one other thing I came across in the articles you sent me, and I don't know if it's true, but it sounds fantastic that if you could create a vacuum with an ear candle, the negative pressure created by the vacuum would rupture your eardrum. Right. Which sounds pretty awesome. Yeah. I don't know if it's true. It wasn't backed up with a source or anything like that. I couldn't find it anywhere else, but it's pretty hilarious. Yeah. So don't ear candle, people. And if you write in and say no, you should see the stuff that comes out. It is not your earwax. Yeah. You should put that stuff beneath the gas chromatograph and see what you think. I mean, it's proven. This is like what was we talked about recently? Crop circles. We got heat from that, too. People like, no, it's not proven. What was it? I think it was that the lowest crop circles were like, no, they've proven. These guys came out and said we made it up. No, I know what they were saying, though. It's just like we were talking about with ESP. Just because you can disprove right. Some of it doesn't mean it disproves. All of it except with crop circles. We should come up with the stuff you should know t shirt. Friends don't let friends ear candle. That's a good one. Yeah. Just love your ear wax. Yeah. Let it fall out on your shoulder and let someone point it out. And you say that's nature, baby. Yeah, because I eat celery. Yes. If you want to know more about ear wax. You can type the word into the search barhowstephorcs.com. I think we have it down as one word, maybe. Yeah. And I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this ice cream follow up. We got a lot of good stuff on ice cream. Yeah, we did. People really liked that episode. Hey, guys, I'm a student at the University of Minnesota Twin cities started listening to your podcast just this week, and I'm officially hooked. I'm listening to your podcast on ice cream. It's really interesting because I've worked in an ice cream parlor for the last five summers. Wilson's opened in is still going strong today. One of the most famous restaurants in Wisconsin. There are definitely different types of vanilla ice cream. We use two types, french or deluxe vanilla and purple vanilla. The label on this other vanilla is purple. We use purple vanilla for shakes and malts because it's less rich, allows for the flavor of the shaker, malt to be more distinguished for French vanilla and ice cream cone sundaes and floats. And you mentioned having root beer floats. Reminded me of an interesting thing that I've noticed. People often get offended when they order a black cow and we have to ask them what it is. That's because almost everyone has a different idea of what a black cow consists of. Some say that it's a root beer float, some say that it's a root beer float with chocolate ice cream. Some say it's a coke float, some say it's a blended root beer float, etc, etc. And somehow they all got labeled as black cow. Thanks for giving me more ice cream knowledge. I'll actually be able to answer customers now when they ask what the difference between ice cream and frozen yogurt is. That is from Andrea Nelson. And she says, PS. Those nasty, cheap cones with the flat bottoms are known as cake cones. Yeah, I saw that afterward. Don't order them ever if you're a Jason's Deli. And that's all they got. They have the free ice cream, right? Yeah. It was like the day that we recorded ice cream and I couldn't remember the name of the cone. I think I ended up going that night there it was, cake cone. I was like, yes, cake cone. Somebody else called it a wafer cone, but I think that's just wrong. I see where that would come from because it's wafer esque. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, but I've never seen it called that before. And that's too close to waffle cone, right? Makes people confused. So thanks, Andrea Nelson, for that one. Thanks, Andrea. If you want to get in touch with us to say hi or to tell us about ice cream or anything like that, you can tweet to us at s yskpodcast. You can join us on facebook. Comstuffyturnnel. You can send us an email to stuff podcast athouseofworks.com and as always, you can join us at home on the Web, the Luxurious stuffysheanow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstepworks.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…8-sysk-mafia.mp3	How the Mafia Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-the-mafia-works	Many people are familiar with depictions of the Mafia in film, but what's the real story? Join Chuck and Josh as they break the infamous code of silence and shed light on some of the most dangerous and mysterious organizations in the western world.	Many people are familiar with depictions of the Mafia in film, but what's the real story? Join Chuck and Josh as they break the infamous code of silence and shed light on some of the most dangerous and mysterious organizations in the western world.	Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:10:17 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2011, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=19, tm_min=10, tm_sec=17, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=18, tm_isdst=0)	43520488	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetoporkscom. And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Minnesota Fat School. Clark. There's Chuck butterface Bryant. Where's a couple of goons ready to break your thumbs, huh? Butterface? Yeah. I'm actually the opposite of butterfly. I'm a butter potty. These are what I came up with. That's good. I'll take it. Okay. Get the papers. Get the papers. This one is going to be lousy with Chuck's Italian. Impressive. Oh, man. I want to go ahead and apologize to the Italian American AntiDefamation League. Actually, that is a serious COA, I wanted to say, because a lot of Italian Americans get upset about things like The Sopranos being portrayed as gangsters. We're not saying all Italian Americans are gangsters, but we're going to talk about the Mafia. It's a real thing. And specifically when you say the Mafia, even though it's used in all these different ways. Right. It's specific to Italian organized crime groups for Sicilian. Yeah. Well, Sicily is a part of Italy. Yeah. Sort of. That's Sicilians. And they probably would say not so much. Well, under modern Geopolitics, it's a part of Italy. Right. I just wouldn't say that in Sicily. Well, if you want to talk about the Mafia, even broadly, the Sicilian Mafia is part of five total, right? Yes. Oh, we got going already. Did you know? Yeah. I was like, wow, that's set up. Here we are. Yeah. Do you want me to rename those, or do you just want to get to those at the appropriate time? Did I throw you off? No, I'll name them right now. Sicilian Mafia. The Kamora Mafia from Naples. The Calabrian mafia from Calabria. The Sacrocolona unita or unita. They are based in the Puglia region. Region. It's getting out of hand already. And Lacrosse Nostra, which is that's a good place to start. Yeah. Because that's what's been come to be called the American Mafia. That is exactly right, Chuck. And that's our first bit of jargon we should cover. I think it is grammatically incorrect. It is coz and oster means our way. Right? Yeah. Possibly our thing. The FBI. And I think the 60s were wiretapping. The American Mafia. They mentioned cozenostra, and the FBI came to use that as the term for the Italian Mafia, adding law. So it means the our way is what the FBI came up with. Yeah. The Italian Mafia in the United States. But it sucks, right? Yeah. Because when the FBI labels you, that label sticks. And Lakosa Nostra, like you said, describes the American Mafia, which is one of the five Italian Mafia groups in the world today. Bam. I got a friend named Blasphed. We call him Bloss. And I call him La Blasa. Andostra it is very la bossa nostra. There's some other terms we're going to throw about here. The Almarta. I did look up how to pronounce some of these, actually. The almarta is the code of silence. Really? That's how you pronounce it? Yeah. Ta is the fastest is on Ta. A maid man is someone who has been inducted into the Mafia family. A capo originally was the head of the family in Sicily, but now there are lieutenants in the Mafia. Then the family of course is the gang within the Mafia. Like the family is each individual gang and then of course the wise guys. Let's break down the hierarchy. Right. We're talking family is a gang within the mafia? Yes. And there can be usually say anywhere from ten to 100, which strikes me as an incredibly arbitrary number. But there are different families within a mafia. And if you're talking about the Sicilian Mafia, there's a lot of families. There a lot of families in the US. Right. In the hierarchy beneath the family, each family is headed by a boss. Right. A dawn. A dawn or boss. Then you've got the under boss. Yeah. Possibly more than one, but usually just one. The boss is right hand man. Yeah. Sometimes under boss makes his own decisions based on the family way. Sometimes the underboss will go to the boss, say, what should I do, boss? Then travel down to the lieutenants and let them know. And you know, Chuck, as I was reading this and reading about the structure of the Mafia organization, it occurred to me that a lot of this mirrors management and organizational styles found in corporations. That's why they call it organized crime. It is, it is very much like, okay, so you have a boss who's real hands on the underboss is going to probably not be empowered. Just like if you have a hands on manager, the supervisor right below him is not going to have a lot of power authority. True. Okay, well, let's just keep going. The capos are beneath the underboss. They're like lieutenants. Lieutenants. And they will either control a part of the family or maybe a geographical area or maybe they run a certain racket. Only like I just deal in prostitution. Right. Or it could be like Tony owns everything west of 11th street, right? Sure. So that's how the capo is. It capo. Really? Yeah. Hats off to you. Cappo off to you. Pronunciation. But that's how the what is it? The capo, the capital is defined. Right. And I thought about this too in Goodfellows Pauly, as big and important as he seemed, was just a copper. Was he wasn't an underboss? I don't think so. Who was the big daddy in that movie? They never showed. No, that's right. Because think about it, like Henry Hill, what is his name? Rayliota Henry. Yeah. And Jimmy, they were really just soldiers. Yeah. Hendry couldn't be made because remember he couldn't trace his bloodline back to the old country. Right. So he would have been an associate. Yeah, but Joe Pesci was made. No, he wasn't. No. Remember what happened to him when he went to go get made. Well, he was set to be made. Right. Because his bloodline was correct. Yeah, I see what you mean. So beneath the capos right? Yeah. Are soldiers, and they are the lowest level rank and file members of the Mafia, but they are members. They have been inducted into the family, young guys who are probably trying to make their way up to at least COPO. Right. And then you've got associates, which are anybody from an investment banker, an accountant, the accountant in Untouchables. He would have been an associate to somebody you work with who's good at safe cracking or hijacking or dealing drugs, dirty cop, somebody who works with the mob. But remember the family. Yeah. That's an associate. And Josh, then there's one more very important part of the Mafia family, and there's a couple of ways to pronounce this. The conseiliara. I like it with the hardgi consigliari. Yeah. And that is if anyone's ever seen the movie Godfather, which you should, obviously, Robert Duvall is Tom Hagen. If you haven't seen The Godfather, press pause on this podcast. You have to watch it. Go rent or buy it. Well, go buy one and two. Yeah. You need to see both of those. Then come back to this. Yes. And actually, while you're at it, go watch Goodfellas as well. And Casino and Apocalypse Now. Yeah. So Robert Dewald played Tom Hagen, who was the consulata in The Godfather. And the key here is that they're not a part of the family's hierarchy. They're not an actual family member. They're definitely not supposed to be. Yeah. Because they are supposed to offer outside advice. They're advisors. They're supposed to rule on fairness rather than vendetta's personal feelings, that kind of thing. They're elected. They're not appointed. Yeah. Did you know that? Well, that's ideally how it goes. So ideally, all of these soldiers, the capos, the underboss, the boss, all these people, I guess probably not the boss, but elect this guy to basically say, I'm going to serve as the tie breaker, the referee, probably a very trusted, wise person. But the problem is, most of the time they're just appointed by the boss. Well, yeah, that's what it says in reality. A lot of times they're appointed. They're not always impartial like they're supposed to be. Yeah. That's the real world mafia. Yeah. Not Tom hanging in the movies. And Deval was a great console auto. He was excellent. He's just a class act. Yes. All the way around. There's no head of the Mafia. It is not a group, a single organization. It's not like that. It depends. What do you mean? Are you talking about? The American Mafia? The Sicilian Mafia? Well, we're talking as a whole, largely about LaCaza Nostra. So if we're talking about Lacazette to there have been times when there were basically ahead of the Mafia before, I think the 30s before the five families of New York were really established and defined. There were people who were really running the show or trying to run the show in the country for the whole thing. Yeah. But for the most part, you're absolutely right. There's nobody running the head. There's a commission, I guess you could say is the head of the Mafia. Right. Yeah. We'll get to the commission in a minute. That's good stuff. When it comes to naming the families, it's not a clear cut thing. Sometimes it was the region. In the case of New York, the main families were kind of accidentally named in the Senate subcommittee testimony of Joe Valachi in 1962 and 63. Yeah. So once you say it in the subcommittee meeting, then all of a sudden it's sort of the family names kind of stuck. And those names josh, you want to go for those? Yeah. There were Bonano Genovese, Gambino, Lucey and Propagy. Very good. And some of those have been around before that. I believe the Bonano family was around for, well, since the 30s. Right. Profache was around as well. The genovese was relatively new. I'm sorry. In the 30s, it was Scalizi Propachi, Luciano Gagliano and Bonano. Okay. And then in the 60s, when Jovilachi named them, that was what they were named as they were named after the most powerful bosses were their current bosses. Well, yeah. And sometimes the family name would be transplanted if they were taken over. Like, it almost happened with the Gambinos. When John Gotty took over the Gambino family, they were very close to being called the Goddy family, but Gotti, as everyone knows, was arrested for racketeering, thanks to Sammy The Bull Gravano, and he's still behind bars today. So it never became the Gotty family. No. But the Profache family did become the Colombo crime family. That's right. Yeah. So it does happen. There are changes. That's right. But like we said, no hard and fast rules. That's the five families of New York, and those are the ones that are most prominent. You don't hear about the Buffalo family or the San Francisco family or the Cleveland family, but these families exist most of the time. They're named after the city that they're running. Yeah. Except in New York, because there were just too many of them. You couldn't call the New York family because all five of them would be like, what about me? It does happen elsewhere, though. Like, there's the patriarchal crime family. They run New England, apparently. Oh, really? Yeah. Nice. I'll talk about that in a second. Where are we? What should we hit next? There's so much goodness in here. Well, let's just go with the flow. How do you become a member of the Mafia? Let's say you're a low level safe cracker. Right. Hip, exciting. Right. And you've really proven your worth. You've made a lot of money and you're like, I want to move on up. I like safe cracking, but I also want to run numbers and horses and crack heads. Exactly. I want to become a member of the family. I am Italian. Got to prove that my father at least is Italian. Yeah. Most of the time it's got to be both. But sometimes you can slip by if just the old man is Italian, which is what kept Henry Hill out of Damafia, because his father was Irish. That's right. I want to be inducted. What happened? Well, at an induction ceremony, it was really like most induction ceremonies were pretty quiet and secret for a long time. But as we said, Joe Bilachi's testimony in the 60s kind of blew the lid on a lot of this stuff, and this was one of them. What happens is you sit down at the table. You're told to get dressed up or get dressed, take into a private place at your long table, you sit next to the boss. Other Mafioso guys are going to be there recite some oaths, promises of loyalty. Then you got to burn a piece of paper, hold it here's where the patriarchal family comes in. So in 1989, in October, the FBI managed to tap an entire induction ceremony. And with the card, that piece of paper they talk about yeah. It's actually an image of a saint. Oh, really? It was a family may have, like, a patron saint or whatever. Right. So it's an image of that, and the Inductee holds it and says something like, well, in the patriarchal family, they were made to say, as burns this saint, so will burn my soul. I enter live into this organization and leave it dead. And you go drop the burning saint, I imagine. Yeah. And all of them are thinking probably in the next few years, right? Yeah, we'll give you six months. So, yeah, you burn the thing holding your hand. Is there any kind of, like, feet of strength that you're supposed to hold it till it burns your fingers or anything like that? I saw a lot of times the new soldier is paired with a more experienced dude who is your godfather, guide you through the whole mafia thing. I did not know that. I just thought Godfather was like another name for a copper or a boss. The dawn. Well, I thought in the godfather it was. Don Corian was the godfather, wouldn't he? Yeah. Interesting. The Inductee has to say, I'm going to be a pledge for life. Take a drop of blood from the trigger finger, which I love. That obviously. Yeah. And boom, you're a made man. Yeah. Well, the rumor has it is that you have to prove afterward by taking part in a murder is the longstanding rumor. I think it's before induction. Before, yeah. You have to show that you're loyal enough to kill when ordered, too, or at least help out in a killing. Okay. You're loyal. You can keep your mouth shut. You have the stomach for it. Allegedly. Allegedly. We need to say that we don't want to get sued by the Mafia. And then the final thing you got to do before you can become a made man is you have to face the Commission. And in the we mentioned the Commission a second ago, there was so much activity, mob activity going on, that they were recruiting soldiers left and right just to kind of lay claim to bodies and say, well, we've got all these guys. And it became confusing. A guy could infiltrate and assassinate pretty easily. So they literally formed a Commission that's like it's like a registry, almost. So, remember I was saying that there were heads of the Mafia in the US. There were people vying for it, and this is what was creating this hugely violent point in Mafia history. Right, yeah. So not only that, Chuck, it was Prohibition as well. Well, that was a huge time for the Mafia. It very much was. Right. So there was a lot of money to be made, an unprecedented amount of money to be made. It was relatively new turf for the Italian mob in the US. They'd only been here for maybe 34 years. Right, right. And there is a lot of wars going on. And the guy who basically brought order, all this chaos through murder and structure was Lucky Luciano. Yeah. He was the one that had the idea for the Commission, and he also murdered the two guys who were like the rivals for the boss of bosses and then set up the five families. Now the commission is different. Now, the Commission's the same as the committee meetings. Right? Yeah. That's the same thing. Okay. Yeah. Well, they grew out of the committee meetings. Okay. So the Commission got to register that's. The last thing you have to do is literally be like, all right, my name is Josh the I Clark. No, it's Josh. Minnesota Fats Clark. Minnesota Fat's Clark. And I'm with the Gambino family. And I live in Bayonne, New Jersey. I like to roller skate and long walks on the beach at night and drown people with my bare hands. So, finally, you're made man. You're in the Commission. You're registered. You're the dude. Right. Well, the commission passes you. They say, that's okay. This guy is okay with me to be in your family. Because part of the reason of passing lists of prospective members around is it weeds out guys who another family has a beef with, who, if it becomes part of your family, that's going to lead to war. Yeah. You don't want that to happen. Plus, it brings them out of anonymity sure. So that they can't just walk up and shoot somebody in the face. Right. Because you can't do that unless you're made right with this good stuff. It is just amazing. Middle class white dudes like us are fascinated by the Mafia. We all want to be in the Mafia. Mafia, Delta Force. So let's talk about how the Mafia makes money, because that's what the Mafia is. Let's get real. The Mafia is there to make money, and they have a history of doing it through illegal means. Otherwise they wouldn't be the Mafia, they'd just be corporations. Right. One of the classic ways you'll see in movies, which is actually a very real thing, is extortion protection fees. Right. Happens all the time. Or it did happen. I imagine it still does in some cases. Still. The Jerry was telling us about a kid in Guatemala who was killed because the family couldn't pay for protection. Oh, is that why? Oh, man, that's awful. Yeah. Wow. I didn't realize that was a reason. So that's the scene from the movie where they go into and rough up the shop owner and say, you've got to pay for protection, basically to protect you from us, is sort of what it boils down to. Yeah. Although I imagine sometimes it might have been some legitimate protections. But the impression I have of it is like, yeah, they're saying if you don't pay, then you're not going to be protected from us. But I think if you do pay, you kind of enter into this fold where other people can't mess with you. And if they do, you can go to the capital or whoever's running the show that you're paying tribute to. Right. And say, I've got this problem I need you to take care of. I think it gives you access if you're like, a regular paying person. And we'll see, when we talk about Mafia history, how closely this mirrors Sicily under the feudal system, any feudal system, really. Well, remember in The Departed when Leo just went house on those two guys that were extorting the shop owner and he thought he did this guy favor, and then the shop owner was all ticked off afterward. He's like, thanks a lot, man. You brought down this reign of terror on me. Oh, that's right. He like killed. It doesn't kill him, but he mutilated their faces in the shop. That was such a good movie. It was. It was great. So alcohol, we talked about prohibition, illegal drugs, prostitution, gambling. Those are extortion. That's just the illegal stuff. They also manage to make money off stuff that would otherwise be illegal if they hadn't hijacked it or would otherwise be legal. I mean yeah, like importing and exporting stuff like that. Stealing things that other people import and export. That's what I mean. But got it was like was he the one that was into women's apparel? That man had taste. I wonder if they probably modeled that De Niro thing at the end on him. The end of Good Fellows where De Niro has the lady's clothing warehouse. Yeah, that was uncotti. But I don't know if it was because I think Jimmy was an actual person because that was all Henry Hill, like, real life stuff. Yeah, but they could have borrowed who knows? Or maybe whoever he was based on was into women's clothing, maybe. So, like you said, they want to make lots of money. So while there are, like, muggings and stupid things like that, they generally would rather hijack a boat and pay off a dock worker or steal a semi truck full of cigarettes instead of knocking off a store or something like that. They want the big dough. Right. Or they could say, I don't know, infiltrate a labor union and threatened to have their workers slow or stop construction if they don't get additional money. Yeah. That happened in New York for decades. The Mafia infiltrated the Teamsters Union specifically, and they said in this article, at one point, the Mafia could have nearly brought all construction and shipping into the US. To a halt if they wanted to. That was thanks in large part to a guy named Jimmy Hoffa, who actually it turned out he was a labor organizer in the that was, like, when the cops used to crack the heads of labor organizers on behalf of guys like Henry Ford. Right. So he was, like, the real deal. But he was also super crooked, too. Yeah. He's buried in Oakland Cemetery right here in Atlanta. Is that right? No, he's famous for not knowing where he was buried, remember? Really? Yeah, he disappeared. Okay. Well, the rumor is he's buried under Giant Stadium in that zone. I've heard that one before, too. But they finally pinched him, and he went to prison for a while. They did. And Nixon pardoned him, supposedly, because Hoffa, the Teamsters, and, like, a bunch of gangsters, gave a lot of money to Nixon's campaign. Interesting that's allegedly they had a lot of sway, that's for sure. But Hoffa gets out and starts campaigning for prison reform five years after that. Four years after that, he goes to lunch in Michigan, never seen from again, is declared legally dead, in but he was the head of the Teamsters. Yeah, but he was finally pinched for fraud. And the whole point of being of controlling a labor union was you controlled labor, but you also had access to their pension, which everybody was paying into. Well, yeah, a lot with that. They used the pension to underwrite huge contracts in Vegas at one point, too. Yeah, until the all right, we're getting all that. Let's go back to the history you were talking about, how it mirrored Sicily, and I think that's one of the most fascinating parts about this. So go. Yeah, because extortion is another way of extracting tributes. Another way of saying extracting tribute. Right. In Sicily. Sicily lived under the feudal system long after the rest of Europe looked at other forms of governance. Right. And the feudal system is basically like, I'm a landowner. I control all this land, but I can't possibly work all of it. I'll let you guys live on this land. I'll let you live, and you give me some of your grain, most of your grain, however much of your grain I want. That was an early model for what the mafia did. Right. And if you don't do this, I'm going to have this other class of society. Basically my foot soldiers kill you or kill your wife or whatever, until you do what I want you to. That's the feudal system. Yeah. And the reason that Sicily was kind of the birthplace that kind of was the birthplace of the mafia was because Sicily is out there in the med. It's very accessible. And because of that, it was invaded a lot. It's very strategic, controlled by a lot of different people over the years, and that led to instability such that the people of Sicily didn't look to. And sometimes it was just lawlessness. But regardless, even if there were laws, they didn't look to the state to solve their problems. It became very much a family thing, a local thing. Yeah. You solved it locally. Your family took care of business, they took care of things outside the law. And that kind of is what birthed the mafia. So basically you can look at that capo's territory or the capo's racket as the land, the feudal land. The capo is the feudal lord. Right? Yeah. And it mirrors it almost identically. There's extortion, there's tribute, there's the threat of violence, there's the use of violence. All of it is based out of this feudal system that collapsed in the 19th century in Sicily, but was immediately replaced after this bout of lawlessness by the mafia following pretty much the same thing. Right. And then they came to America. Then they came to well, yeah, this is actually interesting how this happened, too. And Mussolini had a big crackdown on the mafia. It was very harsh on the mafia, put a lot of in prison, and then the US troops occupy Sicily during world war II. They thought a lot of these jailed people were political prisoners. So not only did they set a lot of them free, they made the mayors and police chiefs, and they were like, hey, I really appreciate that. We're back on the streets now. Thanks for quashing Mussolini. We're in more control than we ever were. Yeah, it was a real thorn in our side for a long time. So in the post war Sicily, there was a group, there was a ceasefire, because there was so much worrying going on within the families. And they formed the capola. And the capola basically oversaw all of the families. Yes. An early version of the commission that would happen years later. And the American mafia, the tactics that Kazuno uses mirrors the Sicilian mafia in a lot of ways, like recruiting young guys to do the dirty work and eventually inducting them. The whole extracting tribute in the form of extortion, the Omar tie, the coat of silence. Right. Yeah. The whole lifestyle of the mobster is reflected in sicily, right? Yeah. So it's the birthplace. Yeah. And it was going pretty well in Sicily until the so not even that long ago. And they had a big trial called the Maxi Trial. Right. Because the government went after the Sicilian Mafia, and the Sicilian Mafia was like, okay, well, these two big prosecutors are coming after us, are both going to die in car bombs. And I think they underestimated the response to the public, which turned against them. Yeah, big time. They had this Maxi trial, which they built a special courthouse, which is essentially a bunker try 400 Sicilian mobsters, and I think 338 were found guilty. I got a different number. I got 360 convictions. Nice. The two year trial, they had three judges. They had one judge and two alternates that literally sat in on the whole trial just in case something happened to the one judge. Like a car bomb. They wouldn't have to start all over, declared this trial. The second one would step up. Somebody killed the second guy, the third guy would step up. Well, nothing happened to the first guy. He made it all the way through. I can't believe that. I know. 114 acquittals. 18 of them were murdered. One of them was murdered within an hour of leaving the courtroom on the way home. Wow. Supposedly he was going to like a surprise or not a surprise party, but like a celebration, I got acquitted party. Those are good parties. He got off. And then a lot of successful appeals after that with the Maxi trial. And what I got is only 60. By 1989, only 60 of the original 360 remained in prison. Wow. So the Maxi trial kind of turned out to be the mini trial in the end. So it's no surprise that the Mexico didn't get rid of the Sicilian Mafia. No. In 1992, the Italian government sent 7000 troops to occupy Sicily for six years. Crazy. And that apparently worked. According to this article, the Sicilian Mafia is still around, but is less violent than it was before. I didn't know it was that recent. I didn't either, sweetheart. I don't know that guy. I don't know if I've ever helped Dumber, by the way, in a podcast. I should have had that cut out, but I was like, yeah, it was endearing. This is me. It's endearing warts and all. The American Mafia, josh the cousin, you mean? Yeah. The Italians and Sicilians came to the United States in the 18 hundreds, big time, in the 20th century. Most of these were just regular folks, not Mafia. Starting a good, honest life here. Nice. Some of them worked in New Orleans, specifically, the first, I guess, Italian Mafia incident in the country happened right in the 80, 90s. Well, there was a group, a family that was basically getting heat from the local police chief, so they offered them. Right. And at trial, this Mafia family was well, they all got. Off, basically, from blatantly bribing and intimidating witnesses. And the people of New Orleans did not like this, so they actually formed a lynch mob and went and killed 16 of these mobsters. And that was the United States introduction to the Italian mob. Crazy. And they were defeated by nola. Yeah. Look at them go. At least temporarily. Who knows what happened after that? So, first half of the 20th century in New York City is where a lot of it's happening, because a lot of the immigrants poured into there. Obviously. You had the five families. You had Prohibition making everybody rich. You had bosses and under bosses getting killed monthly. Yeah. The Lucas, right. They went through three bosses in 1930, in one year, three different bosses. This is the time when Lucky Litiano was killing everybody to basically set up this structure, this organization. And he defined the five families, literally. This is the name of your family. This is who you are. This is this and this. There are five families. Al Capone in Chicago and then the Buffalo family. And that's the Commission. The Buffalo family. I love that. Yeah. And the way they describe it here is they were basically kind of like senator. So Al Capone represented like, all of the West Coast because he was the closest one, obviously. And the Commission had to approve things, assassinations, kidnappings, big money deals that had to all go through the Commission. And they had meetings every five years. Every five years committee. And probably the most famous meeting of all time was their 1957 meeting in Appalachian on the New York Pennsylvania border. And apparently this state trooper was a little suspicious of the scores of Lincoln Town Cars yeah. Wise guys who were showing up. So he himself led a raid on the Mobster convention. And basically, this is a time when the public and the government denied that there was such a thing as Mafia. It seems like second nature now because of all the popular culture stuff, but it was long before any of that. Right. But not only that, it seems obvious now because of the Appalachian rate. It was basically tan amount to us rating a convention of ghosts and being like, oh, okay, well, there really are ghosts. Right. It's pretty much the same thing. It brought the Mafia undeniably into the light, and there really was Mafia. And here's all their leaders. Right. I like the ghost convention thing. I'd like to go to that. Should we talk about Vegas for a minute or Kennedy first? Either one. All right, let's go with Kennedy. Okay. Everyone knows that John F. Kennedy, everyone has long associated him with the Mafia, partially because his dad, Joe, was alleged bootlegger during Prohibition, involved with the Mob, obviously, if you're bootlegging in that part of the country and also had connections to people like Meyer Lansky, who was a friend of Lucky Luciano. Yeah. Ben Kingsley. You saw bugsy, right? Great movie. One of the other things that happened was JFK was assassinated and Jack Ruby jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who allegedly assassinated Kennedy. Ruby was an associate. He was a mob associate. So there's that tie. Other people say that the Mafia didn't like Castro kicking them out of the Cuban casino business. Right. So they think the Bay of Pigs may have something to do with the Mafia. Yeah, because Kennedy didn't call in an air strike. That's right. On Havana. Robert Kennedy went after the Mafia. He died by an assassin's bullet. I've stood at that very spot. Have you really? Yeah, the kitchen. What was the deal with Sirhan? Sirhan? I don't know. Isn't that weird? Yeah. We need to look all that stuff up. Let's do it'd. Be a good podcast while the girlfriends go ahead. Yeah. Sam Jean Kanna, he was a pretty cool dude as far as the Mafia bosses go. He supposedly set JFK up with all sorts of girlfriends, including Marilyn Monroe, so he could record and basically get dirt on the President. Allegedly. So they think that Marilyn Monroe possibly was murdered by hitman that Giancana had hired. And Giancana was going to testify about the Kennedy connection to the mob. And he gets murdered. Which basically just goes to show you that it's all Mafia. Whether they're Italian, legitimate, whatever. It's all Mafia. Right. So those are all the alleged links to John F. Kennedy, former President of the United States. Then there's the Vegas connection. Vegas was kind of started by Bugsy Siegel. Yeah. It was the Jewish mobsters that were the first step to Vegas. Yeah. And then once it was set up, the gambling was happening legally for the first time. They're already running casinos, illegal casinos all over the country. And all of a sudden you've got this haven in the desert. It's legal, where you can go out there and do it for real. So they got in on the action. So one of the ways the Italian mob got in was through their leveraging of pensions. Right. Like you said, Teamsters labor union pensions to underwrite casinos. Yeah, a lot of construction going on. Exactly. Or they would just basically show up and be like, I'm your partner now. Right. Like Pesky showed up in Casino, which I thought was every bit as good as Good Fellows. I know people don't agree with that, but I thought Casino was terrific. It was a good movie, but it was not as good as Good Fellas. I'm giving it a slight tier two. I love Casino. I thought it was great. Sharon Stone, good stuff in that one. I thought she screwed that up. Really? She's a great actress. I think her character got too much emphasis on that movie. Yes. I liked James Woods in that slimeball for ex boyfriend. God, he was slimy. Yeah. Since the 70s, though, the Vegas has supposedly been pretty clean. Supposedly. And I think it actually is. I think it's one of those ones where it's not like, yeah, it's clean. Wink wink. Right. I think it actually is pretty clean. Well, there's probably too much money at stake now. Yeah. You don't want to lose your gambling license if you're the Palms. It's no good. Or Steve Wynn. Or Steve Wynn. How can we fight the Mafia? How do we fight the Mafia? Well, Chuck, we fight the Mafia through a little law that was passed in specifically to be used against the Mafia called Rico. Yeah. They invented a charge yeah. In the United States. Very smartly. Invented a charge. It's called the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act. The Rico Act, which is Title 18 in the United States code section is 1961 to 1968. Just off the top of my head. Right. And basically, it's set up so that you can go after an entire criminal enterprise, and the Rico Act has just about any felony associated with it. But they have to be carried out by this enterprise, I think two felonies within a 15 year period after that. Right. And if it's the Mafia, they're going to break two laws within 15 years. So that counts as racketeering. If two or more illegal acts happen, then they say that's an organized family crime. Right. Because a racket is these different types of illegal activities that the Mafia used to make money. Racketeering is this enterprise, right? Yes, the act of making that. So what they can do is not only can they attack a racketeering charge on, which will give you extra time in addition to your crime, other crimes, like unloading the truck of cigarettes, it accomplished a very important thing in that the Mafia boss could no longer sit behind a veil of safety because they're not the trigger man. Right. All of a sudden, John Gotti can be brought up in racketeering charges, and that's even if they can't pin an order for the murder on the boss. Because one of the things about the couple and the commission was that it brought peace to the Mafia among the families, but it also exposed the bosses because they were the ones who were approving murders and stuff now. Right, right. With the Rico Act, I think you just have to say, this guy is the boss of this organization, and this is everything flows up to him. Anything we can pin on any other member can be pinned on the boss. And like you said, it's not just bribery, it's bribery plus ten years. Because it was bribery in the context of racketeering. Right. It's a huge loss. But the interesting thing to me is they almost never use it for Mafia anymore. It's for corporations. Oh, interesting. Corporate wrecketeering. Good. Yeah, that's what I say. Trump up some charges, you can also go that's kind of what it is. They created a law so they could trump up charges. Right. You can also go undercover, like one Joe Piston did. Yeah, the great movie. Donnie Brasco told his story pretty well. He was undercover for what, six years? Yes, like deep undercover. Scarily undercover to the point where even when he came out in trial testifying against people, some of the mob guys were like, how's he going to turn it against us like that? Yeah, they thought he was a rat. Yeah. They still didn't think he was a cop, even though he's on the standing. I'm a cop. Yeah. I'm FBI. Yeah, Johnny Brasco. Look for it in theaters near you in Johnny Depp and Pacino. And I'm sorry I thought of Pesci when you said Pagino and Johnny Deppia. One man's pesci is another man's pacino. That's like one man's Casino is another man's goodfellas. One man's Madden is another man's Musburger. Maybe. Okay, that's the Mafia. There's so much there. This is the structure. Bare bones, very little flesh on it. Just because there's so much to it. This could be part one in a series of ten. Maybe it will be snuffed out before the 10th, though. Probably. We were respectful. I think so, too. Where are we? Hey, man, I mean, if we weren't, just send us an email. Yeah, don't shoot us now, please. So, Chuck, that's it? That's it. All right. If you want to know more about Mafia, including a chart of the structure of a typical Sicilian Mafia family, or Lakosa Nostril family, just type in Mafia in the handysearch bar@housedefworks.com. Which means it's time now for listener ma'am. And for God's sake, see the Godfather. One and Two and good fellows. And good fellows in Casino and Don Nebraska and my blue heaven. That's a good one. And you can watch Godfather Three. I'm a proponent of it, even though most people poopoo it. Just take Sofia Coppola with a grain of salt and realize that she's a brilliant director in the making and not a great actor. She's already a brilliant director. Not when she make up Other Three, she wouldn't. She made that movie. No, that's what I'm saying. She's in it was a very poor actor. She went on to become a great director. So I'm going to call this we asked for syncing ship stories. I got a couple that were okay, but our best one was an airplane falling out of the sky story. Okay. Hi, guys. I know you call for sinking boat stories, but I hope you'll consider this falling airplane story. In Fall of Seven, my boyfriend and I were coming home to the US after he had played some concerts in Germany. Was he in the scorpion? I don't know. This might be. Hasslehoff the flight departed Cologne in the morning? We had been in the air for a couple of hours when suddenly we felt something akin to very violent turbulence. The plane dropped in altitude by a lot, enough to make me feel like the bottom of my stomach had fallen out. Like a roller coaster. The plane momentarily righted. The captain got on the intercom, said there was some difficulties. The next few minutes felt like ages. The plane alternately banked from side to side, lost more altitude, and shook some more. Lights flickered on and off. The captain announced there was a fire in the first class cabin, and it didn't help that he sounded panicked and was nearly screaming. We were sitting in the back row, which, as we know, is not proven, but it's probably one of the best places to be if your plane is going to crash. Flight attendant ran to our row and threw open the overhead compartment. Looking for something. She hollered. Oh, my God. There's only one, she said. Only one what? We never found out. The lights went out for a longer period. That's when we noticed that the oxygen mask had deployed, but only for seats on the other side of the plane. Our entire side did not have oxygen mask deployed. My boyfriend was to my right, an elder Russian woman on my left routine. I was squeezing both of their hands and trying to stay calm. The Russian woman had both of her eyes closed. She was rocking back and forth and speaking softly under her voice. Suddenly, the ground was coming very fast. We had miraculously hit the runway at Shannon Airport in Ireland, but we hit it hard because of the weight of all the fuel that was intended to fly us to Newark. The plane bounced a couple of times on the Miscovered runway, lost all of the electrical power, air circulation shut down, and we were towed to the gate. There were a lot of tears, prayers, and shaking up people, and the airplane doors were eventually hand cranked open, and we deplaned. That is from Arie Adny and Carrie, the boyfriend. Wow. Sinking chip. Who cares? Would you ever get on a plane again if something like that happened to you these days? Yes, you would, because you've kind of overcome that to a large degree. Yeah, but I've gotten to the point now where I just sit there and look out the window and make myself watch. Take off and landing. Really? And I'm usually pretty good. Well, we fly a lot now. I quit smoking, and I got over my fear of flying. You've made so many changes since I've known you. Look at you. I can run 2 miles at a stretch now, too. That's impressive. Yeah. Onward and upward. Onward and upward. If you have a story about a mailman you hated or who hated you or mafia stuff okay. All right. We'll go with that one, then. If you have a story about the Mafia, we want to hear it. We want you to wrap it up in an email and send it to stuffpodcast@howtofworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetepworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our home page. The house. Stop works. iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. 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http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-12-12-sysk-doulas-final.mp3	The Deal With Doulas	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-deal-with-doulas	The word doula in Ancient Greek might mean "female servant" but it's really not a great description of the 21st century job. Doulas are birth coaches who help women get through the process of childbirth as efficiently and painlessly as possible. They aren	The word doula in Ancient Greek might mean "female servant" but it's really not a great description of the 21st century job. Doulas are birth coaches who help women get through the process of childbirth as efficiently and painlessly as possible. They aren	Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:32:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=15, tm_min=32, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=346, tm_isdst=0)	36548930	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff. You should know from how stuff workscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know. The podcast. Podcast. Childbirth edition. Yeah. We are tracing into more territory. What does that mean? I don't know. I mean, we've done two on feeding babies, done female puberty. This will get into childbirth a little bit. So yeah, we're not afraid. I don't care. Yeah, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. You can be a male douolla. You can. Although this is the only article I ran across that. And did you find anything about that anywhere else? No. I mean, it happens. It's just super rare. We'll go ahead and spoil it. Generally. Well, let's just get into this. Generally, duels are women who have already had a baby. Yes. Not even just women, but women who have had a baby so they can really know how to help another lady have a baby. Yes. And this is actually this is an ancient thing that kind of come back around full circle. And even the name doula is a Greek term used way back in the classical Greek days when a woman giving birth would have female servants attending to her during birth, helping her with it, probably feeding her some grapes, waving palm fronds on her, that kind of thing. So Dula means female servant or female slave, depending on who you're talking about. Right. And after ancient Greece fell to Rome and the Roman Empire fell, and all of civilization took this weird course, throughout it all, women were helped by other women while they were giving birth. Basically up until about the first half of the 20th century in the west, where hospitals entered, and all of a sudden, it was just the mom giving birth, surrounded by a bunch of nurses and doctors. Is that true? Yeah, because I could see scenarios where there were women in the birth room helping along. I think once you started to get into hospitals and the physicians in the hospital start asserting their authority more and more, especially through drugs. Like, I saw that when hospitals kind of took over the birthing process or took responsibility for it from the family and from midwives and moved it into the hospital. They used to administer a lot of sedatives as part of the birthing process, as part of labor. You can understand why they would, but then there are all sorts of complications from it, problems from it. So they stopped giving sedatives as much. And about that time, women who were giving birth started to kind of come out of it and look around and say, well, it's just me and you guys in here. I need some family members in here. Right. And at the time, if you were a dad, you are not in there. You are not in the delivery room at all. You were out in what was called the Stork Club, handing out cigars, maybe pacing and the reason why was because to the doctors involved it was just another medical procedure right. So you're not going to have randos who have nothing to do with the actual procedure in the room during a procedure. They treated childbirth the same way, but women started to say, no, I need more than just you people who I've never met before really attending to the birth of my child. And so dad started to come in and then more family members and then now Doulas have definitely kind of come back like they were originally that's my understanding of the whole thing. Yeah. So Doulas, we haven't even said what that is yet and that would probably help clear it up if you don't know doulas are people, like we said, generally women, but not always, who are childbirth coaches. They coach you through the process, depending on the service they offer, will come on before obviously you give birth and kind of prep you for what's going to happen and this kind of depends on when your doula will come aboard in the process. But at the very least it will help you in the delivery room and they are your advocate to kind of coach you through this whole thing. And that term actually started in an article in 1969 by a woman named Dana Raphael, and then later on in a book in 1073 called The Tinder Gift Breastfeeding. And that's when she brought this term back and said, we're going to start calling these women Doulas and it's going to be a real job. Right. And I think at first what was the name of the woman who brought it back? Dana Raphael. So she had like a pretty good idea that was actually ahead of its time when dealers really started to come into use and come into their own as a profession was in. The reason why they came into wider use was because hospitals were going to C sections. A lot c sections went up from nineteen seventy four point two percent of live births in the US. Involve C sections. 16 years later, in 1986, a quarter of live births in the US. Involved C sections and there are a lot of complications with C sections and so you could have your husband in there, you could have your mom in there, you could have friends, but they're just there for you. One of the first services that Doula started offering was to say, whoa, does she really need that C section? Are you sure about that? Or are you just doing it because you can charge more money? I think that was overstating exactly the interaction they had, but that was the role they had was to basically provide a barrier between a doctor who wanted to just give a c section because he wanted to go home and the mom who really didn't want a C section. Yeah, it's not just C sections. They're your birth advocate to make sure or at least as best they can to try to ensure that the birth plan that you feel best about is the one that you end up with. Yeah things always change of course and a doula would never put you in danger by insisting on something in fact they can't but they are there to speak for you on your behalf because as a mother in labor you're going through a lot on your own so it's nice to have someone that is just there to do that job yeah and is coming from a place of empathy and sympathy and most importantly experience. Like you said, most dolas have had children of their own but they've also after a while attending other births too so they know what they're talking about, they know what to expect and they can tell you what to expect which can make the whole process easier I would imagine for any mother giving birth. Yeah it's definitely gained popularity in the tried to find more recent statistics than 2012 but I couldn't. But in 2012 there were 6% and this is in the United States I know it does happen all over the world some but it's sort of an American thing. 6% of people in 2012 used a Doula versus 3% in 2006 and in that same survey 27% of people said they would like to use a Doula so at least they're wishing or hopeful that they can. Yeah that was question eight would you like to use a doula? Yeah. 27% said and so if you get the impression that a doctor would not really prefer a Doula to be in the labor and delivery room you've kind of read between the lines there especially at first the medical community saw doulas as they were starting to really kind of come into use in the 80s as basically meddling busy bodies who could potentially put their patients life in jeopardy. Right. But then in 1992 Duos of North America was founded donna it's like the first Duala licensing body certification and training and licensing body and they were founded it was founded by medical professionals which kind of created a bridge. It bridged the gap or kind of smoothed over the rough feelings between the medical community and the Duola community and it also added a real air of legitimacy to the profession of being a doula. Yeah the impression I get now is that if you have a good doula who is good with people which is ideally what your doula is yeah, if you do a lot of not a people person it's probably not going to be a good thing. No, but the idea I get is that doctors and nurses like having dualas there now because they can just concentrate on they don't have to be the ones providing emotional empathetic support although they can still do that. They want they can just concentrate on the medical aspects of it. And they know that they have a trained, hopefully licensed Doula, and we'll get into that later on hand to sort of say, you know what, I don't have to deal with that part of things. You're in good hands with this Doula, and I can just concentrate on the medical parts. Yeah. Now, all love Doula. That's right. One of the other reasons or functions that dolas provide you kind of hit on is that they provide a service that hospitals used to provide through nurses, right. Where if you had a nurse in a labor and delivery room, they wouldn't spend as much time or give you as much attention as, say, like your mom would, or a friend or your husband even. But they gave you a lot more early on than they did as surveillance of patients moved to electronics, right, to where somebody could just kind of sit at the nurse's station and check on everybody and it didn't have to go into the rooms. And now you nurses were charged with watching even more people at once. Right. So the personal attention dropped dramatically as electronic surveillance of patients increased. And the Douglas kind of came in to fill that role as well. Yeah, they're sitting in the room with you and hanging out. They don't get called in like 20 minutes before you give birth. They're with you sometimes days and weeks before hand coaching you on what to expect and how you're going to go about this and what your plan is. And then on the day, like, even if dad is in there and the husband is in there providing support, that's great. But the Douglas is just that extra step and that extra measure of support that is super knowledgeable about what it's going to be like, where the husband might not exactly be able to lend the most insightful ear there. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you want to take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. And then we'll come back and talk about what to expect when you're expecting to work with a Doula. All right, so here's a misconception. Some people think that Doulas are authorized or trained to give birth. That is not true. They don't deliver babies. They don't perform any sort of medical procedures. They don't put an IV in your arm. They don't work the heart rate monitor. Most times, they don't even work for the hospital. You have hired them independently. And again, they're just there to coach you. They're not even midwives. Midwives can deliver a baby. Right? Yeah. They're not allowed anywhere near the medical stuff, but they need to know what the medical stuff is so that they can say, well, this is what they're about to do, or this is what they're suggesting right now, and here are your options. And then also when they're administering the medical stuff, which can be pretty uncomfortable, pretty frequently, I would imagine the duel is there to kind of tell the mom what to expect and to comfort her in all sorts of ways. Yeah. And maybe not even offer advice. I think the idea is that Adolo will lay it all out there so you can make an informed decision, right, and not necessarily say, well, if I were you, this is what I would do. Well, yes, that's a slippery slope right there because then all of a sudden if things go wrong, you can say, well, the Duolo told me to do that. And the duo is like, I'm toast. Duels have to be great listeners. We already talked about the empathy piece. They have to be very empathetic and they will, like I said, start meeting before birth to answer any kind of questions, come up with that birth plan and really listen a lot to the wife and the husband so everybody is on the same page. And like I said, on the day, things can change. But going in you generally want to have a pretty good idea of everything from medications you might want to use, if any, to where you want to have the baby. The duo can come on board and kind of explain if they're knowledgeable, which hopefully they are, about the hospitals around you and maybe even help you pick out where you're going to give birth. Yeah. And if you already have an idea of what you want, the Duola can kind of tell you how to make that happen. Or if you have no idea what you want, the Doug can also tell you some other alternatives that you might not have thought of. And I saw a parents magazine article about doulas. They laid out basically what you can expect from the average doula for the doula's fees. One to two in person prenatal visits and then access to the doula for follow up questions through email or phone calls, their full attention and presence during your labor. And then sometimes, frequently I get the idea a follow up visit in your house after the baby comes home. Typically if you hire a doula, this is about the average you can expect to them. There's definitely a lot of differences. Some will give you a little more, some will give you a little less, some will charge more, some will do it for free. It's just all over the place as far as what you're actually going to shell out and what you're going to get from medulla. But for the most part the doula is going to have met you before you give birth and then the dough will be there throughout the whole labor and delivery process. Yeah. And it says in this article that there are specialist doulas like anti partum dulas and postpartum doulas and labor doulas that if you want an anti partum Dula to be if you want more than those two meetings. You might want to hire someone who will be with you for several weeks beforehand. Or if you want someone postpartum to be with you to coach you through breastfeeding or changing diapers or just any of that kind of coaching. You can hire someone to do that. But I get the sense that doulas generally will sort of work with you on whatever kind of plan you want. Right. It may cost a little extra, but I get the sense of the duo wouldn't say, like, no, you get two meetings and that's it. They might be like, no, I'll come in for a third and fourth meeting. It'll be an extra of this much money and I can hang with you for a week or two afterward. Here and there. I found I think it was through a BuzzFeed article I stumbled upon. There's a huge rift in the Dula community, actually, between the typical traditional approach to being a doula, which is, I'll work with you on a sliding scale for how much you can afford, or this is my fee, but I'll throw in an extra visit just to make you feel like you're getting your money's worth, or I'll do it for free. I just want to help you because Donna's Mission is a doula for every mother who wants one. Like, every mother should have a doula, basically. Right. And then there's this other group called pro doula and they can't stand doulas who charge less than a decent amount for their services or do it for free. They actually call Douglas who do this for free oxytocin vampires. Like, they're just there to bask in the reflective glow of this amazing experience that the mother just went through, the parents just went through and they're really kind of kicking other doulas around and they're kind of bullies in a really weird way. But there's like this big debate over whether doulas are undervalued or underselling themselves. But I definitely get the idea that every woman who wants to have a doula should be able to have a doula regardless of her income. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Like a pro bono for people that don't have as much money. Yeah. On the other hand, I also get that if you are a dual and you're doing your job really well, then you should expect to be paid. I think there's a happy medium. I don't think it has to be like, no, this is the price, and anybody who goes underneath it should be ostracized from the Douglas community. Yeah. The other thing about doulas, another misconception a lot of people think is that it's just some hippy dippy thing that if you only want to have like a natural childbirth, then you get the doula in there and they're not there for anything other than that. And that's not the case. They are there to support you in whatever kind of birth you want to have, whether it's a home birth or water birth or whether or not. You want to get an Epidural or be loaded up on every pharmaceutical. They offer mothers and labor. They're there just to have knowledge of all that stuff so you know what you're getting into. Yes. And then so during labor, this is where the doodle shines. Right. They're there to help with alternatives to pain treatment. Right. So again, they can't administer any kind of drugs or anything. I would guess that they could even get in trouble for giving you an Advil, but they can do other things, like they can massage you in ways that you had not ever heard of before. That helps with labor pain. I came across this one technique where they pull on a couple of specific toes and it helps actually move the labor along. If you have a slow labor, there's kneading techniques, there's stroking techniques, pressure on the bottom of your feet. There's all sorts of stuff they can do at various times throughout the labor and delivery process that can help alleviate the pain that you're going through. And that's one of the big roles that they played during labor. Yeah. When my kid was born, I was shocked at how many people were in the room, first of all. How many? Oh, man. Bakers dozen. I mean, 20. Emily and I, birth mom, obviously our adoption counselor, who was a licensed dualist, so she really served that function for the birth mom, which was really a great plus. The doctor, I'm not even sure what the roles or what their technical titles are, but the doctor came in when it was go time and basically just check things out and said, Well, I think it's go time. And then he stepped out of the way and these two nurses came in there, and 90 seconds later there was a baby. So it was two nurses. There was probably at least twelve people in that room. Wow, that's a lot of people. It was crowded and fast and surreal and weird and amazing, even weirder. They brought in Carrot Top to cut the cord, right? No. Emily, cut the cord. Okay, cool. Emily actually helps sort of deliver in a way, because they like to bring in, I guess in a regular biological birth, it would be the husband probably in there saying, hey, do you want to help hold the legs or do whatever? In this case, it was Emily and I just took a respectful position by the birth mom's head. Right. Sort of looking down that way. I was like she was like, you can go wherever you want to go. But I was like, I'll just hang right here. Right. And Emily's like that's, right? Yeah, I wanted to be there. And I was helping support her as well, holding her hand and patting her on the head and all that nice stuff. Cool, man. Yeah, it was amazing. Did I ever tell you the story for when my niece Miller was born? And my sister in law was giving birth, and she let everybody in the labor room. I was surprised. You can have a party in there. Yeah. And when she really was going into she was delivering. I stood back behind this curtain. Right. And the doctor comes in and walks past me and kind of gives me a nod, and I hear him go to the crowd. He's like, you know there's, like, some guy standing behind that curtain. Right? Like, yeah, he's supposed to be there. He's the ward creeper. Right? Exactly. I'm like, okay, I've heard enough here. I'm going to the next dream. All right, well, let's take another break. Now that we've shared our stories, we'll come back and talk a little bit about how you become a doula right after this. All right, Chuck. So if you wanted to become a doula, basically, you start in training at age three. You're sent off to Europe to apprentice at the One Douglas School in the world, and they make you eat a lot of magic cake, and then when you're 60, you get to actually start out on your own. That's exactly right. Okay. Well, before you decide to become a dual, you need to get a lot of thought on what you're going to be getting into. The hours are long. Birth childbirth is very stressful, and especially if there are complications, it can be super stressful in a matter of life or death. So you got to be able to deal with that stuff in the moment and hang in there and be the birth coach that mom needs in the most stressful of situations. But then on the plus side, you get to see little Beebies coming out on the reg. And what's better than that? I can't think of too many things. Talk about an oxytocin hit, maybe. Magic cake. Magic cake. You do not have to have a college degree. You don't have to have a high school degree. You don't even have to be certified. It's not law that you have to be certified. Yeah. You don't. But there are more and more programs now and more certification and licensing programs out there. So if you want to be a Duala, my advice is to go that route. You probably just get more work that way. Right. So when you're starting out, if you wanted to get certified, you would go to one of the certifying bodies, like Donut or what is the other two that are mentioned in here? There's one called CAPA Kappa. Sure. And then the American Pregnancy Association, all three of those certify and train doulas, from what I could tell, is the oldest. Obviously, it was the first one, and it seems to be the most respected. But I would guess if you get your training from any of those three, you're probably doing pretty good. They'll offer online classes, in person classes, self paced study, and you typically need to go take a birthing class, a breastfeeding class. Because, again, you need to know, you need to be current on all the stuff that's going on with labor and delivery. Right. Yeah. If you took these classes ten years ago and they did it again today, you would probably find some real differences in new stuff that's been discovered in the last ten years. So you would need to be pretty current even if you had kids of your own before. Sure. And then you also need to attend at least one. I have the impression that multiple births under the apprenticeship of another doula who's already certified or trained or experienced before you really go off on your own to become certified. Yeah. I would say. How many births have you been a part of already before I hired a doula? That's a pretty big question if you ask me. So they would want to say, well, I've assisted in, like, three or five or however many, but you're going to be my first solo. Your first solo flight? Yeah. It depends on where you live, on how much you're going to pay. If you live in a big fancy city like New York City, you're going to be paying top dollar for your doula. If you live in Los Angeles, you can be paying top dollar for your dula. I saw, like, three, $500 at least for each of those cities. Yeah, but that scale can go all the way down to zero. Well, sure, all the way to zero, but if you're paying a doula, that number can go all the way down to in the flyover states. Right. But again, if this is the Duela's, first time on their own, you're probably not going to be paying top dollar. And if you say. Look. I really. Really want to have a doula at my child's birth. But I really. Genuinely don't have this money. I actually got a lift once from Adola. And she was talking about having to deal with this family. Who clearly was very well off. But was pleading poverty. And she was like. I'm the one who's a doula and driving a lift here. And these guys are trying to. Like. Short change me. Interested? So she said she told them no. She said she tried to work with them, but they wouldn't budge about whatever they thought her services were worth, so she had to just walk on. But why would a family swell off not paid $800? I don't know. I don't know. Because I remember thinking, like, wow, that's all it costs for doula. She might have even been quoting them. Less than $800. Yeah. So there is definitely, like there seems to be a tension between the desire to have a doula and the sense of non obligation to pay a doula a decent wage, which I think is where that pro doula group pulls their hair out. Right. Well, you may get it covered by insurance. There are more and more cases and insurance companies that will let something like this be covered. But it never hurts to ask. This article points out you can always ask. You can always file a claim and just see if you'll get a little assistance there. Yeah. If you live in Oregon and Minnesota, though, medicaid will reimburse your full dual expenses for certified doula, which is pretty awesome. That's huge and groundbreaking that those two states have, that for sure. The reason why they would pay anything for Adoles rather than just being like, just burn some sage or something and spend $5 is because there have been studies about doulas and they have come out quite positive in some pretty good peer reviewed studies in peer reviewed journals. Right. Have you seen any of this? Well, yeah, I saw the 115 thousand people. That's a pretty decent study size. And they said in this study size, there were some women who had doulas and some women who did not have doulas or any kind of support like that. And then outcomes for women with continuous support were better than those without. Meaning their labors were shorter by about 40 minutes on average. Their babies had higher Apgar scores. Which Apgar? These tests they give your baby, first thing your kid has to do is take a test. I know. Seconds later they're giving your kid their first test. Yeah. Activity, pulse, grimace, appearance and respiration. That's right. Yeah. And so higher Apcar scores, fewer negative feelings about childbirth. Like, this is the emotional component. They require less pain medication, fewer uses of forceps or vacuum assisted interventions. C sections across the board, doulas helped. And what was really interesting was there was basically nothing that could point out that said having a doula was a negative in any way. Yeah. And even when they look just at doulas, rather than just all types of continuous support just at Dulas, the Doulas, they held up, too. There was less use of Pitocin, less C section, more spontaneous vaginal deliveries, less of a risk of being admitted to a special care nursery, four times less likely in one study to have a low birth weight child, two times less likely to have complications, and they were significantly more likely to initiate breastfeeding when cared for by a Doula. Right. So there's all these, like, demonstrably positive outcomes, and then you hit upon the other thing, too, that they make the harsh hospital environment. There's something called harsh environment theory, where the bright lights and the people you don't know coming in and out and treating you like a piece of meat that they need to get this thing out of, that it can actually produce a traumatic experience, I suspect, in more women than you would think. Having birth or giving birth in a hospital is kind of traumatic. And for some women, from what I read, it's like deeply traumatic. And that's been a huge reason that doulas have really come into. Use lately is because they mellow everything out for you a lot more. And there's actually, I read there's a group of renegade Douglas who are acting as midwives out in the pot growing country of Northern California. What's the relationship there to the pot growing? I would guess they probably do both. They grow the pot and deliver the babies. Nice. I think it's kind of like a whole back to the earth, to hell with the man's establishment hospitals. Apparently it's illegal to give birth like this without a certified someone from the medical community being there to assist in the delivery. They're saying nuts to that, which I would guess is pretty dangerous but also illegal. And if there's anything that screams Northern California more than dangerous and illegal, I don't know. Yeah. If you want to use a doula and I'm officially endorsing this, I say don't say, don't say doula. Sorry, I couldn't resist on that one. It was worth it. You just get online, the duolas are easy to find in your area. Do a little Google searching, get a reference, a personal reference if you can, would be great. Get online, find a friend who is used to do what they can recommend. I mean that's really the best way. I don't know if I'd go on Yelp or anything like that or Angie's list, although maybe who knows. But it's better if a good friend says, hey, I use this duo and she's great. I think also the certifying bodies have directories of certified doulas in areas too. Yeah, I mean you want it to be a good personality match too, so you should talk to your dola on the phone at the very least. But ideally you have a little in person meeting to make sure like, is this someone I want to jump into the foxhole with? Because they're going to be around a lot and you have to have a good personality match there. Well, yeah. And your husband or co parent needs to like them too. You don't want weird tension between those two in the delivery room. True. They need to fit into your jam pretty well or else it's just going to be especially if you're one of those people who can't stand conflict. That would be awful to have a doula who your husband or coparent or wife or whoever doesn't like and butts heads with in the delivery room. That would just be bad. And then you have to pay them afterwards. That would just be terrible. So yeah, you want to vet them pretty well ahead of time. Yeah. And while Adula is there to support you. So while they may have their own opinions on what they might do in a given situation, their childbirth philosophy is your childbirth philosophy as a mom is what matters. Right. So a good Duolo will get on board with that or if they aren't on board with that, then they probably shouldn't be working with you. Yeah, I could see them being like, look, I can recommend a couple of other people who are more in line with what you're looking for than me. Instead said of wrong, wrong. This is all wrong. This is how we're going to do it. That's right. You got anything else on Dolas? Just this little bit on Death doulas, we may have covered this in our dying episode. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I feel like we've talked about it, but it is a job. If you want to help a family or a person or both through end of life care, there are people you can hire just to do that. And it's not the same as they can work in concert with hospice care, but it's not like a hospice nurse. It's someone just like a birthdollah who is there to really just emotionally kind of coach you through the dying process with a family member. And also, to very concretely, hold your hand, make sure you're comfortable, move you around a little bit, listen to you talk, tell you stories, whatever you're looking for to make the whole thing better. That's right. Pretty neat. Up with Doulas? Yeah, up with Dolas. Agreed. If you want to know more about Up With Doulas, this new organization that Chuck and I just now founded, I'll just wait a little while. We need to get to work on the website. And in the meantime, let's listen to some listener mail. All right, I'm going to call this flu shot clarification because that's what the subject line says. Okay. Hey, guys. Avid listener. Wanted to comment on the flu episode. I'm a graduate student in a few months away from completing my degree to becoming a physician's assistant. Well, never mind then, buddy. I don't want to hear it. No, I'm just kidding. I spent a lot of time seeing patients answering questions about things like flu shots and who should receive them. The CDC now recommends that everyone over the age of six months receives a flu shot. Even those who are perfectly healthy, even those who are allergic to eggs they're cuckoo for flu shots are now being designed to be egg free. So they're egg free, gluten free. What else? Egg free. They contain 10% quinoa. And there's no evidence to suggest flu shots in recent years could cause a reaction in those allergic to eggs. All right, that's interesting. Did not know that. He said the benefits of the flu shots far outweighed the risk, in his opinion. This guy's opinion? Yeah, and it sounds like it's an informed opinion at the very least. Sure. So that is from Devon, from Philadelphia. Go, Eagles. Do you think so? Really? No. I mean, why not? They're doing great. Okay, well, thanks a lot, Devon. I appreciate writing in. That was nice of you. And if you out there want to be like Devon, you can tweet to us at Joshmclark or S. Yskpodcast you can join us on Facebook.com Stuffyshthknowswuckbryant. You can hang out with us on email at stuffpodcast@housetepworks.com. As always, join us at our home, on the web at STUFFYou know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Erkart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sysk-fasting.mp3	Fasting: deadly or what?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/fasting-deadly-or-what	Avoiding food for religious or health reasons has been around for millennia. But while God may appreciate the sacrifice, how does it affect the body? Join Josh and Chuck to find if fasting actually can be healthy or if it's as bad an idea as it sounds.	Avoiding food for religious or health reasons has been around for millennia. But while God may appreciate the sacrifice, how does it affect the body? Join Josh and Chuck to find if fasting actually can be healthy or if it's as bad an idea as it sounds.	Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:39:24 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=23, tm_hour=16, tm_min=39, tm_sec=24, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=54, tm_isdst=0)	32955321	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you were a global bank who wanted to crunch billions of transactions against thousands of compliance controls? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data, and now you can supercharge your audit system with AI. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM. Let's create learn more@ibm.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and with me is Charles W, chucker's Bryant. I'm hungry. Are you? I just had a six of a slice of pizza. Those are pizza out there? Yeah. You're better hurry. That's all right. Pretty good off pizza. The cheese gets to my stomach. Details in our Digestion podcast. Yeah. You got a lot of great support. I did. For people. Anything work? I am going to make an appointment with a specialist for the gird. Good. And get scoped, I think they call it, when they drop a camera down in there and they find out that I have a small dragon living in my stomach. Right. And then the scope drops a film canister into your stomach acid to be retrieved later and developed. Yeah. So thank you for that support, people. I'm definitely going to go get that checked out. He's going to the specialist. Going to a specialist. I'm not going to quit drinking red wine. Is that the problem? Well, no. I mean, I get heartburn from anything, so that means I've definitely got a real issue. But obviously things like red wine and chocolate and margheritas and citrus, you got, poor guy. All the best stuff. All the best stuff. Margaritas. You could go either way. I like them during the right time of year. You need to just drink, like, White Russians all the time. It has a lot of milk in it. Chocolate, though. It's a Black Russian. Oh, right, white Russian. Or just drink vodka. Just drink milk. Okay. And pretend you're wasted and be healthy. Chuck? Yes. Have you ever fasted? No, I've done the little master cleanse thing, which is sort of a fast, I guess. So the lemon juice one? Yeah. Okay. We've talked about this before. Yeah, I've done that as well. And this is kind of like gives you shingles. Yeah. I'm not going to do it again. You're not? No. So I fast, like, all the time. I know that all the time. Maybe hyperbole, because I actually do eat sometimes. You just say the 8th of a slice of pizza. 6th of a slice. I have a pretty good understanding of what fasting can do and what it feels like. But what I did not know is that it comes from an old Anglo Saxon word. Faith. Yeah. That's the fact of the podcast for me. Well, that's remarkable. Fasten. Fasten. There's A-F-A-E-S-T-E-N faisten. Wow. Yeah. So people have been doing it for a while, then, is what you're saying? Well, yeah, apparently fasten means to hold oneself from food, and yet people have been doing it for a while because it's firmly rooted in a lot of religious traditions that have been around for many years. And then there are other reasons that people fast, more modern ones, medical fasting, which we'll talk about political statement fasting. Yeah. There's a lot of that. In the 20th century. It was big for hunger strikes, of course, still is. But let's talk about fasting, shall we? Okay. Let's talk about specifically religious fasting. Chuck, great place to start. It's been going on for thousands of years in religion. So you answered your own question. Yeah, I know. Eventually. I was being coy. A lot of times they initiated fast. Someone will do that to maintain contact with the divinity. And some say that if you fast for long enough, you will hallucinate, and that they might interpret that as communicating directly with God. Right. And I look that up. I couldn't find out exactly why you hallucinate when you fast. I mean, that is corroborated all over the place. I find you're dying. Well, the best I can find is that it's a vitamin deficiency. Leads to hallucinations for some reason, but I don't know why. But no, not necessarily. I also came across some articles that suggested that hallucinations are a lot more natural than we would think because we associate them with mental illness or drug use. In the west, we have a lot of negative connotations for hallucinations that aren't necessarily spiritual. Right. When in fact, other cultures might believe it's a form of enlightenment. Right. So hallucinations may not be bad, it may not be that you're dying, and it may not be that you're mentally ill. It may just be that you're hungry. Yeah, all right. That's a good point. A lot of times, religious fasts are undertaken because your atoning for sins is punishment. You're asking God for your forgiveness, for your misdeeds. Yes. These are the big two, basically. Like, you fast religiously, either to get closer to God or to tell God you're sorry and thus get closer to God. Yeah, I know what you mean, though. Thanks. So you want to talk about some of the religions and why and when they fast. Yeah, buddhists, buddhists fast on full moon Day holidays, and they do it mainly for purification and to free the mind. Apparently, your butt will follow if you free the mind. That's an old Buddhist adage. I had not heard that. I think so. Their fasting is mostly it's not a full fast. You can drink, so I guess you could have soup, maybe just a broth. God help you if you have noodles in it. But you have to abstain from solid foods. Right. You can live on broth. Yeah. Forever. You probably wouldn't have a very productive life GI system. Right. But, yeah, you could live on broth. Catholics. They fast on Ash Wednesday. Good Friday, actually. They can eat a small meal without meat on those two days. Yeah, so it's not exactly a fast. But they on Fridays, during Lent, they're not really supposed to eat meat at all. That's why we have the foley of fish. And for a little while, in the hula burger. That's right, because Red Croc was like, man, there's a mess of Catholics out there, and they're not eating burgers on Fridays, but we need to get them in the store anyway. See, I'm thankful for that because I love a filet of fish every now and then, like once a year, catholics fast to show their control of their fleshly. One of my favorite words. Fleshly desires to do penance to show solidarity with the poor and people who might not have food. So I went to a Catholic school for the first couple of years of school, our lady of Perpetual Help. And every once in a while, they would serve rice with a pad of butter for lunch. And it was kind of this fast, but it wasn't really fast because we're still having rice. But basically the whole idea was, this is what poor kids in Bangladesh have to eat every day, right? And you're just a spoiled kid, so eat some rice instead and kind of get in the mindset. And I never did it because I got the point. But some of my friends would eat the rice and then eat their own lunch from home as well, which, even in the second grade, I'm like, that seems wrong. Yeah. I don't think you're supposed to be doing it like that. Yeah. I mean, that didn't even have to be religious based. You could do that in school today and just say as a hunger awareness. Like in Australia. Yeah, Australia. What is that? The 40 hours fast. Do you know anything about that? I know that I think they have it once a year, and many Australians take part. And basically the whole thing is to, like you say, raise awareness of poverty, of the state, of the poverty stricken, and also to raise money, too. The 40 hours famine. Excuse me. Which is a fast. Yes. Boy, we had that one off at the Pass. Good going, Chuck. Eastern Orthodox church members, they will fast on Lent. They observe the apostles fast and the Nativity fast. And they think that it could strengthen your resistance to gluttony which obviously is obviously one of the seven deadly sins. And they eat no meat, dairy, eggs or fish during these fasts. So it's my understanding they can also eat a little something, just not those things like carbs. They can eat bread. That would be nice. And bread and broth. Now you're talking. Yeah, that's what else you need. I can't think of any fruits and vegetables and stuff like that. Well no, it says no meat, dairy, eggs or fish. So you could have fruits, vegetables, broth, bread. That's a good kind of fast right there. I wouldn't even call that a fast. No, you couldn't actually get gluttonous on that. You could. The Jewish folks, they passed on Yom Kippur which is the day of Atonement and they are doing this to atone for sins obviously like the Catholics and special requests from God. I know, it's so funny. It's like, hey, I'm not going to eat for 25 whole hours but I have a huge favor to ask you. Right. Sun up to sun down, is that the deal? Yeah. They have one of the tougher fasts because they don't eat or drink anything for 25 hours. Right. That's like no, nothing. That's a real fast. Yeah. Mormons, they fast on the first Sunday every month. This is kind of a week fast if you ask me. This is like a Tuesday for me. They have to skip two meals. They skip two meals and they think it helps them obviously get closer to God like many of the religions do and just basically just focuses their minds on God. Well, the cool thing about the warm and fast in my opinion is that they're also required to give food and money to the needy. Right. What they would have spent perhaps on those meals. Probably a good one. You should do one on Mormons as a whole. We've had that requested a lot. We totally should. I've read about this one guy named Paul Kingston and he is the head of an accused alleged crime family. It's a Mormon sect also and he does 40 day fasts. Wow. Yeah. Wow. 40 days, man, can you imagine? No, this guy did it. He does it. I bet his breath stinks so bad. We'll get into that. Muslims, obviously they fast on for the observance of Ramadan, the 9th month on the Muslim calendar. And many of you might not know what Ramadan is. You want to tell them? I'll tell them. It commemorates the month when the Quran was first revealed to Muhammad. That's what Ramadan is all about. Oh, is that right? Yeah, I got you. So they don't have food, they don't have drink, they don't smoke, they don't curse, they don't have sex from sunrise to sunset for a month every day for a month? That's right. And millions of people do this during ramadan, which is when does it take place? Roughly in November on the Gregorian calendar, I think, is it? I think it is. And we've been asked to do one on Ramadan, too, so we got a lot we haven't explained hardly anything, have we? No, we still got law enforcement. Ramadan is a very famous fast, obviously, because of the length of time, and it is supposed to teach Muslims patience and modesty spirituality. You ask Allah for forgiveness, pray for guidance, and you purify yourself. It's really effective getting this mindset of, I want this, so I'll have it right now out of your head for a little while, even a day. Really kind of opens your eyes a little bit beyond that one single day. So just denial. Yeah. It never leaves you, does it? Well, I have to say that the further I've gotten away from Catholicism, the more into self denial I've gotten, ironically. Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about medical fasting. That's an overview of religious fasting. We could get a lot more detailed, but nice transition. Thank you. Well, medical fasting, a lot of people have probably engaged in. If you've ever had some sort of tests done, a lot of times they're like, don't eat the night before your appointment, or sometimes 24 hours if it's like certain kinds of blood tests. Yeah. The reason for this is pretty straightforward and logical. With blood tests in particular, they want your body to have metabolized all the food, so they have a pretty good idea of what your baseline levels of things like cholesterol, blood sugar, all of these things are in your system. Normally, if you ate a handful of chicken fat right before you went in for your cholesterol test, it's going to skew the results a little bit. Yeah. That fat is going to be in your blood. But if you haven't eaten in 24 hours and your blood shows the same levels of lipids as if you had just eaten a handful of chicken fat, your physician is going to be like, we have to save your life right now. Well, yeah. If your baseline indicates something that's scary, then no more chicken fat. No more chicken fat. And same goes with if you were going to go under yeah. For surgery. Yeah. Which apparently this one's becoming outdated. We both had surgery recently. You went all the way under? Into I went into twilight sleep for my tooth. I went all the way under, and I don't know what my oral surgeon used, but she brought me out, like, totally. I was wide awake within an hour of being put under. Like, she did the procedure and then I was wide awake. I still need to ask her. You weren't groggy? No, I was just right back. I love the twilight sleep, actually. Yeah, it was pretty rocking. I mean, I was still wasted, but it was like I was awake. It wasn't like huge time loss or anything like that. Anyway, I wasn't supposed to eat. I thought just eat. But it's eat or drink. And they had to delay my surgery, like 3 hours because I was a gas and drank some coffee. And the whole reason I didn't understand why until I read this article, but the whole reason they tell you not to eat or drink anything for the night before you're put under because they're worried you're going to puke and choke on your vomit, like John Bonham. I didn't know that. I thought it was just it could make you nauseous until I read this. I didn't realize that was the deal. No, but they may be phasing it out because it can make you nauseous if you don't eat. If you take all those drugs on an empty stomach, you may be likely to be nauseated. And it's also really rare that they found so I think it's not I mean, they still did it with me, but the article says that it may be phased out because it's such a rare thing to choke like that. Right. And they're saying, well, a lot more people are having trouble with dizziness, fainting because they haven't eaten anything. We just pumped them full of drugs. So we're going to go ahead and let people eat. And I want to take a minute to explain the difference between nauseous and nauseated. You know this? Yeah. So nauseous means that you're causing nausea, right? So I'm making you nauseous. I'm nauseous to you. Okay. Okay. Nauseated means that you're feeling or suffering from nausea. You nauseated. I'm nauseous to you. No, I'm nauseated is what you would say, unless you are aware that you're making other people nauseous. That's behaviorally speaking. What do you mean? Well, like, you're nauseated with someone's actions, or does that mean literally, physically, you're nauseated with somebody's actions that would make the other person nauseous? They have the ability to cause nausea and other people got you. I never knew that. It's a big deal. The more you know thank you. 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So what happens when you stop eating? Your body is going to start burning. If you don't have any protein, your body's going to break down your muscle. It's going to start eating that because that's protein. Yeah. It's kind of a scary notion. It is, which is why if you're on a low calorie diet, you want to eat lean protein. And it's also why you'll feel weak if you're on like, a hunger strike. Yeah, like to the point where you can't get out of bed if you haven't eaten for three weeks or you're hallucinating. Exactly. A long term fast can damage your heart because your heart is a muscle, and what your body's doing is going after your muscle because your muscle is made of amino acids, which is the building blocks of protein. So it's saying, well, basically we have a bunch of store of amino acids here where your brain is like, no, I use that to lift things, or I use that to pump blood. Right. Your body's like, no, it's a bunch of amino acids and I need it right now. If you feed your body lean protein, logically speaking, it will go after other things, eg. Fats, because it has protein. Right. So aside from the heart, though, liver and kidneys can also decrease in size if you don't have enough protein and damage those as well, which is not good. That leaves us pretty clearly to fasting for weight loss, right? Yes. There's a weird catch 22 for fasting for weight loss, where your body, if given few enough calories or if on a fast, enters what's called starvation mode. And when you enter starvation mode, it does things like going after your muscles, which is bad, but it also lowers your metabolism to preserve calories. So the fewer calories you take in, the fewer calories you end up burning. Yeah, it's weird. It's not weird. It actually makes perfect sense. Yeah. But it's also extremely unhealthy. It is. And I dug into WebMD for this, and they say that there's a lot of controversy on this. Some people say it can be effective, other people say it can't. But they say if you really weed through all this stuff that most medical experts say that it is not healthy at all. It'll come back quickly. If you fast to lose weight, it's really just liquids. Beyonce made a lot of headlines when she did the Master cleanse and lost \u00a320 for Dream Girls. Wow, awesome movie. Did you see that? No. I don't know if you'd like it might not be your thing. Okay. That's good health risks that we already covered liver, kidney and heart. And this doctor says, you know, people try all these weird diets. There's 100,000 different books on odd diets when everyone knows the way to lose weight is lower your fat, eat five fruits and vegetables a day, drink a lot of water and do some exercise and get plenty of sleep. If they say, let's say you want to fast and do a good enema just to clean yourself out. Very dangerous to do. That what enemas are not to do an enema while you're on a fast. Okay. It's not a good one to punch. Okay. WebMD says what you're going to do is you're going to flush your intestinal tract of your good bacteria and put your health at serious risk. And this is the whole detoxification thing. There's one camp that says your body detoxes itself. There's no scientific evidence that any of these cleanses do any good. Then there's another camp that says, well, if you're eating healthy, then your body is doing a great job of detoxifying itself. But most people don't eat healthy. They eat packaged, processed foods. And so your body could actually use some help detoxifying. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. It's the same thing with saunas. Like, they're like, well, yeah, you might only sweat, like, a very small amount of toxins out of your body, but you're still sweating that amount out. How could that hurt if you're doing it properly? There's definitely two camps on this. It's very controversial. Yeah. Same with a calorie restricted diet, which I know we talked about before. There's two camps on it. The fact of the matter is neither one knows for certain whether they're right. That's true. A lot of it's just based on common sense and logic. Ketosis. If you go without eating for a couple of days, your body is going to enter a stage called ketosis, and that is what your goal is. If you do the Atkins diet, they preach ketosis, and that's what happens when your body runs out of carbs to burn for energy, so it burns fat, which sounds like a good thing, but the breath I mentioned earlier, be prepared for really awful halotosis. Is that right? Tell me about it, Chuck. Well, it's just one of the side effects of fasting and ketosis is you're going to have rank halotosis. I don't know the science behind it, but it's true. So carry around if you're going to be doing that kind of thing, just take care of your mouth a little more. Get a tongue scraper. I think probably while we're on this, we should take the time to debunk the whole idea that you should be drinking eight glasses of water a day. Debunk? Well, you should definitely drink water. It's good to drink water. But that whole eight glasses a day thing, there's people who rigidly drink eight glasses of water a day. Right. Totally arbitrary. Okay. And there's a guy named Tim Crow who is a professor of nutrition at Deakin University who has kind of gone to the trouble of debunking this. Apparently. Back in 1945. The US. Recommended 2.5 liters of water a day, part of the war effort I would imagine. So this is where this whole eight glasses came from, right. But it has to just be water idea, right? Like it can't be coffee. Well, one guy said liquids, water and other liquids, right. At least on WebMD. Technically you could get it all from coke, which is going to have all these other side effects. But it's water. One of the main ingredients in coke is water. Same with coffee, same with tea, all this other stuff. So if you're drinking water, drink water. But that whole eight glasses a day thing is apparently not true. Says that one guy. Well, the problem is water intake varies by body size, weight. It's two individuals, say eight classes a day. Yes, but let's put it this way, it's never going to be bad for you. Yeah. You can die of water toxicity. Well, not from a glass water. No, but people have. Like that lady who did that contest drank like twelve gallons of water or something like that. I know. Isn't that crazy? That wasn't that much, but there was a lot. And then I'm sorry. There's one other problem that can develop from not eating from fasting. When you lose minerals, not only can you hallucinate, but specifically if you have not enough potassium, copper and magnesium, you can lose electricity or electrical function in your heart. That's not good. Well, it's also going to put a big hit on your immune system. If you're fasting, you're going to have a real hard time finding out sickness. And if you get sick, you're going to have a real hard time getting better. Yes. Because you're not getting the stuff you need. The good stuff. Agreed. The nutrients. So what's next, Chucker? Hunger strikes. That's really the last reason that we have for fasting. And throughout history, a lot of people have made political statements by going on very public hunger strikes to raise awareness. And it's a good way to get attention if you're a Gandhi. Definitely. And Gandhi did do that, I think in 1945, because the crown was saying, hey, let's get this new Indian constitution underway and let's codify the caste system that keeps people in this horrible socioeconomic hierarchy. And God, he said, you know what, you do that and I'm not going to eat, and the whole world will pay attention. And the Brits were like, oh shut up. And Gandhi was like, no, I'm going to do it. And they're like, oh no you're not. And he did it. And everybody paid attention and he said, one day, Sir Richard Edinburgh will make a movie about me. Is that who made Gandhi? I think so. And Ben Kingsley will play me because he looks like me. That's crazy. That's good stuff, Chuck. That was a great back and forth. What? Bobby Sands, the infamous Irish hunger strike in 1981 in Mays Prison in Northern Ireland. He fasted for 66 days and I'm pretty sure he had some of his IRA cohorts taking part in it with him. Yeah, I think nine other guys died. Was it including him? Okay. 66 days. Yeah. So they had demands. Various demands, like, hey, we want to wear our own clothes. We want to be able to socialize and correspond with the outside world. Sure. Mail some letters here and there. We shouldn't have to do penal work as part of our sentence here. And nine prisoners died, like you said, and 60 others died in the violence that followed. I think there were some riots that happened afterward, and it was a really big deal. I think I wrote about that in my how long can you go without food and Water? Article many months ago. That's where we talked about the calorie restricted diet, isn't it? I think so. I'll have to tweet that episode. It's a good one. Agreed. Man, that seems like a gazillion years ago. I don't even remember what was in it. I don't either. And then we mentioned the 40 hours famine, which is an annual event in Australia. And basically people say, I'm not going to drink food or water for 40 hours, and I'm going to raise awareness. That's a really good way to raise awareness, to just say, I'm not eating and you can't make me. And then people will try. Authorities will be like, no, we have to keep you alive because we want to keep you in prison. Logic all over the place. Jerks. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system so you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls? Now you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM. Let's create learn More@ibm.com you know you're a pet mom when you growl back during Playtime and you insist on feeding them the highest quality food you can find. Enter Halo. Holistic made with only whole meat, no meat meals, and probiotics. For digestive health. Our first ingredient is always responsibly sourced protein raised with no antibiotics. And bonus, our fruits and veggies contain no GMOs. It's a lifestyle and a pet mom thing. Find Haloholistic at chewy. Amazonandhalopeets.com. You got anything more about fasting? No. Be careful if you're out there. Anorexia is a real problem in the world, and they can get out of hand. And there was a sidebar in this article we didn't cover, but we'd be remiss without mentioning that. Anorexia nervosa. That's right. Yeah. Not good. No, neither, believe me. I saw a thing recently where a plus size model. Did you see this? This female plus size model had her picture taken with a regular model, and they were, like, both nude and just hugging, and it looked like she was hugging a small child. And she was doing this to raise awareness that this image that they put out with models is just a unattainable and be unsafe. And I think that I can't remember the year, but it was something like 20 years ago. The average model was like 8% smaller and thinner than your average person. And nowadays it's like 25% or 23%. Well, not only that, they alter them digitally through, like, Photoshop or some other photo editing suite. Yeah. To just do crazy things for them. They don't even look right. If you see what they do to them in Photoshop afterward, it's crazy. It's a great article. I wish I could remember where it was. It was going around Facebook, though. But I think it is a very good message to send out that Chuck from stuff You Should Know thinks that that plus size model was uber hot and sexy. Well, good for you, Chuck. She looked good, man. That's how a woman should look. It's very nice of you. Not like that little frail wave of a lady. And if you're like that, naturally, I don't want to make you feel bad about yourself, but if you're starving yourself to make you look like that, then some guys like a little junk in the trunk as, say, they I think that's an excellent one to end this on. Way to go, Chuck. Thank you. So you have nothing more now about Fasting? No, nothing more. Any other discourse, Jerry? Like boys are spiraling. Or if you want to know more about fasting, you can type that word into the search bar. Howstepworks.com? And Chuck the junk in the trunk. So that brings up listener mail, as I just said. Right. I'm shaking my head. I knew that you were going to say that. South by Southwest. Announcement continues. Is this the generic one or the specific one? This is the generic version. Okay. This is filled with the seat and trickery. Yes. We are having a party on Monday, March 12, in Austin, Texas. Yeah, no badge required. Let's not forget also, dude, we're doing an official live podcast on the day before March 11. Yeah. 03:30 P.m.. Okay, well, I'm glad you remember that. What's going on? March 12. March 12 is a party. We're having a place to be announced later, downtown Austin. And there will be performers, comedians, bands, and some other special treats. And it will be in the evening hours. Yeah, it'll be a cool party. Early evening hours. Can we call it a party? It's a party. Okay. It'll be a party. And you don't have to have a badge for this. You have to have a badge for the live podcast on Sunday. You probably have to be 21, don't you think? No, I think it's a restaurant as well. Yeah, I think you can come in there and eat. Awesome. Or if you're 21, you can come in there and drink your face off. Bring your pocketbook. We're not buying drinks. No, you can buy us drinks. Yeah. Here you go. Can we get to it now? Yes. Okay. Appropriately, this is from an Aussie fan that wants to raise awareness for weight loss. Weird. I know. Funny how that works. Greetings from down under. I just wanted to plug a little something for the Ozzy corner of the SYSK nation, and we have a lot of Australian fans. Substantial. One of our major Aussie broadcasters has started a new initiative called the 1 million kilo challenge, and the goal is to get Australians to collectively pledge to lose 1 million kilos. About \u00a32.2 million for you backwards folk, as she calls us. Their site is www. Dot one. And it's the number one millionkilochallenge.com au. That means Australia, and it gives you all the diet and exercise plans you need to shed that flab in ten weeks, starting on January 30. Maybe I should do this. You can complete the challenge as an individual or as a team. So I thought, why not rally the SYSK army? I think it would be a great way for Ozzy listeners I'm sorry, I keep saying Ozzy. It's really Ozzy, as they say. Okay, ozzy listeners to interact, get healthier, and dominate all the other teams. So I created a team, conveniently named them team S-Y-S-K. Nice. International folk always complain when we can't enter your contest, so how about we make this the official Aussie thing? Of course, you guys can still sign up if you're willing to fake an Ozzy address and get your kilos to pounds converter at the ready. I pledged to lose 5.3 kg. That's \u00a311.7 that I put on last year, and I'm really pumped up about it. I don't know how to get this out to the SYSK nation, but I would love it if we could encourage any other Ozzy or otherwise listeners to sign up and fight the flag together. And this is how you do it live. You email us and we read it the next day. So here we are. She says, PS, I noticed the Colbert nation doesn't even have a team, so we've already won up them again. Nice. And that's in 30 days. January 30 is when it kicks off. And that is number one millionkilochallenge.com au. Throw www in front of that and you'll be taken straight there. And is there a team page? She said she started team SYSK, so I guess it might be like kiva where you might can enter that in a team section or something and find out. Okay, I'm going to look after this, actually. All right, well, we'll publicize it if we can, that is. Liv. Thanks a lot, Liv. We appreciate you going to that trouble, and thanks to everybody listening. If you have a cool story that you want to tell us about, it doesn't matter if it has to do with fasting or anything else we want to hear. It just whatever general assignment. How about that? Yeah. You can find us on Twitter at s yskpodcast facebook at facebook. Comstuffynow. And you can also reach us via email at stuffpodcast@discovery.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House Deport staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry it's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewie amazonandhalopets.com."
c3985a78-5460-11e8-b38c-6304bf816330	SYSK Selects: Could You Live Without a Refrigerator?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-could-you-live-without-a-refrigerator	Do you know that hulking refrigerator in your kitchen emits CO2 thanks to the electricity it uses each year? It's a comparatively small amount, in truth, but enough that some people have foresworn their fridge and adopted a life without one. See how they do it in this classic episode.	Do you know that hulking refrigerator in your kitchen emits CO2 thanks to the electricity it uses each year? It's a comparatively small amount, in truth, but enough that some people have foresworn their fridge and adopted a life without one. See how they do it in this classic episode.	Sat, 21 Sep 2019 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=264, tm_isdst=0)	35597687	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, friends. You know, dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure, but all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony is passionate about creating real love for all, rooted it in compatibility. Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself, like, I don't know what you want in a relationship, and it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes, someone finds love on Eharmony. Hello, everyone. It's your old pal Chuck. One half of stuff you should know. Josh is asleep. I can hear him snoring next to me in this episode for my select pick. Could you live without a refrigerator? Sounds silly. From January 2014. I guess it was our New Year's special edition. But, hey, can you live without a refrigerator? It's really about slow food. Check it out right now. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there. And she's eating stalks of broccoli. Yes. Not the florets. She's eating the chunky trunk. She throws the fluoresce away. Bizarre. I'm not into food waste. So she's eating every single bit. She's just munching on it like a rabbit over there. Oh, I see. Oh, now that I look more closely and see that you're right, that was just a clever lead into what will be a great intro from you. No, that was the intro. Okay. Jerry doesn't waste food, people. No. Food waste is a terrible thing, and that's only part of the tip of the iceberg of this subject that we're about to touch on tip of the ice box. This is a huge, rambling, enormous topic that we're about to tackle. See, Chuck, you've heard of green eco friendliness? Yeah. Eco consciousness. We like to push that racket when we can. Yeah. What's that is, like, more and more today, it seems to be well, there's parts that have become ingrained, like people recycle and recycling is just a thing now. It's not going anywhere. Yeah. If you don't recycle now, you're kind of like one of those people that throws cigarettes out the window. Yeah, that's pretty bad, too. A lot of people still do that. Yeah, but I think not to get off on my high horse, but I think a lot of the people that toss the cigarettes out the window probably, like, would say, if someone threw a McDonald's bag out the window, they'd be like, how can you do that? Yeah, like, they justify cigarettes somehow. I've seen that people throw those things out. Like, eco friendly people. I think eco friendly smokers, I think, justify that because it's like, well, you still don't want a cigarette in your car, right? Because they stink. They're gross. They're bad for it out there. It'll end up in a lake or something. A bird will eat it. Did you know that I was at the gas station the other day, and I saw a guy driving off, and as he drove off, he held his hand out the window and released a stack of apparently losing lottery tickets. I'm talking, like, 30, just right into the parking lot. I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, it's a joke now, literally, on anchorman, in the original anchorman, when they finish all their McDonald's, they just throw all their stuff in the park. Mad Men had one of those, too. They have, like, a family picnic, and afterwards, they gathered up their stuff and just, like, picked up the mic and threw all the trash out and were like, let's go. Right, exactly. That's how it used to be, though. Yes. Isn't that weird that that used to be a thing, that it's okay to throw trash on the ground? It's not okay, but some people still do it. I've seen it. Right. But the point is I am making a point here, believe it or not, there are some parts of the green movement that have become entrenched and scanned in the mainstream culture, and it's having an impact. It's having a real effect. Sure. It's not having enough of an effect. We're all headed for global catastrophe eventually. But when we think about the green movement now, it almost seems past tense. There are parts of it that seem like a bit of a fad. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like being green. How green can you go? What can you do? There was this thing that kind of popped up in 2009 because of a New York Times article okay. Where people were starting to give up their refrigerators oh, yeah. As part of the green movement to be green, to basically say, I'm greener than thou. Right. You get the impression that that's what they're doing. Ultimately, they're saying, no, it's just one less thing that's using up electricity, so it's saving CO2 emissions. But it seems to me to fall along the line of the people who, like, had themselves sterilized so they couldn't contribute to the growing population, global population. You're saying those are about the same, it seems to me. Yeah. Although the refrigerator one is far more reversible because you just go out and buy a refrigerator and plug it in. That's true. And bam. I'm back, baby. Well, you can reverse your procedure to not have kids, too, these days. Yes. I think it's kind of roll the dice. Oh, really? If it'll work again. Oh, I thought you could get it reversed in a sweat. They can reverse it, but it doesn't necessarily work. Okay. I thought it was pretty good. All right, man. That was a sidebar. So should we talk about food waste? Well, let's talk about this refrigerator thing. You're really fixated on the food waste thing, aren't you? Well, it's a big part of whether or not you can go without a fridge. Well, let's talk about what happens or why people go without a fridge first. Chuck, if you'll bear with me. Okay. So people are pulling the plugs on these refrigerators, or they were in 2009, or at least three people were in 2009. One in Canada, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. But I get the impression from reading the original New York Times article that it was just kind of the sub thing among the eco green. No, it wasn't all the rage. No. Like bamboo flooring and cork flooring. No. And the New York Times article pointed out that it seems to be a dividing line among green ecoconscious and the eco crazy. Yeah. Where some people say, that's preposterous. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And then other people are like, look at how far I'm willing to go to be green. So what's the benefit of all this? Well, a refrigerator uses electricity, and I guess we can give you a couple of stats to bring it all home for you. Typical fridge, post 2000 uses about 450 year. Yeah, that's thanks to the Energy Star ratings. Yes. Which is better than it used to be, for sure. And if you want to translate that into cheeseburgers, no way into miles driven in your car, because we're talking about the emission of CO2. That's about 800 miles driving a car. About 800 miles, depending on what kind of miles you get. Because really it's what, 35 gallons of gas? 35 gallons, yeah. So even then in the article, they point out that it's kind of low on the list. It ranks behind clothes dryer, central air in your furnace. Your furnace is like 6000 year. And it's amazing. So your refrigerator is 450 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. So it's not even super high up in your household. No, it's nowhere near. But I think the people who are pulling the plugs on these refrigerators are saying every little bit counts. Yeah. And they probably have already taken other green precautions. They probably don't run their furnace like this, right? Like they might have a potbelly stove. They better not. If they use a normal old terrible electric furnace, then I'm going to go to their house and have a little chat. It's like shaking outside their house, yet they're eating out of a glue cooler. Right. And that's what they do. I mean, when you pull the plug on the fridge, I wish I could just come up with another phrase that rolls off the tongue. So I'm tired of saying that when you go out of refrigerator. Yeah. Defridge. Defridge, Chuck. Nice. When you defridge, you still need typically, some source of cooling inside of your home, something that can keep some food items from perishing. Because we apparently refrigerate a lot of stuff we don't need to. That is true. You can keep that ketchup and mustard out on the counter. Hot sauce. Yeah, I've read it goes three years in a regular pantry. Really lostrachi just to keep it out there. Yeah, we kept growing up, kept a lot of stuff out of the fridge, and not for any reason other than that's just how it was in my house. I remember butter in a tray, butter on the counter. Butter is better that way. Room temperature. Oh, man. Are you kidding me? Yeah, it's so spreadable, right. I keep mine in the fridge just to keep it longer because I don't need that much butter. But, man, if you go to a restaurant and they give you butter and it's cold, dude, just like, what are you doing? It's literally Emily's biggest pet peeve. Well, I agree with cold rolls with cold butter or hot rolls with cold butter? Yes, because you get the hot rolls and you think this place knows what they're doing, and you get this cold pad of butter. So I've developed a technique under the armpit method. Well, it's close. You just cup your hands and you put a couple of those little foil wraps. You want to make sure it's wrapped in foil pats of cold butter. Sure. And you heat them up pretty quick. And I'll tell you what, you can make some friends around the table if you heat somebody's butter up for them because nobody likes cold butter. And then you hand them a little butter pat and you're like, here, take this. Yeah, it's my gift to you. I like it when they just have the little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. That's good, too. But I like good room temperature butter, especially like 83% milk fat content or more. Yeah, good butter. So like I said, I like butter out. We left, remember certain condiments being left out. What about fruits and vegetables? Yeah, a lot of vegetables. I don't refrigerate now. Like I never refrigerate peppers and onions. Well, you don't want to. If you do refrigerate an onion, it will last longer. But if you're going to use it to heat, you want to take it out of your refrigerator and bring it up to room temperature before you cook with it or use it in food because it takes a lot of the temperature away. But that's also a tip if you hate crying. Yeah, because if you cut a cold onion, the enzyme that eventually sets off the chain reaction that makes you cry is contained. It's not as volatile. I've noticed that. So that's your tip from Chuck and Josh. My eyes kill me, too, with the onions. It depends on the onions. And it's not just like, oh, it's little tears. It's like massive burning. It's really bad. Really? Yeah. You should be hyper sensitive. I did a dumpy dumb on it. That explains exactly what's going on with you. I've seen that. Okay, so, you know so, yeah, a lot of the vegetables I don't keep, like, it depends on when I'm going to eat it. If I bring home some, like, a big head of cauliflower, I'll keep that out in the fruit basket for a couple of days. I've never seen that before in my entire life. What, cauliflower out? Yeah. I've only seen it in, like, a crisper drawer. Yeah, I've left cauliflower and broccoli out, like, green onions, and I can see that. Lemongrass, sure. Garlic, of course. Potatoes. Don't refrigerate potatoes. I think I would like that. Shorten point, if I saw, like, cauliflower out in, like, a fruit, that really be like, what is that? Yeah, that's just fine. I've even been to your house. I didn't notice that. Well, I mean, I don't always have had you gone through the yeah, I just eaten it. Tomatoes are another one too. They'll last longer in the fridge, but if you're going to cook with them, you want to bring up to room temperature some stuff you just don't want to refrigerate. Potatoes apparently don't do very well in the fridge. You put them in a nice brown paper sack in your pantry away from the sunlight. They keep for a really long time. Yeah. Jerry, I think Jerry showed me the little trick. Was that you with the cilantro, Jerry? Oh, what? I need to know this, because I eat a lot of cilantro. The cilantro you don't use. Just fill up a glass, like, half full of water and just throw it in there and just leave it out in your kitchen, like, the base of it in the water and just stays fresh, like, super long. And the fridge can beat up cilantro after, like, a day or two. I like your optimism, by the way. Thank you. The avocado is what always kills me, though. Well, I eat a lot of avocado as well. It's hard to keep those fresh. I tried a lot of tricks too. Well, here's your trick. I will leave the trick. You ready? Okay. Oh, you're cutting up an avocado. Yeah, yeah, that's it for the avocado. I have no trick for that. Well, what, do you eat them whole? Yeah, pretty much. I don't understand what no, I don't, like, eat the skin and everything. No, that's not what I mean. It's like once I cut into an avocado, all of that avocado is about to be consumed by me. Oh, so that's the tip. Yeah. But I do have another tip for you, though, with avocados. You know how you go to the store and you, like, squeeze them and you can find one out of 150 that's squeezable? It's pretty annoying. It is. But that squeezed one is going to be nasty and bruised and just disgusting. There's going to be basically, like, rot. Wherever you and everybody else squeeze that avocado, you're going to have a lot less usable avocado. So you want to get one that you can't squeeze it's so firm, it can't be squeezed well, but then you just have to wait a few days to eat it. You can wait one day. One day all it takes, my friend. And here's how. You take a brown paper bag and buy a banana, and you put the banana and the avocados in the brown paper bag, roll it up pretty tight, but leave a little space in there, and they do it, and they get it on. And what happens is the avocados ripen. Really? Yeah. The banana, as it ripens, well, it puts off a gas. Interesting. That ripens the avocados. I'm going to try that, man. And I'm not kidding. Twelve to 24 hours, you have totally ready avocado. Yeah, because I like my avocados firm still. Oh, you're going to love this, Chuck. And not mushy, but not hard, but just firm. You're going to thank me later. I'm excited about your avocado experiences now. I am, too. So there's plenty of stuff that doesn't need refrigerating, so that's one way that people can defridge. Yeah. This is turning into, like, Food 101 with Josh and Chuck. I hope that's okay. Yes. Plenty of stuff that you don't have to refrigerate, but people still use some sort of cooling mechanism. Yes. Like a cooler. Like if you have meats or dairy products. If you want to go without a fridge, most people use a cooler. And the thing that annoyed me with this article is they said or they use a mini freezer to make ice. I'm like, well, that's probably just about as bad as your stupid fridge. Well, it's pretty close. So, like, one of those little chest freezers I didn't see the size of it. A 6.4 cubic feet chest freezer, which isn't big, but it's not that small. But apparently that's the thing that people who defridge use that still uses 200 kilowatt hours a year. So really, by unplugging your refrigerator and using a chest freezer, you're saving about 15 gallons of gas a year. Yeah. I don't know if that's your best, like, spend your time doing better things for the environment. Right. Well, again, I think people who do this are saying, I'll do this on top of stuff. And then kind of cleverly, if you ask me, they're using the ice chest to basically fill up, like, a two liter bottle of water, which they didn't allow to go to waste. The two liter bottle. Sure. Putting those in the freezer chest and then having, like, a separate cooler that they put the frozen water bottles in to keep cool their milk and their meats and stuff like that. Yeah. And you know what? We're going to talk about some tips for shopping to accommodate this lifestyle. But first, let's take a little message break. Okay. All right, so you're talking about the cooler full of frozen bottles of water to keep, like, your milk and some of your dairy and stuff. But when you go to the store. If you're going to try and live this way, you can't probably buy the gallons of milk. Unless you really go through a lot of milk. You might want to buy quartz of milk. Right. You can't go to Sam's Club and buy eight gallons of mayonnaise unless you eat that pretty quickly. That makes sense, yeah. If so, then you should focus more attention on your mayonnaise habits than what you're doing for the environment. So you're going to have to buy smaller amounts of things, which they say can cost a little more. But well, yeah, if you're not wasting food, though, like, if you added up the food you waste, you're probably burning a lot of money, and there's going to be far less food waste if you're buying in smaller amounts. Right. The other side of that, though, is if you're eco friendly or eco conscious, one of the things that you're probably trying to avoid is packaging as well. And if you buy smaller amounts of food, that means you buy more packaging and think about that. And if you have smaller amounts of food, that means you have to go to the store more often, and then you may have to drive more often, which doesn't matter if you're riding a bike or something like that, but if you're driving a car, then you're burning those gallons of gas that you might necessarily not have been anyway. Yeah. Like you get in your old 72 pickup truck and drive 12 miles to get, like, a pint of mayonnaise. Right. You have to stop and fill up at least once during that stretch. So can we talk a little bit about food waste, though? Yeah. Because that's a pretty big thing. Like if you have no refrigerator, the chances of your food spoiling just simply increase if you have no refrigerator. Yeah, well, not so, apparently. According to a 2008 report, unless developed countries where they have no refrigerators, they experience less food spoilage. Bam. You just faced me. Because they're like, they're eating what they need, right. You know? Yes. They're not going to Sam's Club right, and buying 700 Chicken McNuggets to put in the freezer. I hear that. And I guess if somebody who defridges uses the developing world as a model for their food consumption yes. I wonder what hang ups there are, though, that would keep you from successfully doing that. Or if it is just entirely possible to just watch how you're eating enough so you don't have very much food waste. Maybe let's talk food waste, finally. In developing countries, post harvest losses of food grains can reach as high as 50% 50% dude in developing countries. Isn't that a sad statistic? Yeah, because one of the things that makes it so sad, Chuck, is that food has been harvested and is ready to go. So not only is it ready to go, it just doesn't make it to somebody's stomach. All of the energy used to produce, harvest, and transport that food has already been used as well. Yeah, I didn't think about that. So that's a huge waste there, too. Since it's food waste, you add a double bummer onto every bummer that I'm good at it. The US. Spends about a billion dollars a year to dispose of food waste in this country. A billion dollars a year. And the EPA says that food leftovers are the single largest part of our waste stream by weight. Right. They make up about 12% of municipal landfills, which are pretty awful word in and of themselves, because municipal landfills are responsible for about 34% of methane emissions globally, or at least in the US. And methane is 21 times more damaging as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Yeah. And all that food waste is producing, like, tons of methane. Yeah. I don't understand why we're not trapping that methane and burning it off as energy. I know there are some pilot projects, but I don't understand why that's not a bigger thing now. Yeah. Didn't we study something about calf arts? Yeah, I saw that. I seemed that rings a bell from the past. Yeah. Livestock is a huge contributor to methane emissions, and nobody knows what to do about it. But there were plans to kind of try to trap it and burn it for electricity. I think there was a farmer who was doing he was using cow poop or something. Yeah, I think that Dirty Jobs episode did something like that. I definitely remember looking at that. But I agree. Methane. Let's trap it. Hey, there's a T shirt. Food waste. I thought the potential was increased without a refrigerator. You've opened my eyes here. But those double bummers that I did add, the more packaging and more trips to the store. Again, if you live near a store that you can bike to or something like that, that gets around that. And then also, if you are one of those zero waste people, have you heard of B. Johnson? Yes. She's pretty remarkable. What's her website? It is zero waste home. Yeah, she's one of these people that is doing, like, the family experiment. Let's see what we can really do. And putting it on a blog. I think her family is the one that has produced a court of waste in a year, a quart of trash in a year. Everything else is reused. She has five Rs. You think your three Rs are worthwhile reduced reuse? Recycle. What are her other two? Refuse. Oh, wow. So she's saying even if it's free, you know, that free frisbee the chiropractor gives you say you don't want it. I do that a lot, actually. I don't want a lot of that junk. Okay. So you're in line with this reduce, which would be, say, using your own grocery bags. Oh, sure, yeah. So you're reducing the use of the store's grocery bag reuse. So don't throw your own grocery bag away right. Use it again. Recycle. Yes. You've heard of this one? Sure. And then rot, Chuck. Rot. Like rotten h. If you're not going to do this I think so. That's the last one. What do you mean by rot? I'm sure. Composting. Okay. Yeah. And like you said about the people that I want to go without a fridge, but I'm going to go to the grocery store every ten minutes to get a packet of mayonnaise. I don't think that's the case. I bet a lot of those people are growing food in their gardens and composting and probably not doing that. And plus, also, she points out b johnson points out that a lot of the stuff that we would consider food waste, like, you know, grocery stores. Food waste to me is I think we should do a whole podcast on it. It is fascinating. Mind boggling, the amount of waste we produce food wise. I've read that something like a third of all of the food in the world goes to waste one way or another. Either 50% in the developing world doesn't make it after being harvested food waste from the United States. In the grocery stores in the US. There's any kind of cosmetic imperfection? Yes. If it's not pretty enough, they just throw it away. There's nothing wrong with it, but it will just get tossed. Yeah. I don't think I would like to know what goes on behind the scenes of, like, a huge grocery chain. I think we need to get to the bottom of it and expose. Perhaps. But B. Johnson points out a lot of the stuff that even people at home would consider wasted, spoiled food can be reused. So, like, if you have a bunch of stale bread, make bread pudding. If you have some wilted, lettuce drop it in an ice bath, and it wakes back up steel bread to the birds. That's nice. Like when I have moldy bread, I always just go out and throw it and then do you eat the birds afterwards? Are you, like, raising them? Yeah. Get my BB gun. You don't even need a BB gun. You just teach them to eat out of your hand and then grab them, snap a little neck, and you got brown thrasher for dinner. That's our state bird. We get in trouble for that. Would we? Yes, you can't kill your state bird. I figured it was the state bird because it was the tastiest bird. No, I don't think so. You dug this up. This is pretty interesting if you want to talk about people really going the extra mile to not have carbon footprint. Some folks are making their own shoes out of old tires and old jeans and hemp, of course. Okay. Yeah. Not much art support, though, apparently. Right. Sort of like a mocketon, I would imagine. Yeah. You can eat your weeds in your yard, right? If you're into that. A lot of edible weeds. Like garlic, mustard or chickweed. Yeah. I mean, like what's a weed, but some plant that we decided we didn't want. Yeah. I read something somewhere about the human diet. How it's become so narrow. We used to eat a lot more stuff, I bet. A lot more weeds. And as a result, our health was a lot better. The bitter. I think we talked about it before. Have you gotten to the point, too, where everything we talk about rings a bell? Like we've mentioned everything before? Yeah. Our world is getting narrower. It is. But I feel like we've talked about before, the plant, the healthier it tends to be, and I think you said also. Bitterness, though, also suggests that it's poisonous too. Well, that is part of the editility test. And you shouldn't just go in the yard and just pull a bunch of weeds and eat them. Not everything is edible. Dying is not that great. But if you do have edible weeds and you want to add them in your salads or something, that's something that some people do. Some people use old license plates to side their houses. Is that true? It's in this article. Of course it's true. I bet you that's the thing. I could see that. And you know what? Why not? They're just going to waste old license plates. Sure. We got a bird house made out of license plates. Those are cute. It's alright. We got it because it was alright. Ohio, California and Georgia, which was Emily's three states, which is kind of weird. Triumphant. I got to have this. Do you use it for BB gun practice? No, that's just birds. Okay. I shot an animal once in my life and it was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. I was too young. I got a BB gun and I was tired of shooting cans, so I shot a squirrel. And it haunts me to this day, I imagine. And I'm not Poopooing hunters. If you're into that, that's fine. I'm just not into it. Yeah, so I shot a score when I was twelve. You're a haunted man. I want to come clean. Yeah. All right. What's this poop burger thing? I couldn't find any corroborating evidence, but basically there was a story that popped up on a couple of blogs about a Japanese scientist who basically converted human feces into an edible burger. And the two blog posts I saw were basically piggybacking off of each other and the original source led to a 404 eras. I think the American press accidentally picked up a yes Men article or something like that. Well, how about if anyone can cooperate, I have the worst time with that word corroborate. Yeah. I can never say the word right. Corroborate? No, corroborate. There you go. Can we put a ding ding ding in their post production? So if anyone can let us know that this story is true, then yeah, I'd love to know. That. Yes, let us know. Speaking of fecal material, though, Chuck, there was also this green movement to give up toilet paper. Oh, I heard about that. Do you remember that huge ball that was the size of a school bus that was made of handy wipes and fat in London? I don't remember that. Oh, really? No, it was this fatty deposit made up of grease and used handy wipes. Was it like an art project? No, it was trapped in the London sewer system. Oh, okay. I thought you were on display or something. No. God, no. No, I don't remember that. That's horrific. It was within the last year. Wow. Well, anyway, I guess some people are taking this even further and saying, not even toilet paper will touch my bottom. Instead, I'm going to use basically diapers. Oh, just like cloth squares. So you keep a pail of clean ones on one side and a dirty pail on the other, and then you just wash the poopy ones and you're green. I don't think I would go that far. I don't think so. But I am interested in a bidet, because I do think toilet paper is disgusting. Like taking dry thin paper and wiping poop from your skin. I don't get it. And it's never made sense to me. Really? Even as a child? Well, no, since I got grown enough to realize that moisture is a pretty nice thing to have if you're cleaning poop. Yeah, I just put a little vaseline in there. I'd be into a bidet. Okay. And I'm exclusively with the wet wipes. Well, you're contributing to the huge fat deposit ball. Really? That's what it's made up. Even those that say they're flushable, it's probably a bunch of bunk. The London thing proves it is bunk. Really? And for some reason, I don't remember why, but it was almost exclusively wet wipes and fat grease, like they were attracted to one another or something like that. Maybe so. I don't understand. All right. Do you think there'd be, like, a squirrel? Yeah, or the remnants of a squirrel in there or something. But no, it's just wet wipes and grease. Holy cow. Let's get this one back on the rails and finish it up. I don't have anything else. Did you see the Albert Einstein refrigerator? Oh, that's like no electricity whatsoever. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, it does need a source of heat, but in 1938, I think Einstein and one of his former students developed a refrigerator that has no moving parts requires it could be run on solar energy. But basically it uses when you lower the pressure, the atmospheric pressure of something, it's boiling. Temperature lowers as well. And then when you boil something, it sucks energy out of the surrounding atmosphere and lowers the temperature. It's basically this kind of Rube Goldberg esque Einstein invention that this guy in Oxford was trying to rebuild, and he made a test pilot version of it, but it's, like, not very efficient, I think that's not a new thing, but I've seen a lot of stuff lately about people remaking, like, some early inventions that were never able to be properly made. Yes. I think you were talking about that, like, DaVinci stuff. Well, they were trying to make that. Yeah. There's a TV show where they definitely did the DaVinci stuff, but those were mainly, like, weapons and things. But I did see a video the other day. Someone made a DaVinci, a musical instrument that DaVinci invented that was never properly made, and it looked like it played like a piano but sounded like strings. Nice. And it was really kind of awesome. So that's a long way of saying build this fridge, the Einstein fridge. Well, there's other things you can do, too. If you have a fridge and you don't feel like giving up your fridge. If you have a fridge that's older than 2000 and you have a little bit of dough, go buy an Energy Star rated one. Yeah. And throw that other one in a lanceville. Now use it as, like, a planter or something out in your backyard to grow food in. Yeah, you can always sell a fridge. Like, any appliance that works, you can sell to somebody. You just want to take the door off to make sure no little kids get trapped in it. Or Indiana Jones. That's right. If you do have an Energy Star rated fridge, you want to clean the coils off once a year. That will keep it running efficiently. Right, exactly. You want to think about what you're going to open the fridge to get so you don't just stand there with the fridge open like a slack jawed Yoko like everybody does. Right? Yeah. And then apparently, if you keep your fridge fairly stocked, that will allow the temperature to bounce back to where it needs to be. It has less atmosphere. Got you. Cool. My fridge you have to open to get the filtered water, which really bugs me. It's not like, in the outside of the door. I've never seen that. Yeah, you just live in a cuckoo house. You got cauliflower laying around, basket. You got to open the door to get some water. That cilantro sitting in cups all over the house. That's a good idea. I've tried that. But put it in the fridge and it just wrecks it. So I guess maybe just leaving it out, I mean, it lasts for quite a while. Man. I love that stuff. Don't you feel bad for people who taste dish soap when they eat cilantro? Yeah, I love cilantro. Me too, buddy. Well, that's it about cilantro. If you want to learn more about it, you can type the word into the search bar, how Stuff Works. And you can also type in, can I go without a refrigerator? In the search bar, and it'll bring this article up. And since I said search bar, that means it's time for listener mail. Yes. I'm going to call this from one of our law enforcement officers. Hi, guys. My name is Andy. I'm a police officer for a law enforcement agency in St. Louis, Missouri area. Go Cardinals. I'm a big fan of the show and appreciate the always new interesting topics and discussions. And I've noticed that you seem to have an affinity for law enforcement related topics, which is true. You definitely do. You love them. I think I wanted to be a cop or something. Maybe you can be a security guard. That's not the same. I was just listening to the meth podcast and noticed that you mentioned one of the first shaken bake incidences and that's a mobile meth lab. Apparently that's like the koppengo, which occurred actually in my precinct at a Walmart. Remember we talked about that? I was not yet employed there, but I know the officer that responded. From what I understand, a woman was shoplifting, was in custody of the loss prevention officers, and when they called for police assistance, my now coworker arrested her and in the process discovered a gatorade bottle in her purse which is being used as a mobile meth lab. That is so crazy. It is very crazy. Meth usage in the area that I work in is rampant, and only having been on the force less than a year, I've already handled two meth labs of my own. Having seen firsthand some of the reactions to meth that these folks have, I will say that you were pretty much right on, guys. Additionally, another unfortunate situation is that where there is a meth lab, typically there are children. One of my meth labs was also home to seven kids. It's a really sad sight to see. Do you remember that one episode of Breaking Bad? Which one? The one where Pinkman basically gets kidnapped by those methods who robbed the whole ATM machine. There's a little kid there. Typically you will find that the parents have little interest in their children and pay them very little attention in general, of course, because they're all interested in using math. Sure. It's kind of a OneTrackMind situation, so it makes you appreciate non meth users is what Andy says. So thanks, Andy. Officer. Yeah, he wrapped that up at the end, didn't he? Spanked it on the bottom? He had another part, so it might have read awkward. A suggestion, which I cut out, but I took the suggestion, but I just didn't read it. Is it a mystery suggestion then? Yeah. Maybe I'll surprise you. Well, if you want to send us a mystery suggestion, we are welcome to those. You can tweet to us at siskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffyshow or you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts, My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio App, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon music my Favorite Murder from exactly right media. My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarra and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…iple-spouses.mp3	Why would anyone want multiple spouses?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-would-anyone-want-multiple-spouses	Polygamy, the practice of having multiple spouses, is mostly illegal in the United States but very common in other parts of the world. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss polygamy and touch on a host of related topics, from Mormonism to monogamy.	Polygamy, the practice of having multiple spouses, is mostly illegal in the United States but very common in other parts of the world. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss polygamy and touch on a host of related topics, from Mormonism to monogamy.	Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:20:13 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=17, tm_min=20, tm_sec=13, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=278, tm_isdst=0)	33408974	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hello, and welcome to the podcast The Swing in his podcast on itunes, is it? Yeah. Stuff You Should Know. I'm Josh Clark. There's. Charles W. Chuck Bryant. In the flesh. We're both wearing ropes and mustaches. Swinging? Yeah, swinging. Chuck, as in to swing? Yes. Have you ever heard of swinging? Yeah. I think I told a story once about the Atlanta Swingers Club was very close to your phone number. Well, no, it was just called the Atlanta Swingers Club at the time. That's pretty straightforward. I may have said this, but it was a long time ago. It was very close to my phone number growing up, and we used to get calls all the time for people seeking the swingers club. And being the Baptist family, it was like my mom basically made them seem like it was the devil calling. Sure. Pretty funny. Yeah. So in this very special episode of Stuff You Should Know, we find out what fueled young Chuck Bryant's budding sexuality. It turns out it was misplaced phone calls to swingers clubs and continued sexual dysfunction. Because now that I'm an adult, I'm like, you're just trying to have a good time. Yes. Hey, man, listen up. It's not my deal, but you don't want to put your hang ups on other people right now. It's a drag. Well, it depends, man. We're talking today about polygamy, and there's a whole lot of people putting their hang ups on polygamy. Yes. They have a hard time here in the States. They do. But before we get into that, Chuck, before we get into the swinging of podcast around yes. We'll get some administrative details out of the way. Yes. Very important announcement. I know you're tired of hearing about it if you don't live in Atlanta, but this is the last Southeast, one of the last chances we'll have to say we are having our trivia night in Atlanta. Yeah. October 13. It's a Wednesday. Block out from 06:00 PM. To about 11:00 PM. Yes. You're going to show up to work on Thursday. Not on all four cylinders, depending on how many cylinders you have. Sure. But you're going to have had a great time the night before. Why, Chuck? What's going to have happened on Wednesday, October 13, we're going to play bar trivia, and we're going to have daily shows. John Hodgman sitting beside us. Yes. Onion editor in chief Joe Randazzo. Yeah. And Aquateeen Hunger fortune Squid billy's Cocreator dave Willis. Willis. Nice. Yes. Plus us and our families. And Jerry. Will your mom be there? Yeah. How adorable. And I hope my brother. Is your dad coming? I don't know. He finally went out and bought an ipod to listen to what his son was doing. Yeah, I don't think he's turned the thing on yet. And this is months ago. Yeah. I think my mom would be. Didn't they show you the ipod when you met him at my birthday party? Yeah, he did. He was like, look. And you're like, what is that? And it was a Nano even. He said it's an ipod, Chuck. I'm surprised you don't know that. Right? You're in it. So that's what's going on Wednesday, October 13, the night before Tuesday, October 12, our buddies and de facto house band, the Henry Clay People, are playing a show at the Drunken Unicorn on East Ponds. And we're going to be there, and Gerry is going to be there, and hopefully a couple of our buddies coming in from out of town. Randazzo, maybe hodgman. We'll see. And see some rock and roll and hang out with the band. They're cool guys. Yeah. It's like two nights of fun in a row. Yes. It's going to be a fun week. Yes. So that's what's going on this October 12 and 13th in preparation for Halloween. Now back to polygamy. Yes. All right, so let's get back to polygamy. Chuck am I rewar in? Jeff yeah. Thanks for this article because I didn't really have an intro, except for mentioning A Big Love, which I've never seen. Have you? You know, I watched Big Love initially and bailed on it, not because it was bad, I just didn't have the time. But I've heard it's really good. Sure. Yeah. Well, it's Acclaimed Series HBO Paxton. You can't go wrong with Mr. Bill Paxton. That guy's a class act. But back to Warren Jess. Yeah. Not to be confused with Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton plays a polygamist on TV orange. Jess is a polygamist in real life. Right. At the very least, he's been indicted for allegedly fostering the marriage between a 14 year old and a 17 year old. Right? 14 year old and her 19 year old cousin. Yes. Someone call him a petrost. Josh and not just a polygamist. He couldn't be a petroist unless he is a homosexual, because Petter asked you refer specifically to the child real estate of boys. I didn't know that. Yes. Well, then he would be a child molester, then. In many people's eyes. Allegedly. Chuck allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. He's in jail for it. He was convicted of it. He has not been convicted. He goes to trial on November 15. Well, what was he found guilty of then? Apparently they're having a hearing to find out if he's one and the same as the person they were looking for. No, that's in Texas. He's been in jail for the he was sentenced to two consecutive prison terms of five years following his 2007 conviction in Utah. Now there's new charges in Texas. Leave it on me. Well, they're trying to get him extradited to Texas and he much more serious charges were thrown out. I'm sorry. Texas has a much more serious charges, so they threw out even more charges in Arizona. This guy charges all over the place. And so he is in jail in Utah and the governor signed an extradition warrant to send them to Texas in mid August, but they denied it. So they're waiting on a court ordered extra addition, basically. Yeah. And that may bring him five to 99 years that he and up to $10,000 fine assaulted a child under 17. Yeah. That makes him a child molester. He's got a lot of stuff against him. I'm going to just say allegedly all over the place because I have to admit I'm not 100% on what he's been charged with or convicted of. Okay. But having charges all over the place is nothing new for polygamists. Right. I know Jeff is the leader of a sect of Mormonism called Fundamentalist Mormons. Yeah. We should say that the Church of Latter day Saints, the Mormons, although frequently associated with polygamy, haven't really done so since the 19th century. We'll get into the Mormons and their polygamous lifestyle later, but I think it's fair to say that Jeff's is not representative of the Mormon church as a whole. No, not at all. Let's start with the basics. Okay. Let's talk about polygamy. What is it? I think people have a given the definition of polygamy. Chuck? Well, before the definition, let me just say that most Westerners don't identify with anything but in monogamy. But culturally, worldwide and in history, monogamy is a minority. Actually. Polygamous society is outnumbered by the hundreds, monogamous societies and cultures. Monogamy appears to be a Christian hang up because if you go to areas before the Christians got there, pretty much everybody historically was polygamous. Right. Then the Christians arrived and all of a sudden there's monogamy everywhere. Right. Did you know that? Yes. And among mammals as well, humans are as monogamous are in the vast minority. Only about 3% to 5% of all mammals engage in monogamy. The rest are polygamous. Right. So definition wise, I believe it's polygamy is more than one spouse. polygony is more than one wife. Correct? Yes. So polygamy doesn't attach gender or legality to it. It's just right. And then polyandry yes. Is a woman having more than one husband, which Jerry beforehand. It's not like women can have more than one husband. Wrong. Especially if you are a member of the Nienba people in Nepal. Yes. Women there have and I just think this is like a sitcom waiting to happen. Women there have to marry all the brothers of a family. So if you marry one brother, you get Daryl and Darryl. If you marry Larry, you get Daryl and Daryl as well. Nice. And it makes sense in a way for them because it allows them to pull their resources as a family, hold on to family land, take care of their children. Well, it's very culturally specific. Right. Because this group of people there's about 1300 members of the Neambian culture. Sure. And they simply don't have enough land for each man to go out on his own. Form a homestead and a family. Right. So it's very culturally bound, the reasons for this. And apparently it's fairly beneficial. There's a lot of consolidation of families, bloodline and resources. All of the brothers have access, sexual access to the woman, to the wife. Right. That's something you're going to hear. A lot of sexual access. Which means you can get it on. Yeah. They all have sexual access. Each brother does. Yeah. But they said they do allow them to specify, like, you are the father of this child. Right. They differentiate who's the father of which children. But they all raise them. Yeah. They all contribute to caregiving, child rearing, and also it's hierarchical. I was wondering who chose the wife. Right. He thinks the oldest brother. And he's definitely the dominant husband. If I would rewrite the rules, though, if I was a tribesman, I would say we should go with the best looking brother or the brother who has the most game. Yeah. So we can all get the most attractive wife. What is the oldest brother is like a real nudge. But that's what I'm saying. Just in case the oldest brother is a nudge, he's still the dominant husband. Right. Although I'll bet just sibling rivalry trends is paying cultural. Yeah, true. So I'm sure that there is like one that has a game and it's like, I got more sexual access to her than you do. Telling you is a sitcom, man. Yeah. Except it would be like they would Americanize it. It would be like four American guys from Brooklyn brothers that would find this woman tribesmen and bring her to America and I'll marry her. I could see Ed Burns doing that. I could do. Yeah. He'd make them Catholic though, so chuck, that's the Nambian people. They are definitely a rarity. Even rarer. The Amazon Zoe tribe. Right? Yeah. That's multiple everything. Right. Multiple husbands and wives at the same time. Yeah. It's just basically like it's a free for all in a jungle. But it's not fair for us to make fun of that. We're just laughing because I'm not making fun of it. Yeah, that's their culture again, they think we're weird again, I think that, man, this is just potential dynamite here. Yeah, but it's just different cultures. They see your dad and his nanopod. But it's not just that. There's very real social like as in society and biological benefits to polygamy. Sure. But there's also some very negative social and personal drawbacks to it. Right. Yeah. We'll get to those two. Yeah. So what are we going to talk about? Oh, yeah. Who else does it? Well, we'll continue with the nomenclature. Just so we know there's also bigamy, right. That catches legality to polygamy. Yeah. Bigamy is the law. It's when a man illegally marries more than one woman. And that is definitely illegal in the United States. Well, it's the practice of polygamy in a place where it's legal in the United states you can't practice polygamy, except I think there's very small pockets in, like, Utah and Arizona where it's actually legal. Oh, really? Yeah. Colorado City, Arizona, I think, is one of, like, two places in the country where it's actually legal but federally is still illegal. Right? I don't know. But say, like in Georgia, if there's no such thing as polygamy, there's only bigamy because polygamy is illegal. See? Yeah. Okay, now I get it. I just wanted to make sure. Bigamist oftentimes are accidental. Bigamist, like they will marry before their divorce is complete, but there's also and they called it rare. Not as rare as you'd think. When the dude leads a double life and literally has two families, it's rare according to the population. But if you look up and Google News search, you'll find plenty of it. Or listen to the Grateful Dead song friend of the Devil. I'll give you the right idea that'll get you on the troll. It's one of the few Dead songs. I like it. It's a good one. I like Easy Wind. Really? Yeah. And what is polyamory as being in love? It's more than one person that is just I don't get that communal familial living where everyone has sexual access to everybody else. There's not necessarily and usually isn't any marriage involved, but it resembles a polygamist household. There's, like a group of people all contributing to the raising of children. And probably in most cases, there would be a differentiation of whose kid is who. But it's like a mini taking a village to raise a child. Again, I don't know how good this is necessarily for child rearing. Yeah, we're not going to make that call, but we can say there's a study in Malaysia that's emerging. It's brand new. This thing was just published in July, and it's a groundbreaking study, actually. Malaysia allows polygamy among its Muslim population because it's Muslim law that you can have up to four wives as long as you can care for all of them equally and treat them all equally well. And apparently that's like, what you're supposed to do. That's not always the case, but I think a significant portion of the children in polygamous households in this Malaysian study, there's something like 1235 people involved in the study and 523 of the children in the household. So like, a significant majority of the children said that they wouldn't engage in a polygamous lifestyle. Really? Even though they're Muslims once they marry. Interesting. Yeah. So I don't know how much that will change as they get older, though, especially as status is attached to it. Well, the article here said that Westernization like younger Muslims think polygamy is kind of old fashioned, so maybe that's something to do with it too. Yeah, good. And I'm sorry I got that wrong. 523 children were involved in the study. 90% of them said that they wouldn't engage in polygamy. Yeah. That's overwhelming. Yeah. So polygamy is the idea that a man is very successful and should spread his seed while he is on the Earth because he is rich and successful to breed more young and rich and successful people. And that a lot of times has been endorsed when you have a minority of a population. Like early Jewish doctrine, we're in favor of it. Right. It's a really quick way to jumpstart your population to get your society going. Yeah. And I was surprised it said some Orthodox Jewish sects still advocate polygony, which I was to find confirmation of that. I saw that some gave it up recently, but I had trouble finding that. I did, too, except for here. And I think China did that too, because they're in Vietnam. Well, Vietnam and China did it, too, under confucianism. Okay. So that went out of fuel. China did it under confucianism. Vietnam did it for practical reasons. It's not legal in Vietnam, but it's widely practiced because the place is so ridiculously war torn that they actually need to restart their population as well. Right. So again, it does have a lot of advantages, specifically polygony. Right, yeah. Let's talk about why. Chuck. And again, from this moment until we're not talking about it anymore, we're speaking biologically impersonally without any social aspects. Okay. Biologically, polygamy makes utter and complete sense, especially if you subscribe to the dawkins selfish gene idea. Right. What's that? Well, it's the concept that we are merely vehicles for our genes that are driven to basically exist in immortality by passing its line down as frequently as possible. Got you. Okay. Through polygamy. Through polygony, I should say. Is it polygony? polygony? I haven't seen polygony, sorry. You could probably say it both ways. I just think we're confusing people through polygony right. With the GN. Well, a man can reproduce far more frequently. A healthy stallion could basically reproduce several times a day, every day, if he had sexual access to a lot of ovulating women. Right, sure. Okay. Thank you for that, man. A woman can only reproduce once every nine months after becoming pregnant. She may have twins, triplets, naturally speaking, octuplets are the results. They're a product of modern science, of fertility drugs. But say you have twins, maybe triplets top usually Irish twins at the max. Okay, what is that, like 13? No, Irish twins is when you have, like, two kids that are nine months apart. Okay. I'm thinking of a baker's dozen. So, Chuck, polygony makes sense in that if you want to build up your population a bunch have a bunch of ovulating women and guys to reproduce with them. Right, sure. So it makes sense biologically, but socially it's a catastrophe. Yeah. Right. Well, one thing is hard to talk about is actual statistics, because Mormon plural marriage is not the kind of thing that's documented. They keep it very private and secret. So you can't go out and get a bunch of statistics on abuse, but the stories that you hear. And anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of abuse happens. Yeah. Like girls that are 14 years old getting married to men that are 25, 26, 30, 40 years old. That's definitely one part of the dark side of polygamy. polygony specifically. polygony also places men in a position of absolute authority just by bestowing that possibility of the man having more than one wife. But all those wives are devoted to the one man. He's automatically at the top of the hierarchy yeah. Just by virtue of the arrangement and just sociologically speaking, being put in that kind of situation would probably make you drunk with power, just being an average person. Well, you can abuse that position. Sure. And even if they don't want to abuse it, the women in a polygamous scenario, they're subservient. They're so dependent. They don't have, like, the skills even if they do escape their scenario, they don't have the skills to make it on their own because they've just been the subservient wife right. The whole time. Right. That's no good. A lot of people who have moved on from polygamist marriages usually use the word escape or often use the word escape. They escaped from a polygamous marriage, not I got divorced, or anything like that. And then also, just economically speaking, there is a division of one guy's paycheck over however many wives and children he has. He may have more than one house. If he's doing pretty well for himself. Maybe he's an engineer or something. But it's still one person's paycheck according to all of these people. Right. And you see that problem, apparently, according to the article who wrote this one? Grabster. Grabster wrote this one. He points out that Colorado City, Arizona, which is one I think two places where you can be a polygamist right. Is basically single handedly puts a strain on the welfare services of the state of Arizona. Yes. They're going broke. Yeah. So that's another aspect of it as well. The economics of it. Yeah. And then apparently jealousy too. Sure. First, wives, rather than being the dominant wife out of all of the other ones, are often just kind of left to the side. Well, that's what happens. A big younger and younger and younger. Is that right? Yeah. That's, like, a big plotline of the show. I know. Is that some of the wives become jealous of each other and, like, a love triangle would I don't see how you couldn't yeah. Even among the most devoted polygamous families, I don't see how that couldn't happen. Like, jealousy is so ingrained. I'm the most non jealous person on the face of the earth. But that would even make me jealous. Yeah. I would think. Yes. Or maybe not. I think it would. So, Chuck, are you ready? Let's talk about the Mormons. All of you guys have been very good and patient. Thank you for waiting. Let's do Mormons man. Yes. This is a brief overview of Mormonism. Maybe we could do a whole podcast one day on them. We'll see. But it's a religion founded by Joseph Smith Jr. Early one thousand s, and he claimed to have received messages, divine messages from an angel that directed him to golden plates that basically told the story that he translated to eventually become the Book of Mormon. So the Book of Mormon was written and it does not contain specific info about polygamy. But supposedly he practiced polygamy after receiving another personal divine message saying, if you go out and have multiple wives, then you will be a king in heaven. Yeah. Basically, to be a successful Mormon, you kind of had to practice polygamy. It was a directive from God. Yeah. Although, again, it says nothing about it in the Book of Mormon. Right. Nothing about it. There's a cool website called The Wives of Joseph Smith and Chronicles. They have 34, by my account, but each name has, like, their age, whether they had a husband at the time they were married to Joseph Smith. And then there's, like, a link. Each one is hyperlink to a bio on them. It's very cool to make sure that these women aren't forgotten because they were part of the founding establishment of Mormon. Sure. Right. So he had 34, from what I could see. Some of them were sisters, and the youngest was 14. Right. Wow. One of his kids, Joseph Smith III, was like, one of the Malaysian Muslim kids because when he came of age, he was like, I am not practicing polygamy. I've seen it firsthand and I'm not doing it. Yeah. He made a separate sect. Right. He branched off because he wanted to stay down with the Mormons. He just wasn't down with polygamy. Exactly. A guy who was down with polygamy was the successor to Joseph Smith Jr. The founder of the Church of Latterday Saints, a guy named Brigham Young, who you'll notice as a university. He does. Yeah. Brigham Young had even more children or even more wives, apparently. He had 55, from what I understand. Wow. And his were much more verifiable. Apparently, Joseph Smith didn't ever publicly cop to polygamy. Right. Brigham Young was like, Check out the 55. Right. They're like, hello. Right. Hello. By the mid 1800, it was so prominent 55 times. You said 55 times. In the mid 18 hundreds. There were so many Mormons, though, doing this that the Church, while they didn't officially bring it into their literature, they did acknowledge it in an official announcement, and they referred to it plural marriage. Right. So you've got plural marriage in 1852. Yes. Four years later, something big happened. The Republican Party. Abe Lincoln's Party at the time, I think he may have been an attorney still, but he was a log cabin Republican. Right. Yeah. Because he lived in a log cabin and he was Republican. Right. Lincoln's Party came up with their 1856 platform, and it was based largely upon riding the United States of the twin relics of Barbarism Chuck. One was slavery, the other was polygamy. Right. Right up there was slavery. Yeah. These were the twin evils that were basically keeping the United States backward from progressing forward. Supreme Court agreed. Yeah. And that launched what you could call an unconstitutional government assault on the religion of Mormonism because of polygamy. Yeah. They want to quash it, basically. Yeah. Utah applied for statehood during this, and they're like, not as long as you got polygammous. You get rid of your polygamous Mormons and we'll deal with you after that. They criminalize cohabitation. Right. Yeah. What else? They prevented you from voting or holding office if you were polygamist. That is so illegal. It's ridiculous. I know. And they actually froze church assets. That is even more illegal. Confiscated their property. Yeah. So they really persecuted the Mormons based on polygamy. And whether you agree with polygamy or not, the United States government and eventually the government in the state of Utah really went after them for their practice of polygamy. Well, yeah. And that's why the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, they were having so many problems. They wanted statehood and all that. They in 1890 said, you know what? We've had another revelation and we're going to change that doctrine, so can we be a state now? Right. And they said, yes, you can be. They set up specific laws there, though, that they didn't do in other states. If you were caught, as far as the Mormons were concerned, after, I think, 1890 when they said that, they have that other revelation. Right. They said, if you were caught practicing plural marriage, you'd be excommunicated from the church. And some people said, well, you know what? You can't excommunicate us if we form our own sect. And from that was born the Mormon fundamentalists who still practice to this day. Warren Just is a Mormon fundamentalist in this group, and they believe that Joseph Smith Jr. Had a divine revelation and they believe that they will be kings in heaven if they have multiple wives. Right. So there's some defense to this among Mormon fundamentalists. One, I don't buy it. No one is that if you have more than one wife, you are less likely to philander I don't buy it. No, that's just I think you'd be more likely to foolander, wouldn't you? I don't know. To me, and I've been around cheating and seeing it and stuff like that, I think you're going to do that or you're not. It doesn't matter if you're single, if you're married, if you have three wives or one wife, you're either a cheater or you're not a cheater. But I think socially, structurally, that absolute power makes you more of an arrogant person. I agree. And I could see a person because cheating is a choice. You either do it or you don't. You make the decision not to do it. Or you make the decision to do it. Right. Everybody wants to. I think that you could make the case that socially, again, sociologically, somebody in that position could, I would say, be more likely to cheat extra hands to care for children. Come on, everybody's got two hands. And you multiply that by eight wives, you got 16 hands to care for them. Yeah, but you multiply the six kids times eight wives and you have 48 kids. Yeah. No. I know you're free. Maybe if you didn't have those kids, you would need extra wives to care for them. And also we should probably take a break here and say real quick, chuck and I are both monogamous. Right, Chuck? Oh, yeah. Okay. But at the same time, if there is a form of polygamy where it's not detrimental, I don't really see that in this article. To each his own. It's the SYSK motto. So long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. It should probably be the supplement to the SYSK model. Right, right. But it is illegal in these United States federally. There are several laws passed in the 1000s state wise. There are only a handful of states that actually have specific laws, but Utah is one of them. And that was part of the deal, I think, specifically outlawing yes. When they were granted statehood. And they get around it, though, a lot of times because they don't officially marry more than one woman. They will live a married lifestyle, they will have a ceremony. They just won't have like an official marriage certificate. Right. They'll be married by the church in the church's eyes. Exactly. Right. There are other ways to do this too. There's that whole cohabitation thing. It's pretty hard to prosecute. And until 1953, polygamous families groups were rated by the police routinely in Utah and out west. And then in 1953 this one rate had there's a backlash against it because the media published pictures of children being sent off to foster homes, wives being left without husbands, and all of a sudden sentiment turned a little bit against raids on polygamous families. I think the rest of the United States is very confused on how to approach polygamy. Yeah. Okay, Chuck. Anything else? I just do have one little funny thing about our trivia night in Atlanta. Oh, wait, about polygamy. Oh, no, I got nothing else on that. I do have one more thing. You do? There's been established a couple of things about the benefits of monogamy STDs. However they've developed deter polygamy. Okay, right. And there's actually evolutionary basis to monogamy. You have more sexual access to one person, so you may only be able to reproduce nine months at a time, but you can do it many times during your reproductive years. And the caregiving for those children will probably be of higher quality because you're a cohesive family unit. Okay, so that's my little thing. That's your last bit. Yeah. What do you. Have about our trivia. I forgot to mention this, but Matt Frederick of Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, fame came by, and apparently there was a former NORAD employee named Stanley Fulham who claims that on October 13, the night of archivia in major cities over the United States, massive UFO fleets will be overhead sending us warnings about global warming. That's awesome. And I said, is this guy crackpot? I heard I overheard this conversation. Matt said, well, he worked for NORAD. That means there's no way he could be a crackpot. Of course, he said it was unfarmly in cheek, but we hope. I think that's just yet another reason come out October 13, because we're on the roof of this joint yeah. And you will be able to see some UFOs that are broadcasting messages like global warming sucks or save newt, the polar bear, that kind of stuff. So I just think that's a great leo was right. So people are out there. I wouldn't want to come to Trivia, but I would love to come see a UFO overhead. Yeah. We just doubled the number of people who are going to be I think so. Actually, it'll be that girl from, say, by the bell of the college years. I don't know who that is. She had her big film break in Independence Day. She ran up to the top of the roof in La. And had that sign of cheering at the beginning of Independence Day, and then POW. Gone. Maybe she'll be at our trivia event. Let's hope so. All right, if you have anything you want to let us know about you know what, if you are a member of a polygamist polyamorous bigamist or swinger family seriously, we're very curious. Is there any way that polygamy can be beneficial to a family unit? If you have personal experience with this kind of thing, send us an email. Seriously, let us know. You can send it to stuff podcast. Wait a minute, Chuck. We never even said anything about the search bar. We shouldn't even be here right now. You ready? Okay. If you want to know more about polygamy yes, you can type that word in P-O-L-Y-G-A-M-Y right into the swing and search bar. Swingandsearchbar@howstepworks.com. Now, if you want to send us an email, you can send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want morehouseafworks? Check out our blog on the House of Works.com homepage, brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
87436012-361e-11ea-a7dd-a7e5d589dae3	Short Stuff: The Iowa Caucus	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-the-iowa-caucus	The Iowa Caucus is super important. But not really. Find out why.	The Iowa Caucus is super important. But not really. Find out why.	Wed, 05 Feb 2020 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=36, tm_isdst=0)	14155485	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Josh. Let's get it started. Yeah, let's get it started in here. Timely episode. So timely. We are rarely recording to really lease the next day. So I was like, hey, man, let's do something super newsy. What's? Something that's super newsy that's not impeachment. And it turns out the Iowa caucus is getting a little news. Yeah, just a tad. It's crazy. Like, we thought that we would have the results to talk about. Nope. I know, because I pitched this yesterday, right. And the day of the caucus, woke up this morning to S show in Iowa as the headline cluster. S crazy. Yeah, but we're talking about caucuses in the Iowa caucus and why it's important and where it came from. We should define caucus because a lot of people, I think, are just like, what does that even mean? Well, I mean, for good reason. It's weird. It's kind of an old timey thing, a relic still. In Houston, Iowa caucus, there was a meeting this is a strict definition. Webster defines caucus as a meeting in which local members of a political party register their preference among candidates running for office or select delegates to attend a convention. Right. But the thing about a caucus is it's not like just going to vote. That's the primary. A caucus is where you are physically present in the room, like that meeting you described. And the way that you show, at least as far as the Democrats caucus in Iowa, the way that you show you are planning to support or vote most normal people would call it for a candidate is you go stand in a portion of the room that's been set aside for that candidate supporters and their names, like on the wall or something like that. It needs to go away. Okay, that's just step one. Yeah, that's my opinion, of course. But it's just so dumb. Okay. It is such a dumb way to do it. And you can tell, like, I was fiercely defensive about its caucus tradition. I don't want to go on record as saying, like, I don't know if it's going to survive until 2024. I don't think it will now. It is under some serious threat of not surviving. It's more at risk than it ever has been after last night. Yeah. Ironically, by trying to modernize the caucus. Right. So we'll get to all that. Okay, so you go stand by your delegates name, and if enough other people who are present at that caucus go stand with you by the delegate's name, that delegate is a viable candidate. Usually that means they have about 15% or more of the room. Yeah. If your candidate that you want to go stand under a sign of in a high school gym is not considered viable, you can go join another group. You can try and recruit people, say, hey, man, stand under this sign. Come yee or you can go home if you want. Sure. All right. That was my candidate. Right. There's only, like eight other people here standing under the Yang team sign. Gang had more than eight. Yeah, of course he did. I think you're thinking of Biden, but yeah, that is how they run. The Democrats run the Iowa caucus. Republicans and the GOP or the Republican National Convention. They just vote like a regular old primary. Right. And like you were saying, ironically, they tried to modernize the caucus, the Iowa caucus, and that's what caused this huge problem with an app, isn't that right? Well, originally, they were going to have virtual caucuses. They decided not to. The DNC rejected Iowa's plan to have a virtual caucus where you could go online and be like, I'm standing in the Yang gang room. Right. So I'm caucusing for Yang. This was rejected by the DNC. They had too high of a potential to be hacked, but they still did use an app to tally these delegates, and apparently it was not doing what it was supposed to do. At least this is the official line. Everybody is saying, no. It's everybody from Russia to the DNC engaging all sorts of terrible stuff. Regardless, this app apparently really screwed up the caucus, and in an attempt to modernize the caucus, it actually set it back and possibly drove it to extinction. Yes. I mean, they're saying the app did not crash, and then there's other people saying the app totally crashed. Right. So I don't know who to believe. The long and short of it is we usually wake up on the following day of the Iowa caucus with a decent idea of who the top three candidates are are going to be going into primary season. But we woke up this morning with no idea. Right. And I just looked on my phone. The breaking news is that in 2 hours from now, they will have 50% of the results released wow. By 05:00 P.m. Eastern. Yes. Usually you don't even have to wait. Yeah. You wake up and you're like, okay. No, I mean, you don't even have to go to sleep. They usually report within a couple of hours. Yeah. If you're in the Eastern Eastern time zone. No, if you're in the Western time zone yeah. You might know, like, you're in a cheeseburger getting all the results. Yeah. So it's been a big embarrassment, but maybe we should take a break and talk a little bit. Why? The Iowa caucus is important to begin with. It's not. All right, chuck, this is one thing that makes the Iowa caucus so at risk right now because of this 2020 problem that came out of the 2020 caucus. Okay. Yeah. It is artificially important. The Iowa caucus is not actually, when you dig down into it, substantially important in any real way. No, it is important, but it's important because the media has made it important over the years. That's right. Well, first of all, it is not the most diverse state in our union. That's one criticism of the Iowa caucus. Yeah, I saw like apparently the caucus goers were 91% white, largely rural white people standing around in the gym. Yeah, I know. People now are going to be so mad at us. I think it's antiquated. I'm sorry. Prove it wrong. Just real quick, two things. Last night, there were at least two ties. And so to figure out how to divide delegates to break a tie, a coin was flipped and a name was drawn out of a hat. Well, that's how they broke ties with the Iowa caucus last night to decide delegates for the state. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, that's unbelievable. But then again, what's more diplomatic than a coin toss that didn't get any more 50 50 than that? Are you ready for some football? So in 1972, Senator George McGovern was Running For President. He did a pretty good job at the Iowa caucus and that was good for his campaign. And it was sort of the first year that the media really put a lot into this on reporting on it. And I think from like 1972 is sort of looked at as the watershed moment of when the media would come out the next day and start saying things like dark horse and frontrunner right. And the media has it's maddening, but the media has such influence on the way people vote and not just by saying like, here's this person's policies, is people saying like, oh, I don't want to vote for the dark horse. Sure. Who's the front runner? I might be interested in that person. Precisely. That's absolutely true. It's all fake. They can influence voting or caucusing not just by releasing polls, but by withholding polls too. Right. So this 1972 is a big year, and the reason why is because it was the first year that Iowa became the first in the nation. That's why Iowa, it's the first time that voters have any chance anywhere in the country to say, this is what I think about all these primary candidates who've been jabbering at each other last few months. I have to stand over here. We're going to see where the rubber right. We're going to see where the rubber meets the road for the first time. I was the first at that. And it became first for two reasons. In 1972, the GOP decreed that you had to give 30 days notice before any kind of caucus or primary was held. And apparently that meant that Iowa had to move their caucus closer to the beginning of the year. Right. And then secondly, they couldn't get a hotel for the convention, the Iowa state convention, at a time when they wanted it. So they again had to push the caucus back. So it inadvertently became the first in the nation and they said, oh, everybody's paying attention to Iowa. All of a sudden we're getting a disproportionate amount of interest from the national press, from these candidates that are coming to town spending money. And we have influence politically exactly. Because they're going to listen to us. So we're going to make a state law that says Iowa has to be the first contest in the nation no matter what. Doesn't matter what any other state does. Iowa has to figure out a way to be first. Right. Which doesn't mean there is some sort of federal rule that says you go first. That just means that in Iowa they're like, well, if New Hampshire wants to move it up a week, then we'll move it up a week. Yeah, it's a state law there and New Hampshire has a state law as well, that they're the first primary. That's right. That's how Iowa has gotten away with it. They're a caucus. New Hampshire is the first primary. New Hampshire is like, we vote, right? We don't go stand around in a gym. I saw a tweet, apparently the New Hampshire Democrats tweeted to the Iowa Democrats and said, don't worry, we've got this. Really? Yeah, man, they got faith. So that is why the Iowa caucus became such a big deal, because they're first, because the media has an outsized influence on elections. Whether or not it matters is a matter of debate. In the history of the caucuses, you've never gone on to win the nomination if you finished worse than third. But there have been cases where Bill Clinton placed third. So it's not like you got to win Iowa. Look what happened to him. Yeah, true termer impeached. Right. He went through it all. He went through it all. The highs and the lows, the good and the bad. Right. George McGovern, the first candidate in 1972 when Iowa was like a big deal for the first time, he came in 1st second and he got the nomination, but he didn't win the presidency, so it's not necessarily that good of an indicator. Jimmy Carter won the presidency. What place did he come in? Chuck? Well, apparently he did a really good job in Iowa because he spent a lot of time there stumping for a year. But it says that he was actually beaten by Uncommitted. So the people who said that they hadn't chosen a candidate yet outnumbered anybody supporting Jimmy Carter, which makes sense, but when you just hear it like he got beaten out by uncommitted, that's so Jimmy Carter. I know, it really is Jimmy Carter because that guy has turned into one of the greatest statesmen and living saints in American history. The best thing ever is being at a Braves game when they showed Jimmy and Roslyn are in the game and they're like, just hold his dirt and they always give each other a kiss and everyone in the stadium melts. I know, it's amazing. And she's always chewing on a hot dog or whatever and she has to stop and swallow before she'll give Jimmy a kiss back. It's their thing. The other thing about Iowa is if you don't do well there, then you might drop out. Or if you do surprisingly well there, then that could kick start or very much will kickstart your campaign again. So now we've reached why Iowa is actually important. But again, this is artificial because it's the media putting labels on people. That's right. So the media basically says, hey, this candidate is expected to do really well. If that candidate doesn't do well in Iowa, the media says, this is not a viable candidate. You should drop out. That actually causes funding to dry up for the campaign. I'm not going to give money to someone who's not viable. Right. The media said they're not viable. And then conversely, like you said, if somebody's not expected to do well and then does really well in Iowa, their campaign can just take off. That's what happened to Obama in 2008. Yeah. Iowa made Obama in 2008. Right. Yeah. Really launched that campaign. So all of this stuff, again, is just self fulfilling prophecy, which is what makes 2020 so nuts that all of the Democratic candidates spent so much time and so much money and so much effort in Iowa to get this. I saw a tweet from Glenn Greenwald actually basically laying this out to get this artificial bump. And then the artificial bump didn't come, which rendered the Iowa caucus totally unnecessary. The whole thing was unnecessary. I think they're plowing ahead to New Hampshire. A lot of the candidates were claiming victory in sort of backhanded ways. Not backhanded, but just sort of they couldn't come out and say we won, but every single one of them were like, oh, I think we did very well tonight. Right. They were like, I want to congratulate my fellow nominees on coming in second. Yeah, everyone kind of claimed victory because no one could not. Everybody claimed victory. Some people clearly could not. Yeah. The people are in that gym uncommitted. Yeah. Well, if you want to know more about the Iowa caucus, you better find out about it now because it might not be around next time. Maybe not. We'll see what happens. I guess we'll just say short stuff. App stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio's how Stuff Works. For more podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio App Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
41702d7c-53a3-11e8-bdec-bb0ffba4317d	How Druids Worked	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-druids-worked	Anyone who likes Led Zeppelin, plays Dungeons & Dragons, or worships the rising sun at Stonehenge on the vernal equinox can tell you druids are cool. But archaeologists will tell you we can’t even be certain druids existed. Buckle in for a history mystery!	Anyone who likes Led Zeppelin, plays Dungeons & Dragons, or worships the rising sun at Stonehenge on the vernal equinox can tell you druids are cool. But archaeologists will tell you we can’t even be certain druids existed. Buckle in for a history mystery!	Tue, 26 Mar 2019 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=85, tm_isdst=0)	39002348	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, chuck Bryant. And there's guest producer Josh over there again. And this is stuff you should know. The Led Zeppelin edition. The what edition? The Led Zeppelin edition. Is that what you thought of? Yeah, anytime I see like that I guess it was not the Zo So album cover, but I think it was like a poster that you'd see in Spencer's that was like, I think, from Led Zeppelin four. It was like a guy with a long beard. He looked like oh, sure. He looked like what was his name? The guy from Lord of the Rings. Gandalf. Yeah, he looks like Gandalf. Basically, Zeppelin was very you know, anyone who's ever seen Song Remains The Same, they had all sort of, like, mystical druid esque leanings. Right. They were well known for their druid escalating. That's what I think of with druids. And it turns out that that is, in one sense, very much accurate. That is what a druid looks like. But if you're talking strictly about druids that came from the 17th century onward, like, just a few hundred years ago, you would be correct. If you're talking about the ancient druids, the Druids druids, the ones that everybody thinks of as, like, the OG druid, I almost said that. We have no idea what they were like. Really? We have very little idea what they were like. And it's based on such potentially slanted evidence that some archaeologists refuse to agree with certainty that Drew has ever even existed the way that we think they did. Yeah. And it's funny, the grabster helped us out with this one with the research, and I don't know if Ed has been listening to us for too long or what, because he fell into the Josh and Chuck trap of not even saying what a druid was until page four. I know. So we should just go ahead and say when we're talking about the ancient Druids, it wasn't like a race of people or anything like that. They were celts and as defined by some history website I went to, they were members of the learned class of ancient celts in ancient Britain and France. And they acted as it was really more like job based. They were teachers and judges and priests and philosophers. So I never knew that. It was really just sort of she don't even know how to define it. Not a class of people. Well, sort of a class. Yeah, for sure. But it was kind of job based. I never knew that an occupation. Yeah. Occupational. Yeah, they had a union. They had pretty decent health insurance. Sure. Ironic, because they didn't know what they were doing with medicine at the time. Yeah. Or if you had really good insurance, you could wind up in the Wicker Man. Right. Your family would benefit from that. You wouldn't potentially right. But what you just said is basically the most you can say about Druids with any level of accuracy. Are we done? Yes. That was it. Short stuff. Everything beyond that is different, varying degrees of conjecture. I don't want to beat this horse over and over again. So I think it's really just good to kind of, like, just put it out at the beginning. Yeah. Everything we're talking about from this point on is relatively unproven. Archeology is being very stubborn and to their credit, about what they will agree about Druids and what they won't agree about Druids. I think that's great, but everybody else is like, hey, that's good. You guys sit there and doggedly and methodically figure it out. We're going to just let our imaginations run wild and come up with this conception of Druids. Yes. And one of the big reasons why we don't have a lot of firsthand accounting is because the Druids did not, and they had a very good reason, but they didn't write things down. They didn't keep a historical record about themselves. Right. And the reason makes a lot of sense. There was a lot of power in the fact that they remained sort of mystical and that a conquering enemy or foe can't just get a bunch of Druidic. Is that a word? Yes. Druidic writings to figure out what they're all about. So there was a lot of mystery and mystique and because of that, a lot of power in just passing along traditions orally within their own group. Right. It really ended up kind of being given them a stranglehold on their mystique. Right? Yeah, for sure. The thing is, though, that's a super important point. They didn't write things down, but almost as important is to say that they weren't illiterate. No. Like, the Celts wrote stuff down, and surprisingly, when they wrote stuff down, they wrote it in Greek. So the later Romans who came along, as we'll see, and had a huge influence on Celtic culture, when they encountered the Celts, these heathens, these savage tribes, or what the Romans considered them to be, they found that they already wrote in Greek. But the Celts themselves chuck I didn't know this. They were basically a multiethnic group. They were not just like Germanic or they weren't just like Aryan or North African. They weren't like an ethnic group. They were apparently connected by language, but they were very tribal and they warred with each other pretty much constantly, so each little tribe would have its own kingdom. But they all were united under this culture, this Celtic culture and Celtic language. Yeah. And even though the Druids didn't write about themselves, early Greeks did specifically pacedonius. And here's where, like you said earlier, it's like someone writes about the Druids may be based on lore or legend. Sometimes it may be firsthand accounts, but then other people write about those accounts, and then people write about the accounts of the accounts. And pretty soon, all of the sort of quote unquote knowledge we have about the Druids is based on it's like a game of telephone, essentially. Right. And one of the biggest contributors to, I guess, Druidic writing was Julius Caesar. He wrote a lot about the Druids, but from the perspective of conquering army. So it's definitely going to have a slant. And he also based a lot of his writings on Pacedonius to begin with. Right? Yeah. Pacedonius's writings were lost. Like, all of them were lost. We know he wrote a lot about the Druids because, like you said, all those people came later and referenced his writings before. His writings have been lost, but we've never seen his writings, which is a shame because we probably could have learned a lot about the Celts and the Druids first hand. But by the time so Pacedonius was working in the first century BCE, by the time Julius Caesar comes along, I think about 50, 60 years later, he has a different slant than Pacedonius probably would have, because like you said, he was showing up and saying, here are all these people who we are subjugating, and then here's the reason why we're subjugating them. He wasn't writing about the Celts and he wasn't writing about the Druids to document their culture. He was writing propaganda to support the campaign of Roman imperialism back home so that everybody saw, oh, it is good that we're going and conquering these people and bringing civilization to these heathen tribes because they're just running around cutting each other's heads off and sacrificing one another to their oak trees and possibly even eating one another. Now it's up to historians and archeologists to say, okay, how much of that is accurate? How much of that comes from a kernel of truth, and how much of it is outright just fraudulent propaganda, which is a huge job to undertake. Yeah. And we'll touch more on the human sacrifice stuff because that's certainly juicy. Yeah. So I guess Caesar writes a lot about this. And it's like you said, from that perspective, when things really get wacky is when our old buddy Planet the Elder starts writing. And this is about, what, about 100 years later, and this is when the writing really amped them up as, like very odd, wizard like people. Yeah. And he was a Roman citizen. He was a great traveler, though, and great wingman. He was a great wing man. He would just support you whether you struck out or not. Company, what's going on. Yeah. If you went to the Regal Beagle with Pionee, you're going to come away happy one way or another. Yes, but he was a documentary of all the other cultures. That's what he was going to do. But the problem is he was still a Roman citizen, so he saw things through Roman eyes. So that means that he saws, like yeah, their culture was interesting and it was worth writing down but it doesn't mean that he had a respect for it or got everything right or understood everything correctly. But the point is you could take pioneers writings potentially with a little more of a grain of sand than Caesar's. Sure, yeah, that's right. Whatever you want to chew on. But Caesar's writings have an advantage over pioneers in that his were more contemporaneous to Celtic culture. By the time Pionee came along, the Romans had already spread their culture throughout the Celtic landscape. That is to say, they stamped out every other culture, basically. And what I found interesting from research, Chuck, is that there were varying degrees of grudging miss at accepting that culture among the Celtic tribes. In some respects, they were like, oh, yes, I love civilization. It's way better than the life we were living before. There's so many great trappings to it and it's so much less like, hard and difficult and muddy. But at the same time, I also don't like how the Romans just kind of like rape everybody. They feel like raping and tax us even though we're considered basically slaves to them. Right. So there was a real, like, weird period where the Romans started to permeate with their culture, the Celtic culture of, I guess, ambivalence toward that permeation. Yeah. So these are the historical writings that we have as far as actual real archeological evidence, it's not much better as far as conjecture goes. A couple of examples because there's always this longing to connect the Druids and their paganism, their brand of paganism to this ritual sacrifice. Again, because it's juicy. So the very famous LINDAO man, who was LindaW two Linda I was a woman, but this was a body that they found in 1984 preserved in Pete and a Pete Bog. He was a dude in his mid twenty s and had a very violent death, as it appears. Very. They found food in his belly. So there's so much conjecture. The conjecture there is essentially that he was ritually sacrificed. That was his last meal. And then he had what's known as three deaths. He was strangled, their ligature marks on his neck, very well preserved. You should look him up, the Garrett, the leather strap is still around his neck. Oh, yeah. He was hit on the head after that, like blunt forced trauma style, and then his throat was cut. So the speculation is they gave him a last meal and then gave him possibly three deaths to satisfy three different pagan gods. But he was found naked, so there's speculation that he could have just been robbed of his clothes and robbed of his money and maybe by someone who was a sicko, maybe or somebody who is like, get that thing out of my face and put some clothes on. I'm telling you for the last time. Right. And then it went south from there. Yeah. And you can go see, he travels a little bit, but he's on permanent display in the British Museum. If you want to go say hi. Yeah. If you ever want to be reminded that you're really not a lot more than a bag of skin, go check out pictures of LINDAO Man, because that's basically what he is. Yeah. They've also found mass graves from the Iron Age in these areas where the Druids were around, and again, conjecture that this was an example of, like, mass ritual sacrifice, but that's largely been pretty much poopooed over the years as well. Yeah. It's definitely up for debate whether they were just executed or whether they were killed in battle or whether they were sacrificed. There's some other archeology that has really tantalized archaeologists. There's one called the Deal Warrior. Yeah, that's a great name. Yeah, it really is. Especially if you check out how he was found. He was found with a shield, a spear and a sword and wearing a crown. And as far as they can tell, there's no other Celtic burial that has been found thus far that had all of these accoutrements. So this is an extraordinarily important person, but they have no idea who it was, but they want to say, drew it so bad they can taste it. And then one of the other burials that was found, they found him in a graveyard somewhere in, I believe, Britain. And he was found with a lot of weird stuff, like what appears to be a board game, but that they think possibly was used for divining the future, like rolling dice or something like that. He was found with divining rods, like they used to find water and that kind of thing. So that indicates some sort of ritual magic. He was also found with a set of surgical tools. So they're calling this guy the Doctor because the archeologists are being level headed. Everybody else is saying, this is the grave of a Druid. It's the grave of a Druid. Just say it, you stupid archeologist. And he's like, no, it won't say it. He won't say it. But it could prove to be a really important find. It probably already has proven itself that we just aren't openly interpreting it yet. Yeah. And I should mention, if Deal Warrior is not the name of a death metal band, then someone's doing it wrong. Yeah. All you need is a picture of this guy on your album cover and this is your first one. Should we take a break? Yeah, let's. All right, let's take a little break and we'll come back and talk. We'll post some more conjecture right after this. All right, Chuck, we're back. It's time for more conjecture. Again, some archeologists refuse to say that Druids definitely existed, that a priestly class of Druids and Celtic culture existed. Just chew on that one for a while, all right? Totally undermines your Led Zeppelin poster. Yeah, well, here's the thing, too, about the Celts is we don't know a lot about where their culture began, or when it began. Exactly. Because druids are celts. We obviously don't know much about where they began either. We do know how it kind of all ended, and when we say ended, you can go to modern juidism websites today and go wear a flowery dress and frolic barefoot in a field sure. With people in any given country, probably, but that's not exactly the same thing. The actual druids we know because of writing from the first and second centuries, basically, there are laws all over the place that ban druidism, part of this Roman conquering way, which is like, hey, we're here, so forget your way of life. You are now Roman. Enjoy using toilets. Right? Exactly. And I do like the toilets a lot. Right. Claudia a couple of Caesars, Augustus and Tiberius said, okay, Roman citizens aren't allowed to participate in druidism. And then by the time Claudius came around, and by the time his rule ended in 54 Ce, the druids had been at least officially stamped out. Like, not only could you, as a Roman citizen, not participate in druidism, druidism in totality was banned in the Roman Empire under punishment of death. And it had the effect of driving druidism underground, for sure. Yeah. But it's not like it just went away. They still like they would go off and do their own thing quietly, as much as possible. Right. When Claudius is banning this, it's not just like, no, we don't like this. It's a threat to the Roman control over the Gallic lands and these celts. That's not the reason that he gave although that was almost certainly the reason why they outlawed druids, but the reason they gave her things. Like, these people practice an inhuman religion where they sacrificed people to their gods. Apparently, they would go through criminals and prisoners, and then once they ran out of criminals and prisoners, they would start sacrificing their own innocent people. They just had this bloodlust, so that religion had to be stamped out and repressed. And of course, the Roman citizenry around the world said, oh, yeah, that's great, get rid of ruidism. But like you said, it just kind of went underground, it seems like. And then as rebellions started to kind of crop up around the British Isles and in France against Roman rule, it's pretty much a sure bet that if there were such a thing as druid, they were helping to foment that rebellion and that uprising. Yes. And I think I get the idea that the Romans were a little spooked by the druids. While they were, like, vastly superior with their military and their might, they paid a lot of attention to them, and they're not going to make a bunch of hay about something that they don't think is a threat. And I think they were spooked out a little bit when they were resisting. After these laws were passed, the druids invoked a prophecy saying the end of the world is coming near, and the Roman Empire is going to be destroyed by fire. And I don't think it was just like the Romans just brushed that off. I think they were like, oh, jeez, these guys are crazy, and also, how are we going to deal with the big fire? Right, exactly. I could see being spooked by that, couldn't you? Yeah, if they weren't spooked, Chuck, at least they took them quite seriously and again, outright banned them. But not only did they prophesy that they were going to be burned by fire, some of these early writings of druids, especially Pliny, made it seem kind of like creepy and magical and Wizardy Planet described druids as holding blood offerings, like slaughters of animals and humans in their sacred oak groves. And we should say I don't think we said this, but the word druid, one of the suggestions for the etymology of it is drew and wid. Drew means to know, and wid means oak. So drew wid may mean knower of the oaks or the people who have the knowledge of these sacred oak trees and plainly described these guys in. Like. White beards and long white robes. Climbing up oak trees to cut down mistletoe with golden sickles around saw wayne or the spring solstice or summer solstice or spring equinox and worshiping this whole pantheon of gods that. Unfortunately. The Romans didn't bother to write down the names of. Yeah. Isn't there speculation that Merlin from the Arthurian legend was druid? Like, he survived not just the Romanization of Celtic culture and also the Christianization of Celtic culture, but into the Middle Ages when he was supposedly running around? Yeah. And again, because they weren't writing anything down, when you're a conquering person, you can go in and read the archives and get a lot of knowledge. I imagine it was kind of creepy in and of itself to just find that they had no writings at all. Right. And then you're all of a sudden, I mean, I'm sure there was, like, questioning and stuff, but then you're just going on whatever they wanted to tell you. And any druid worth of salt was probably, like, probably teased them a bit about how creepy they might be. Sure. That whole not writing things down thing, that's an important point. So one thing, it means that we don't have any direct understanding of the druids from the druids, but the reason why they didn't write things down was twofold. One, if they were this priestly elite class that stood between the average Celt and the gods, they were the ones who knew the secrets of the oak and the wisdom of the oak and all that. One way they maintain that monopoly or that have the market cornered on that knowledge was to make it so that the only way you could learn to be a druid was from another druid and to pass along this ancient tradition of knowledge, which makes the whole thing way more mystical than even if there was some main religious book or something like that. It's oral ancient knowledge passed on from druid to druid. That's how they passed it on, and that's why they didn't write anything down. And then elsewhere. I saw I think it was maybe Strabo or someone else said that the reason they didn't write things down was because they felt like by reading. You didn't learn as much as from being immersed in it and having it explained to you over the period of something like 20 years by another druid. Because that's about how long it took to be initiated into being a full druid. A full rank druid. Full rank. A black belt druid. Shall we take another break? Why not? Man all right, let's do it. And then we'll talk a little bit more about whether or not they did practice human sacrifice. This sort of the $64,000 question. And like we said, because the Romans really wanted to propagandize and paint a picture of, listen, we got to do this. These people are barbarians. They're sacrificing, and like you said, maybe even eating each other. That cooks up a good case, basically, especially when it's coming from Caesar's pin or whatever he wrote with. What did Caesar write with? He wrote with the blood of his enemies. Okay. Which, by the way by the way, Chuck, we are one day out from the eyes of March that's right. Which marked the death of Caesar one day before your birthday. So happy early birthday from everybody and stuff you should know. Thanks, man. So did they or did they not? That is the big question, and the answer is maybe, right? So there's a lot of writings about it, but again, you got to take all that with a grain of salt as propaganda. But some of it was super detailed, could just be good writing and good imagination. But there was enough of it to where there is a lot of speculation that they may have done so, maybe not on some huge mass scale. But that doesn't mean that if you people weren't thrown in a Wicker Man every now and then instead of blaze yeah. And that's worth really just saying overtly one of the things that hold Wicker Man. If you haven't seen Wicker Man, go watch it. Not the Nic Cage version. See both. Okay. Go see both. There are moments in the Nic cage when they're so bad, it's pretty wonderful to watch, right? Okay. All right. Granted, the original one's pretty awesome. I think Peter Cushing in it. Well, Christopher Lee was the main creep, wasn't he? Well, obviously, I was the main creep in his own life. He was great. But so in Wickerman, I think it was from 1975, this investigator, I think, goes into this kind of isolated, insular, kind of Celtic tradition community and ends up finding himself inside a giant Wicker man being burned alive. That's based on legend about the Druids that they used to sacrifice people by making giant wicker figures, putting somebody in there and setting it on fire. And that was just one of the ways they supposedly sacrificed people. Another one I read about was that they would slash people in the back with a mortal wound, and then one of the Druids or one of their assistants would watch the person's death throws and death agony to divine the future. Like, you could tell by the way somebody rived or wriggled or maybe how they sled, what the future would be. And then with Lindel Man, you were saying, remember he had his neck broken, he was choked, hit over the head, and he was slashed in the throat. They think that possibly the choking thing, the strangulation and the slash in the throat were related to where he would produce, like, a fountain of blood when his throat was slashed while he was being strangled. That would tell them something, possibly. That's the legend. The whole cannibalism thing, I saw zero evidence for at all. There is no evidence for Cannibalism human sacrifice. There are a lot of good cases out there that really possibly did happen among the Celts. Yeah. And part of the reason this is so tantalizing all these years later is when they link them to things like Stonehenge. And you go to Stonehenge and you're told some story by some snotnose kid that's visiting from Indiana that like, you know, the Druids used to sacrifice people here, and that's why they built it, which is not true at all. It's gotten all mixed up. Stonehenge was around long before the Celts and the Druids were doing their thing there. But they may have gone there. I mean, Ed makes a good point. Like, a lot of times when there were religious temples and things that had been evacuated, another pagan religion might move in just because it's there and it's ready to go. So they may have gone to Stonehenge and perform some ceremonies, but that was not the purpose for Stonehenge. Yeah, we have no idea why they built Stonehenge or even who built Stonehenge, but the first unambiguous appearance of the Celts comes hundreds and hundreds of years after Stonehenge was first built. But, yeah, they may have used it. If you were a Druid, wouldn't you, like, say? Yeah, Stonehenge is probably pretty important. It lines up, I think, with the summer solstice, the rising sun and the summer solstice. That was a very important time to the Druids, as far as we understand. So, of course, they would pay attention to it and use it. And maybe another way to look at it is that the Druid tradition, and maybe even the Celts themselves, directly grew out of the people and the culture that built Stonehenge originally, because I think it was Caesar who wrote that the Celtic culture and Druids grew out of the British Isles first and then spread westward eastward into Europe. Right. Primarily France. Right, yeah. Although I've seen references that it made it as far as Turkey, the Celtic culture did and had extensive trading routes. So they weren't like this isolated group of bumpkins. They were spread out all over the place. They knew how to trade. They had their own civilization. It just wasn't nearly as advanced as Roman civilization. But they had, like, an established culture by the time Rome showed up. We just don't know quite that much about it as it was right before Rome came. Yeah. And as you said, I think at the very beginning, like years and years later, like in the 17 hundreds and 16 hundreds, there were people and groups of people that referred to themselves as druids and claimed that they were practicing these true traditions. But there's really no proof that any of that is true at all. And it's likely that it was just these people many years later that just sort of dug up this ancient thing and made it their own. No, it's 100% that way. And even like, the neo druidic groups that you see today don't try to make it out any other way. A lot of them will say, the druidism we practice has been around a few hundred years and it's based on ancient folklore and tradition that you will find in Ireland. And that's a really good point, too. Neo druidism traces its roots back to the 17th century when some historians and antiquarians got interested in some of the ancient Irish stuff. And they think possibly that some of the ancient Irish myths and legends are a form, a kind of a preserved form of ancient Celtic and druidic culture. Because the Romans never set foot in Ireland, they never managed to conquer Scotland. The Pics'up there, who you'll remember from the Loch Ness episode, sure drove them back. And so these two areas where Celtic culture lived was able to kind of live and preserve and continue on until about the 500s, when the Christians showed up and finally managed to convert everybody. And then Celtic culture. Convert. Nice way to say it. Thank you. But Celtic culture had an extra 500 years to continue on and then make it into the written word and written language. And so you can go back and look at Irish mythology and a lot of people say, here's your example of druidism right here, which it could be a variation of it, because these were isolated cultures, but still, it probably is some form of druidism. And then that is what the 17th century onward into. Neo druids base their stuff on. But they don't claim to say, we have unmolested ancient knowledge from the original or tradition of druids. They just are kind of basically doing their own thing. Yeah. And it's so rich for literature and movies, it's been definitely just sort of malleable and bastardized just to fit, like, a screenplay of Celtic. Folklore and like these kind of creepy, blissed out flower children who throw people in a Wicker Man. Or there was a movie with Christopher Lambert, the highlander called Druids. I'm sure I haven't seen it, but I imagine it's 100% just cooked up for movies. There's a really good movie from around the time Wicker Man came out called, I think, Blood on Satan's Claw. Dude, terrible title. It is amazing. It's part of, like, wicker band and blood on Satan's Claw. They're part of something called folk horror. Yeah, and we would not have folk horror if it wasn't for those antiquarians in the 17 hundreds being 16 hundreds becoming interested in Druidism. We might not even have Led Zeppelin, my friend, if it wasn't for some of those guys. Well, the guy who did Hereditary, the trailer for his new movie just came out and it is 100% straight up like Druid. Centric. I can't wait. Like these teenage campers in Sweden or something. I think it's Sweden. I'm not sure. They find this group of people in a field who are doing creepy things and it looks really creepy and awesome. I'm assuming a 24 is producing it probably like a 24 could show a movie of somebody spitting into a pale for 2 hours and I'd be like, I want to watch that. Yeah, they're a good outfit. They're a great outfit. One other thing, I also saw that the ancient Druids, if they did exist as like an elite priestly class, would not have gotten their hands dirty with sacrifice. They would have just overseen it. And then possibly a suborder of Druids called vaits would have divined what was going on from the way the blood was spilled or whatever. What are they? Vaits. Vaits. And then there was also Bards. So they were not druids. Not full fledged Druids. I don't know. I don't understand it. I've seen it, Delineated. Like bait. Bards and Druids. And then I've also seen, I think in this article, ed places druids is kind of like the whole elite class, right? It was definitely a higher class. Right? And then I also saw in some archeology article that there's really no evidence that Druids, if they did exist as a separate class, existed as a separate class until very late, right before the Romans came. And they would have just been integrated into everyday life and it would have been, like you said, an occupation. Like Todd over there. Todd Merwin. He's really good with the divining rod. So that's what we rely on Todd for. But he wasn't like an elite class. And then maybe it developed out of that kind of specialization over time. I love that Todd is your kind of goto over the years. I do too. Love Todd. Yes. That's it for Druids. Although there is a lot more out there and a lot of it's confusing, but 100% of it is awesome. Especially if your boat is floated by dungeons and Dragons type stuff. Oh, sure. And since I said Dungeons and Dragons, it's time for listener mail. I thought you're about to say, since I said Dungeons and Dragons. It's Friday night and I'm in a basement. Love it. Hi, guys. This is on bed bugs. By the way, we got a lot of replies about short stuff on bedbugs, including quite a few from the people in the hospitality industry. Yes, which is very gross. Hey, guys. Worked as a guest service agent for a three star hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina, for over three years. It was called Bedbug City. Bedbugs was basically a curse word, and it couldn't be used in front of guests. And we heard from a couple of other people in the service industry that you never say that word out loud. They called them BBS at this place, but another guy called them the visitors. Oh, my God. So I'm not really sure if it was true or not, but a general manager told me that this particular hotel chain did not believe in putting mattress covers on their mattresses. The logic being, housekeepers are required to inspect mattresses every time a guest checks out of a room and every time they change the bed. If they were to put mattress covers on the beds and guests would notice them, it would give the guests the idea that bedbugs were in that mattress already. Interesting. In addition, the manager explained to me that guests are the ones who bring bedbugs into hotels. I don't know about that. It sounds like blaming the victim to me. Agreed. So if a guest calls after they've checked out of a room to report bed bugs, this complaint basically fell on deaf ears. If the guest called to report bad bugs during the stay, the company is not obligated to refund the nightly rate. But sometimes they might adjust your rate as a sign of goodwill. They don't reimburse people for finding bedbugs in the rooms because to them, that is an admission of guilt. So instead, they will offer I can't believe this part. Instead, the hotel will offer to wash your clothes, move you to a different room, place the room with bed bugs out of service, and then tell you to throw your stuff in the trunk of your car in plastic bags and leave the car in the sun. Very rare occasions, they might even issue a future night stay that can be used at any bedbug city across the country. You get what you pay for with a three star hotel. Yes. I don't know, man. Three star used to be different. It used to be sure. And then the corporate takeover of America undid that difference. So that is from the letter J. The letter J. This listener mail is brought to you by the letter J. Then come on down to bed, bug City. Thanks, J. From Bedbug City. We appreciate that. Peak behind the curtain. If you work in some industry we've talked about and want to tell us all the gross and horrific things that the general public doesn't know about. We love that stuff. You can go on to Stuffyshow.com and look for all of our social links there. You can also go to my website, the Joshclarkway.com. You can send us all an email to stuffpodcast@iheartpodcastnetwork.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstepworks.com. Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
411faafa-53a3-11e8-bdec-2bd5f60a695a	The July 20th Plot to Assassinate Hitler	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-july-20th-plot-to-assassinate-hitler	A lot of people in Hitler's inner circle wanted him dead toward the end of the war. But he proved impossible to kill from within. Listen in today as Josh and Chuck dig into the infamous July 20th plot to blow up Der Führer.	A lot of people in Hitler's inner circle wanted him dead toward the end of the war. But he proved impossible to kill from within. Listen in today as Josh and Chuck dig into the infamous July 20th plot to blow up Der Führer.	Thu, 17 Jan 2019 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=17, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=17, tm_isdst=0)	44731755	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bright. And there's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know about smoking Hitler. Smoking Hitler, blah, blah. Well, you know what's funny? I told you what's funny about assessment. Well, I got this idea because I had listened to the recent Friendly Fire podcast episode on Valkyrie. You're just going all out on friendly fire, aren't you? I like it. Okay. It's a good show. Sure it is. And there aren't many people that know more about history than John Roderick. It's really impressive to hear that guy go off, like from the dome. No, I know. He's got quite a brain. And hey, Ben Harrison's no slouch either. He's a little bit of a slouch. He's listening to this, so I got to rib him. But John at one point in the show was like, I can't like this. You'll see in the show, it's such a convoluted plan to blow up Hitler, and he's just like, I can't believe in all those years they couldn't get one person to walk up and shoot him in the head. I saw that, too, in a couple of places. And it is very vexing and perplexing that not one person said and apparently people agreed to suicide missions. A lot of people wanted to kill him, but personally, they just didn't go I know they didn't go, bah bah. What sound does it like a Luger make? I don't even know. I don't know. Correct. I can tell you what a dying German sounds like when they're falling off a building. Oh, is that the Wilhelm screen? Yeah. Well, we wouldn't put the right one in. Anyway, forget yeah. Anyway, it just seems odd to me that because there were, I think, 15 or 16 total plots to assassinate Hitler, and I don't know if there wasn't a single one that was like, you take a gun, walk up behind him at his desk, and shoot him in my head, and then shoot yourself because it's going to go really badly for you. Right, yeah. I mean, they were all suicide missions, mostly. Not all of them, apparently. Well, that's true. I was surprised because I didn't realize I think I'd heard, like, people had wanted to assassinate Hitler or something like that. I didn't realize that Hitler was about as charmed a human being as far as surviving assassination temps goes as they come. Just didn't realize that. Would you say like maybe 1516, I think 15 plus this one. Okay. And I mean, like, there were close calls, like somewhere he just missed his assassination by a couple of minutes or a bomb didn't go off even though it was fully functioning and should have blown his plane out of the sky. That's the contrary bottle or whatever. Yeah, he went on as their fear for lack of trying. It just didn't happen for some reason, the assassination attempt that most people think of when they think of attempts to assassinate Hitler, especially if you're a fan of Tom Cruise, especially if you're a fan of Tom Cruise dressed as a pirate. Is the Operation Valkyrie that we're about to talk about? Yeah, I watched that again today. What do you think of this time around? It's good. I like it. I like the cruise, the accent, things. Weird, but you just got to get past it. I saw there was, like, a pretty big outcry from Germans when he was cast when it was announced that he was going to play Claus von Stauffenberg, because Claus von Stauffenberg is will see as a national hero of Germany, and Germany does not take kindly to Scientology. I know. It's all weird. Yeah. They were not really happy when Tom Cruise's cast to play their national hero. Yeah. They said in churchgung hair Cruz. That was great. Thanks. So, July 20, 1944. Yes. Do you want to do the whole plan right here? We're working this out right now. Okay. All right. New plan, or just like, what happened? I've got it. I've got it. We're going to take a totally different tack. You're ready? All right. Okay. So this Operation Valkyrie that we're talking about, it took place. It was called the July 20 plot, is what it's called. But the operation was actually something larger than that, and as we'll see, it entailed a lot of people, and these were, like, high ranking military officials, some of the highest military officials in the German military, the Wehrmacht. Are you saying that right? Sure. We're involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Right. And Ed put this together for us, and he points out, like, there are a lot of reasons people had to want to assassinate Hitler. There was people who said, what we're doing with the extermination of the Jews and other people is completely unconscionable, and this needs to have an input to it. I think that was mostly Kenneth Brano, right. If we're going mubi style. Okay. Like, in real life, though, he supposedly was the one that Kenneth Brown yeah. Had the true conscience of what they were doing was wrong. Who did he play? Trescow. It's a tough one. Henning von Treskow. T-R-E-S-C-K-O-W. I'm pretty sure I got that right. That was the Kenneth Brandon character, and he genuinely was opposed to how they were doing things. Right, okay, so there was at least one person who felt that way, but he was very much in the minority. Yes. There were another group of people who thought, well, these Nazis, they're kind of upstarts. They're, like, nouveau rich, politically speaking, and they don't really care about the old guard. Well, I'm part of the old guard. My family has landed gentry in Germany. We have a nice tradition going back hundreds of years, and now these Nazi upstarts are moving my family out of power. We're no longer in the elite. And I don't like that. That's another reason why people want to get rid of it. Yeah. And I think they were like the majority of the people in this plot were those people. Okay. They weren't ideal as democratic people who wanted like they were just trying to protect their heritage. Right. Some of them were anti Fascists. Not all of them. But then there was definitely a through line that a lot of people bought into and may have even been a major motivator for a lot of people, too. By the time July 20, 1944, rolled around, it was very clear to most people inside of Germany and out who were paying attention and who knew everything that Germany could not win World War II any longer. Yeah. After Normandy, it was dead. Exactly. In the water. Yeah. Once we made it to Normandy, it was over. And not only have we made it to Normandy by this time, but we had supplies coming in. We have more and more troops coming in. We were overrunning. Europe now. Europe was ours. Plus the Russians were moving their way westward from the east. Not a good position for Germany to be in between the Allies and the Russians. Yeah. Italy. Mussolini had been overthrown, so Italy was now the soft underbelly, as Winston Churchill put it, that could be attacked from Africa. Was he gone by this time? He was a puppet dictator in the northern part of Italy that was protected by Germany because in the movie of Italy was gone. The movie may be wrong, but in the movie, they were like, Mussolini is coming for lunch, or whatever. That's true. Okay. But he had lost most of Italy by this time. All right. Got you. But that left Italy exposed to attack from Africa, and Africa had just recently been lost by Ramel, so Germany was in no position to win World War II. So there were a lot of people, high ranking officials in the military, who said, okay, before they actually make their way into Germany, that's a point of no return. Maybe we can get rid of Hitler and negotiate a piece that keeps our republic intact. Yeah. And supposedly had even spoken to some of the Allied leaders like, hey, let's just say Hitler was not around. Just hypothetically, what would that look like for the rest of us? Right. Like, how could we come out of this okay. Yeah. No one knows, truly. I don't know how far down the road those talks went, but it had been mentioned. So supposedly their point of contact was Allen Dulles, one of the Dulles brothers, who would later overthrow the government of Guatemala, among other things. The CIA director. The airport Dulles. Yeah, interesting. Same Dulles, but that's who they were talking to. He was like the CAA or the OSS station chief of Switzerland at the time. But I think the germans were like, okay, we will do this and we'll get rid of Hitler, and we want to remain keep Germany intact. But the Russians cannot be part of the peace talks. We've done some things that they're not very happy about and they can't be part of it. And the Allies wouldn't take that off of the table. Yeah. Because if the Russians were in there negotiating, it would be a much different story for Germany. So all of these guys knew that Germany could not win the war. Hitler, who was running the show, still had very different ideas. His idea of fighting this war was, we're going to fight this war until the very last German is killed. Yeah. Every man, woman, child who can pick up a gun is going to fight to the death against these invaders of our homeland. And I'm totally out of my mind, and I'm taking the whole country down with me. Yeah. And in the Valkyrie film, they even say, like, you know, with Normandy going on and what's happened there, and he's just sort of like, well, I don't know what you're talking about. Everything's going great. Right? Give me some more crystal meth. Did he do that? That's the legend, really, that crystal meth was invented by Nazi scientists and that upper echelon Nazis were all into that big time. And there are so many, like, of all the people in history, like, so many things that are horrific and true and then so many weird stories from Nazi treasure hunting to crystal meth addiction. Right. It's just crazy. I read a really interesting New Yorker article about people who treasure hunt for Nazi treasures in Poland, in the mountains of Poland. And the thing that gives gravity to these claims is that there really are enormous tunnels in the mountains in Poland that you could fit trainfuls of gold in, and they think that they actually might have something to them. Oh, really? Even though that's supposedly a hoax? The Nazi gold thing? Supposedly. But again, they have these tunnel networks that are really there. It's not like the tunnels themselves are urban legend. Right. Just these tunnel networks are so expansive that no one's ever mapped them all. Got you. But they do exist. So there may be a gold rich pop wing that no one's ever found. Yeah. Interesting. So, wow, that was a lot. Do you want to take a break and then get into it tomorrow? Are you ready to keep plugging along? No, man. Let's talk about killing Hitler. Right. So Hitler had done a lot up until this point to have total control over Germany and over the state, whether it was controlling what news went out to having people swear oaths of loyalty to him as a person, not Germany. It really hit me today, the high Hitler thing, soldiers saying Hillary to one another when Hitler is not around. Right. It's not like I would understand if, like, well, sure you do that to Hitler, but he was having them do that to everyone. It wasn't like, long with Germany. It was Kyle Hitler. Right. And they're like, he's nowhere near here. You realize they're like, yeah, but we got to say this. Sure. Otherwise we're toast. And I think over time, even when you are forced to do that or kind of brainwashed into doing that or whatever, you kind of adopt that sense, like that eagerness. It's weird. It's bizarre. It is bizarre. The other thing we should mention really quickly, too, before we move on, is the sippenhoft. This was an ancient middle age blood law, basically, where they say from Germany, where they were like, if you're guilty of a crime, your whole family is. And as you will see, Project Valkyrie was a reason enough for himler to dust that off. Say, remember that ancient custom? Well, we're just going to do it here. Yeah. It went even further back than that, to, like, the second century BC. From what I saw. It's crazy. So it's basically the idea is, if you are a traitor, that means you have traitorous blood in you. And since you've passed your bloodline along, then all of the members of your family must have that same trader's blood. So the whole family has to be wiped out. That's the idea behind it. It's not clear if Him or just made this up or whatever, but there was that threat of if you do something to put yourself in jeopardy, you put the whole family in jeopardy. Kept people basically spying on not just their neighbors, but on their own family members. Yeah. And if you want to hatch a plot to kill Hitler, then that puts your family at risk. Exactly. Not just yourself. Yeah. And then plus, also, you can't really discount the fact that he really thoroughly controlled the media. So if there was a resistance, if there were people who did great acts of protest or whatever, it would just be lost. It would not be reported on. And so whatever spark they created couldn't grow into a flame. So there was a tremendous amount of control. And even today, historians are still debating how complicit the actual people of Germany were and how much they were coerced in the following Hitler. It's a real bone of contention among historians today. Well, I'm sure it was a very mixed bag of allegiances and loyalties and what people truly believed and what they were. They weren't getting the real information anyway. Exactly. And then that on top of the whole family is going to get wiped out if you do something. Could keep people in line. All right, so Operation Valkyrie itself, like we said, killing Hitler was a small part. Well, not a small part, a major part. But Operation Valkyrie itself was a larger plan to rest control of the German government, basically from the Nazis and the SS. Yeah. It was an existing operation that got co opted and made a part of the plot. Just estimate Hitler. Yeah, because they knew that just killing Hitler wasn't enough. Because someone, I guess, himler, would have just stepped in, in his place. Yeah. There's evidence that Hitler knew about this plot and basically letting it happen so we could take care. Of course. Fortress. So here's the deal. Operation Valkyrie was a contingency plan, and this was set up with Hitler's signature to control the Reserve Army of Germany. I couldn't tell if it was like our reserves over here. I don't know if it's quite like that. But maybe like the National Guard. You think? Yeah, because it says that they were called up to support the front, and you call up the National Guard sometimes here in the United States. Yeah, I think it would be like the National Guard. Well, they were the remnants of the German army that was left back. They were the army that was still in Germany at this point. Right. They weren't out fighting on the front lines, although they could be called they were there to defend Germany. Yeah, exactly. So if the call came through and Operation Valkyrie was enacted, that basically meant that something's gone wrong. And not necessarily that Hitler is dead, but something has gone wrong. And that army needs to mobilize, basically, and keep the status quo until they hear further. Then there were two people who were authorized to start Operation Valkyrie, which was essentially a signal, like you said, that something's gone wrong and the army needs to regain control of the country. It was Hitler and Friedrich Frame, who was the reserve army leader. And if Frame basically said to the Reserve Army, operation Valkyrie is in effect, the Reserve Army would fight whoever from told them to, which is Tom Wilkinson, if you're playing at home. Man, that guy. Yeah, he's great. Great actor. He had this English accent in full effect here. Did he? Tom Cruise is speaking American. It's all over the map. It's crazy. It was a weird decision. Lots of weird decisions at the time. Have you seen it? I started to and then stopped. Yeah. I thought it was a good movie, but I'm sure it was. I don't remember what it was, but I just couldn't I know that Brian Singer, the director, made the conscious choice. He was like, I don't want everyone doing these bad German accents. Everybody do different weird, so just talk how you talk. And it's a little confusing. Maybe not confusing because, you know they're Germans, because they're wearing those fantastic outfits by Hugo Boss. Is that true? Yes. I heard that he was co opted, but not didn't actually design the uniforms. I think it's probably like the Adidas, the Danzler brothers, where their factory was co opted to make torpedoes. Got you. I'm pretty sure the same thing happened, but Hugo Boss thing was to make the uniforms. Okay. So, yeah, I think it's true. I just wondered if he actually designed them. That's what I heard. That's what Russell Brand says. And by God, there's ever been a truth teller, it's that guy. So trescow, Kenneth Branch. Like I was saying, he was the one that was really opposed to the brutality of Nazism, and he's the one that developed these amendments to Operation Valkyrie for this plan, which, from what I could tell, was basically to speed everything up a lot because they had a limited amount of time once they killed Hitler to pull this off. And I think it was like Operation Vauker was supposed to be six or 8 hours, and he was like, now we need to get this done in, like, two or three. So those are the amendments that he created? I think so, in addition to some other stuff. But I think it was speed, mainly. All right? Which is ironic, because it actually got slowed down in the execution. Again, just to restate, because it is a little confusing. Operation Valkyrie was an existing Nazi plan, or German Army plan, for the Reserve Army, the National Guard back home in Germany, to take control of the country in the event Operation Valkyrie was enacted. And that could be because there was an uprising in a concentration camp. It could be that there was some sort of revolt. Whatever it was, it was an official Nazi German military plan that existed that got co opted by the assassination plotters to tailor it so that they could use it in conjunction with assassinating Hitler. Yes. And basically trick the Reserve Army into doing their bidding. And everyone that's three times now. If you don't get it now, just go listen to something else. Okay. Go listen to friendly fire. He's talking to me, everybody. He wants me to stop explaining. Will there be a fourth time? Who. No. Okay. Well, I guess we need to talk a little bit about Tom Cruise, who was sort of the main player in this assassination attempt. Yeah, we got to talk a lot about him. This is the guy who's become a national hero in Germany. Yeah. And here's the deal. History, and certainly that film painted him as a hero. He was a tried and true Nazi up to a point where he decides to kill Hitler. But he was not some great guy who was always like, no, I think what we're doing is wrong, guys. Right. We should really rethink this. His brother Berthold am I pronouncing that correctly? B-E-R-T-H-O-L-D. Yeah. Okay. His brother Berthold, his older brother, was in this plot, too, and he actually was tortured and gave a confession. And apparently in his confession, he said, no. We generally agree with what the Nazis are doing. We just think Hitler is a little too over eager, over zealous about spilling German blood and trying to conquer the world. But everything else, we pretty much agree with. So yeah, these guys were they were Nazis. They were just anti Hitler, basically. Yeah. So Cloudspin. Stoffenberg had been wounded previously, I think. In Africa, right? Yes. Under Rommel. Yeah. In fact, that scene in the film is really good. It's pretty accurate. There's a bombing and a strafing from a plane that he gets, like, full on all over his body, loses his right hand and everything but two fingers and his thumb on his left, loses his left eye. And basically he's got two functioning fingers and a thumb at this point. Yes. Not the perfect person to carry out a very highly technical bomb planting. Yeah. And that's definitely going to come into play. But apparently Claudestroffenberg said enough of this, like people losing their nerve, quanto bombs not going off. I mean, come on. If you want it done, it right, just do it yourself, is basically apparently what his policy was. He said I'll do it. I'll kill Hitler. Yeah. He never said, maybe I should just shoot him in the head. Yeah. Well, he wanted to live, as evidenced by the actual plot that they came up with. Well, plus they also wanted they sort of demanded that Hemler be in the room at the time and also be taken out. Otherwise, what's the point? Right. So this July 20 plot that we're working up to was actually could have been called, like, the, I think, July 2 plot or the July 8 plot. There were, like, a few different attempts that were aborted, and one of them was because himler and Gary, I believe, were meant to be in the room with Hitler, and they weren't. So they called it off. Apparently, Klaus Strasberg decided on his own von Straufenberg strawberry's I keep wanting to say Straussberg Strofenberg decided on his own. He's going to kill Hitler anyway. And when he went back in the room to do it after reporting that Himler and Gearing weren't there to kill Hitler, hitler had just left. The meeting ended early. Yeah. That was the kind of, like, luck that Hitler had. Yeah. And that was played out pretty accurately in the movie, actually. Like, he was like, all right, I'm going to do it. And they're like meetings. Adjourned he said, Wait, I have something else to say. Just to kind of reset what the major players are doing. We mentioned Frederick from Tom Wilkinson in the movie. He was the head of the Reserve Army. And then there was another key player named Friedrich Ulbricht, who was the one that basically was because Fran was like, I kind of know about this, but I'm not going to play a part in it. Right. But I'm not going to rat you out either. So I'm just going to see where the chips fall. Exactly. Very cowardly. Yes. He would have basically gone with whoever was in charge or whoever was on top. So he wouldn't report it. But he also wouldn't sign the order himself, which meant that Ulbricht had to actually issue a fake order in Fran's name. Mobilizing that basically, Operation Valkyrie is in effect. Right. So, Ulbricht, from and Stauffenberg were all reserve army high officials. And again, the Reserve Army is the one who can take control of the country under Operation Balcony. We should have a sound effect. Every time we explain that. Maybe Jerry will surprise us. All right. Should we talk about the actual day on July 20? Yeah, I think we should. All right, so Hitler is in the Wolf's Lairy. That's where he spent I guess it would have been Poland. Yeah. East Prussia, which is part of Poland. Yeah. So that was where he was hanging out toward the end of the war. Heavily fortified, heavily on meth. Well, that would actually make a lot of sense because he was increasingly paranoid. Yes. I think that's part of the evidence. Locked in a bunker, doing math. That probably doesn't help. In East Prussia. Yeah. They call it the East Prussia blues. I guess it's called the Wolf shaunsa in Germany. Give it some flavor. The Wolfshansa. There you go. But just very heavily fortified, like his actual bunker and area was like concrete with steel doors. It was where you would keep Hitler at that point in the war. Right. Or where Hitler would keep himself. So there was, on this July 20 plot, again, they wanted Himler and Gearing, if not Gerbils too, in the room with Him. Well, Himler was the big one they wanted. Right. Because he was the error apparent. Right, yeah. But if you'll notice, as many times as they tried to do this, hitler was nowhere around Hitler at this time, which is, again, evidence that Hitler knew something was up and wasn't about to be in the same room as Hitler at any point, because he knew that they wanted to kill Hitler and take him out, too. Right. So he was just going to let it play out. So they decided to just go ahead and assassinate Hitler, at least. And this Wolf layer was a perfect location to assassinate Hitler if it was an inside job. She said you could not get to them in there from the outside, but if you could get in, you could get to them really well, because these concrete reinforced bunkers with steel doors that had no windows, if you set off a bomb in there, it would be amplified, the concussion from the bomb, the blast, the shock wave would have nowhere to go. So it would just reverberate around the room until it finally went out of steam. And it would kill everybody in there. No matter where you were, no matter what you were doing, you would be dead from this blast. So it was a really good idea when they showed up on July 20, stauffenberg and his assistant, with two brief cases that each had a time bomb in it with \u00a32 of plastic explosives. One of those would have killed everybody. They had double the amount. Yeah. And the guy that set this all up in the movie basically said that he was like, this is pretty redundant to have two of these in that bunker. One of these will kill everyone in that room. Right. Like, don't sweat it, guys. Nothing can go wrong, even though you have to stick this metal thing in there and crack it with a pair of pliers. And I noticed you've only got two fingers, but this should be fine. Nothing can go wrong. What went wrong was something that no one anticipated is that meeting. And this changed everything. That meeting didn't take place in the bunker, supposedly because it was too hot. Too hot. Hitler didn't like to sweat, and he was loaded on mass. Right. So they moved this meeting where they were going to go over strategy, like, detailed strategy maps and everything from this death inducing bunker to basically a hut, a flimsy hut, almost open air. It was so flimsy. I had windows and everything. I think the windows were open, too, because it was hot. Okay. The roof was just kind of like, whatever, it might as well have been thatched. And then the room also featured a table, a heavy slab oak table with heavy oak and legs. And that's what they had the maps out on. This will be a big deal in a second. Yeah. So the plan is we go in there, they were going to fake like, he needed to change his shirt because he got some blood from cutting his neck while shaving steffenberg. Yeah. Okay. And so that's where he would get some private time to activate the bomb. He knew he would have ten minutes. Maybe less. To get out of there once he did that. So they did so they broke these capsules. Went in there. And the plan was that he was going to have it set up where he had someone faking a call coming in to get him out of the room. In which he would say. I got to get to Berlin. Right? I got orders. Like, I got to leave now. And Hitler would be like, I give the orders here. Who told you to go to Berlin? Well, Hitler wouldn't know about any of this. He's knee deep in pounding tables and yelling. They have the two briefcases. They only get a chance because as they're cutting open the acid capsule on the one, I guess a century outside, call through the door to them. Scared them. Yes. They're like, hey, dude, the meeting's starting. Okay? So they had to head out. That was another thing. The meeting time changed from one to 1230 because Mussolini was coming, and they wanted to make sure they were done in time for his arrival. Right, okay. So they only got to activate one of the bombs, and they just left the other one. They. Didn't take it in with them. They just kept it with them. So they were down to one bomb. They were in a different venue than the bomb had been playing for. And then now this heavy oak table comes into play. Yeah. So while they were in there, they set it down near Hitler or, you know, Stauffenberg does. A man named Heinz Bront went step close to the table so he could see things better, knocked over the briefcase, and it's just so like, are you kidding me with how history plays out? If he hadn't kicked over that thing, it might have still worked. Yeah, but he kicked over the briefcase, moved it to the other side of one of those big, heavy oak legs. The bomb does go off, and Stauffenberg gets the heck out of there quicklike. Right? And in his mind, he's like, that explosion was massive. Like, everyone's dead and we're gone. He and his assistant. Yeah. So he heads out from the Wolf Slayer to a waiting airplane at the nearby airbase to fly back to Berlin and start Operation Valkyrie. Right? That's where we're going to leave it for now. Yeah, we'll be back right after this. Okay, Chuck. So staffenburg just set off this bomb. He and his assistant are on their way to Berlin, right? Yes. Three hour flight. And while he's in the air, Valkyrie is supposed to have started. Right. But here's the problem. There was a guy stationed at the Wolf Slayer who was meant to report on this and basically say, go ahead, do your thing. Operation Valkyrie. Go. Hitler's dead. Yeah, but they hadn't considered that Hitler might survive this assassination attempt. Didn't come up with any code word for that. So the guy was just kind of clumsily, trying to be like, you know, things aren't so great. Something big happened, but not happening that big. So they were like, we don't know what you're talking about. People are listening, basically. Sure, yeah. So the guys back in Berlin, these assassination plotters, these conspirators, get this message from the Wolf's Lairy, and they still don't know what's going on. They just know something has happened. They don't know if Hitler is dead or what. So the guy is it Ulbricht who decides to wait until staffenburg comes back to enact Operation Valkyrie. So there's a three hour delay between the bomb going off and the implementation of Operation Valkyrie. Yeah, and if you recall, back at the beginning, they sped this whole thing up by 3 hours in the official plans that Hitler signed off on. So timing was important. When Tom Cruise lands, he's like, Dude, are you kidding me? Right? It was 3 hours ago. Right? So that was a big problem with it. The second problem was that they didn't cut the lines from the Wolf Slayer, and apparently even Gerbils mocked them later, after this, they didn't even cut the telephone lines. Yeah, they didn't cut them. They ceased communications. They tried to yes, they could, but they didn't have control of the Wolf's layer. All they could do is kind of clumsily mess up the communications to delay it. Yeah. But there was no radio silence from the Wolf Slayer, which would have let Operation Valkyrie play out. Instead, Germany had a lot of conflicting report and different things going on. It was total chaos. Is Hitler alive? Is Hitler dead? Who's in charge? And so when Stauffenberg gets back and finds out Albrecht has been waiting, sitting on Operation Valkyrie, he immediately is like, Put it into play. It's going one way or another. We don't know if it's Hitler's dead or not, but we're going ahead with Operation Valkyrie because no one knows if Hitler is dead or not. So we could conceivably pull it off. Yes. And I think there were I think it was like Paris, Prague, maybe Vienna, were some of the strongholds where they needed these people to get on board and start gathering up the SS in Paris. The quartermaster of the German troops, they did receive the message, set the queue in motion. I think it might have happened in Prague, but things were happening. But Berlin was the big one, because they knew even if they got Paris and the others fully on board and finished with their duties, if they didn't have Berlin, they were still kind of screwed. Right. So they actually didn't have Berlin. It was kind of like a seesaw whether they were going to have Berlin or not. There was enough confusion that I think the guy who was in charge of the Reserve Army at the time didn't know which way to go. From? Well, yeah. From was the sort of coward that he just wanted to not get ratted out. Right. He just wanted things to turn out well for him. So he sees a chance to basically re align himself with Hitler, because it's clear that it looks like the coup is probably not going to work. So his allegiance is back to Hitler. And so he tries to arrest Stauffenberg and Obrecht, and they in turn arrest him. And there's apparently a shootout right, in the actual War Ministry building. Yeah. Because there were literally two different sets of orders, official orders, coming out because of miscommunication. There were two different people controlling the German army. Well find the German government. Right. And so, finally, there was a guy who was truly confused. One of the Reserve Army leaders was genuinely confused. He was trying to follow orders because he thought that there was an SS uprising, like the Operation Valkyrie plotters had said. Yes. And apparently he got on the phone with Hitler and Hitler said, do you recognize my voice? Yeah, man. And the guy was like, yeah. He goes, I'm telling you to arrest these people, that the Nazis are still in charge, and to disregard these other orders. I want to send them all crystal meth right? Supply is low. And here's the deal Hitler had ordered. He wanted them taken alive. Whereas Fram was trying to speed up their execution so he wouldn't get ratted out, basically. And I think this is kind of true how it played out in the movie Chauffenberg is like, you're going down, too. You realize this, right? Nobody will be spared. Right? So you're kidding yourself if you think this kangaroo court you're going to run us through is going to make any difference. Right. So Farm said, okay, well, then I'll just have you guys summarily executed. Yeah, that's what he did. Yeah. This court is sort of the definition of a kangaroo court in history. It was called the People's Court, which is kind of funny. There was no Judge Wapner hanging out. There was a Judge Fresle, though. And there's actually footage of this guy. He had this really shrill voice. And this was a court where you would run people in and just have a 100% chance of conviction by hanging or firing squad. Yeah, it was run by Nazi fanatics. And it was a court designed to try people who resisted Nazism. Yeah. And the sipping hoff that we mentioned, that all your family is guilty, too. This was really where it got enacted. The heaviest. And I think like 7000 people were arrested in this plot. 7000 people were arrested, 5000 were executed. Man. So they really went to town in that sipping hoff thing. They took babies, infants, and put them in concentration camp for children under 16. The Stauffenberg brothers. Summarily executed Klaus Stauffenberg that night at the War Ministry. It's something I thought I thought was kind of cool. His assistant jumped in front of the bullets originally intended for Stauffenberg and then they still killed Stauffenberg anyway. Sure. But Fraud was trying to cover up his tracks. It didn't work. Fraum was among the executed at this later kangaroo court, right? Yeah, I think he was executed in March. And as part of this, the sipping host, it was just basically if there had been any restraints whatsoever on Hitler and the Nazis in Germany which you could really make the case like, no, there really weren't. But if there were, they were off. Now, once Hitler realized that this is part of a larger plot, he went berserk and it just became a blood orgy for him, just killing everybody, anyone he could find that might have anything remotely to do with this plot. He killed he killed people who have been prisoners for years. He went through and did another purge of people who had just been in prison for maybe thinking of assassinating him years back. Totally unrelated. As the Allies started to move in and the Russians started to move in, they started killing people in the concentration camps. Just stepping it up even more. There's a really good possibility that a lot of those people would have lived had that bomb worked, had it killed Hitler. Oh, sure. The idea that there were people waiting to negotiate a peace immediately, a surrender of Germany, all those people who died after July 20, 1944, would have lived. Yeah. I think some of them were offered the opportunity to take their own life, which quite a few of them did, literally. Like, here's a gun, just go in the other room. So Ramble is a very famous example of that. Yeah, I think did he cyanide himself? He was given the opportunity to take a cyanide pill. Some Gestapo guys came to his house and said, here's how it is. If you're a national hero, if it comes out that you were part of this plot, people are going to start questioning Hitler and Nazism. So we can't have that. We're going to give you the opportunity to kill yourself, and we won't make your family part of the Sippenhof. We'll leave your family alone. Right. So he chose to take his own life rather than let his family go through this and be court marshall, then execute it anyway. So he killed himself from this plot. Yeah. So there was a cyanide. There was gunshots that you put upon yourself. There were firing squad, and then there was the meat hook hanging, which was hitler would require that certain of these people had wire tied around their throat, and then that was hung from a meat hook. They're told Von Stauffenberg was one of those guys. Oh, Von Stauffenberg's brother. Yes. Wow. He was strangled multiple times and revived so that they could strangle him again. And Hitler the whole thing was filmed for Hitler to watch later. After that, apparently, if you went to go visit Hitler, even as one of his loyal Nazi military officials, you had to leave your gun outside. Yeah. I think that might have been a rule anyway. Or maybe it was just tradition to leave your sidearm outside the room, because they were doing that in the movie. Oh, really? Yeah. But I think on Roderick show, he was like, well, you could stick a gun in your pocket yeah. In your little guarder. Yeah. Wherever. In your sock garter. Sure. Or you die guarder. Yes. Depending on what you're into. Sure. I think that's it. I'm surprised he didn't go after because von Strawsenberg's family was not punished. His wife died, like, ten or twelve years ago. Right. But she was sent to a concentration camp and was liberated from it after the war. But she went to a concentration camp for sure. His brother. I can't believe he and her and her kids weren't killed, though. I'm surprised on the spot. Yes. It's weird. Apparently the arbitraryness just increased the terror of it, too. Well, that makes sense. So that is the July 20 plot okay. To assassinate Hitler. If you want to know more about that, go listen to the Friendly Fire episode on it. Yeah, it's a good one. And Hitler, by the way, he was gone, I think nine months later. This is toward the end anyway, which makes it even worse. Yeah. All right, so if you already said that, it means it's time for listener meal. So quick follow up on administrative details. We said if we forgot someone and lost, and Barney wrote in and I did forget this one. I sent an early color study of my pando painting and wanted to make sure to arrive it's about three by five inches in the envelope. Yes. And it did. And it's wonderful and lovely and very sorry, Lawson, for that sneaking bias. I also want to say I got something from Alison Gallagher as well. Oh, nice. I hadn't realized it. So thank you, Alison, for my gift, too. Nice. It wasn't just Chuck that you sent stuff to. And you can find Lawson'sart at Lawsonbarneyartcom. Yeah. It's beautiful painting. Very nice. All right, listener mail. This is a very sweet email from a couple. Hi, guys. Ryan, thank you for always being there on our long car rides. My wife, me and I have to travel 12 hours from our home in Butte, Montana, to Salt Lake City for her cancer treatment at Huntsman Cancer Institute every couple of months. And learning something new from you guys is always a welcome addition on our drive. I thought of her type of cancer in the treatment as an interesting idea for an episode. She was diagnosed with a rare cancer called neuroendocrine tumor. It's on her pancreas, but it's very different from pancreatic cancer. So when Steve Jobs in Aretha Franklin passed this type of cancer, it's always reported in the news as pancreatic cancer, which is incorrect and very disappointing because it does take away awareness from net cancer. The treatment is called peptide receptor radionuclei therapy. It works in a way that sounds like science fiction. The treatment is done through IV and is combined in two parts. One part is attracted to cancer cells and is welcomed into the cell. The second part is attached to the first and releases a small amount of radiation when inside the cancer cells. Wow. Very fascinating. And my explanation is very much glossed over. Again, thank you for the show. Last thing, can you give my wife, Mia, a shout out? That is from Bo mill Miller. So, of course, mia hey, Mia. Shout out to Mia. Yeah, hang in there, guys. I know it's a very tough time for you, and I'm glad we can help in some small way while you're making these long car rides. And we'll look into NEP for sure. Yeah. And thank you for reaching out to us, too. If you want to reach out to us, you can find us on stuffyshando.com. All of our social links are on there. And you can also send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetuffworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…a-experiment.mp3	What was the Philadelphia Experiment?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-was-the-philadelphia-experiment	The Philadelphia Experiment is a bad movie from the 1980s, and also the conspiracy theory that refuses to die, despite virtually zero evidence of its occurrence. Learn all about this strange non-event in today's show.	The Philadelphia Experiment is a bad movie from the 1980s, and also the conspiracy theory that refuses to die, despite virtually zero evidence of its occurrence. Learn all about this strange non-event in today's show.	Thu, 08 Oct 2015 13:51:30 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=8, tm_hour=13, tm_min=51, tm_sec=30, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=281, tm_isdst=0)	45790861	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and this is a special edition of Stuff You Should Know because Jerry is trans Mortified into guest producer Noel, which requires quite a bit of alchemy. It does. And a little bit of alcohol. Yes. And some, like, a magnificent brown bearded chia pet. There's a woodchuck waving from that looking good. No. Yeah. Jerry's gone on a top secret mission. Can't talk about it. So it makes a top secret you're talking about it right now. But she's coming back at some point. Don't worry. Yes. Just not let this forever. No. This is a stint by guest producer. We'll have to make a suite out of it. Yeah. Noel produce shows. You should know. Summer Sam Death Suite. That sounds gross. How are you doing, man? I'm great. I'm so used to reading ads these days that I just panicked. Like I lost my place. And then I was like, oh, yeah, it's the actual podcast. I can just ramble and stall as long as I need to. Yeah. You remember this from you being a kid? Was this in your Wheelhouse experiment? The movie was watch the last night? Sure. Did you really? Yes. Wow. The plot makes sense, but it's like a 15 minutes plot. They manage a lot of chasing in. Yeah. They really draw it out. They're really gussy. Yeah, they drew it out. But the idea behind it, especially when let's see, 1984. I was eight. And this is about the time where I'm like, I'm going to Duke University to study parapsychology when I get older. When you were eight? Yeah. I didn't know what college was when I was eight. Definitely. That was in my wheelhouse. Really? Yeah. Wow. So this was, like, right up my alley. Yeah. Now that I watch it as a child, I'm like, man, I was an idiot when I was eight. Yeah, but it was pretty cool. The special effects are like 80s RF. Oh, yes. They do not hold up. No, but I mean, if you're a fan of Tron or videodrome yeah. You're going to love this movie starring the great Michael Paret. Yes. And RoboCop's partner. Yeah. Nancy Allen. What else is she in? Famously, she was in a bunch of 80s movies. Yeah. What was her big one, though? Or was she always, like, costarring the female lead? Yeah, I don't think she was ever, like, the lead in a movie. They didn't make movies with female leads in the can't remember. In this context, are we allowed to say female? Or should it be the girl lead? Female lead. They didn't make leads with women as the lead in the 80s. They're all just there to prop up the dudes. Right. That was a working girl. That was in the ladies. All right, let's take it back. Okay. Few and far between. What? I'm trying to lobby for gender equality in Hollywood. Yeah. Well, you should. And you're like, no, look, at nine to five, there were some yeah, I agree with you. I don't mean to argue. You're right. They were few and far between. That's what you call a trap. What about Barbarella? Yeah, that was 70s. Or was it sixty s, I think the Jane Fonda. Well, just like the makers of The Philadelphia Experiment you and I know how to draw out a 15 minutes plot. Hey. Also, I wanted to point out michael Pere disappeared in Eddie And The Cruisers. Was he in that? He was Eddie. Was that based on Bruce Springsteen or something like that? No. Was it based on any real life band? No. I mean, it echoed. He was Springsteen esque. Right. But it wasn't like I think they were just I think the writer was like, who do I like? I like Springsteen. So let's get John Caffrey to sing like Springsteen and put Michael Parade to lip sync. Wow, that's Eddie. That's 80s rific too. And I saw John Cafferty in concert in the 80s. What else is he in? No, he was the band. He was the real band. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Okay. They sang those songs for real. And I saw them in concert at Six Flags. Wow. How about that? And they've now become the Zach Brown Band. That's right. Right. Who looks like Noel. Full circle. Full circle. We just did it. Can we be done now? Yes. So the Philadelphia Experiment, I guess, was right up Michael Perez alley because it echoed real life too, in a way. Sure. The makers went back and read a couple of books that purported to be nonfiction accounts of this incredible experiment carried out by the Navy. So incredible. And we should probably describe the experiment to begin with. Right. Experiments, we should say. Yeah, that's true. This article gets it wrong on how stuff works. Yeah. There were two separate things, both involving a destroyer ship called the USS Eldridge. Recently commissioned. Summer of 1943 is when it began. July, I think. And what supposedly happened was that there was this ship and there was a big secret Navy experiment. What's aim was to make the ship disappear. Yeah. Not just to, like, radar or something like that. But if there was a guy with the periscope, he would look right past the ship because it had been made invisible. Essentially invisible. And then the story goes that was successful. It was a successful experiment that was carried out. Yeah. It disappeared in full view in broad daylight from the was it the Philadelphia shipyard? Yeah. And then reappeared. There was a big glow, and then it reappeared and all the sailors aboard were in bad shape. So did that take place in July, or was that? That took place in July. Okay. Then it happened again in October. Yes. Then they retried the experiment. Supposedly, the ship disappeared and popped up in Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia, and then reappeared ten minutes prior. So time traveled back ten minutes to Philadelphia again. Right. Which, again, the sailors were in bad shape, even by teleportation standards. That's impossible. You know what I mean? Yeah. And supposedly these seamen, some were caught, like, in the middle of the ship and crazed and crazy. Right. So basically, the implication is that they had been some sort of, in some fashion, molecularly disintegrated along with the ship. And then when it was brought back together, the coordinates were maybe off slightly. Right. Maybe the ship and the people were where they were ten minutes earlier. Right. And things just went a little haywire. Like my upper house on the Lido deck and my lower house on the other decks on the left. That's the only deck I know. The party deck. The tango deck. Sure. The tango deck. Yeah. And I'm still alive, and I've also gone mad because my brain didn't configure back correctly either. Yes. And this was all possible thanks to Albert Einstein working with the Navy and teaching them all his little tricks on how you can make ships disappear in time travel. Specifically, the theory is that or the rumor, the conjecture, the conspiracy theory is that Albert Einstein figured out the unified field theory, which is not true. He did not. Basically, the theory of everything. No. It frustrated him for his whole life. There's this idea in physics that there's possibly one explanation for the behavior of everything in the universe. Right now, we've got a pretty good theory, I think the theory of special relativity ties in three of the fundamental forces in the universe, but gravity is this outlier that can't be tied in through physics formulas. And they think that there's some way of understanding things to where everything ties together. And as I think Michio Kaku famously put it, he said that what they're searching for with a unified field theory is with a formula an inch long, you'll be able to read God's mind. The idea is that Einstein came up with this unified field theory again, not true and that it was used to understand how to teleport things. So they used this understanding to carry out an experiment with a bunch of Navy seaman on a destroyer in broad daylight, because you can imagine the advantage to be able to make your ship invisible. Not only that, if you could figure out how to teleport, it like, you're done, dude. No more war. Because you would win them all, and the rest of the world would just cower at your invisible feet. Yeah, you just suddenly pop up behind your enemy, put them in a full nelson, and be like, you give, you give. You'd be like, I give. And that's it. You just let them go and be like that's. Right. And you teleport out of there. You see how easily that could happen? Nazi unified field theory. All right. So the Philadelphia experiment never happened like that. At least, what? We'll go ahead and not give any credence to the conspiracy theorists out there. Although we'll probably get a couple of people to email them. Oh, man. This is like a nucleus of conspiracy theory. It ties in UFOs. Sure. Ties in theoretical physics. Yeah. The US. Government, of course, Ginormous cover up. It ties in all these different things. And it's really interesting if you go read this stuff to me, it's more interesting than just UFO conspiracy theory or just government cover up conspiracy theories. It's like a clearinghouse of conspiracy theories all tied up into one package on the secret experiment that, if you listen to the Navy's official line, never took place. There never was a Philadelphia experiment. Right. It was also known as Project Rainbow. There was never a Project Rainbow. No, it just didn't happen. The whole thing was made up out of whole cloth, apparently by a guy named Carlos M. iende. Yeah. And there's a couple of hinky details we'll go over why this thing has survived a little bit later, but there are a few hinky details, not to make it believable, but that just have fueled the fire over the years. And let's take a break right here, Chuck, because I'm getting a little overexcited. Okay. Just put this under your tongue. You'll be fine. Okay. All right. Wake up, buddy. What? We're back. Okay. How much time has passed in your mind? Millions of years. No, it's only been about 3 hours. Okay. Do you feel rested? I do feel very refreshed. Good. Well, we can continue. So UT is the man named well, he had some different names. Carl M. Allen or under his pseudonym, Carlos Miguel Alinde. Yeah. He's like, yeah, let me throw a de on the end. I'll sound mysterious. Yeah. An OS. I was going to get in the way back machine, but I don't think we should even bother for this. No. This actually proves there is no way back machine. That's right. So in real time, Allende sent a letter, and he would go on to send about 50 more letters to an author named Morris Jessop, who wrote a book a year earlier called The Case for the UFO. Yes. Which you can find on the podcast page for this episode. Yeah. And he was an author. He's like a legit dude that wrote a bunch of books. I don't mean legit is in. Like, he proved any science behind UFOs. Right, but he authored books for real. Yeah. He wasn't just publishing manifestos online, and he was a conspiratorially minded investigator. But if you read his writing, it was just nothing but conjecture. Sure. Nothing. There was nothing in it but conjecture than it is fact. And even says there are three basic proven facts about this. And then here's some more facts, and it's like, no, these aren't facts at all. But it's really fascinating stuff. Maybe he doesn't know what facts are, maybe. So he got these letters, and in these letters at first, there were some attacks on him from Allen saying, you know what you're talking about, man? You're getting this unified field theory all wrong. And I know because Einstein spent several weeks with me teaching me this stuff himself. Yeah. And not only that, so it's like Cuckoo Pot writes crackpot. Right. And he was saying, like, I can prove that that unified field theory has been mastered by describing this experiment that took place in Philadelphia in 1943 concerning one US destroyer called the USS Eldridge. Yes. And he said, I know this because I was there, buddy. I was on a ship in that harbor. And there were other ships in the harbor. That seems to be the only part. That's true. Yeah. I mean, this is a place where ships were being outfitted, like, throughout the summer and fall. It was the war. That's right. So he claimed that he was on one of these ships. He said, I witnessed this in person. I saw this green glow. I saw this thing disappear. Not only that, he could it come back. He could see the field that was created by this experiment. Yeah, the green thing. And he stuck his arm into it. He was that close. Stuff of movies. Right? Stuff of 1980s B movies. Yeah. So he sends these letters, and he sends, like, 50 of them. Yeah. And Jessup said, you know what? Let me investigate this a little bit, because I'm a crackpot, too. I get where you're coming from. Yeah. So let me just check into this. This is right up my alley. Yes. Thank you for this. Let me look into this a little bit. And he basically gave up because the dude could produce he asked him for some evidence or names, anything. He had nothing. He didn't. He just said, here's the story, and it's fact. And he goes, Carlos Ayande, who by then, I think had dropped the pseudonym right. To Carl Allen. Who knows? He might have called himself Big Bird right at that point. And he was a very disturbed man. Yeah. I'm joking. But he had mental problems. He did. But if you research him and you research even skeptics of the Philadelphia experiment, the stuff he was coming up with was really interesting stuff. Yeah. He was a good writer, but he was a huge confabulator as well. Sure. So he's saying all this as fact, and he's saying, I don't know what the dates were. I don't know the people's names or anything like that, but perhaps if I were put under narco hypnosis, I would remember all this stuff. So you got any drugs? And about this time, Jessup said, I'm done with this. Right. He had actually moved on because apparently the government had directly addressed UFO rumors and no, Jessica didn't do that. I'm sorry. Another guy did who is interested in researching. But I'm sure Jessop was like, I got to get back to my serious work getting UFOs. He did. Yeah. But then something truly bizarre happened, and this did happen. He got a knock on his door, and two researchers from the Office of Naval Research who would have been carrying out experiments like this, said theory. Sure. Hey, have you ever heard of a guy named Carlos iende? And you probably could have picked MK. Jessup off the floor. I would imagine so, because he was like, It's all true. Yeah, exactly. And he said, Come in, come in, please. Have some tea, have some opiates. It was at this point, and they said, you know what? We got a package a year ago, and it had a copy of your book, My Friend the UFOs the Case for UFOs. Yeah. It was annotated very heavily by three people. Well, by three sets of ink and three types of handwriting, which were all clearly from Carl Allen. Well, they were the MK. Jessup who corresponded with Carl Allen for well over 50 letters. Right. Yeah. He said I'm not fooled. This guy Jimmy J-E-M-I who may have been an alien. It's Carl Allen. And Mr. A. And Mr. B. Are both Carl Allen. They're all Carl Allen. But regardless of whether they were all one dude, the annotations have fascinated these two Navy researchers enough that they supposedly, as far as the Office of Naval Research, officially says they took it upon themselves and paid out of their own pockets and I guess took vacation time to go find MK. Jessup. Yeah, I saw a bunch of conflicting reports on that. Whether or not and this is what conspiracy theorists will point to, that either it was official business or they did it on their own. Either way, they say that that means something, and I've heard it explained away. It was just something on their list that they eventually had to get to. That seems like a terrible explanation. I think this adds, like, a real wrinkle to the story, whether purposefully or it's just something that can't be very easily explained away. Maybe it is. It was just these guys were really interested in this. Maybe they were into UFO stuff or whatever. Maybe it doesn't matter. The fact that those two guys showed up gives this thing legs for miles. Sure. And it's just awesome that that happened, because that has kept this thing alive in part. Yeah. And the box came to them marked Happy Easter, which sounds kind of funny, and it had weird punctuation and capitalization, all the marks of a madman. Right. But again, like, the stuff he was saying was it was curiosity arousing in these guys, and they actually took and again, supposedly paid for out of their own pocket, the Annotated version of The Case for UFOs and published it with Annotations. They had a contractor, a military contractor called Verotechnology, I think, and had them publish it, which is weird, especially if they were doing it on their own pocket. But only 127 copies. I imagine it didn't cost that much. I saw 25 even, and they were, like, spiral bound, so it wasn't fancy. I read a lot of this, and it's really out there. Yeah, sure. But I imagine if you were a UFO enthusiasts, it might interest you. I mean, if you read Morris Jessup's stuff, it's out there, too. Well, I'm not reading that with the annotation for this other dude. Yeah, I was going to say, I get the impression that Carlosande stuff is even more out there. Yeah. You can get online. There's PDFs of it if you want to. Oh, the Vero. Yeah. But supposedly there's a lot of forge copies as well. Oh, really? In circulation? Yeah. I don't know. This seemed real. Why would someone take the time to forge a copy of the crackpot manifesto? That's the question we should all be asking ourselves. So Jessup's story ends just a couple of years later. He was down on his luck, and he got injured really badly in a car accident. He had a bad break up with his wife, and he killed himself. He put a hose from his car exhaust into his window. And this is one of the other reasons that conspiracy theory. Anytime there's a suicide and there's the government involved, it's pretty easy to say he didn't kill himself. The government killed him. Right. It's made all the more suspicious, though, because supposedly that was the day that he was to meet a friend who had told, I've made a breakthrough in the Philadelphia experiment case. And then all of a sudden, he turns up dead of a suicide. And the ONR guy showing up at his door definitely has kept this thing alive. It has. Supposedly his friends came out and said, no, he was deeply depressed, and he had talked of suicide in the months before he committed suicide. But then I'm sure conspiracy theorists say they pay them off, man, because people said, you can let my family go now. Maybe did what you said, and the Eldridge had a pretty well, it didn't go on to, like, great things. It was sold to Greece or transfer to Greece, renamed the HS Leon, used in exercises and then sold for scrap metal in the 1990s. So no big deal with the boat, right? No big. So we'll take another little break here, and we'll come back and we'll talk about what really happened in the Philadelphia shipyard that day. All right. What really happened, Josh? Nothing, supposedly. What really happened, apparently, on that day in the naval shipyard, I guess, either July or October, but July, I think, is the one that people typically, if they just think it was a one day thing rather than two separate experiments, it's usually July that they point to. Which they did in this article, too. Yes. On that particular day, the USS Eldridge wasn't even in Philadelphia. Yeah, this is the part I don't understand. It was in Brooklyn. Yeah. So here's the thing. That revelation came out in 1999. We'll get to that in a minute. Prior to this, there is a researcher, he's an astrophysicist and Ufologist named Jacques F. Valet. And he was actually the inspiration for the Ufologist Frenchman character in Close Encounters of a Third Kind. And he was also, like, a venture capitalist, a pretty sharp dude. He just had some unusual interests. Right? Yes. But one of the things that he dedicated himself to was disproving the Philadelphia Experiment, proving that it was a hoax. He was a skeptic, right? Yes. In some manner, he was a skeptic. Yeah. So he wrote a paper, and in the paper he invited people to reach out to him if they had further information about the Philadelphia Experiment. And as a result, allegedly, he was contacted in 1994 by a guy named Edward Dujin, or Dungeon, let's say. Dudgeon. It's a little more pleasant than Dujin. I bet his friend called him the Dungeon. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, that's what I would have called him. Yeah. So, yeah, he responded. The paper was called anatomy of a Hoax colon the Philadelphia Experiment. 50 years later in the Journal of Scientific Exploration And Dungeon got in touch and said, you know what? I was in the Navy from 42 to 45. I was on that boat, and I can explain what happened. Yeah, which is pretty exciting. Well, he was on the Angstrom, which was there at the same time. Oh, I thought he was on the actual boat. No, he was an electrician on the Angstrom. But he said he was fully aware of all of the electrical components on the Angstrom and on the Eldridge because they all party together. Sure, exactly. That actually comes up later. So he basically had a pat and completely sensible and reasonable answer for every single part of the Philadelphia Experiment. For example, part of the Philadelphia Experiment legend is that a brawl broke out in a bar following the experiment and two of the sailors on board the Eldridge suddenly disappeared. They vanished? Yes. Well, Dudgeon says, I was one of those guys. I actually faked my age on my elicit paper, so I was underage and shouldn't have been in the bar. And the bartender took pity on me and another underage dude and shoot us out the back door and then pretended that she'd never seen us. So they disappeared. They disappeared exactly. Out the back door. Another one. Well, he explains the whole thing basically, right. He says there was no experiment like that, but they were doing something that might have seemed freaky to the uninitiated. And that was degaussing the ships. Yeah. At the time, Germany and I guess everyone else, really, in the Navy's around the world, they had magnetic mines, sea mines, which would find your boat and go, that's metal. Let me go stick on that thing and blow up. Yeah. And torpedoes that were magnetic seeking, too. Yeah. And they thought, you know what? Let's come up with a way to make our ship holes and our metal parts nonmagnetic to these obstacles. Right. Which is an established project, I guess, or an established what's the word I'm looking for? Process. Sure. So it's close with project. Yeah. It was a real thing. Yeah, it's called degossing, and it basically either changes or gets rid of the magnetism of something that was formerly magnetic, like a ship's hole. It does not make it invisible. No. It does the radar or otherwise. But it probably looks pretty weird. Right. So they wrap the ships in hundreds and hundreds of meters of cable and then ran a really high voltage electrical charge through it. And supposedly this would demagnetize the ships. Which really came in handy because at the time, just outside of America's coastal waters was called the graveyard of the Atlantic because German Uboats were running the show out there at this time. Yeah. And as we learned, the Nazis invade Florida. They sometimes were parked right off the coast. Exactly. So they were taking out our destroyers and our cruisers and our battleships. So this is a big deal to be able to do that kind of thing. Although and it was classified stuff, it wasn't experimentation in anything that hadn't been proven before. It was like, we're just demagnetizing our battleships. Yeah. They could have had a big sign up, said, degossing at work. Stand back. Yeah. There was no big super secret thing. Right. But if you're a Nazi, don't read this sign. The other thing that dungeon addressed was the concept that the Eldridge disappeared from the Philadelphia shipyard, reappeared in Norfolk, and then reappeared back in Philadelphia. Well, that happened, but it just went there and then came back. Right, but it didn't happen in, like, five minutes or ten minutes or 30 seconds. No, but again, he points out, like, if you were just casually paying attention, you might have seen the Eldridge in Philadelphia that night and then noticed it was missing late at night and then noticed it was back in the morning. Yeah. Which would seem impossible because that was supposedly a two day trip. Yeah. Two days, including there and back round trip was two days up the coast. But apparently the Navy had a canal that they used, I think the Delaware Chesapeake Canal that only the military could use, and they could make that round trip in 6 hours. Yeah. So in other words, it's easily explainable that it just simply I keep wanting to say sailed, but it's not sailing. I think they still call it that. Do they set sail out? Yeah, it's shipped out and shipped back in a regular amount of time. And it just became part of the lore. Yeah. And, I mean, you can even check on a few hours there. Apparently Norfolk was where they outfitted it with their explosives and apparently they could load a battleship in 4 hours. Yeah. So even taking that into account, it's still 10 hours if it shipped out at 11:00 p.m.. Which is what Dungeon says. Right? Dungeon. I think you went with Dungeon. Yeah. He says that it shipped out of eleven. It would still be back by 09:00. A.m. Yeah. So again, if you're just casually paying attention, what seems pretty mysterious really took on legs over time. It's basically like a game of telephone. Like any conspiracy theory. Sure. Maybe there's a kernel of truth, it got exaggerated by some drunken sailors and then bam, it gets shrunk down to 10 seconds through a teleportation experiment. Well, in these sailors, the drunken sailors supposedly could have been overheard saying things like, they're going to make the ship disappear, they're going to make it invisible, when in fact what they were saying is they're going to make it more or less invisible to these mines, got all twisted around. It wasn't literally invisible. Yeah. And so there were apparently tons of merchant seaman around the area as well. Yes. So again, this would have been classified stuff if there have been loose lips which sink ships. They do. And somebody had said that we're going to make it invisible like you said, they would have picked up on that. Maybe they were the ones who are just casually paying attention to the Eldridge here and there and it just seemed to disappear and reappear. And there's this guy named Robert Gorman and fake magazine article wrote about tracking down Carlos ande he was from the same hometown and turned out that he already knew the guy's father. He just didn't realize that he was Carlos. Andy's father or Carl Allen's father? Your old man. Allen's, son. Yeah, pretty much. And he managed to interview the family and get a pretty good picture of the guy. But one of the things that he found was Carl Allen's merchant seaman papers. So it's entirely possible he was there around the time, or if he wasn't there at the time, he may have known somebody who was there at the time. I could totally see him have been there and that's probably how he got the idea to cook it up. Right, okay, I believe all that. Yeah. And again, all of this lands squarely on the desk of Carl Allen because no one talked about the Philadelphia Experiment. Those words were never put together until his first letter to Morris Jessup. Right. So it appears to have been totally fabricated by him. Yeah. And after the movie came out, people started coming out of the woodwork. This guy, including a dude named Alfred Bilek. Have you been to his website? Oh, yeah, he's something else. He made a video called The Philadelphia Experiment. Part One crossroads of History. And he claims that he was a physicist on board the Eldridge and he. Was a part of the team. And not only that, he says he time traveled in 1943 all the way to 1983 during the experiment to tell his story. That sounds extremely close to the plot of the Philadelphia Experiment movie. Yeah, sure. Except it was a little different. In the movie, he travels from 1943 to 1984. We shouldn't mock this guy. It's a fascinating website, but he puts himself squarely at the center of the Philadelphia Experiment. And he also says that he was part of the Montauk Project. Yeah, which they're sort of tied together somehow. He should do one on that at some point. Somehow debunking things. This guy wrote a book where he just basically made this stuff up at a whole cloth. Yeah, he says that the book, whether you take it as science fact or science fiction, you're in for a really great story, even though it's basically loaded with soft facts. This is the author and the preface, right? Yeah. But basically it's this extension that the Philadelphia Experiment was wildly successful. And from that we learned all sorts of things like getting in touch with extraterrestrials, being able to teleport everywhere, just doing all sorts of really interesting things. Basically anything you can possibly think of that a conspiracy theorist would enjoy is crammed into this book. And it's given a bit of gravitas by associating it with the Philadelphia Experiment. Yeah, in some quarters, man. Some quarters. That definitely gives some gravitas. This green glow has been explained away by most people as maybe an electrical storm or St. Elmo's fire. And it was just maybe just another part of this story that people took and ran with it. Or maybe it was nothing at all. Yes, it also could have been. The Office of Naval Research put out a fact sheet on what they understand about the Philadelphia Experiment and they said it's possible another origin. Or the origin of that specifically was experiments with the USS Timmerman later on. After the war in the 50s where they tried to use a small generator that was higher power than the generator that was currently on board and it actually caused coronal discharge glow. And they said that no one was injured, no one was enmeshed into the ship. No, it was just a glow was created. Which is what you'd expect from a very strong electrical field. Right? Yeah. So they think possibly that combined with the degaussing stuff they were doing during World War II came together and helped this legend take off. But what they say also, though, and what was supported by this reunion of USS Eldridge sailors in 1999 is that even the guy who debunked and discredited everything that Carlosande said dudgeon. He was full of it too, apparently. Because the USS Eldridge wasn't in Philadelphia then. It was in Brooklyn. Yeah. They got together in Atlantic City and I read an article on this meeting and they had a good laugh and said that one of them even has something about it on his license plate, just so people ask him about it. And a few of them said they would pull people's legs and say, like, oh no, I disappeared and my hand was caught in the ship. And then they would say, no, none of that happened. But they said that was in Brooklyn, and the ship's log confirms that. So apparently it wasn't even in that shipyard that day at all. Right. So that's the only part where I'm like, wait a minute, how could they completely invent that it was even in the shipyard? Why wouldn't they just use a ship that was there? Because they would give it a little more credence if there was at least a ship there. But that's what I'm saying. Carl Allen, he said all this. He was the one who just came up with it from the beginning. Yes, but I don't know, it just seems a little weird that he didn't care at all about making it believable by picking a boat that was actually there. Well, that's what I'm saying. He may have been there at the time. He may have known that the Eldridge was there and just fudged the date because he couldn't remember. Because this is like twelve years later, over 13 years after the fact. You know what I mean? Bad memory. Right. So maybe he just got the date wrong and the thing really did happen. And then the ONR would be like, oh, that experience. Yeah, we teleported the battleship. You just got the date wrong. So we've mentioned quite a few things. Here why this thing has lived on through the years that Jacques Valet theorizes that anytime you have a movie made about it or any kind of imagery, whether it's a photo of the Loch Ness monster to a photo of the Montauk monster, people are going to have something physical to point to and say, look, they made this movie. And that's when people started coming out of the woodwork, was after the movie saying, oh, yeah, I was there. I remember that now. Michael Parade just reminded me of this thing that happened. My favorite thing on his website is that he met the person that he later realized was the actor Mark Hamill in Hawaii in 1956. But Mark Hamill would have been five at the time. Well, did he say he was a little nice little kid? I don't think he was a kid. He said he's a full grown adult. Interesting. What else? The fact that it's the federal government, of course in the military, people are going to run with that stuff. That's the military's fault. I don't remember. Well, yeah, sure, they did secret experiments. Still do, tons of them, back in 1993. Some stuff that got declassified. And it really opened people's eyes to the fact that the government and the military experimented on uninformed and unwitting subjects, not just in its ranks, but also in the general public. So, yeah, it's totally the idea that the military would do this with its own people on board. Yeah, that's believable. Probably the most believable part of the whole thing. Agreed. And also, just throw Albert Einstein in there. Throw in secret scientific theories that haven't been proven, and it's just ripe for the picking when it comes to conspiracies. And the suicide, of course, like we mentioned earlier, that definitely doesn't help. It did not help the case any, but this is one that I had a hard time finding. People that still believe this. Yeah, I think a lot of people aren't aware of it, even except for the movie. You know what else helped it get legs? There was a book in and it was called the Philadelphia Experiment Project invisibility and it was reprinted in excerpts and papers around the country as fact or nonfiction in 1979. Does not help. Doesn't help things. I personally, with all conspiracy theories, I enjoy reading this stuff. I think it's fun and funny and interesting. There aren't any that I really believe in, but I do think it's funny when people get all up on their hackles and right in making fun of this stuff and you don't know, could be real. Well, that's the other thing, man. I'm glad you brought this up, because just being like, no, this is not possible. It's stupid. Stop thinking stuff like that. It's like, no, this is at the very least, people using their imaginations and exercising it in ways that I don't typically do. Sure. And so it is nice to come kind of visit it and check it out and read it. Yeah. Although I claim to have seen a ghost, so what do I know? Exactly. Although, I have to say, probably the best excuse against this, there are two things that just say just on its face, this isn't right. One, this happened 70 years ago, and if the military successfully transported a battleship, we would know about teleportation by now. Yes. They'd be doing it all over the place. Exactly. The second thing was a quote from Robert Gorman, the guy who tracked down Carl Allen in that 1980 Fate magazine article. He wrote, if we were to believe Carl Allen, our naval hierarchy abandoned sanity and historical president by conducting an experiment of enormous importance in broad daylight using a badly needed destroyer escort vessel. Yes, I think that kind of sums it up nicely. Agreed. But go forth and read about The Philadelphia Experiment because it is interesting stuff. Watch the movie. Why not? Is it on Netflix? No, it's on YouTube. Yeah. I can't believe you made it through it. I did. I'm telling you. I was working, too. I had two windows open. But there you go. It was fine. Yeah, it was fine. It's as believable as tron. That's Josh's review. Let's see. If you want to know more about The Philadelphia Experiment, you don't have anything else, right? No, sir. You can type those words in the search bar. How stuff works. And since Chuck said tron, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this email from up and coming podcaster in Georgia Bulldog. Hey, guys. My name is Bailey. I'm a junior mass media, arts and theater student at Good oluga Go Dogs. Wolf. Wolf. My professional identity aside, I'm also a longtime listener and lover of you guys. I listened to my first episode on the bus home from 7th grade. Wow. I'm pretty sure it was episode on Brainwashing, so she's in college now. I mainly listen to you all as I'm working on my on campus job, bus driving. Did you ever take the buses in Athens? The student bus? I was so crippled with social anxiety that if I couldn't find a parking space, I would just skip class because I didn't want to get on the bus. Yes. Social anxiety? Really? Like, did you want to get to know anyone? I just couldn't bear being around peers at that age. Really? Yeah. Interesting. The buses were always all scary because it was like, here's a 40 foot long bus full of students and it's driven by a student. Yeah. Well, it's scary for me for different reasons, but I can imagine it's scary for that reason, too. Yeah, I took them a few times. I mainly walked. Okay. Where was the bus driving? So my passengers had the honor of listening to you as well. Oh, I guess she plays out loud. That's nice. That is nice. That's the party bus right there. I guess so. The other day I was driving. I realized it's my destiny to produce and host a podcast on campus. We don't really have anything like that, so I'm excited about it. My idea is to have me and another host be Constance on the show and every week bring in a different UGA professor or Athens professional or general awesome person. Talk about the one thing in their field that fascinates them the most for about 30 minutes, it would include informal conversation between the three of us about a topic highly inspired by y'all's, Woody Banter. Thanks anyway, because you guys are my muses, I would want to ask if you have any advice for a Baby Bulldog podcaster. As an MMA major, I feel like I have the basic knowledge and resources for the technical side, but as far as what makes a good episode, I'm feeling pretty shaky. What is your environment? Like, how much do you prepare for the actual script? Do you have a specific formula for every episode? I'm fascinated. And that is Bailey Johnson. Got any advice? I will give you the same advice I give anybody starting out in podcasting. Bailey, get good. Mike, it's worth the expenditure. Make it sound good. They probably have them on campus. I'm imagining. Yeah. I mean, yeah. If you can finagle your way into a studio with good mics. Yeah, do it. Yeah. Do whatever you need to do to get that done. And then release on a reliable schedule. Those are the two keys to begin with. I mean, as long as you're releasing on a reliable schedule, people will come to appreciate what you're doing. Yeah. And my advice as far as scripting goes is we said this a billion times on different interviews, but we don't script stuff out and we don't go over stuff with each other. We just do our own research and try and have as natural conversation as possible, which I think has helped our show out. That's not to say that you need to do that, but I think being relatable and conversational helps rather than feeling like you're being read a script. I don't know a lot of people that would be as into that. So my advice would be try to make a conversational. Maybe go over it with whoever your co host is. Some at first. She's the theater major, right? Yeah. You should be pretty good at this stuff already, so yeah, I'm sure she's good at adlibbing. She probably finds comfort in the idea of a script. I don't think there's anything wrong with starting out, trying that, but if it doesn't feel right or you're not getting good feedback about it, then try something else. Yeah, I guess I would say maybe try it, like instead of a script, try like, an outline that you share with each other. The poor man's script. Yeah. So you've got a little road map ahead of you. And we've been doing this for so long, we don't need that. We don't need it now. But we have our own roadmap that we share via our brainwaves. Yes. Roadmap to the White House. It's not written down 2016. So those are our points of advice. We don't have a specific formula. We just try to talk about things that we find interesting. I think that's a key, too, man. Yeah. Be into what your own topic is, because that'll show for sure. Yeah. Although we've also found that just about everything is interesting. If you dig hard enough, everything has a story. So if something's really boring, you maybe abandon it. But you can also try digging harder. Agreed. So good luck, Bailey. Send us a link when that's up and we'll plug it for you. And since you're doing an interview show, your goal should be with each interview to make that person cry. You know what, Bailey? I'll even be on your show if you want. Wow, nice. Yeah, I'll do that. If you get it up and running and you need somebody, I'd be happy to sit in. That is so nice. Why not? I will, too, if you want. I don't know if I'm athens? Yeah. Not that I don't like to, but it might just be easier to do it on the phone. Okay, we'll see. Bailey. He's laid it out there for you. Get in touch. All right, Bailey. Good luck. Class of 17. That's crazy. Yes. Who started listening in 7th grade? Goodness me. If you want to get in touch with Chucker, I chuck or me. Yeah. Chuck or me. Yeah. You can tweet to us at s yskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com doesn't you send us an email to stuffpodcast@housetoforcek.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web STUFFYou shouldou.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-12-26-sysk-seven-wonders-part-one-final.mp3	How the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Works, Part I	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-the-seven-wonders-of-the-ancient-world-works-1	Long before slide rulers and pocket protectors, civilizations across the world used their noggins to build some impressive structures. Almost all have crumbled to ruins over the millennium, but thanks to the earliest tourists, we admire them still today.	Long before slide rulers and pocket protectors, civilizations across the world used their noggins to build some impressive structures. Almost all have crumbled to ruins over the millennium, but thanks to the earliest tourists, we admire them still today.	Tue, 26 Dec 2017 11:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=11, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=360, tm_isdst=0)	41280264	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now all data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM. Let's create learn More@ibm.com hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hello? San Francisco, Seattle, portland. We're coming to see you guys this January. It's coming up soon, isn't it, Chuck? That's right. It's our annual visit. Now to San Francisco sketch Fest. For my money, the best comedy festival around. And they have us back kind of every year now, which is great. Oh, yeah. It's an annual tradition these days. And we're going to be there on Sunday, January 14 at the Castro Theater. And there are tickets left, but they're going fast. Portland, you guys are sold out, have been for a while. Hats off to you guys in Seattle. We're coming to see you guys January 15. And there's even fewer tickets left than there are for San Francisco. That's right. That's the More Theater, and you can get all the ticket information@sysklive.com. Our live touring home on the web. Yes. So happy holidays and hurry up. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and there wait, I know you thought I was going to say Jerry, but you're wrong because it's Noel, today guest producer. Noel. And that makes this stuff you should know. That's right. How are you doing? I'm good. Noel, who is the 8th wonder of the ancient world. Yes. And the modern world, too. He spans space and time. Yes. Like the colossus spanned the harbor of roads. Or did it? It didn't. We're going to learn a lot, Chuck. I'm so excited about this one. Oh, yeah. These two. You mean these two? That's right. Yeah. I hit upon it. I'm like, this is a two parter right here and I can't believe we haven't done this already. Everybody knows about the seven wonders of the ancient world, but nobody knows about the seven wonders of the ancient world. Do you know what I mean? Nobody knows about them at all. It's like a perfect Stuff you Should Know episode, if you ask me. Times two, the sequel. That's right. So to get started, let's just give a brief overview of the Seven Wonders. Okay, let's do you just want to name them? Yeah. And we're going to do them chronologically, too. Okay. Is that how they're listed for me? Yeah. Okay, well, then first up we have the Great Pyramid of Giza. Right. And then after that, again, chronologically, there's the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and apparently there used to be the Walls of Babylon in addition to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but they were removed later. Right. And then what's next, Chuck? The Temple of Artemis at here we go. The temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Ephesus. Either one. Artemis at Ephesus. Nice man. And then there's a statue of Zeus at Olympia, which I have to admit I had not heard of before. I had heard of that one. I think a couple of these I felt bad because maybe I had disregarded some of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, because a couple of these were news to me. Yeah. Okay. So that one was for me. The mausoleum at Halle Carnassus was also new for me, too. Yeah. Colossus of Rhodes old hat. Sure. Everybody knows that one. Come on. Yeah, I've got colossus of roads underwear on right now. I know. You got that whole style where you wear the SAG and you show your underwear, too. That's right. And then finally the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which is I think I had heard of that one. But when you put these all together, it is no small list. No, this list, you may wonder who put this list together. Maybe Jacques Cousteau, maybe Bertrand Russell. Who knows? It's actually way older than that. This list goes back to the time of ancient Greece, actually, and they're not entirely certain who wrote the first one, but there were several people who kind of took the list and added to it or subtracted to it. And there's a bunch of candidates for who had written the list. The one I saw that's pretty roundly, considered probably the first one to have written a list is Deodoris Sicilis or Deodoris of Sicily. And the reason that these lists were made was because at the time, greece had done a pretty good job of subjugating a lot of the areas around it, like Turkey, Persia, Babylon, and these places were now safe for Greeks to go visit. And because the Greeks were wealthy and had a lot of leisure time, they actually became some of the world's first tourists, international tourists. And that was basically the point of the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was, hey, you should go visit these things, go to these places and see these things. And so some people would go do it. I think it was probably a point of pride to be able to say I've seen all seven. What they called the Amada. Yeah. The Amata translates as things to be seen. Or if you want to get even more modern, it's literally like, here are your mustsees if you're going on vacation. Right. It was kind of like the first travel website. Kind of. But it was just a list. Yeah. It wasn't on the web yet. That would take a couple of hundred years. Sure. At least a couple of hundred. Because these guys, they did live in like, the third, 4th century BCE. Right? Yeah. So over time, this list, like I said, it started out, I think, with the Great Pyramid has always been on there. Sure. Hanging Gardens have always been on there. Temple of Artemis, Statue of Zeus, the mausoleum, the closing of roads. And then I think the lighthouse at Alexandria may not have been on. And it was the walls of Babylon. They said, We've already got Babylon covered, you guys. This lighthouse is to be seen. So it was eventually compiled. So the list itself is pretty ancient too. Yeah. In Babylon, if they had one motto, it was, Come for the gardens, stay for the wall. For sure. Yeah. So out of all of those, the only ones that are still around actually, is the Great Pyramid. Yeah. I mean, there are bits of some of these in various museums, most notably the British Museum. Yeah. And there are some ruins on the site still. Yeah. Here and there. Some ruins underwater here and there. Have you been to a lot of ruins? I've been to Pompeii. You mean I went. It was kind of the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Yeah. Have you been? To pompeii. Yeah. No. What ruins have you been to? Just your garden variety ruins. Like in Rome, that kind of thing. Oh, yeah, man. The Coliseum. That was something to be seen. Yeah. Part of me, like, when I go to see ruins, it's really cool because I try and take myself back to that time, but then when I stand back and look at it and it's current surroundings, sometimes I get a little sad because there's a lot of people, like, chewing gum and on their phone and stuff. Yeah, man. And especially well, we'll talk about the pyramids, but have you seen the famous Pizza Hut pictures? No. What are you talking about? Well, you know, the pyramids. Is that a Photoshopped? No, it's not Photoshopped. The pyramids back right up or I guess front right up to Cairo. So you always see the image looking at the pyramids from Cairo. If you see the image looking the other way, there's like a city right. Button up against it. Right. And an ancient Egyptian in the foreground turns the camera with a single tier coming down his eye. But he was really Italian. Right now, there's literally a Pizza Hut KFC, which you could do worse. It could be a Burger King facing the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx. And in one of the windows of the Pizza Hut, there's the Pizza Hut logo. And if you stand inside that Pizza Hut, you can take a photograph of that Pizza Hut cap and logo kind of sitting on top of the pyramid. Neat. And so there are all kinds of photos now of Pizza Hut. It speaks of the times. Sure. Which is what I talked about being a little sad. There's a Pizza Hut. There's a frigging Kentucky Fried Chicken yards from the Great Pyramids. Yeah, I understand how I feel about that. Well, I think it's pretty clear how you feel about it. You don't like it? I don't know, but, I mean, you can't say, like, no. What do you mean? You have a restaurant here. You can't do anything. It is what it is. Yeah. I mean, it's not like you're going to live without KFC for a second. That's true. I would challenge some KFC if I was over there, the very famous one by the Tyranny. I know what you mean, though. Sure. It's a little weird, but at the same time, you're like, wow, this thing was built by slaves who died working. So maybe the KFC is actually preferable in some ways, you know? Yeah, maybe that's what I should feel sad about. Sure. Just feel sad about both. Okay, so let's go to the Great Pyramids of Giza. And there's actually, if you go, oh, we're going to really wear out the way back machine. Yeah, this thing gassed it up. It's ready. And I got a new air fresher. Do you like it? I'm not big on the pineapple, but it's all right. I love pineapple. We can swap it out for the second part. Okay. Okay. So we're going to get in the wayback machine, and if you go we're actually just going to go back a couple of days because we're going in modern times. But if we're going to look at the Great Pyramid at Giza, there's actually just one of them that's on the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It's one particular one. The Pyramid of Khufu, or Chaos is what the Greeks call them, and his is the biggest pyramid of them all. Yeah. I mean, there are more than or exactly 80 pyramids scattered across Egypt of various sizes, and I mentioned they're all pretty great to go look at. But the big daddy of them all, like you said, is Kufu Khufu, and it is the one that you can get with Pizza Hut cap on top. It's the main dude there with the three pyramids with the Sphinx standing by watching over Kentucky Fried Chicken to make sure nobody robs it. Well, it actually would work really well for that Pizza Hut cap, because the one of the three, you always see the three together. The other two are the pyramid of Menku are, and the other one is Pyramid of Kafri, and they're smaller. But if you'll notice, those two have points. The biggest one, the Pyramid of Khufu, has a flat top. Like it just knew that that Pizza Hut was coming in 4000 years. Right. So we know so little about this pyramid that they're not entirely certain if this is true or not. But there's a pretty widespread theory that that pyramid was actually unfinished. Oh, really? They couldn't bring those final stones, huh? Maybe everybody involved died or there was a change in dynasty or something. But they think and there's other evidence we'll talk about, but it seems like it might have been unfinished. Didn't Napoleon shoot off the nose of the Sphinx? Or is that an old wives tale? No, that was ISIS. Okay. Probably. So, Chuck, one of the things that's so great about this pyramid is just how massive it is. Right. Yes. It's very tall. It's like 480ft tall, which that's a substantial height if you ask me. Yeah. I mean, for a long time it was one of the tallest or the tallest building in the world. Which is amazing. Yeah. Until the 14th century when Lincoln Cathedral in England finally topped it. So for about 3400 years, it stood as the tallest structure, human made structure in the world. That's hard to believe. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And then each side at the base is about 755ft long. So it's just massive structures. Yeah. And you know how I was talking about the fact that it just butts right up against Cairo? At least it's not surrounding like the city is not just on all sides. So if you do look at it from the city, it's on the Giza Plateau and that is still I'm not sure how far it goes back, but a nice wide aerial shots. Looks like most of that plateau is pretty preserved. Right. At least the whole thing. The pyramid was built sometime during the reign of King Kufu, appropriately enough. And the king range from, I think, 25 89 to 25 66. So it's a pretty old pyramid and it's made of just a ton of blocks. Cut blocks. Right. One of the things, like, if you go on some sites, you'll find people who just kind of poopoo the pyramids piles of stone, really. But it's actually pretty clever engineering, especially considering how long ago it was built. It's not just a pile of stones. There's a lot of corridors and shafts and rooms. And the engineers had to take into account where to place these things so that the structure didn't collapse in on itself as it aged. So it is a pretty big feat of engineering just in addition to its size. Yeah. I mean, there are more than 2 million pile of stones. Who says that? Some people online. Yeah. More than 2 million limestone and granite blocks the weight of about six and a half million tons. And these things are engineered such that it's about a 51 degree slope on each side, and each side faces exactly to the four cardinal directions. It's pretty impressive. Yeah. That's no accident. It's not like it just happened to land that way. It was all done very much on purpose. These rocks fit together the blocks really, really tightly, less than a 50th of an inch separating them. So that right there is why these things are still standing. Right. And so when you look at the pyramid, it's actually, I think I said 480ft. I think it's 455ft at its height. Originally it was 480 ft. And it was also encased in limestone. Well, did it originally have the point then? I don't think so, because there's some other stuff that suggests that it was unfinished too. I don't know if I ever had the point. I don't know if anybody knows for certain, but it seems like it hadn't been put on yet. Like an inscription at the top, it says, not quite done. Well, that's one of the things that's one of the reasons why they think that it wasn't done, because it's lacking inscriptions that other pyramids have. Like in aces, doesn't have any work. No, more like we dedicate this to the sun god Raw and the name of King Cufu, blah, blah, blah. Right. Yeah, the huge so it's lacking any kind of inscriptions. The king's burial chamber, the actual sarcophagus, which is just a huge, massive stone that they actually built the chamber around. It's not like they built the room and then imported this thing. It's bigger than any entrance to the room, but it's kind of rough. It's got some cut marks still showing and it was obviously not finished. And then the other reason why they think that it wasn't ever finished, Chuck, was that there's no evidence that anyone ever found any treasure, loot, bodies, anything. Yeah, they would have done that afterwards. Yeah. It's like it's this dead, empty place that has never been used, ironically, to entomb dead people into. It was just never finished. Right. So that's one theory that it was finished and never used another one is that it actually was looted. And it was looted so thoroughly that there's just not even evidence of it being looted. It's kind of impressive. And then the last one is that it is finished and that all of these shafts and walkways and crawl spaces that we found are actually meant to distract you from the real places where the tombs are that we've just not found yet. Couldn't they find us by now, though? Not necessarily. They're still finding, like, secret rooms and passages that are hidden from view. They're just, starting now, apply the technology to seeing through stone. Literally just get up the X ray camera, right, and just stand at Pizza Hut, zoom in, right, and just see what's in that thing. You don't even need that. You can send off for some of those X ray specs from a comic book. Exactly. I don't know why no one else has thought of this yet. So I have a question then. They said it was originally covered in limestone in that casing. Does that mean that originally it was not in a step pattern and it was just smooth on the outside? Yes. How in the world did they get up there? Would they just slide back down? Well, the answer is obvious. It was aliens that helped them. That's right. That's it. That's the answer. All right. I have no idea. Chuck that's a really good question, to take the truth. Maybe there's a passageway inside, right, that they come out the top. Come out the top, pull the limestone up into place and then slide down it and start the process over again. Interesting. But if you want to see kind of probably what it looked like, just go look at the Iron Maiden power slave album cover. It's kind of like, smoothly covered. It's not stepped, really. I mean, there's steps, but they're meant to be like a staircase. It's not steps on the outside. Yes, that makes sense. So in the 14th century, there was an earthquake, and as you'll see, that becomes a pattern here with a lot of these ancient wonders that would become ruins because of earthquakes. Most of these in the Middle East. It's a volatile area, tectonically speaking. Over the course of thousands of years, things are going to tumble over time. Yeah. That's what happened in this case. It's basically earthquakes, earthquake, earthquake, earthquake, over and over again. It's the great leveler of monuments, right? Yeah. But the Kufu Pyramid, it was stood that earthquake because it's just more than a pile of rocks. It is so big and so grand and so heavy, I guess. And probably a little luck came involved as well. Yes. But it was also really good engineering, too, for sure. Yeah. But the earthquake did get it in that it did level Cairo, and they went out to the pyramid and took the limestone off of it and used it to rebuild Cairo. Yeah. And that's another common refrain, I've noticed. A lot of these would be toppled, and then people come in and say, hey, let's use this stuff for, like, actual for the city. Yeah. Instead of just a monument to a ruler. Yes. Are you ever going to go through the pyramids? It was sort of on the old bucket list until I saw the Pizza Hut things today. Oh, man, that's funny. And I read an article where someone was like, don't do it. Just don't go. Really? Yeah. But, I mean, that's just one person's opinion. We also had people that said, the Northern Lights aren't that impressive. It's one person. Yeah. We got shouted down for that. Oh, my God. It still happens from time to time. Yeah. So if you do go, though, Chuck, the way that you go into the pyramid as far as you can. No one has figured out how to go in the way that it was intended. That entrance is lost to history. As far as I know. The entrance that you use is actually a carved tunnel through the pyramid from the 9th century, from this guy named Abdullah al Mahman who oversaw a looting expedition. And he's one of the reasons why they think that it was unused, because even back in the 9th century, this guy couldn't find anything in the sealed pyramid. Interesting. And you gain access to that through the bathroom of Pizza Hut. That's right. With your X ray specs. Wow. You want to take a break? Yeah, let's do that. Let's do it now. Josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? Well, you better dig it up, because Adventure is around the corner and there's a card that's going to get you closer with the City Advantage Platinum Select Card. Every swipe earns you Advantage miles and loyalty points, and two times Advantage miles at restaurants and gas stations so your everyday purchases can take your travel to new heights. Plus, card members get access to built in travel benefits. For example, your first check bag is free on domestic travel, so you and your family have room to pack for every possibility, like coming home with extra souvenirs. And with preferred boarding, you'll be in your seat sooner, ready for takeoff into Adventure. The hard part is deciding where you'll go first, because when you earn 50,000 Advantage Bonus miles after qualifying purchases, adventure is on. So fasten your seatbelt and put away your tray table, because there's so much world to see and the city Advantage Platinum Select Card is your ticket. You can learn more at City comAdventure and travel on with Cityadvantage. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for indemand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K. Twelvecom podcast. That's K Twelve. Compodcast, and start taking charge of your future today. Hey, everybody, we're back. Yes, we are. No more poopooing of modern things. Next to old things. I sound like an old man crabbing along. It's all right, man. This next one is interesting. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Because this is one that may not have even existed. We're going chronologically, like you said. So the second oldest if it was real, built in about the 6th century. And obviously these don't exist anymore in any shape or form. But the deal is that this is in modern day Iraq and they were gardens, that it was really about the building. It's kind of like the first big botanical garden. Right. It wasn't just things hanging from the sky. It was plants and trees and everything planted in this grand big building that had water flowing through it. Yeah. In the desert. Yeah. So if it was in Babylon, it would have been about 90 miles or 90 can't remember which one. Outside of Baghdad. Modern day Baghdad. Right. And if it wasn't Babylon, they think that maybe King Nebuchadnezzar built the gardens. This is according to legend at least. Sure. He built the gardens for his wife, Amitus, who was from the north, where it's much more fertile and green. And apparently amateurs missed her homeland, so the king built her the hanging gardens. And again, this is in the desert. And Babylon was a magnificent place in and of itself. Again, like the walls were once on this list of seven wonders to go see. Right. But supposedly it was just this enormous building tiered with huge walkways, and they planted it with dirt and trees. And there is a quote that said it was thickly planted with trees of every kind that by their great size or charm, could give pleasure to the beholder. That was Theodora who said that and he was writing like a while after they would have been built. But the idea that you could just walk down treeline avenues in this building in the desert is pretty neat. Yeah. I mean, I get the sense that in today's terms it would be like a sort of a nice office park. Yeah, I guess so. Now we just take them for granted. But back then it was a big deal. You didn't have these structures with all these plants in the middle of the desert like this. It was along the Euphrates River, most likely, and we're talking about any of the pictures that you've seen. It really looks like it was something else, about 75ft tall, like you said, tiered, this brick structure with plants and waterfalls coming off of it and 22 foot thick walls, 400ft wide and all manner of flora all over the place and irrigated from that Euphrates River. Right. If again it wasn't Babylon. But there's a couple of reasons why that whole thing is why it's questioned. Right. So on the one hand, there's no evidence of it. No one said, this is where it was. Right. And other people say, well, of course you can't say that these were plants, these were gardens, there's not going to be any trace of it left. Maybe we found the building and we don't even realize it. Right. The reason why they think it might not have actually existed in Babylon is because, first of all, king Nebuchadnezzar love to boast about all of the stuff he did. He left inscriptions in cuneiform basically everywhere. He's, like, let out, like, a 32nd Belch today. King Nebuchadnezzar, he would have stuff like this inscribed, right? Yeah. I can't think of anyone today who I could liken that, too, but yes, right. Exactly. Like, he was one of a kind. No ruler ever has bore any resemblance. But he never mentioned the Gardens of Babylon in any cuneiform tablet that's ever been discovered. Yeah, he did not tout it in writing, which is very, very unusual. And then there's another guy, Herodotus, he was an historian from Greece, and he wrote basically a monograph on Babylon 100 years after Nebuchadnezzar. And he didn't mention the hanging gardens at all. No gardens, no legend of a garden, no talk of a garden, no garden I visited, nothing about gardens. Yeah. And the idea that he would have passed over one of the great wonders of the ancient world when he's writing about the town that contains it, it's pretty questionable. So some people say, well, maybe it wasn't in Babylon. Maybe it was in another place, in Assyria. Yeah. Maybe the Assyrian Queen built it. Maybe the Ruler of Nineveh, whose name and these names I just love ticking through all these names, as if Nebuchadnezzar wasn't good enough. Senatorib, it's great. The Ruler of Nineveh may have built them. I had always thought these were real, but I tend to think that maybe Nebuchadnezzar didn't have anything to do with it, because you're right. I don't think it makes any sense that it was not mentioned in any of these accounts. Right. And it wasn't just nevikonezar. All this stuff like keeping records, it was all very new. It was, like, the hot thing to do. Sure. Right. So they're it wouldn't just say, oh, by the way, we failed to mention we built this, what will eventually be a wonder of the world, but we just didn't think it was important enough to write down. Yeah. And this is from Nebuchadnezzar, who used to leave, like, inscriptions in the blocks of buildings saying, built by Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon, from C to C. Even if he didn't build it, he would have met. Right, exactly. He would have mentioned it. Right. So if it was in Nineveh, it would have been close to presentday Mosul in northern Iraq. Right, right. And if it was in Nineveh, then we've actually already found the Gardens of Babylon, because they discovered a structure that was clearly in something similar to what the Gardens of Babylon have described. It was a structure that had irrigation brought to it, that used water screws to pump water, remember, from our archimedes death ray episode, to pump it upward to this thing. So we found a garden, basically a botanical garden structure in Nineveh. So if it is there, we now know where the hanging gardens were. Yeah. And that is the idea is. That they took this water up from the Euphrates into these big holding tanks, these big cisterns essentially on top. And then it would use a very clever system of gravity to then feed down and irrigate all the different areas as it flowed downward. Right. Really something to see. I can't imagine what it must have been like, especially can't. I'm kind of disappointed now, I have to admit. Why? Because it doesn't sound like it was there or maybe even real. Yeah, but it could have been in Nineveh. I think it was real. I think it was in Nineveh. Yeah, because if you look at the I think it was Deodoris writing from Sicily. The guy from Sicily. Yeah. He says that there were hanging gardens, but they were built by a Syrian king, so I'm pretty sure that's it. All right, so they were real, Chuck, and we know where they are. Okay. And then you want to do one more for this episode? Yeah. Let's take a break and we'll come back and finish up with the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? Well, you better dig it up, because Adventure is around the corner and there's a card that's going to get you closer with the City Advantage Platinum Select Card. Every swipe earns you Advantage miles and loyalty points, and two times Advantage miles at restaurants and gas stations so your everyday purchases can take your travel to new heights. Plus, card members get access to built in travel benefits. For example, your first check bag is free on domestic travel, so you and your family have room to pack for every possibility, like coming home with extra souvenirs. And with preferred boarding, you'll be in your seat sooner, ready for takeoff into Adventure. The hard part is deciding where you'll go first, because when you earn 50,000 Advantage Bonus miles after qualifying purchases, adventure is on so fast in your seatbelt and put away your tray table because there's so much world to see and the city Advantageplatinum Select Card is your ticket. You can learn more at City comAdventure and travel on with Cityadvantage. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast. That's K Twelve. Compodcast and start taking charge of your future today. Okay, Chuck. And we're back. Yes. This might be my favorite. Do you have a favorite one yet? My favorite one will be in the next episode. Okay, cool. How's that for a tease? That's a great tease. This one's pretty good though, because this took, by all accounts over 120 years to build and just one night to go bye bye. Which is how it goes sometimes. Yeah. Especially when there's someone with Pyromania involved. Yeah, exactly. Ephesus. That's where I'm going with how about you? Artemis at Ephesus? That sounds better. I think that might be it. So Ephesus, it's actually a pretty well known city of the ancient world and I think it's still around in some way, shape or form. But it used to be a fabulously wealthy port city in what's today Turkey but it was under the control, basically of Greece. From what I understand. It was allowed to remain an independent city state. But it was still like that was at the pleasure of Greece and then later Rome. But they managed to be an important place of finance and law too. I think that's where a lot of the courts were, was in Ephesus. But it was also well known for all of its magic cults. Right? Yes. That's where the Magician's mansion was located back in the ancient world. Yeah. So when they call it the City of Magic, they mean that literally. Right. Not Magic City, but it had like a quarter of a million residents at its peak or at the time when the Temple of Artemis was in full swing. And it was originally built this temple, this massive, huge temple back in 550 BCE by a guy named King Krosis. They think that might be old King Cole. Did you know that? Oh, really? That's what I've always heard. So Kincrosis of Lydia. And this one, if you look it up under the images it looks like you're kind of classic Greek temple. It's rectangular. It measures about 350 x 180ft. And the thing about this one that has really jumped out at me was the columns. And there are more than 100 columns and they're marble. And it's not just like everything had columns. So that's all fine and well, like enough with the columns. These are the Ionic architectural style columns. But these were like if you look at it, there like the two rows of columns on the front. To me, the fact that they doubled them up and offset them is just really kind of striking looking. It is gorgeous. And if you just the size of this thing too 350ft in length right. Or in depth that's like more than one football field. American football field, which is a pretty good sized temple. Yeah, it's not as massive as you might think initially, but it's still pretty big. Well, you have to think all of this in ancient standards. Sure. Like today you look at building the size of a football field. It's not that big of a deal, but it's still large. But by those standards back then, it was enormous. Right. Which I'm happy with saying it's massive. Yeah. Put on your ancient hats, folks. Plus also just ornate detail that was carved into the structure in every single spot. It was pretty neat. And then if you looked at the pediment of the temple, the base, there was a door and two windows. I believe the windows were on either side of the door. That was not for you peon. That was for Artemis to enter and leave her temple at her whim. That's right. So Artemis herself this is one of the reasons why this is my favorite. Artemis herself was the Greek precursor to the Roman Diana. Okay. She was the goddess of fertility, of the hunt, and I believe the moon, too. Right. And she was Apollo's twin sister. She's the daughter of Zeus and Lido. So she was a pretty important deity. But she was kind of cobbled together at the temple of Artemis with an already much, much older deity for the area. And her name was Sibbel. And Sybil was based on an ancient fertility goddess from 90 years ago. So they took Sibel and they took Artemis, who basically represented the same thing, but to two different cultures, and they put it together at this temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Yeah. And we're talking about a statue. I don't think we said that. Oh, yeah. No, we didn't. We weren't talking about some kind of weird black voodoo black magic. It's a statue built from gold, silver, ebony, and some other stuff they have laying around pull tabs from tab cans. Sure. It was like a found object thing, basically. But what's amazing about this one, you can actually look up the statue, even though these are just I don't know if it were there ever pictures of it or is this just called from writing? I don't know, man. I'm not sure if it was just from writings or if they do have it somewhere. Well, the cool thing is the statue has this row of bulbs hanging from her body. And if you look at it, it looks like she's wearing a tunic made of avocados or, like, water balloons. Sure. But what they are is up for debate, some people say. Well, they're obviously breasts. She's a fertility goddess. Yeah. It makes a little bit of sense. It does. It would make even more sense if it weren't for the fact that Sibil's cult was known to castrate bulls as sacrifice. So they think they were probably bull testicles. Right. And actually, the civil cult, high priests would castrate themselves so they could be more like Sibyl ie. Without testicles. Yeah. Remember our castration episode? Oh, do I. We've talked about a lot of stuff, Chuck. We have. So you've got this amazing, wonderful, super cool statue in an already amazing temple. And it's not just me who thought that. It was the most amazing one of all. There was another guy who wrote his name was antiper of Sidon. Guess BCE still because he was an ancient Greek, but he said, I've seen the walls of unbreachable Babylon. Remember, that was originally one of the seven wonders, along with chariots, may race and the statue of Zeus by the river Alphaeus, the hanging gardens and the colossus of the sun, the great man made mountains of the lofty pyramids and the gigantic tomb of Mosulis. But when I saw the sacred house of Artemis reaching the clouds, the others paled. Yeah, that was antiper of Sidon. Right. So he's saying, like, I've seen all the wonders, and to me, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus is the best. And he said, you got to see it. She has bolt testicles hanging around her neck. You've never seen anything like that. So this thing was very popular. I mean, it was a legit tourist destination. People would travel long distances to come to this place. To see the statue in the temple. It's hard to believe, but even back then, it boosted the local economy and was literally supported by gift shops selling little statuette recreations of this thing. Yes. And this is already a wealthy area, so the tourism was so big that that was still significant. The sale of the replicas still made that much of a splash on the local economy. That's how many were sold. If you go to New York City and you go to a gift shop at the Statue of Liberty and you buy the little replica, that exact thing was going on thousands of years ago. Yeah. There's nothing new. I want one of those. That would be great. If you're looking for something for me for Christmas, an original replica from the BCE of the temple of Artemis. I would love that. All right, so you just want to get that's priceless, basically. Okay, so this story gets a little more interesting here. You mentioned a Pyromaniac earlier in July. 356 BC. It was a man named and we almost didn't know his name, hiro Stratus, who was a pyromaniac who burned this temple down for the bio accounts for the sole reason of living in Infamy. And there was a decree that his name shall never be recorded at all. So he wouldn't even earn that. But someone did. Well, it was punishable upon death to even say his name afterward. Yeah, but yeah, a guy named who was it? Theo Pompous was the one who wrote it down, who recorded the act. What's his name? Harry Estrada was recorded in Infamy just like he wanted. He was an ancient jerk, I think is what you'd call it. And the story gets even better because the temple burned the same day that Alexander the Great was born, which was amazing. And the temple they would later rebuild the temple, and Alexander said, yeah, you know what? Why don't I pay for this thing? All you got to do is, I don't know, just throw my name on it somewhere, right? And they said, yeah, that's nice, but we'll just build it on our own. Right. But then they back slowly out of the room like, okay, that's okay, right? You're not going to kill us, are you? Yeah. And I couldn't find a bunch of places that said that he wanted his name on the Temple, except for our article, so I'm not sure that's true. Did you see that in other places? I did not. Yes. That's how the story goes. I'm not sure about that, though. That's according to how stuff works. Yeah. So they rebuilt it. They eventually did rebuild it, and I think it was somewhat shortly after I'm not sure actually, how long it was after it was burned. Yeah, no one knows. They said they don't know the date. Okay. But it was rebuilt, and I think it was rebuilt even bigger than before. Sure. But then in 262 Ce, the Goths rated Ephesus, led by Robert Smith and Peter Murphy, and they burned that thing to the ground. That's right. They actually broke the thing up and used the marble to build the city after what, Chuck? An earthquake. Yes. A bunch of earthquakes. That's right. It's a great leveler. I know. And then I saw another thing that said and this wasn't in our article either, but it said that it was rebuilt again even after that, and then a Christian mob came along and destroyed it. Oh, is that right? That's what I saw. I've not seen that one. I did see that Ephesus was an important city in the Bible because I think Paul came in and was proselytizing there and started a riot because everybody's like, oh, man, your God sounds so great that it's going to undermine our Artemis and our local economy is going to fall to pieces. Ancient religion is so interesting. It really was. All right, you got anything else on that one? No, I don't mean I think we've reached the end of part one. And if you're waiting while you're waiting for episode two to come out, you can get in touch with us. You can join me on Twitter at Josh Clark. There's also the SYSK podcast Twitter handle. You can join Chuck@facebookcom, Charleswchuckbryant or facebookcom. Stuff you should know, I've got my own website called Russeriusclark.com. We also accept emails by The Oodles@stuffpodcasterhouseworks.com, and as always, join us at our home on the Web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetopworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate. Isn't natural science based nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands? Find Halo Elevate at petco pet supplies plus, and select neighborhood pet stores."
c46c22b8-5460-11e8-b38c-5f71ba804900	SYSK Selects: Juggling: What the Heck	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-juggling-what-the-heck	There is a lot – A LOT – to juggling and Chuck and Josh go over the lion’s share of it in this classic episode. Delve into the deep history, physics, how-tos and different types of juggling in this surprisingly sweeping look at a putatively innocuous pastime.	There is a lot – A LOT – to juggling and Chuck and Josh go over the lion’s share of it in this classic episode. Delve into the deep history, physics, how-tos and different types of juggling in this surprisingly sweeping look at a putatively innocuous pastime.	Sat, 27 Jun 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=27, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=179, tm_isdst=0)	46005274	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the Series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney Nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Hello, friends. Chuck here on a Saturday, bringing you my select pick for the week from January 2015. January 15, that is. It is one of our famous colon episodes, juggling. What the heck? Learn all about juggling right now. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. Just doing a little tandem juggling with my bra. That's what we're doing right now. Yeah, man. Wish you guys could see this because it was gotten pretty good cascade right now. Look at this. Half shower, half shower. Half shower. Man, that was a good one, bro. 17 balls at once. Yeah. Jerry, come light these torches on fire. Wow, man. Half shower of rain and fire. This is really dangerous. Can you juggle? No, but I want to after this, my brother learned of course, of course. I'm sure he was born knowing how to juggle. Yeah. He came out of the womb juggling. Yeah. Now, he learned back when in high school and mastered it pretty quickly. Yeah. And now he can still juggle. So I think it's one of those things once you learn sort of the basics, you can always do it because apparently a lot of it comes down to muscle memory, which is to say motor memory. Yeah. And in true Chuck fashion, I tried to learn to juggle for about an hour and never finished. Did you see any progress over that hour? Yeah, I could do the little one hand juggling, two balls with one hand thing. Okay. But I did a lot of chasing the ball. That's a problem, which apparently, if you're a beginning juggler, you're going to be throwing the ball further and further away from you, just naturally chasing the ball, and they call it chasing it. So what do they suggest? They suggest that you learn to juggle close to infacing a wall, because that way you can't move forward or you'll just keep hitting your head. You'll scratch your face up on the brick and quit juggling. This is a Jonathan Strickland joint of tech stuff. It reeks of strickland. It does. Even if the byline had been on there, I would have been like, this is Strickland. Yeah. But I remember when this one was made, it was like right when I got here, and there was a video embedded of Strickland teaching you how to juggle. Yeah, it reeks of bald headcream and bowling shirts. Yeah. And it also has an illustration by Marcus, who clearly always wanted to be a comic book illustrator because the guy who's in the graph on how to juggle is just totally ripped. Yeah, like a comic book hero. I remember Marcus. It seems like a million years ago. It was. So juggling history. How long have people been juggling? Chuck? People have been juggling since at least 1994. B-C-D. Tomb. Exactly. They found in Egyptian tombs hieroglyphics. Showing women toss juggling. And there are many kinds of juggling, by the way. And we're mainly going to talk about toss juggling, which is throwing something up in the air. Throwing more things up in the air than you have hands. Yes. That's toss juggling. And there are, like you said, a bunch of other kinds. But if you're a toss juggler, you probably don't consider the other kinds real juggling. You're like, those are cool and everything, but that's not real juggling. Yeah. I asked my friend, our friend Brandon Ross from the Stuff You Should Know, art department, clearly a juggler. Very good juggler. Yeah. And I sent a message to him and did not hear back in time. I was like, it says in here that modern jugglers poopoo things like taking a bite out of the apple and, like, some of those old school tricks. That's pretty cool. Is that true or not? And I didn't hear back from him, so maybe I'll cricket. Well, he was on Facebook. Okay. So he'll get to it when he gets to it. So, anyway, we're in ancient Egypt, to be exact. That's right. There were jugglers in Greece and Rome and India and thieves and TBS in Europe. And I think 400 BC was when it was actually written down that people were juggling. Yeah. Supposedly in the Talmud, a rabbi named Shaman Bengamlil Yeah, I think I probably nailed that. Probably. He could juggle eight torches at once. That's hard to believe because world records today are, like, seven, I think, for clubs. Is it seven? I think so, yeah. But I mean, if this rabbi was juggling eight torches, that sounds like it may be pumped up a little bit throughout the years. Got you. Like it was two, and then it was like it was eight. Although this was the time of miracles. Like enough oil to keep it going for eight days during a siege. Why not a rabbi who could juggle eight torches? It seems kind of paltry by comparison. Good point. Through the Roman era, apparently that jugglers were actually held in high esteem. But then they kind of went down into pooper a little bit. Just hilarious, because people associated with them like magicians as con artists. So I don't know if it was like, hey, look at what this guy's doing while someone else is picking their pocket. Right. But that's kind of what it seems like it might have been going on. Yeah. Apparently you were a con artist, like you said. Sure. Everybody knows that you can't trust a juggler. A juggler? At the time, that's how people thought of jugglers. This seems to be during the Holy Roman Empire in the west. Right. Then the medieval era hits and suddenly jugglers start to become a little less threatening and actually a little more clown like. Initially they seem to have been not revered necessarily, but thought of in fairly high esteem. Then they went the opposite direction and then they came back as clowns. Right. I wonder how many behind closed doors, how many emperors and kings tried it out after seeing it in the door or just like morons with it. Yeah. And then had someone's head chopped off out of frustration. They took the chuck route. Although I didn't behead anybody. But yeah. During the medieval era, if you found a juggler, you probably also found something of a minstrel or performer. An all around entertainer who probably traveled from town to town may be asking people to bring out their dead for some side work, perhaps. And then juggling corpses. That's right. Which must have been a sight to see. And then in the 1007 hundreds, they became more of a circus act. And in the late one, eight hundred s and nineteen hundred s, vaudeville came along. And of course, any sort of skill like that was big in vaudeville. And I did not know this, but WC. Fields was a juggler in the Vaudevillian days. I didn't know that either. Before he became just a drunk actor. And he's not the one who raped anybody. Right. Who was it? I think that was Fatty R. Buckle. Fatty R buckled, that's who it was. Yeah. Same error, same guys. I looked it up and I ran across the Hollywood Hell Club. So apparently before the Brat Pack, before the Rat Pack, there was a group of early Hollywood guys. Brother Harold Flynn, who was a rapist, WC. Field, John Barrymore, that just raised hell in Hollywood in like the 20s. Aeroflin was a rapist. Really? Accused rapist. I didn't know that. So then vaudeville declines. Circuses sort of decline a little bit for a while and then jugglers started hitting the streets. Or as Jonathan Strickland said, or become mathematicians. We'll get to the math connection, which is legit. It's foreshadowing. But I don't know that they formed their own stage shows, performed on street corners, or became mathematicians. Right. Those were the three options if you were a juggler. And then, of course, in the 1940s, I say of course, because it's common knowledge that these are when the juggling groups and conventions were formed and held. The International Brotherhood of Magicians decided at a meeting, hey, guys like the jugglers got together and had a few drinks and said, I don't like being known as magicians. Yeah, that's how the jugglers tell it. The magicians were like, get the out jugglers. Is that what it was? Yeah. And then they went through down the smoke bomb and they were gone. Yeah. So they formed and splintered off and formed the International Juggling Association. And in 1969, they started holding championships and competitions. Summer of juggling. And in 2000, Jason Garfield, a very famous juggler, formed the World Juggling Federation and said, ESPN, you need to put this stuff on TV. So once a year they put it on TV progress. Along with the spelling bee and the dart competition. What else? Which I watched the other day. Log rolling? Yeah. Lumberjacking? Sure. Lawn darting? No, that's illegal. No more. It's like cock fighting. All right, let's get into it then. So we're actually going to teach everybody how to juggle. No kidding. Yeah. And if you're really into this, we're going to describe a lot of things visually, which is always a train wreck for us. So I would recommend you do like I did and just get on the old YouTube and look up what Cascade juggling looks like. And there are four or five guys who have tons and tons of videos. There's one guy that I believe is kind of the gold standard for YouTube instructional juggling videos. His name is Adam Schomsky. S-H-O-M-S-K-Y. I'm sure I watched them. That guy pops it into slow motion for you. There's like, graphics where he throws something straight up. You might not have caught it. So it says throwing straight up. He's good. Okay. And he's just doing it for the love of juggling. You can tell. I think they all do. I would hope so. I don't know if you make a ton of money as a juggler these days, or fame. Although there is I should recommend I was going to wait till the end. There's a great article on Grantland.com called Dropped by Jason Figone, and he details a big, long story on Anthony Gaddo, who may be the best juggler on the planet. He juggled for Cirque du Soleil. Oh, he had a bunch of the records until recently. Yeah. Twelve world records. And he's amazing dude. But he quit last year to run a concrete resurfacing business after becoming disenchanted with the juggling scene. Basically calling out all these kids these days saying like, you filmed something 100 times and only nail it once, and then you upload it to YouTube. That's not the same. Basically, his quote is, if you can't do a trick in three tries, you can't do it. He said, you may have done it, but it doesn't mean you can do it. It's essentially what you're talking about. This guy's story is the premise for Office Space. Yeah, basically. But he's amazing. If you watch Anthony Gatto juggling, he will break the record for, like, let's say, the number of balls in a rain shower. And for the amount of time, though, he won't do it for 10 seconds. He'll do it for, like ten minutes. Right. And other jugglers are like, this dude is insane. How long he can keep all these clubs and balls and torches or whatever in the air. That's really funny that you mentioned him and what happened to him, because I noticed his records were, like, all mid two thousand s. The most recent ones were. And I wondered what happened to Anthony Gallow. Now I know he kicked the finger. It's a really good article, actually. Dropped on Grantland.com. All right, so how do you juggle? So, Chuck, here's how you juggle. Basically, you want to start with three balls, and if you have even half of a brain, half, you will make sure that those balls are beanbags, because bean bags are dead drops or they drop dead. You're not going to chase them all over the room. No. When they fall, they just stay put. Yeah. Hacky sacks are good, too. Or you can buy, like my brother did, the Little, which are basically hacky sacks. A little juggling kit. Yeah. The Complete Klutz's Guide to Juggling. Isn't that I don't know. There are many. I think it was before The Complete Idiots Guides, there was something called, like, something for Klutz's, and it would teach you things how to juggle. It required dexterity. Yeah. Interesting. So, anyway, you start with three beanbags, which in the juggling world, what these are anything you juggle, are called props. Specifically, a beanbag falls under the category of balls. Even though they're not necessarily balls, they're still under the prop category of balls because it's not a chainsaw or a torch exactly. Which would fall under the category of clubs. Right. So for most of the time, we're going to say balls. But just imagine as you're starting out, we're talking about beanbags. Okay. Okay. So you get three of them. Chuck yes. You take two and you put them in a drawer to start. That's the first step to learn juggling. Take two of your three balls and put them away. Yeah. And strickland and experts say you should literally start with tossing one back and forth to get your arc down, because the key is consistency. And once you get good, you can do all sorts of things, but you don't want to toss one bean bag up 4ft and one 3ft. When you first starting out, you want to kind of toss them all about the same. Yeah. And you need to learn your hand movements, which are very important once you get hand movements down. You can do variations on the hand movements, but ultimately there's a basic hand movement that's a scooping motion. And the easiest one to start with, to start practicing is the cascade pattern. Yeah. There's two main patterns, the shower and the cascade, which we've joked about so far about ten times. The shower is the one that you see on cartoons when someone's basically just throwing balls in a big circle in a big loop. Beautiful, very cool looking cascade. Looks kind of like fireworks if you squint your eyes and use your imagination. Never thought about that. Yeah. Like as the balls go up and they arc out, they're basically arcing outward across your body. Yes. And it looks just kind of like, you know, one of those big fireworks where it blows up and then it just kind of trails downward slowly. It's ultimately what it looks like to me. Yes, I get that. The cascade. You move your hands in a figure eight, and for the regular cascade, your right hand goes clockwise. Your left hand is counterclockwise alternating these tosses. If you reverse that, it's called a reverse cascade. Right. So the key here, just remember, you're using one ball still, but you're making a scooping motion in toward your torso. Not away from your body, but in toward your body right in front of your chest. Your feet are shoulder width apart, because they always should be when you do anything. And you're tossing the thing up into an arc about just above eye level. That's the one that you start with. And you usually start with your dominant hand. Yeah. Because that will just probably be easier because you're more used to throwing things with that hand. Right? Yeah. And I didn't see it anywhere, but I put two and two together in this article, and it looks like so it could be wrong, everybody, but it looks like if you are doing a cascade of any kind, reverse cascade, anything like that, whatever hand is going clockwise is the hand that you throw in the highest arc above your eye level. Okay. Okay. So you've got your one bag, and you make a scooping motion with your right hand in a clockwise motion. And you toss the ball in an arc just above eye level. And then it drops, and you catch it in your left hand. And then now in your left hand, you toss it again. But this one should be slightly under the arc of the first one. Yeah. It's moving in a counterclockwise motion so that eventually, when you add more balls and you have them all in the air, they're not just bumping into each other at the same place. The one from your clockwise motion hand is going higher, and the one from your counterclockwise motion hand is following just beneath the arc of the first ball. That's right. It's inside that ball's path. Yes. And you're going to, at first, be very frustrated because you're going to want to throw both of the balls at the same time when you're just starting out with the two, just to get used to the motion. Because it's just that sort of like if you've never played drums, it's hard to make your right arm, your left arm, your right foot and your left foot do different things. Yeah. It's a bit of a brain trick, I think. Some people catch on quicker than others, obviously. But you want the two tosses to be distinct and separate. And one way to do this, Strickland says, is to count your toss. Like toss one, toss two. Yeah. Toss one, toss two. And then your little brother is going to say, what are you doing in there? Shut up. Nothing. Toss one. Right. So we might as well add the second ball now. Are you ready? We just been with one ball. Yeah. Oh, wow. Because that one toss one is with your clockwise hand. Yeah. Toss two is with your counterclockwise hand. You catch the second one. You toss two with your clockwise hand. Toss one. Toss two. You're still just with one ball here. Now we're going to add two. Okay. So you have one in your left hand, you have one in your right. We're doing a cascade. So with your right hand, you're making a clockwise scooping motion. Yes. Right? Yeah, I got it. Right. I wish people could see this one. This is delightful. So we're going to throw the first ball, and as it reaches its zenith just above our eyes, we're going to throw the second one just underneath the arc of the first one. Yeah. You know, it's funny is that people that were walking by my desk all day saw me doing the same thing because you kind of do it to yourself to be like, okay, I get the motion. Yeah. What is trickling saying here? We were using no bean bags. No, just imaginary ones. Exactly. I didn't drop a single one. I'm a great imaginary chuckler. So, Chuck, with this toss one, toss two. Ultimately what you're doing is let's say it takes a second for you to throw one ball to your other hand. Yes. You throw the second ball at about the halfway mark of that first throw. So every half second you're throwing a ball. Is that the deal? If you're fast, you are ultimately you're doing that, but it doesn't even necessarily have to be a second. Let's say it takes 2 seconds for it to go up and then down. So every second, you're throwing every half of whatever beat it takes for the ball to be tossed and then come down, you're throwing a ball. Right. Okay. Which means that when you finally add the third ball in there, whoa. Which let's go ahead and do that now. Yeah. You want to hold two balls in one hand, obviously, and they suggest to hold the two in the dominant hand. Although if you're having a problem making that third toss, they say sometimes switch it up and it may help to hold the two in the nondominant hand to begin with. Some people just want to hold one and you're really just throwing two with another one in your hand. Or else you're throwing one and then two at once, which you don't want to do either. Yeah. You're going to be frustrated. It takes a lot of time and practice. Don't give up like I did when you didn't master it in 1 hour. Right. If you think that you're supposed to be mastering this as we're speaking no, it's covered, like, six months of work now. What you can master in a minute, though, is just clicking on YouTube and watching videos of jugglers again. I'm almost done. Yeah. Okay. So with this cascade, you've got the third ball. And just remember that every half of a beat that it takes, you're throwing a ball. You're constantly throwing a ball. The cool thing about the third one is when you start with two balls in one hand, you obviously start with that hand for tossing. Sure. You toss it up in the air as that one arcs, you toss your left one as that one arcs, you toss your third one. And about the time you're tossing your third one, your first one is landing. That's right. And you've just done what's called a flash of juggling. That's right. And if you have trouble catching at first, don't worry about it. Yeah. They recommend just work on the tossing. And if you drop the ball and it's not a big deal at first, you just want to get that hand motion down and learn basically the motion of the cascade. And again, stand in front of a wall because you're going to find yourself chasing the beanbag forward because you're tossing it further away from you. Yeah. But be careful. Yeah. Don't start with chainsaws. Don't start with chainsaws, which, by the way, are modified. They're props. They're not using real chainsaws unless you're crazy. Well, they probably don't have the thing. Bam. They're like the haunted house chainsaws. Right. All right. Well, after this break, we are going to get into variations on the cascade. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. What's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True Crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. What if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the awardwinning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yeah. Listed in as, host baritoneon De Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access global health. You'll hear from organizations like The Trevor Project, doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast, Force Multiplier, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Josh, you've got the cascade down. Try the reverse cascade. Okay. Which is, like I said, just the opposite direction. I'm sorry. Counterclockwise for your right hand, clockwise for your left. You're scooping your hands inward instead of outward right. Oh, I'm sorry. You're scooping outward instead of inward right, which sounds weird, but if you just do without balls, if you just do your hands like that, it makes sense. Yeah. You can just kind of do it in your imagination and then just change directions. Yeah. And you're like, Wait a minute, I've seen guys do that. It will feel like natural. Yeah. The only big differences here is with the hand that you throw in, a higher arc has changed. So your first throw is going to be at a lower arc than the second throw. That's all. Okay. And your hands are moving in different directions. So remember, the hand that's going in counterclockwise motion throws in the higher arc, and that's called Josh's Law. Okay. So after you have mastered this, which will take a while, as we said 150 times, you can start doing little tricks thrown in there, because just a regular juggler isn't going to get very far in life. Where you really make your dough is when you start throwing in things like the half shower or the tennis move. And if you look all these up, basically, when you see jugglers just juggling regular, and then their arm does something crazy looking. That's what these moves are. Right. We could describe them in detail, but it's really a lot cooler if you just go look. But when you're watching juggling, you go, oh, man, what was that? Look what that girl just did with her arm. That was maybe a tennis move or Mills mess invented by juggler. Steve Mills. Yeah. Not my uncle. Steve Mills. I don't think he can juggle. Or Burke's Barrage or Rubenstein's Revenge. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah. These are all just complex arm crossing patterns as you're juggling different variations on that another variation that I like, have you seen this before? Bounce juggling. It's my favorite thing. Rather than throwing balls, my favorite juggling. Okay, got you. Rather than throwing the balls up in the air to toss juggle, you throw the balls down on the ground and bounce them. There's this kid I saw on YouTube, if you just search bounce juggling, it's the first video. It's the thing the first thing that comes up on YouTube. That guy is good. He starts out in profile. Yes. And you're like, what's the big deal? In, like, his basement or whatever. Yeah, but then once I don't know how many balls he had going, he had quite a few. Yeah. And there's different ways of doing this. You can either lift bounce it by just sort of tossing it in the air and letting it bounce, or you can actually throw it at the ground, which is called a force bounce. Right. And I even wrote coolest exclamation .2 of them. Bounce juggling is really cool looking. There's clawing, which is basically palms down juggling. So it's just a regular cascade, but yeah, you're like, snatching them out of the air. Yes. That's cool looking. You can do that solely, or you can just throw in a claw every now and then just to delight your nieces and nephews at Christmas. There is the chop. Yeah. But I think this one is where you grab a ball and then throw it underneath your other arm. You throw it upward underneath your other arm? Yeah, it's like a diagonal quick diagonal move. Yeah. And like I said, you'll just notice if you're not a real juggler, if you're just watching in the park one day, they'll do some crazy arm thing. Sure. I call it flare. Well, there is actually something called flair. That's a type of juggling. Really? Bartender's flair. Oh, you know the movie Cocktail? Yeah. Bartenders flare. That was a type of juggling. Supposedly not a fan. Oh, I thought it was great. I haven't seen the movie. Yeah, I haven't seen it. Are you a fan of Bartending Flair, though? Hey, I'm a Jerry Thomas fan, so yes. The answer is yes. All right. I like a bartender to grump at me and slide my whiskey down the bar. That's the best trick I want to see. That's fine. I pretty much like all bartenders. Yeah, that's true. They're doing God's work. So Jonathan Strickland says, generally speaking, if you have an odd number of props, you're going to require a crisscross pattern. If you have an. Even number of props. It's going to be two separate groups, juggled in each hand. Yeah. Remember you said you could juggle with one hand? Kind of, yeah. So remember, toss juggling is any kind of juggling where the number of objects you're juggling exceeds the number of hands you're using. That's right. So if you use two balls in one hand, that's toss juggling, it still counts. Yeah. So if you're juggling four things, you're basically toss juggling separately with two hands, two different things. So two bowling pins in each hand is toss juggling. I don't know if you could do clubs with one hand. Can you? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, you do it in columns. That's some talent right there. That's how most people do clubs, is like one hand. Oh, really? I've just seen like the Cascade mainly. No, no, every time I've ever seen clubs, it's like one handed. Two one handed juggling. You need to get out more, I guess. So I need to go to the park. Yeah, they hang out there along with the hackysackers. Yeah. Well, like you'd mentioned then I guess if you're going to be juggling with one hand, you've got the fountain, which is the circular pattern. Like if I had two balls and I was just throwing them in a circle, or the straight up and down, which is the column. Right. And that can be either synchronous or asynchronous. If you look up synchronous column juggler on YouTube, you're going to be doing the exact same thing at the same time with both hands. Right. Which is pretty neat. I think asynchronous may be a little tougher though, just judging by the looks of it. Well, Strickland makes the point that since most people start out learning to juggle asynchronously, which is like that cascade is asynchronous. The hands aren't moving at the same time, they're moving at opposite beats. It's actually easier for people to do that to do asynchronous. Makes sense, I guess. Yeah. What do I know? Even handed juggling, what is that called? It's the one thing in juggling that doesn't have a name where you're just juggling four things at once, or like an even number of things and you're using both your hands, but you're juggling two clubs. There's no name for it. It's driving me crazy. I'm sure there's a name for it. Well, I don't know what it is. You should name it after you at any term. Oh, no, here it is. Numbers juggling. Okay, so when you're doing numbers juggling, an even number of numbers juggling, you're just doing it asynchronously probably to start. Okay, that was my point for my little tie. Right. I wonder how many angry jugglers we have right now. Probably a lot. Couple of hundred. There's a couple of other kinds of juggling that are fun to watch. Cigar box juggling and shaker cup. You've probably tried the cigar box thing with shoe boxes or whatever. And that's when you have any number of boxes. You're holding one in each hand, but then you have quite a few in the middle, and you'll toss them up and flip them and then catch them between the other two boxes. Yeah, it's pretty neat. And the same sort of thing goes with the Shaker cup. Your cups are nesting inside one another, though, like cocktail cups, and you're tossing those up and catching them. They probably was born out of bartender flare. Yeah, probably so. All right. We mentioned clubs as an alternative. The Standard club looks sort of like a modified bowling pin. Yeah. Like a slim svelt bowling pin. Yeah, a sexy bowling pin. They are European and American versions, and I think the European version is slimmer and sexier than the American. Go figure. And I think they're a little more popular as well. Right. The larger end is meant to fit into a Champagne coupe. That's it. The European one, that's pretty neat. And I think you said that clubs also, if you want to do, like, knives and torches, they call that a club as well. Yeah, I think there's, like, a few broad categories of props and then falls at clubs, that kind of thing. And then they fall under those subcategories, like axes and torches and categories at the YinYang. And then there's ring juggling. Of course, they're very stable because of their gyroscopic properties. Don't even mention gyroscopic properties. Well, the point is that you can juggle a lot more rings at once. Maybe then you might be able to juggle a ball. Yeah. That's pretty impressive to see as well. Yeah. And then there's this thing I found today called contact ring juggling. It's when you're not throwing rings, you're rolling them along. Well, no, that's contact juggling with, like, a ball is when you're, like, doing the Harlem Globetrotter thing and rolling it down your arm and over your body and stuff. It's pretty cool. But the contact ring juggling, just look it up. It's really cool. There's all different shapes, but the ones I've seen are mainly a figure eight, and you're just manipulating them such that they look like it looks like an illusion, almost like one will be stationary and it looks like the other ring is circling around it. Well, it is, but just take my word for it. Okay. Contact ring juggling. Everyone go check it out. Got you. Very popular in Asia, looks like. Okay. They've mastered it. Okay. Very cool. So let's say you got a buddy and you both like to go to the park. This is a big one. And juggle, it's pretty cool. It's a thing. You've seen it. Yeah. Strickland makes the point that juggling is kind of a social thing populated by social creatures. Like, there's lots of juggling clubs and that kind of stuff. And that where you and I think of juggling as like a solitary activity. No way, man. If you get two good jugglers together, it becomes a feast for the mind and the eyes. We could add this to our live show, juggling us juggling. Yeah. All right. In tandem. We have a lot of practice to do, because what we could do, Josh, on stage, if we put a lot of work into it, is something called stealing and replacing. And that is when you basically will go up. If you're juggling four clubs, I'll go and steal one or maybe steal two, and then three, and then four, and then I'm the one juggling. But the juggling never stops. Right. It looks as a seamless synchronous pattern, uninterrupted. If you just, like, stop another person from juggling, it's just being a jerk. The point of it is that combat juggling. Yeah, I guess so. But you're still juggling the whole time you're doing that. That's right. The whole point of juggling with two people and, like, stealing and replacing is that the balls, if you were able to ask these juggled balls what they think is going on, they would say, Nothing. It's the same thing we're doing the same pattern. They say Chuck's hands were a little sweatier. Right. But what really happened was I replaced you. Yeah, that's one way to do it. Or we could stand in front of each other, like 4ft apart, and we're juggling the clubs and then tossing each other the clubs, and we've got our little post stuff, you should know act all worked out. Yeah, it's cool. So with stealing and replacing with juggling balls, I would stand facing opposite you and just kind of grab yours, like you said, and just ultimately take over your catches. And then I would be juggling, and then you can steal it back. And we could go back and forth indefinitely. With clubs, I would be standing next to you and just basically kind of push you out of the way. Well, that's if you're stealing and replacing. If we're passing, then we're standing in front of each other and just throwing them back and forth to each other. And there's actually a pretty established way of passing where it's called the 3310, where we do three passes, where every third toss I pass to you, you catch it. So, you know, we're in tandem and everything's going right. And then after three of those, you do every second toss. Then after three of those, you do every toss, you toss another one. And then by that last one, we are just, like, on fire. Just the throwing ones back and forth between ourselves. Yeah. And we did mention combat juggling. That was not a joke. It is a thing. And I've seen I looked up these little competitions when it's sort of like dodgeball. You get ten jugglers on a stage, and they all start juggling, and they all start to try and thwart the other juggler's juggle while maintaining theirs. So I would go up and throw mine in the air and try and knock yours out of your hand, but you can't get too crazy because you got to still juggle or else you're out. The way we've been describing this one, it feels like we've been replaced by impostors who listen to the show a lot and didn't know what topic to pick. Right. Isn't that weird? It is weird. I'm myself. Are you yourself? No, I'm you. Oh, God. Weird. Well, we'll get to the bottom of this right after these messages. A summer is here, my friend, which means school is out, the sun is shine and bright, the days are longer. And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. Yeah. From the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between, host Selena Erkhart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today what if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yeah. Listed in is host baritonee Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access, global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, Doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast, Force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. Now, Chuck, comes the darkest time. Is this Josh actual? Yeah. Okay. I replaced the replacement. Okay. No, still here saying bizarre stuff like, I replaced the replacement. All right. We're talking about the physics of juggling fun, which is actually kind of straightforward. It's stuff you would think of, but it's nice to put it in the terms where we can say that we covered the physics of juggling. That's right. So the main factor acting on juggling, probably the most important part in the whole thing is our good friend gravity. That's right. And acceleration due to gravity specifically is 9.8 ms to the second power, meaning 9.8 meters/second every second. Right. So when you drop something, speed is going to increase by 9.8 meters/second. And don't bother us. We're not including any kind of air resistance. We're in a vacuum. Yeah. To demonstrate all of our physics. We're always in a vacuum. Right. Our little stuff, you should know, vacuum part next to the wayback machine. Yes. So it's a constant acceleration. And because of that, the only way to slow down your pattern is by throwing something higher. Yeah. And so the more things that you add into your pattern, the higher you're going to have to throw, because you have a constant acceleration, downward acceleration after your toss. So that means you have to open up your pattern by throwing it higher up the more stuff you have, because you simply would not have enough time to throw X amount of balls in the air. I mean, you can increase your hand speed somewhat, but at a certain point, you just can't do it. Exactly. They're going to be bean bags everywhere. Yes. Another factor is that it's not really a factor. It's more of a fact. When you're throwing your balls, you're throwing them in a parabola, which means that the only velocity that counts is the vertical velocity, the vertical acceleration. When you throw something up, you're exerting your own force upward, and once it peaks, its gravity is pushing it back downward. That's right. It's going to have a horizontal velocity, but that's going to be constant. So there's no force acting on it. Exactly. Unless there is no change in velocity. I guess with the column, it's pretty much straight up and down, but generally speaking, you're going to have both, right? Yeah. It's moving horizontally, but there's no force pushing it. There's no change in I'm sorry. There's no change in acceleration. It's constant. Exactly. Okay. And then, of course, the mass of your props also count. Yeah. Which is why, if you've ever seen the old trick where someone's doing a bowling ball with a tennis ball with a club, it's super impressive because it's much, much easier to juggle things with the same mass. Yeah. Because you're just making the same motion over and over again. When you are juggling things with three different maths, meaning they have three different amounts of inertia, or they require more different amounts of force to overcome inertia, then yes. Like you said, that's kind of impressive. It just requires that much more mental acuity. That's right. Is that all the physics? Yeah, that's all the physics. Now we get into the math. I know. This actually kind of interested me a little bit, despite the fact that it is math, and I'm well known to not love it, but there was a mathematician named Claude Shannon who proposed a juggling theorem that basically describes a relationship of just of a juggle. Right. I keep saying juggle. Is that a thing? Yeah. Did I make it up? No, I think it's a thing. I think it's called something else, though. A juggle? Yeah, a flash. A flash. There you go. That's a round of juggling, one single round where all three or all five or all seven of your balls have been tossed once at least. But to the layman, it's called a juggle. Right. So everyone knows what I mean. And this is in parentheses, f plus D. And then that would be times H, right? Yeah. Outside the parentheses equals V plus D in parentheses times N, when F is the time the ball is in the air, d is the time of the ball in the hand, h is the number of hands, v is time that the hand is empty, and N is the number of balls being juggled. So basically what he's saying is if you add together the amount of time the ball spends in the air plus the amount of time it spends in the hand right? Yes. Which is the full amount of time that that ball exists during a flash multiply that times your hands, the number of hands that's going to equal the time your hand is empty, plus the time the ball spins in a hand times the number of balls being juggled. I saw no reason for this equation whatsoever. At first, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. And then I spell it out to myself, and it's like, the amount of time the ball is out of the hand plus the amount of time the ball is in the hand times the number of balls. What? Yes. I didn't understand what the point of it was. So, Claude Shannon, please get in touch with us. Well, that's why he did it, so people would write stuff about it. Well, the thing is, I guess the problem is it says Shannon built a juggling robot. So I guess this formula allows robotics to happen. Yeah. And I saw the juggling robots, different robots that toss things and catch things. Right. It's kind of cool. Okay. Yeah. So if that's the point of the Shannon Theorem is that what that's called? Sure. The Claude's Law, then I understand it and I take it back. What if there's some Claude's Law that's something awful that we don't know about? I hope that's the case. And then there is site swapping, which is another math application. It's sort of like a musical, akin to a musical score to a musician as a form of notation describing the juggling pattern. It is what jugglers use to basically, if you were going to write out your juggling pattern and send it to your buddy, right. You wouldn't say, take your right hand and blah, blah, blah. You'd use numbers to represent it, which this actually does make sense. Yeah, this made a little more sense to me, for sure. Yeah. So, like, a normal three ball cascade is three, three, three. Each throw takes three beats. A zero is a rest on an empty hand, and a one is hand off from one to the other. And you can actually, if you add them all together and take the average, you can tell how many balls are in that pattern. Right. So in a three three three, you add those together, that's nine divided by three, because there's three different numerals, and you've got three. Or 45141 is also three. Right. Math. That sounds pretty difficult. The 45141, you think? Yeah, the three three three makes intuitive sense to me. But 45141, that's tough. Oh, man. Is anyone still listening? No. Can you hear the echo? I can. If you look at a juggler, you might notice that they're probably not looking at their hands like at the catching. The catching is sort of automatic. They're kind of looking sort of up at the arc, and they have done experiments to see where your eyes go. Aam van Santford Peter jbeck did some experiments that actually found that while the peak is important, if you see the first 100 milliseconds of the flight path, then you can juggle successfully. Yes. Which is pretty impressive. They found that jugglers are relying more on feel sure. Than vision. That's why you can juggle blindfolded. If you're really good, supposedly, some people can. I've seen it. Oh, yeah. I bet Brandon Ross can. I could see that dude is talented. So, Chuck, we could probably keep talking about juggling for the next five years because there's a lot to it. Yeah, man. This is just a primer. Hopefully, you guys are inspired, or at least we're inspired in the first, maybe 20 minutes, the good part of this episode, to go out and learn to juggle. I know I was. Yes. And while we hate ourselves, we don't hate ourselves that much. We're going to end this one. Yeah. So we think that you should learn about juggling, and you can start by typing that word into the search bar@howstofworks.com. And so I said, search bar. It's time for listener mail. This is a really touching story, oddly enough, from Jennifer Grace. She's an actor in New York City who played a very long run of Our Town on stage and had to go there without her husband at first because they were in Chicago and stuff. You should know. It turned out to be the thing that linked them together before he finally moved to New York to join her. They've been together for 13 years now, and they had their son Emmett last fall. And a month before Emmett turned one tom, her husband, was admitted to the hospital and has been there ever since. He has a very rare issue with his bone marrow that they finally diagnosed as aplastic anemia. So basically, he has no immune system, which means he can't risk getting sick, which means their son can't even visit him, which is just unbelievably sad. She can visit wearing a mask and gloves and gown, but they can't even touch each other, the husband and wife. And this came on suddenly, too, right? Yeah. She said it's pretty much the worst thing ever. They spend a lot of time even diagnosing this thing before they get in. I know. It's just so terrible and they're just really great people. She said it looks like we will be going forward, though, with a bone marrow transplant because he has a brother who is a match and he does have a good chance of recovering with a good brother with this bone marrow transplant and a round of chemo followed by this transplant in the new year. She says there's not a lot that I can give him by way of a Christmas present this year, given the circumstances, but I'm hoping that perhaps you would give him a shout out on an episode. It's been a very special shared experience for us. It'd really brighten his day. So Tom, dude, they also sent me a video of them playing a song together in the kitchen doing Springsteen song and it was just like, they're the cutest couple ever and they're really great. And I'm going to plug their Go fund me site because they didn't even ask me to. That's why I'm plugging it. It is GoFundMe. Comf, 75, nine ZG. And that will help out, offset their hospital bills a little bit. And they're just really nice folks. And so Tom gets better soon. Man, I hope that operation goes great. Yeah, Tom, here's to you, buddy. And keep us posted, you guys. Yeah, please do, Jennifer. That would be great. And we should totally post that GoFundMe stuff, too, on social. Yeah, we'll do that. Well, if you have a great story about how Chuck and I brought you together with your so or helped you through a rough time or did anything good, we want to hear about it. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffyshow and you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@households.com. As always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyshow.com. Stuffyhhtnow is a production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Summer School's out. The sun is shining, the daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. Find Halo Elevate at petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores."
https://podcasts.howstuf…tal-insomnia.mp3	Is there a disease that kills by preventing sleep?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/is-there-a-disease-that-kills-by-preventing-sleep	The strange disease of fatal familial insomnia was first recorded in the 18th century. Its victims lose their ability to sleep, slip into coma and die. The more we understand about FFI, the more mysterious it becomes.	The strange disease of fatal familial insomnia was first recorded in the 18th century. Its victims lose their ability to sleep, slip into coma and die. The more we understand about FFI, the more mysterious it becomes.	Tue, 28 Oct 2014 13:10:36 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=13, tm_min=10, tm_sec=36, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=301, tm_isdst=0)	32316706	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, my Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilguera and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Drought w Chuck Bryant and Jerry. And this is not a day for podcast. I feel like I sound like one of the public radio gals from early 2000s Saturday Live. Oh, yeah. Remember the sweaty balls? It's a classic bed. Yeah, good times, right? Them. Yeah. I was fainting. Like I was yawning as if I had been up all night with insomnia. I thought it was because of the weather outside. Yeah, just a little play acting I got you to get us going. You know, it's weird. I got a little tired just studying this. Yeah, it's crazy how suggestive how stuff works articles are. Well, yes, not in that way. No, not in that way. I mean, like suggestive, right. But not in that way. Jerry did not get any sleep last night. We were talking about it before he recorded. She got like a couple of hours, like one of those deals where you wake up and then you just stay awake for hours and hours. And I told her, I said, you may have been sleeping during some of that time because sometimes you'll be distressed about not sleeping and you'd be like, man, I'm just awake. And then you wake up and you're like, was I just dreaming about being stressed about being awake? Yeah. Well, what's the answer, Jerry? She's tired, huh? I'm going to answer for her. I think you should. But yeah. I don't typically get insomnia, but sometimes I can psych myself out a little bit mentally with a bout of it. And that's when I'm laying there going like, oh, man, not this. Oh, yeah. Once you start thinking about it, it is over. So that is what one might call typical standard insomnia. Yeah, that's not what this is about now. No, what we're talking about is a very rare genetic disorder. Well, it's not even genetic disorder. It's a neurodegenerative disorder, I guess is what you call it. Yeah, it's called fatal familial insomnia. Fatal. That should tell you all you need to know this is insomnia that will kill you. Yeah, exactly. Like without no, it's an orbits. You will die. And like I said, it's very, very rare. Chuck they think that possibly 100 people since they started analyzing this or noticed it, I think in the 18th century, probably have died from fatal familial insomnia. So it's a very rare disease. But it's also you'll notice familial. It's very frequently passed down along family lines, almost always. So they think top 40 families are touched by it. Yeah. And I already misspoke which will correct later, but I said it's insomnia that will kill you. And that's not really the case. The insomnia is just a symptom of a larger problem in your body that will kill you. Yes. But the insomnia does not help. Sure. It makes everything worse. So the history of this is a little murky, but they have traced it back to one of two people. One is a guy who they just referred to as Patient Zero, who possibly died in 1765 in Venice. Venice, Italy. That is right. Yes. And the other one is a guy who died in 1836, probably of fatal familial insomnia, also in Venice, Italy. What's going on over there? Well, there's probably maybe some painted pasta sauce. Who knows what happened? But the whole thing, there are different ways that it could get started. But whoever the Patient Zero was, it's been passed down along their family lines. Those two families especially have did not farewell right over the years. It's very sad. Well, the disease is extremely sad. Yeah. And like I said, you're not dying just because you can't sleep night after night. That is just a symptom. But what we're talking about in a larger sense is something called a prion disease. These are super rare and characteristics of a few things that they call it a spongeiform disease, which means you're going to get tiny little holes in your brain. You get a sponge, sponge brain, and there is neural loss. And one of the weird things is a failure to induce inflammatory response. Yeah. Which I guess is that's the body first saying, hey, something's wrong here. I'm going to puff up. Whether it's an ankle sprain or like a disease that will make something inflamed that's a sign of your body trying to fight something else. There's actually a lot of controversy about prion diseases because it doesn't make any sense. It's an infectious agent. Right. But it's really just a misfolded protein. And it's really bizarre because with any other kind of infection, you have a viral infection, a bacterial infection, and a prion infection. Viral infections and bacterial infections have DNA or RNA. A protein, again, is just a misfolded protein. So it shouldn't be able to infect anything, but it does. So it's this crazy medical mystery that they're still trying to get to the bottom of. But as they do diseases like fatal familial insomnia or Cricksfield jacob's disease, which is like human mag cow disease. It's a sponge form disease. Sponge brain. Yeah. It happens with animals and humans. I think that's pretty important. Yeah. So in many ways, it makes a lot of sense that you would be able to pass down this problematic it's an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease. Fatal Familial Insomnia it makes sense that it would pass down along familiar lines, because there is a gene that under normal circumstances, expresses a protein, the PrPC protein, which is a normal protein. We don't know what it does, but we do know that it probably either has to do with copper ion transport into the cell, it prevents cellular death until the time is right, or it helps create the sheets around your nerve ending so you're not in constant pain. Yeah. They think it's one of those. Right. Yeah. But because it's the brain, there's still some mystery. And I don't even think it was like the mid 1980s when they finally named this. Right. Yeah. So it's pretty new on the scene as far as because it's so rare. Right. But not even just. Fatal Familial Insomnia it wasn't until 2005 that these researchers at the University of Texas in Austin basically irrefutably proved that prions misfolded proteins are an infectious agent. Even though we have no idea how this is happening, it's true there are three ways of getting an infection, and a misfolded protein is one of them. Yeah. Like you said, they can occur in three ways. One is acquired, and that means you have an infection. Well, in the case of Kuru, I guess we should talk about K-U-R-U. Yeah. That is when you get an infection because you ate someone's brain. Yes. I think we talked about that in the cannibalism episode, don't you? It seemed familiar in Papua New Guinea in the 50s, like, I guess a local, I think, British governor or agent started noting that there is this thing that the four A people who practiced funeral cannibalism that included the eatings of the diseased brain would come down with the disease that they called kuru, which meant, like, trembling in fear. Right. Yeah. And they started investigating it a little more. And that's when we started to get the idea that there was such a thing as prion disease, that you could catch a prion disease from eating brain. Yeah. And it would render them they couldn't eventually walk or talk or eat. They would just lose all their motor function, basically, and waste away and die because they can't swallow or chew or anything. Exactly. So that's when we first started really noticing in humans this whole idea of sponge brain problems. Yeah. And that's the acquired version. Right. There's also one called sporadic, which basically you just all of a sudden develop fatal Familial Insomnia yeah. And they don't know where it comes from or how it's caused. No. But doesn't the fact that there are those two different ways. And I know there's a third one, but don't they make you very suspicious of what the heck was going on in Venice in the late 18th century? Totally. Because both of those original patient zeros were unrelated, right? Yeah. Because one was 1765, one was 1836. But even still, if they were in the same family, they'd be like, well, these guys are in the same family. So probably one from earlier. From what I've read, they're not in the same family. They just happened to live in the same town. I think that is correct. So I wonder if people were eating some weird stuff there and maybe one of them sporadically developed fatal familial insomnia. That's nutty. So there's a third way, too, right? Yeah. Inherited, which is as far as fatal familial insania, it's almost always inherited from your family's genetics. Almost always, yeah. But not all prion diseases are, which is, by the way, is derived from the words protein and infection. Yeah. There was a guy in 1982 who coined the term and ended up winning the Nobel Prize in, I think, 1997 because of his early study. His name was Stanley Prusner. He won the Nobel in 97, and even after he won the Nobel, people were like, what you're talking about is impossible. There's no way a protein can infect other proteins. Right, but that's exactly what happens. So, like I said, there's a normal protein, the PrPC protein, right? Yeah. And then there's the sponge form version of it, the PRP SCC. And that's after it's been folded. Yes, that's the folded, basically mutated version. Right. So the whole thing comes down to what's called a polymorphism on a codon, which is a sequence of nucleotides amino acids on your DNA, right. On a gene. And the specific code on these, say, three nucleotides, say, you guys mean that we're going to code this protein, and under normal circumstances, on this gene, the PrPC protein is coded. But if you have a different nucleotide combination, you start coding the PrPSc that's right. Protein. And that's the misfolded one normal enough, right? Okay. Yes. We can code abnormally folding proteins. It's what cancer is and all that stuff. The thing is, once the patient starts folding these proteins abnormally, those proteins go in and somehow infect the already properly folded proteins that were expressed in the brain elsewhere before yeah. They bind to them and they don't know how or why. Isn't that bizarre? Yeah, it's totally bizarre. And once that happens, you're in big trouble. You are in big trouble. And we'll get into some of the symptoms and stages right after this message breaks. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions, faster, operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feel like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM. Let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah. Don't just take our word for it. Head to squarespace. Comsysk and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code SYSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace. Comssksksquarespace. All right, so we are back with some symptoms and stages. And this is in general for all prion diseases. They're going to share some symptoms, like a handful of them. Fatigue is one cognitive decline, like, you're going to lose some memory. You might develop dementia, rigidity with, like, movement and walking hallucinations, but they don't all have the same symptoms. You might get some of these and not get others. Right. The hallmark of fatal familial insomnia is, appropriately enough, insomnia. Yeah. And that's like one of the really sad thing is once you start to notice that you're already although they can't cure it anyway. No, but sometimes it's nice to know these things early on, but once you start noticing insomnia, it's pretty far along. Yeah. And most people don't know that they have it early on because the mean age of onset is 50 years old. Yeah. And it's kind of all over the place. Like, they have seen cases as early as 19. They've seen them come on as late as 72. You're doing pretty good, but for the most part, it strikes you around late, late 40s, early fifty s. And once it happens, you've got between one to maybe three years of basically a living hell before you die of this. Yeah. There's generally four stages of FFI, the first of which is going to start with the insomnia. And over about four months, it's going to get worse and worse. But like I said, some people only notice it later on after other symptoms become known. Right. You might start to have, like, panic attacks, phobias, paranoia. When you do manage to sleep, you supposedly have, like, super vivid dreams, which is interesting, but for the most part, you're having bouts of insomnia. Big time. Yeah. Stage two, it gets even worse. This stage lasts about five months on average, typically, which is to say it has in less than 100 people in the history of Earth. Sure. But you enter the stage called sympathetic hyperactivity, which is where you're just keyed up all the time. Do you remember we've talked about insomnia and sleep deprivation and a couple of podcasts before and how just totally unhealthy it is? One of the reasons it is so unhealthy is because your body enters a state of constant stress reaction. And that's what sympathetic hyperactivity is. It's like your breathing is elevated, your heartbeat is elevated, your core body temperature is elevated. You're just tuned up all the time and you're not getting the sleep to knock yourself out of that state and to regroup and regenerate and rest. Yeah. And at this stage, you're going to have some memory loss, short term memory loss, mood changes, a lot of anxiety and depression, and you're going to start to have some motor issues as well, like the way you move and the way you walk. Right. So things are starting to get pretty bad at this point. Yeah. And you're probably pretty freaked out, especially if this doesn't run in your family and you either acquired it or it's a sporadic case. Oh, yeah. And you're not going to a doctor and they're going, hey, this sounds like FFI to me because I've never heard of it in my life. Exactly. Well, that's not true. Doctors have heard of this, but you know what I mean? Like, two of them have. Yeah. It's not the first go to. I think when you say, I've been having trouble sleeping and I'm agitated. Right. They're probably going to ask what kind of drugs you've been doing. Yeah, just lay off the pot, you'll be fine. Well, that should make you sleep, though, right? I don't know. I guess it probably depends on what type of pot. I would think it's more like lay off the speed. Oh, yeah. I probably should have gone there. All right, so the third stage is pretty short. It's about three months long. And that's when you're really delving into hardcore insomnia. What's that in stage one and stage two, appropriately enough, you're sleeping, but you're only entering stage one and stage two of sleep. Right. Which is stage one is considered where you're just very relaxed. Stage two is where you're starting to sleep, but you can be woken up very easily, like Jerry. Yeah. And you're not going beyond that. You're not going into stage three or stage five, which is REM sleep. They combine stage three and stage four, apparently, but you're not getting to sleep. So by the third stage of fatal familial insomnia, you're not even going to one or two. Right. You're just not sleeping at all. And it's been like this for 910 months already, so you're just basically losing it at this point. Yeah. And that will deliver you to the end stage. Stage four. It's called end stage, where you're headed. There serious decline in dementia, in brain activity. Maybe you've got about six months at that point. But you're going to lose the ability to speak and move. Yeah. That's called a kinetic mutation, and basically fall into a coma and death. So with akinetic mutation, you actually have the ability to move and speak, but you lack the basic will to do so. Apparently, like, patients who've come out of this have reported that, well, not necessarily FFI, because it's always fatal in 100% of cases, but people who have had a kinetic mutation for other reasons have said, I knew I could, but in any time I got the will up to move, there was something else just counteracting that that was stronger, and I just couldn't move and couldn't talk. Jeez yeah. And then, like you said, you go from that into a coma. Right. And then death. Yes. And all prion diseases are fatal at this point and uncurable, correct? I guess so, yeah, as far as I know. So, Chuck, what's going on in the brain here? Well, basically, your central nervous system is starting to break down. The anterior ventral and meteor dorsal thalamic neurons. So those are neurons in your thalamus that basically manage your motor functions. They start to die out. And instead of being replaced, like your body likes to do, when cells die out with healthy ones, they don't your glial cells, which when we talk about glial cells, we've talked about them a few times. Yeah. We've some brainwave before. They're basically the cleaning service for your central nervous system, and they help out with communication there. They start to die and form scar tissue in the thalamus. And once that happens, it's called gliosis. You just got scar tissue instead of healthy cells. Right, exactly. Pretty rapid decline from there. It kills the communication between cells. Right, yeah. So with fatal familial insomnia, what you've just described is the result of any spongiform prion disease, right? Yeah. Which, again, we're just tiny little holes in your brain. Right. So it seems like the distinction between the different sponge of form diseases is what part of the brain, specifically, they attack fatal familial insomnia. They attack the thalamus, specifically the hypothalamus, and specifically the parts of the hypothalamus that help regulate sleep. And there's this part of your hypothalamus that it creates what you could call an anti waking system, to where not only are the neurons shut off in one respect, in another, a bunch of neurons that are off while you're asleep are on and just keeping you asleep. So when you're waking, normally those neurons are off, and when you're sleeping, they're on. The problem is, if you have fatal familial insomnia, the prions have eaten away at the system. And now all of a sudden, that anti waking system that keeps you asleep when you're asleep, allows you to go to sleep. The transition from one stage of sleep to a deeper stage of sleep is no longer active any longer. And so the only thing that is active is your wakefulness. And it is on all the time. So you know you're dying. And it's got to be some sort of madness from not being able to sleep. It just exacerbates everything. Yeah. It's just one of the symptoms. It is, and it is a symptom, but it's also directly related to the mechanism of this disease. Yeah. And it's got to speed up the process because your body is not getting the rest it needs exactly. On top of everything else. That's the easiest part of the whole thing is not only is your body not getting the rest it needs, it's on all the time. So it's kind of like a doubly hardcore as far as diseases go. So, like we said, diagnosing it is tough because it's so rare. B, the symptoms are they're always patient reported. So, like I said, doctors not going to look at this. First thing, you're going to go in with your family history and maybe get some blood tests done, an eye exam, a spinal tap. You might get an MRI or a Pet scan or Pet scan. Pet scan. You've never believed in Pet scan or an EEG, which measures electrical activity in your brain, but it's really tough to diagnose. Well, yes. And none of that is going to work until you've already entered that stage, like you've already entered the first stage, at least, because those tests show, oh, yeah, you have insomnia. And then once they establish yeah, you have insomnia, then they have to further establish that it's fatal familial insomnia. Yeah. And by this time, also, Chuck, it's say about 50 you're about 50 years old. You probably already had kids. And so now once you find out you have fatal familial insomnia, you're also terrified that you've passed it on to your children. Yes. You get about a 50 50 chance. Yes. And since it's an autosomal dominant trait or disease condition, all you need is one parent with it to pass it on to you. Yeah. It's so sad. It's like, basically, what am I dying of? Because you can't fix me. And are my kids going to die of this as well? Right. And then their kids very horrible disease. All right, we're going to get into, I guess, finish up with a little information on a few more of these prion diseases right after this break. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalancho demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lined jackets? You called IBM to automate your it infrastructure with AI. Now, your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours, takes minutes, and you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that rule of their own sleeves. IBM. Let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. It automation. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no mus and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look in Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah, don't just take our word for it. Head to squarespace. Comssk and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code s YSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain that's Squarespace.com. SYSK squarespace. All right, before we get onto the other prion diseases, we do need to talk about treatment. Like we've said, over and over, sadly, there is no curative treatment, but there is palliative care, which basically means we're going to try and help you out as much as we can to be comfortable as you die. And weirdly, one of the things that they are looking into and trying is giving patients GHB, the club drug that you hear about to help people sleep. And they're actually prescribing that in certain cases. Yeah, it apparently gives them quick, small, short bouts of sleep, but I'm sure incredibly wonderful sleep nonetheless. Yeah, it might decrease your heart rate and body temperature a little bit, too, but at that point when you're taking GHB to get 20 minutes of sleep, you've got a pretty sad end coming exactly. Very soon. Yeah, it's very sad. The other great hope is gene therapy, where basically they delete the gene that's responsible for making this protein misfold and insert the correct version of it. That's got to be the future of these cures, don't you think? Yeah, it's going to be the future of a lot of cures when we can just rewrite the code of our genes to make it expressed properly. But until then, there's going to be some problems for people with sponge form diseases because there's nothing you can do. Yeah. Including with fatal familial insomnia, you can give somebody GHP. That's about it. Should we go over a few more of these? Yeah, they're all equally devastating. I think you did mention CJ. D, Kroitzfeld, Jacob or Yacup disease. Nice. Is it Yakup, maybe? Sure. Anytime I see J-A-K-O-B-I think of the German pronunciation. Yeah, it's probably right. This one is the most prevalent and it is a spontaneous occurrence, which is really creepy. Well, you can get it, too, from eating it. Oh, is that? I think 10% is spontaneous, and the rest you get from eating it's acquired? Oh, no, it's just 10% are inherited. Okay. So that's the one, if I'm not mistaken, that was directly related to the outbreak of mad cow. That's like human mad cow disease. Okay. Remember back in the 90s with the mad cow outbreak? Oh, yeah. Well, that all came from feeding a bunch of cattle, a lot of ground up beef that included cattle brains that had prion diseases in it. And so the cattle got mad cow disease, and from eating that cattle, we got croutzfeld. Yacob. Okay, so that's the human version. Yes. And that kind of points out a huge problem with prions, since they're not biological not living in the sense that we consider an infective agent, typically like a bacteria or a virus. Right. There's no genetic information to destroy, like using heat or bleach or whatever. It can't be killed, as I saw it put somewhere else. It's the perfect pathogen. Yes. That's a mouthful. It is. But it's also horribly scary. It is. Another sponge of form disease is scrapey. That just sounds good, man. Yeah, that is just in goats and sheep, though, so humans don't need to worry about it. And it is also genetic, and they have no evidence right now that humans can get it. No, we've got enough to worry about. We talked about mad cow. That is officially called bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Nice. Is that right? I think so, yeah. Deer and elk might get chronic wasting disease in the Western US. If you see a deer that is really skinny and drooling and can't swallow, they may have chronic wasting disease. I've seen that humans can have that as well. I don't know if it's the same version. No, it doesn't seem like it, because I think it's in patients that have died from AIDS, they'll often waste away, and no amount of nutrients will keep them from just losing weight until they basically just die from wasting away. But I don't think it's related to a brain disease. And then Chuck also going back to CJD, which is what we call it now, officially forever. There was an outbreak of it in the these French doctors were using it in a growth hormone that they were giving as injections to kids who had stunted growth, and they were getting them from pituitary glands harvested from humans and sold along the black market. So basically a bunch of dead people in Bulgaria had their pituitary glands removed and sold the doctors in France who were using them. That's crazy. Yeah. And these growth things are these growth hormone shots that they were giving kids, and like, 60 or 80 kids died. What year was this? The 90s. Wow. Yeah. The 1990s. It sounds like 1790s. So it's very weird because we go from not even. Recognizing diseases like fatal familial insomnia as a disease until the 80s, having an outbreak of mad cow disease, having an outbreak of CJD, all within a couple of decades. And all the while, people are saying, like, no, prions can't exist. What you're saying is it can't be possible. And a lot of people tried to disprove prions by saying, okay, there are different types of scrapey, and say, one has a different incubation period. In this other one, you'll get this symptom, but you won't. Like, the sheep will talk, will speak Russian, but in this other form of creepy, they speak Swedish, and they're saying, like, this proves that these prions have some sort of virus associated with them that we're just missing. Right. Another group or another argument against prions was, well, Alzheimer's disease is technically a sponge form disease. It's misfolded proteins, creating plaque build up scar tissue in the brain that leads to all these same symptoms as, say, CJD. Right. It's not infectious. What's going on here? So they said that there is one way to prove this, and that is to create a prion in a test tube completely from whole cloth and put it in someone's brain and put it in a healthy brain. That's exactly what they did in 2005 at the University of Texas. And it infected the other proteins. That's right. So prions are this weird thing that we didn't know that is now infectious. It was even possible. Yeah. And we're finally wrapping our heads around it, are spongy, whole filled heads. I think this has got to be not this particular, but this has got to be what's going to wipe out the human race one day. I don't know. Ebola is making a pretty good case for itself lately. No, that's what I'm saying. Just some disease. Yes. I don't think we're going to blow ourselves up with or, like, run out of food or blow ourselves up with nuclear bombs. I think it's just going to be another, like, weird plague or something that we don't understand yeah. Due to our close association with livestock. And it's not anytime soon. I don't know. Yeah. You worried. Not worried. I'm just more realistic. Do you have your safe room you're building on the side of a mountain? No, that would indicate that I was worried. Okay. I'm building mine. You got anything? Can I come over? Sure. Good. You got anything else? No. Okay. Well, that's fatal familial insomnia and prions. If you want to learn more about those things, you can type those words into the search bar@housetofworks.com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. We call this Canadian email from a Canadian kid from Canadia. From Canadian. Hi, guys. My name is Ben Max. I'm a 17 year old Canadian. A he said that. I didn't add that. That makes me think he's probably not Canadian. Well, he was in jest, I think. I've been working my way through the backlog of episodes. And I recently listened to the episode on serial killers and that you spoke of a man who killed by feeding his victims to pigs. Pikpen. Robert Pickton. Is that his name? Yeah. Do you remember that? Because it sounds like big pen. No, he's a pretty famous serial killer from Vancouver. Okay. This reminded me of a true story for my dad's childhood on a farm in Holland, Michigan. While he was growing up, he was often given the job of feeding pigs, a job he despised much of the stem back to a horrible accident that happened to a nearby farmer. When this particular farmer was out in his barn feeding pigs, he had a heart attack and collapsed among them. When his family found him a few hours later, all that remained of his body were the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. Yeah, pigs hate those parts. This experience understandably instilled fear into my dad for many years to come. And to be honest, I don't blame him. Anyway, thanks for you guys. Thanks for all you do. A shout out would make my day, maybe even my year. So, Ben Mask. Shout out. Shout out. Thanks for the email. Nice. Thanks a lot. Ben, you haven't heard much about Robert Pickton. I don't think so. He was operating in, like, the 1990s, I think, and he was just, like, having prostitutes over, and then he'd murder them and do horrible stuff like them and stuff like that. And he was supplying the public because he had a pig farm, he was supplying the public with pork, and they think that he ground up people in it, too. Pork ate that and then people ate the pork? No, he ground up people and mixed it together with ground pork and then sold that as ground pork. Oh, wow. It was even worse. This is in the 1990s. He was a bad man. Where was he? Vancouver. Jeez. I know. I thought, those people are nice. Not robert picked him, man. Terrific. So if you like Ben Mass shout out, want to get in touch with Chuck or me, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyoushouldnow, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housestofworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffuthenew.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetopworks.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. 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https://podcasts.howstuf…eincarnation.mp3	How Reincarnation Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-reincarnation-works	A large percentage of the world's population believes that you will be reborn after you die. So why does the concept of reincarnation seem so paranormal to Westerners? Join Chuck and Josh as they explore the ins and outs of birth, death and birth again.	A large percentage of the world's population believes that you will be reborn after you die. So why does the concept of reincarnation seem so paranormal to Westerners? Join Chuck and Josh as they explore the ins and outs of birth, death and birth again.	Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:31:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=15, tm_min=31, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=194, tm_isdst=0)	34689015	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworkscom? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, as far as I know. His first incident incarnation as a podcaster, at least, right? Possibly before you were a dolphin. I know. It was a podcaster in the Ming Dynasty. Little known fact. Really? When was the Ming Dynasty? It was when the first podcast was created by me. You know who created the first podcast, don't you? That guy from MTV. Yes. Adam Curry. Yes. Isn't that crazy? Is he still around pioneering our field? Yeah, we should jump them and beat them up. Give them the old pillowcase treatment. No, we should salute them. Hats off. Oh, yeah, that too. By the way, Chuck, did you notice in itunes that you and I are in a special room where we are basically referred to as Pioneers podcast turns five. Yeah. Awkwardness. So Adam Curry started, what, five years ago? 20 years after Ghostbusters. Very nice. No, 21 years. That work. Let's get to it. Showing. Yes. Have you heard of a kid named James Leninger? No. So, let's see, he's eleven now, I guess, and he lives in the United States. I don't know what state. I'm sure we could find out. One of the 50. Yes. And he, around the age of two, started having these crazy nightmares, and he always had an affinity for airplanes. But around the age of two, things turned a little bit dark and he started waking up screaming things like, fire. Plane on fire, or something like that. Is that the kids sitting next to you when you flew to New York? No, that kid, he was just a punk. This kid was traumatized, as you could say. He knew a lot about planes. His parents started noticing that he would do kind of pre flight checks when he was playing with his airplanes. He could point to parts. His mom thought a fuel tank called the drop tank was a bomb attached to the Bella of a toy plane. And he's like, no, it's a drop tank. And he was just a little kid at the time. Right. Wow. And after a while, the things he was talking about starting to get a lot more specific, Chuck. He talked about going down in a corsair that he used to fly. I see where this is headed. He talked about how the corsair he flew, his tires would always go flat, which is kind of a little known fact, unless you're a World War II pilot or worked on a flight deck. Sure. And then he finally said that he went down near Iwo Jima in a plane and that his plane had gone down from taking a direct hit in the engine. And by this time, this kid is like five. Right. He said that he had been flying off of the Natoma. Right. So his father started to get a little bit obsessed with this and started researching the Natoa and found that there was a Natoma bay, an aircraft carrier that was off the coast of Iweojima during the rate on Iwojima in March of 1945. And there was indeed a guy whose name was James M. Houston, Jr. And he was the only one to die in this raid on Iwo Jima from hitting the engine. Direct hit in the engine, went down in his course air. Is that a movie yet? Not yet. It should be. So the kids getting older, his memories are fading. This was 2005, the article, and his memories were already fading. Apparently, they hit their pinnacle at about three to five, something like that. Crazy. And a lot of researchers are saying the parents have diluted themselves, they've diluted him. They've really kind of encouraged this, and they're seeing things that aren't there. But obviously, his parents think that this kid is the reincarnation of this other guy named James, the one who went down in 1945, and his corsair. Right. Sounds plausible to me. There's a lot of people out there that would say that it doesn't sound plausible, especially people in the Western world. But you go a little further east, a little past the Greenwich date line, right. And you will find a billion and a half, 2 billion people who believe in reincarnation. Right? Yeah. Well, wait, is that a billion and a half? That's just Hindus and Buddhist, right, or is that everybody? No, there's like a billion people in China alone. Right? Yeah. But I don't know that all of them are Buddhists. Yeah, but many more people believe in reincarnation than the Hindus and Buddhists. So you will ever you cross the international date line, go a little further east, you're going to find billions of people, billions of people starting in Central Asia and moving eastward. And US. Stodgy Westerners are always the ones going, yeah, I don't know about that folksy remedy, or I don't know about that coming back as someone else. Well, one of the reasons why is because we view time in a linear motion. There's no going back. There's no coming back to do it again and again. There's no rebirth. Most of the religions over here are monotheistic. Sure. You got a heaven after you die, your life on Earth is to sort of gain entry into heaven or hell. And on the other side of the world, among cultures that believe in reincarnation, time is generally viewed as cyclical. Right. Which makes for coming back again and again as a lot more plausible. Right? Yeah. I did find a thing about Christianity, though. There are some people who think that reincarnation may have been an early tenant of Christianity, but it was misinterpreted and or just flat out kind of lost over the years. Yeah. Are you talking about the catheters? Well, none of it can be proven, obviously. And then parts of Judaism, the Kabbalah and Hasidic Jews, believe in reincarnation. Yeah, let's talk about that first. Let's talk about Asian views of reincarnation. All right. Okay. There's a lot of really interesting similarities across cultures as far as reincarnation goes. Well, the oldest active religion right now is Hinduism. Right. Oldest surviving religion. Right. I think you could make a case that Zoroastrianism is older, but I don't know that you could say that that's actually surviving. Yes. At the very least, it's not thriving like Hinduism. Right. So, Chuck, how long has reincarnation been around? It hasn't been around forever. Like, people would think it's fairly new. Right. Fifth and 7th century BCE. BCE. Sure. We get yelled at every time we use it, don't we? Yeah, sometimes. Okay. And they were in the upon a shots, right. Which were these ancient Hindu texts where reincarnation is first really spelled out. Right. Right. And they don't think that it was around prior to this, because there's a lot of evidence that in, like, burials, that people believe that this individual person went on to another life. So they would bury, like, their hunting materials, or the Aryan societies would burn the wife alive when they cremated the husband, so they were together in the next life. Right. So then reincarnation first pops up around the fifth or 7th century or the 7th of fifth century BC. Right? Yes. So what are we talking about when it comes to Hinduism? What's the basis of reincarnation? Well, I mean, in its original Latin translation, it means entering the flesh again, so that pretty much speaks for itself, I think. And Hinduism, it's all about the acceptance of Samsara, which that literally means wandering on. And from what I gathered, it's more of an answer to what are we doing? Like, the eternal question is what are we doing? No way. Not where are we? A lot of people think it's, like, where you are at your station, but it's really, what are you doing? Right. And so basically, it's sort of the same in Buddhism. We'll get into that, but it's not a continual cycle for all of eternity. There is a goal that you eventually want to break the cycle and reach an end point. And in Hinduism, it's called moksha. Is that right? Yeah, that's how I took it. Yeah. And that's salvation, right? Yes. It means release, literally. Release. So to be released from your cycle, is that how I took it. So with Hinduism, you achieve Moksha through karma. Right. And karma is very misused as socialism these days, I think, at least here in the west. Right. Karma is basically this impersonal law, where if you carry out good actions, you become good. If you carry out evil actions, you become evil. Right, right. So according to how you live your life is the kind of karma you accrue, and this karma accumulates from life to life, and ultimately, when I guess, enough of the good karma is accrued, if you will. Sure. And I don't think it's as black and white, as good or bad karma, necessarily. But once you accrue this type of favorable karma, you're ultimately loosened from your human form, and you're not going to be reborn again. You're going to go join the Brahman. Right? Yes. That is the absolute God of the Hindus. Right. The big cheese. You become one with it, I guess, a part of it. But karma is not controlled by that God. It's not controlled by any god, no. Right. It's just like universal law, like thermodynamics or something like that. Yeah. It's not like God says, you've earned this, or you haven't earned that. Right. He's just like he's like a dealer in Vegas. Like, I got nothing to do with this, buddy. This is all about it's the second time we've done. That called clearing your hands, clearing your hand, right. Or tapping out Chuck. I find that really interesting and kind of uplifting that there is this God, this almighty, powerful God in the Hindu religion, and then there's, of course, like, tons of other gods. Right. But this all powerful God can't do anything about this cosmic law of karma. It's up to the individual's actions. I just find that endlessly appealing. Sure. That it's up to you how you live your life, whether or not you're going to achieve Mokshow or not. I just think that's super cool. Absolutely. Because your actions should reflect how you end up, and I think it creates your station in life as well. Right? Well, yeah, I guess if you accrue enough good karma, you may end up in a higher caste, in another incarnation here on Earth. Right? Sure. But then there's no heaven or hell or anything after you do hit Moksha. Right, right. It's just being a part of the Brahmin. Right, okay. Which is the Buddhist equivalent of the Hindu equivalent of the Buddhist Nirvana. Right, right. So Moksha is one of four primary Hindu goals, right? Yeah. The final. That's the final, the first one. And it's almost kind of like this transcendence, and it starts with this very basic goal of desire, or you want to have sex, or you want wealth or you want fame or something like that. Right. And then you move to wealth. Artha, which actually is comma, was the first one. Right. K-A-M-A. Right. It's like you're saying C-O-M-M-A. Right. Kama. And then artha A-R-T-H-A is wealth. And it's not like a bad thing. It's not like our concept of wealth. You want to accumulate wealth so you can take care of your family or do good for other people, that kind of thing. Sure. So that and the Western concept of wealth are not necessarily one of the same. Then you have Dharma righteousness. Right. And then after that, you achieve Moksha. And I think there's an interplay. I don't think it's necessarily graduated. There's that linear thought progression again, right. In the West, I think they're all kind of intertwined, right? I think so, too. But you led us to Buddhism, and I trampled all over that. Segue so let's go back to it, buddy. I believe that we said that Moksha would be the Hindu equivalent of the Buddhist Nirvana. Excellent. Segue chuck and Buddhism is about 2500 years old, and their concept of reincarnation is much the same as Hindu. In fact, they got it from the Hindu. So they believe in karma. They believe in good karma and bad karma. They believe in samsara and rebirth, and they also believe in the in between, which is between the afterlife after death and before birth. Right. That's actually bardo in the Tibetan tradition. Okay? Is it? You can't really call it an afterlife. Right? You call it an in between life. Yeah. And so, Chuck, this thing that exists in between life and also in life and what dies as well, buddhists consider a germ of consciousness. And I just made air quotes. Right? Right. So that starts in the womb and you live, you die, you generate karma based on how you live. But the point of life to Buddhists is suffering. Yes. Life part of the Four Noble Truths. Right. Which is suffering exists. Suffering arises from attachment to desires. Right. Suffering ceases when attachment to desires cease. And freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the eight fold path. Right. And the eight fold path was something that was created by the Buddha, Siddartha, who was born around 563 BC. Yes. And he was born into a life of opulence and wealth and privilege. And it's very easy, but he noticed fairly early on, I get the impression he was something of a prodigy, that he wasn't achieving much spiritual progression through this life of wealth. So he went off and he did what, Chuck? Well, when he was 29 years old, he left and said, I'm going to practice yogic training. And he basically abandoned all that and sat under a tree. He lived the life of a hermit. Yeah. So you know me, Chuck. You know how I feel about Buddhists going off and living in the cave by themselves and not contributing anything to humanity. Right. And this is what Sidartha tried. And did he gain enlightenment from this? No, I guess you could say he was in your camp. He didn't I'm not going to say he didn't get much out of it because I wasn't there, but he ultimately did not gain enlightenment that way. And he thought, you know what? Maybe a mix of both is a good thing, and maybe we should call that the middle way, and maybe that's the way to be. Right. And it's called the eight fold path. Right. So he achieved enlightenment, and he immediately starts telling other people about it. And he said that there's this eight fold path that is basically in the middle between excess and self deprivation. Right. Right. So what are the eight parts of the eight foot path? Well, it's broken down into three qualities. Wisdom or panna is right view and right thought. Okay. You got morality, which is right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Sure. Then you have meditation, which is right effort, right mindfulness and right contemplation. Very nice. So basically, you put all those together, you are living the right life. That's going to deliver you to nirvana, right? Yes. Which is the middle way. Right. Sounds pretty easy. I'll bet it's extremely difficult. I think so, too. Well, it's difficult because there's something called hindrances, and they actually list these out, which it's probably no surprise that one of them is lust. One of them is aversion to ill will. You have sloth and torpor, which you know who wants to be involved with torpor? Restlessness and worry and skeptical doubt. And then there are seven factors of enlightenment, which are mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, tranquillity, concentration and equanimity. Yeah, not so easy. No, I wouldn't think so. I mean, think about it. You think about avoid those and then do those, though it does sound easy. But how life is I'm sure if you zig to the left, you tag right into some sort of temptation. Or if you close yourself down to the possibility of being exposed to wealth or whatever, you're missing out on being able to help other people. There's probably a lot of pitfalls to that way of living, which is why I issue the whole thing. Yeah, well, Sid Hartha believed that he wandered in around India for like, 45 years, teaching this until he died at the age of 80. And you know what his last words were? Tell him I said something cool. He did say something cool. He said impermanent or all created things. Strive on with awareness. Party on is basically what he said. Party on. Garth. Wow. Yeah. Nice last words, huh? Yeah, they are. Have you ever wondered what yours will be? I have a feeling mine are going to be holy. My last two words? Yeah, mine will be probably. You got me, copper. Are you going to revert back to your bad boy ways just for one last and die in a shootout? Suicide by cop. It reminds me of the end of royal tana bombs when they showed the gravestone. It said he died heroically, saving his family from a sinking ship. Yeah. All right, Chuck, some of the stuff that we've been talking about may sound kind of familiar. If you live the right way, you can stop coming back to this existence that we call Earth. Right. Life on this planet. Right? Sure. It kind of bears a striking resemblance to the Judeo Christian ethic of if you live this right life, if you're good to other people, you don't hurt other people or other things, you're not a cruel person, and you don't pursue worldly objects, you're going to have a better afterlife. Right? Yeah. But Christianity, obviously, it's a permanent afterlife, right. Because reincarnation here's the thing. There's a similarity between the JudeoChristian outlook and Muslim as well, because they believe in the afterlife as well, that the soul is immortal, that there's something in us that lives on after the physical body dies. Where it differs and disagrees is specifically with reincarnation, where you come back and you inhabit somebody on this Earth again. Right. That's the difference. That's reincarnation right there. Right. It has nothing to do with the immortality of the soul. It has everything to do with the immortality of soul. But as far as comparative religion goes, the difference is you don't keep going straight, you come back because you screwed up. I took a comparative religion class in college, and here's a little secret, Josh. Don't tell anybody, but they're all kind of the same. I know. And do you want to know why? I have my theory. Let's hear it. Are we going to go there? Here's my theory. Okay. Man evolved into man from whatever, and as soon as man could think, man started questioning why they were there on Earth looking for a purpose. And that's where religion sprung up. And that's why they're all very similar. When you break down the tenets of world religions, is people fractured and split off into different areas, and they evolved differently. But at the root of it, I think it began with man walking upright and looking at the sun and saying, why sun there? Yeah. I think I subscribed to something very why River Run? Right. I think it was born, though, Chuck, out of the first time somebody witnessed someone else die and realize that that's going to happen to me one day. What happened to talk? Talk, right. If you look at religious scholars work, most of them will tell you that reincarnation was born out of watching the seasons change, especially because these were agricultural societies that started giving rise to religion like this. Right. On the whole cyclical thing. It makes sense. The Earth rotates. The seasons rotate in a cycle. Right. So that makes sense. I guess the commonality, like you said, people started to split up. Right. I don't know that it's necessarily that it happened. And then I see what you're saying, like with religion in general, but with something like, say, reincarnation of these really lead a good life and then reward after this. I think it was from cultures having an influence on one another by living near one another. Remember we did that podcast on whether the Greeks get their ideas from the Africans? Yeah. Well, this apparently is another example of that, the African mystery system, the comedic mystery system that we talked about in Egypt. One of the big guys who formed a mystery system, the big guys. Well, one of the big Colt founders, his name was Pythagoras. Remember him? The Pythagorean Theorem. So we're going to get into the mystery religions a little bit. Yeah. He spent several decades in Africa and came back, and the next thing you know, he's founding mystery colts. Orpheus, the Orphic mystery cults founder. Well, he's supposedly a mythical figure, but they also think he may be an actual historical figure. The music legend. Yeah. If he was real, part of his legend is that he went and spent 20 years in Memphis studying from the Egyptian. So you kind of get the idea that a lot of the ideas of rebirth and reincarnation went from the Hindus to the Egyptians to the Greeks. And then remember we talked about the Jefferson Bible being written or the Bible being written by the platonics. Yes. That Plato was derived from these mystery cults who believed in reincarnation. And actually, some Catholic cults, early Catholic cults, believed in reincarnation as well. Like the Catheters. Yeah. Well, Orphism sounds a lot like Heaven and Hell to me. Because he believed, or they believed that leading a correct life leads you to ayseum which is like a paradise, and if you're evil, you'll go to a hell. Right. But you can die in the afterlife as well. Yeah. It doesn't stop. That's the main difference. You have to lead three good orphic lives yeah. To get out of there. And what is leading a good orphic life, Chuck, with this horrible Orphic life? Well, no wine, no sex, no meat. Vegetarianism is good. Yeah. So yeah, those are a few of the tenants, which is strange, because this Orific cult was actually an offshoot of the Dionysan cult, and they believed quite the opposite. They would rip a goat to death, a live goat to shreds with their teeth as part of their sacrifice, their ritual sacrifice. They get drunk as they could on wine. They have sex and orgies and they eat everything. Right. Apparently, Orpheus went to Memphis and came back and said, hey, I know what you guys are trying to do, and that's a good idea, but you're doing the opposite of what you should be doing. Let's start leading this puritanical life. And that led to this kind of idea that denying yourself was a good way toward being a pure person. Right. I think you were starting to lead us down the road a minute ago about Jainism. Yeah. There's a couple of other Indian religions, and I always thought it was Sikhism, but I also saw something that said that's a common mispronunciation, and then it's like Saikism. Nice. I don't know if that's right or not. Where do you go? The extra mile check? Well, who knows? It's on the Internet. Might not be true, but Giantism, they think that your soul accumulates karma as a bad thing. It's an actual substance, physical substance, and that karma is never good. Karma is always bad. So your goal is to rid yourself of karma here on Earth? Yeah. And if you have these karmic particles, then your soul is always going to bind to a body. Right? Yes. So if you can get rid of the karmic particles, you're all right. I also mentioned the Catherine's. Right. They were from South France and Spain, I believe. And they're the reason the Spanish Inquisition was founded because they were considered the heretical sect of Catholicism. Basically, they were vegetarians. They believed in reincarnation. They followed this highly neoplatonic tradition. Right. And they accused the Roman Catholic Church of being the antichrist branch of Catholicism. Right. The Roman Catholic branch proved stronger, started setting up stakes, burning Catherine's at them and basically ran them out of existence. But they believed in that you shouldn't eat meat, that you should come back as a human or an animal, and that they were just kind of a kinder, gentler version of Catholicism. A little less bloodthirsty. So, Chuck, we talked about the west being generally incredulous of this kind of thing. Right. There is a sterling exception, as far as Westerners go, of believing in reincarnation. And that exception took the form of a guy named Doctor Ian Stevenson. Right? Yeah. Well, he studied it. He never said that he believed it was true. He just wanted to prove that it was at least a possibility. So he spent his life pretty much until he died in 2007, trying to do so. I founded the division of Personality Studies at UVA. Right. Which became, I guess it was originally called the Division of Perceptual Studies. Right. Well, no, it later became the Perceptual Studies. I get confused in that. Yeah, it was originally personality studies. And he was a Virginia cavalier. Yeah. Is that right? Okay. Go caps. And he had a lab, basically, where he studied near death experiences. He studied children, mainly two to five young kids who kind of like your kid that you talked about at the beginning. Two to five, who had these stories that could not be explained in ways that made sense other than perhaps they were reincarnated. Yeah. There's been tons and tons and tons of cases. Some are easily explained away, others aren't. But Stevenson apparently investigated about 2500 of them yeah, over 40 years. But he was pretty much shut down by mainstream his peers. He was. And he was a true Fortian, actually. He wanted to apply the scientific method to the supernatural. Right. He just basically believed things that were considered supernatural were just things that couldn't be explained by science right now. But like you said, he was basically pushed to the fringe just because of his studies. Right. But there's a lot of people out there that think he was successful in proving that it is possible for reincarnation. Like the kid who thought it was a World War II pilot. Stevenson would never say whether he believed in reincarnation, anything like that. But about I think he went out and bought a combination lock and set the combination himself and then used a mnemonic device to remember the combination, and he stored the lock away. And he always said that the reason why he did this. He wanted to see if he could transmit the information, the mnemonic device, to somebody who could then go unlock this lock after he died. Right. And so far, nobody's unlocked the lock. Yeah. In three years. None of that disapproves anything, do you? No, of course not. It proves that no one's unlocked the lock yet. Nice. Very diplomatic. Let me get you a job in the Foreign Service. You got anything else? Reincarnation. Yeah, the Chinese government. Did you know they banned reincarnation without permission from the Chinese government? I think I have heard that, actually. When was this? Like a few years back? Yeah. China likes to ban things, as we all know, and they banned reincarnation without consent from the Chinese government. And basically it's a way to keep the Dalai Lama from reincarnating and saying, this is the next Dalai Lama. Basically, he won't have permission to do so. So China will be able to choose the next Dalai Lama. And the current Dali says, obviously, he said many times, I am not going to come back as long as China is in power over Tibet. He is boycotting reincarnation. I don't know if he's so much boycotting it, but he's he's going to end up here. Well, I guess he is boycotting. He says he refuses to be reborn until that happens. Yeah, sounds like a boycott. But what's happening is when he dies, it's going to be a little hanky, because potentially there might be two Dalai Lamas, the one China appoints and the one the real one, I would call it that will be awkward if they ever meet. Yeah. Or if they met Charlie McLean. Remember that stuff? Sure. She claimed that she was reincarnated and she had sex with Charlemagne. I didn't hear about the Charlemagne part. Yeah, well, she said she actually did have an affair with the Swedish Prime Minister, Olaf Palm, and she said he was Charlemagne reincarnated. Crazy. So supposedly she says she got it on with Charlemagne. Well, if you want to know more about Charlemagne or Reincarnation or the Dalai Lama, we got tons of those articles. Just come up with some good keywords and put them in the handy search bar@housetofworks.com. Which means it's time for Chuck. Is it listener mail? Are we back to listener mail? We are. All right, it's time for listener mail quickly. We want to support our Kiva team real quick beforehand. We need to mention this because it's been a while. We're trying to get to $250,000 by August, I don't know, august, let's say the end of August. I think it was 26th. The end of August. Yeah. Right. And we are plugging along. I think we're at about 170 right now. $170,000 raised by the stuff you should know, Kiva team, which is far and away, all stats aside, far and away the greatest Kiva team ever. Assembled, right? Agreed. So we're trying to get to 250 kwh. This is not an exclusive team, so if you want to join, you can donate in increments of $25. You donate as a loan. It's repaid. You don't make any interest back, but, I mean, you get your $25 back. And it's pretty addictive, isn't it, Chuck? I'm pretty hooked. Yes, you can go to www.kiva.org teamstuffyousudo, right? Yes, absolutely. Join or check it out or whatever. So, Josh, I'm just going to call this one question that has been answered many times but Sean doesn't know the answer. It's a great title for this one. Chuck, Josh and Jerry. I missed the Facebook questionnaire because I was at work and my job prohibits Facebook. Thank God for SYSK, ABC News and yes, stuff mom never told you. Podcast. It helps this 24 year old newlywed understand his smart, wonderful, beautiful, but very complex wife. A little better. This is the best kind. His question is this who the heck is Hippie Rob? I'm pretty sure I've listened to all the podcasts. You clearly have. Not even the ones before, Chuck. So which one explains hippie rob? And all my cubmates who also listen are wondering the same thing. We need to know. cubate is not a word. Otherwise, it's just a boring inside joke that drives us nuts. Wow. Sucks to be you, pal. PS. Jerry, at least cough or something. No. SYSK listener believes you're real, and we wouldn't put it past Chuck and Josh to make you up. This guy is really suspicious. One and demanding. Two Sean of Virginia Beach. Little bossy Sean. Get with the program, buddy. Yeah, the answers are out there. Sean, we're going to do a reverse on you. I'm not going to say who Hippie Rob is or where the origin is. So, Sean, actually, instead of telling you who Hippie Rob is, where he came from, etc. And we're going to put a request out to our listeners. The first person who sends us an email and tells us where Hippie Rob first appears, what episode and in what capacity that he's described. Right? Yeah. If you do have that info, send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Want morehoustuffworks? Check out our blog on the Houseofworks.com homepage."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sk-acid-rain.mp3	Whatever happened to acid rain?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/whatever-happened-to-acid-rain	Along with the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain was one of the first international environmental threats. It's fallen to the wayside in the face of climate change, but we have yet to lick it. Join Chuck and Josh as they revive the 80s drumbeat.	Along with the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain was one of the first international environmental threats. It's fallen to the wayside in the face of climate change, but we have yet to lick it. Join Chuck and Josh as they revive the 80s drumbeat.	Thu, 14 Jun 2012 21:39:08 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=14, tm_hour=21, tm_min=39, tm_sec=8, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=166, tm_isdst=0)	29325771	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This. Charles W. Chuckle Brown science. And we're doing this again. We're bringing the science this time for once in our lives. Acid rain. Yeah. Falling down from the acid clouds that's not how that song goes. It's not how Acid Rain by Tejan de Go that guy so great. We watched that again the other day, just by chance, and I hadn't seen it in a couple of years and it's still just hard. Like Chad said, our friend, it's hard to believe that voice comes out of that guy. Yeah. And he's got a new mother. Economy really good. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, he's a good guy. Don't know what chocolate range about, but there's a good call out. I would be very interested to hear everyone's interpretation of what chocolate rain means. Let's see. Chuck, do you remember back in the 80s hearing about two things? Two terrifying environmental things? One, the ozone layer, specifically the hole in the ozone layer. And two, acid rain throwing apartheid. And that is the 80s. Yeah. I'm not going to play Sun City. No. Yeah, that's pretty much also, don't forget cocaine, Ronald Reagan, jelly beans. And the 18. Yeah. And Magnum. Sure. But he kind of transcends the 80s, really, if you ask me. He's just a man of all time there. Yeah. Never gets old. The weird thing is, since I guess maybe the mid nineties or whatever, you don't hear about any of those things except for Magnum any longer. Yeah. Because, of course, global warming took over and everyone's afraid we're going to melt now. And so they said, well, we don't need to worry about acid rain anymore. We fix that problem. Right. I think there's a perception that acid rain was fixed and taken care of. And, astoundingly in a lot of ways, it has been. Yeah. They've come a long way, baby. The ozone layer, by the way, has not been. As a matter of fact, another one opened up in the Antarctic. Now we have two. But that's another topic of discussion. Acid rain. Let's get back to it, though. It's a nice success story in a lot of ways and it came from a comprehensive understanding of a problem and a comprehensive will to address it. That's right. That's how you take care of stuff. There is still a long way to go, though. You always bring me back down or not completely fixed, but it is good. It's heartwarming to know that you can see a problem and reduce something like acid rain. Precisely. So, Chuck, what is acid rain? Acid rain, Josh, is a transboundary issue, which means even though it just occurs in the north, mainly occurs in the Northern Hemisphere, it still is going to cross over and affect the rest of the world. And the reason that's worth mentioning is because for many years, up until the 1980s, they thought it was a very local problem. Yeah. And then they realized, oh, no, it's not, and everybody kind of got on board with fixing it. That's right. But like you said, northern Hemisphere, it occurs mostly there because we're the dirtiest, more industrial, most polluting. Yeah. So specifically what it is, is rain with acid in it, literally emissions of sulfur dioxide. So two nitrogen oxides, no x from things like cars and factories, power plants, all those nasty things, lightning strikes, volcanoes. Those are the natural ones. Yeah. They will actually react with water vapor in the atmosphere and turn into acid, sulfuric and nitric acids. And they can fall in the form of wet rain, snow, sleet, fog, or they can be deposited as particulates in gases that's dry. Acid rain. Well, the whole dry thing is called acid deposition because it can be wet or dry. Right. And it's being deposited exactly on the earth. Yeah, that's what that word is. It's branch from deposit, isn't it? I think so, yeah. It didn't even occur to me. So bravo. unexplaining acid rain. Bravo. Sarah Dowdy, who wrote this yeah, she did a very good job on this. You can't just be like, well, this rain seems a little hanky. So we're going to say that that's acid rain. They actually know there's a very strict definition of what constitutes acid rain, and they use the PH scale to determine it. Good old PH scale. So the PH scale is the spectrum between highly acidic and highly basic. Right. And acid rain obviously falls toward the acidic side of the scale. And in the middle of the scale is pure water. And that's at a 7.0. It's not at zero. It's entirely neutral. It's neither basic nor acidic. Yes. I just find it interesting that it's a scale of zero to 14 with seven being in the middle. Seven is in the middle of zero to 14. Yeah, but I mean, just for me, I would say zero is neutral and anything above would be I got you. Negative. But whatever. In the grand tradition of civilization established by the Romans, though, the PH scale starts at one rather than zero. Sure, but yeah, I see what you're saying. It says zero to 14 in here. I like the fact I think it goes from one to 14. Well, then she got it wrong. The graph here says one to 14. I wonder. But back to it, seven is in the middle either way. Yeah. So it would start at zero, I guess. Okay. Civic is the lower numbers and the more basic is the higher numbers. Right. Yeah. The thing is, rain isn't neutral. Normal rain still is slightly acidic, and it hits about 5.6 on the PH scale. Right. Well, it combines with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to form a slightly acidic carbonic acid deposition. Yeah. Which is branch from the root word deposit. That's right. So acid rain is something like 5.3 to 4.0 as far as acidity goes. Right. 4.3 to five. Okay. Yeah. That's a big difference. And it's something like, what the acidity between orange juice and black coffee? Yeah. Which Sarah is keen to point out, which is a bit of a misnomer. While that's true, you can't say, well, it's just like coffee, and that's not going to throw coffee on your grass, and it's not going to kill it. See, my hat was off to her for saying, like, don't just be like, orange juice is fine. Coffee is fine. Because if you think about it, if it rained orange juice all the time, it probably had the same impact. Hold the old cup out the window each morning. I'd be like, oh, it's with pulp today. The problem with acid rain, though, Josh, even though it has the acidity of a coffee or an orange juice, it can wreck small parts of an ecosystem. And as we all know, if you wreck small parts of an ecosystem, there's a domino effect that occurs that spreads throughout an ecosystem. One of the most valuable things on the planet is something like plankton. Yeah. Plankton is high currency. It's like honey buns in prison, but for me, yeah, pretty much. And when plankton, which is very, very sensitive to changes in PH, especially when it becomes more acidic, when plankton dies and small invertebrates die, then yeah, it starves out the larger animals, fish and frogs, and then we start to get hungry, especially the French, who eat frog legs. Eg. Acid rain is a huge problem in France. That's right. And eventually, it's just mass hysteria. Pretty much. Cats and dogs living together. Kimberly from Different Strokes ends up with green hair. That's right. There are a couple of programs that monitor this in the US. The National Atmospheric Deposition Program. And they handled the Wet deposition and the Clean Air Status and Trends Network handled the dry. And what they're looking for is trying to determine the critical load, which is how much an ecosystem can take before it starts saying, man, I'm breaking down. You're killing me with this stuff. Right. And the PH scale is determined by the concentration of hydrogen ions, right? Yeah. In a substance, that's what makes it either acidic or basic, right? Sure. So what these programs are doing is measuring the concentration of hydrogen ions to determine acidity, and they say, oh, well, this is too much science. I would just walk out and be like, look at this. Plankton is not looking very healthy. This is acidic. I don't even need to measure this stuff. You can just spot unhappy plankton. Pretty much. Nice. It's not hard once you know what to look for. Sure. I'll teach you something. Well, it's not hard. When you've met happy plankton, your life will never be the same. The difference is like night and day. So surface waters are where acid rain is going to hit you most initially. Right. Precipitation. And you don't really think about this. You think it well, it rains in a lake and in a river. What it does is it rains on the ground. And although sure it rains on the water surface, it's also going to run through soil to get to water. Right. One of the purposes of soil, one of the functions it provides is buffering water that percolates through it toward groundwater, toward bodies of water. And what's buffering me? Well, it has the ability to neutralize acids. Yeah. Isn't that awesome? Yeah, I think it brings everything more toward purified water or neutral PH. Right? Yeah. But I think specifically with a lot of, like, the minerals that are in the soil, like, say, calcium, they counteract acidic rain, acidic water to bring it more toward neutral. Right, right. The problem is when the soil's buffering capacity is overloaded, there's just too much for it to handle. A lot of that UN neutralized acid gets passed along into the body of water, and then you start to have those big problems with the little unhappy plankton. Yeah. It's almost like a water filter that's past its date. It just can't filter anymore. Nice analogy. Thank you. So we've talked about what happens where the French end up with a lot of big problems in coastal areas. Nitrogen. Remember we have what is it? Sulfuric acid. And what acid what, for acid rain? Yeah. Nitric acid. Yeah. Okay. So nitric acid is based on nitrogen. Nitrogen has a really interesting impact on coastal waters where, when it's deposited, it supports algae blooms. Yeah, lots. Because algae love nitrogen. And when algae blooms take place, algae starts to die eventually, and they sustain bacteria, specifically aerobic bacteria that flourishes itself and sucks up all the oxygen in the water, starving fish, shellfish plants. Right. And eventually leading to, at the very least, a strain, if not a collapse on coastal ecosystem. So too much acid rain will increase algae. Increased algae means increased dying algae, and increased dying algae means increased bacteria. And they rob fishes of their oxygen. Yeah. That's a domino effect. One of the things I love about acid rain is just how elegantly understandable it is. It is very basic and simple. I love it. It's not basic. Acidic. Very nice. So we're not done with the soil, too, by the way. In addition to decreasing its buffering capacity or overloading its buffering capacity, acid rain has the terrible habit of drawing aluminum out of the soil. Yeah. It's normally locked in the soil. Acid rain draws it out, which means that tree roots can suck it up, and that's poison to them. That's a toxin. Yeah. And Sarah makes a good point here. It's not a situation where you're going to find a rainforest that's leveled all of a sudden because of acid rain, or you're going to find a lake or river that looks nasty and decaying and disgusting water might actually look cleaner. Yeah. And then ironic it is. It's ironic and beautiful. And what it's going to do to your forest is it's going to stun its growth, and over time, it's going to have an effect. Yeah. Like, you're going to have bald trees because in addition to the toxins coming out in the soil and low lying areas from acid rain, and it also degrading helpful minerals, like we said, like calcium and other things that trees also use in higher elevations, that acid rain turns into an acid fog. That's crazy to me that I'm going to say at this time. That is a great band name, acid fog. Yeah. Just imagine, like, trees bathing in that all the time. That strips their leaves and basically makes them chilly. Yeah. And that's why when you see mountains in the Appalachian Mountains that have bald peaks, it's not because trees can't grow up there. They could grow up there if they weren't sucking in and being surrounded by acid clouds, acid folk, acid flock. Yeah. That's nuts. It doesn't have to be raining, right? It's just in particulates in the air. Yeah. Crazy. And that kind of leads to how it affects us, because we are not nearly as sensitive to these kind of changes with the acid rain brings. Right. That's not going to burn you. No, you can swim in a lake. Sure. An acid lake, and you will be fine. But an acidic lake, let's say. Yeah. Because it's just above battery acid. So you couldn't swim in a battery acid like that's. Terrible. But you could swim in an acidic lake. As far as acid rains concerned, the problem comes with that dry deposition. The sulfuric and nitric ox or nitric acids combine in low lying areas with ozone yeah. VOCs. And create smog, which is bad for your respiratory system. Ground level, baby. Yeah. It can also do things like if you've ever seen an old building or a monument that's got these little smooth grooves that could be acid corrosion for years and years. It's no friend to your car paint job, that's for sure. I mean, if you're into your car, it's a big deal. Yeah. The tree SAP, pollen, bird droppings, and acid rain are the four enemies of your auto paint. They're considered Corrosive, environmental fallout, and friend of Maco. Yeah. Mako loves this stuff. The idea about acid rain, consider this, that stone statue you're just describing, that takes a long time. Sure. A lot of orange juice rain has to fall on that thing for it to become pockmarked and weathered prematurely. Right. And it's had actually plenty of time to do that. What was the statue of Edward James? Almost. You'd be like, spitting image. So sorry, man. You got me with that, so I'm cool. The reason we've had a long time, or that statue is weathered over a very long time because we've had acid rain for quite some time, ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, I think. Yeah, pretty much, because, remember, they thought it was a very localized problem, and the reason they thought it was local was because it had such quick, rapid effects. But the acid rain I don't know who coined the term acid fog, but acid rain was coined by an Englishman named Robert Angus Smith back in 1872. Yeah. And it was the monuments that made him say, what in the heck is going on here? Yeah. There weren't a lot of people back then I was thinking when I read this, like, man, it would have been great if during this boom of ingenuity and industrial Revolution, there were just as many people concerned with the impact it might have, but it just couldn't have worked that way. It's almost like they just had to do their thing and then leave us to figure out how to fix it, how to clean up the mess, sort of. I don't know if those two things could have evolved simultaneously. No, I think you're onto something. I mean, maybe we wouldn't have I don't know, the iPhone, maybe. Who knows? Maybe we would I don't know, maybe we'd be better off, a lot better off. Maybe we would have more stuff. Maybe it would have changed the way of thinking rather than just get but also, how is this going to affect other people? So Smith was a man alone. An early ecologist will say, yeah, it's good for him, man, you've been coming up with some great off the cuff creative solutions. Well, that's not a solution, then. If we had a time machine, it would be a solution. Okay. Yeah. The way back machines in the shop. So scientists did determine by what the acid rain was a problem, and it was trans boundary. It's not just local. And so then in 1980, thankfully, the Acid Deposition Act said, you know what? We're going to say this for ten years, and we're going to see what's going on. Ten years later, 1990, they said, yes, it's a big problem. Yeah. So we need to do something about it. And they did. Very quickly, congress took the already established Clean Air Act and added sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide nitrogen oxide, right. Yes. To the list of most wanted reduction people materials. Yeah. And this was in 1995 with the Clean Air Act and the acid rain program. Right. So 1995, this is when everything really starts to come into effect. Yeah. Right. And I guess at least as far as sulfur dioxide emissions went, it was wildly successful compared to levels in 2010. The sulfur dioxide emissions have been reduced by 50%. That's good. That's astounding. That is astounding, because consider this. That's not from hitting this, since we already got it back down to 50%. Yeah. 1517 years. That's amazing. And the way they did that is through a cap and trade scheme. I kind of like the old cap and trade. It makes a lot of sense. Cap and trade, josh, basically, what they say is, we're going to set a cap for how much? So two, that your power plant can create. It's a limit. But they set the cap and they said, you know what? You've got these allowances, though. If you come under, you get these credits, and you can actually sell those to other companies that are in need. And I don't know, something about it makes sense to me. It makes a lot of sense. And then over time, you decrease the amount that people are allowed to admit. And when you're cutting it into these allowances, those allowances, by virtue of the scarcity of them, become more valuable. Yeah. And it really incentivizes you to do something about it for your company. Exactly. So that worked really well for nitrous oxide or for sodium sulfur dioxide. What are we even talking about here? That's why I just say so two. And with nitrogen oxide, they didn't institute a cap and trade until 2003. So it was lagging a little bit. But it, too, is something of a success story. They reduced it from 27 million tons in 1980 to 16.3 million tons in 2008. That's pretty good. Yeah. And so this has had a discernible effect on the environment. Sure. Apparently. Let's see, the acidic lakes. The number of acidic lakes throughout the country have reduced dramatically. There are 70% fewer acidic lakes and streams in Wisconsin and Michigan than there were in 1984. A third of the bodies of water that were acidic in the early 90s in the Adirondacks and the northern Appalachians are now not considered acidic at all. That's awesome. So there have been, like, huge strides made other places there have not been. And also you found this really good little kind of overview about acid rain and what happened to it by Nina Restogi from Slate. Yeah, that's whose stuff I'm quoting right now. So there have been huge strides, but there's still, like you said, originally, a long way to go. Yeah. The National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program said that another 40% to 80% is what we need to hit to really restore these ecosystems. Yeah. And I think we're headed there. It sounds like it. Yeah. We'll check in in ten years and follow up on this. Who am I kidding? We could we'll do it for this in ten years. No. It'll be our comeback special. Okay. Whatever happened to whatever happened to acid range? Great. But, Chuck, I think that this is a really valuable lesson if you have a nonpolarized international initiative to take care of a problem and you can shout down business interests and just say, no, this is what you're doing, and here's how you're going to do it. Yeah. You can make things happen. Yes. I guess no one was saying acid rain doesn't exist. Acid rain is really not bad. Right. It was pretty much non polarizing, except for big business. And also, were any jobs lost by this cap and trade scheme? Was industry hurt by this cap and trade scheme? I would wager probably not. Do you think I would wage or not? I bet they're still in business. They're just doing it with clean coal and wet scrubbers and all that good stuff. Yeah, it's interesting. And I'm not even an environmentalist. I hate the environment. I'm just fascinated by this stuff. It's not true. Well, if you want to learn more about acid rain or acid fog, you can type either of those words into the search bar@housetofworks.com. And that will bring up this very interesting article by Sarah Dowdy. And I said acid fog, which means it's time for listener mail before listener mail quickly. We are going to Comic Con this year for the first time. Yeah. We're presenting at Comic Con. We're not just going and staying. And this is the one in San Diego. Yeah, the original. The original Comic Con that is coming up in what, mid July, july 12 to 15th San Diego, CA. And I guess we're not quite sure when we're going, so we just want to say stay tuned for details. Yes, but we will be there. I mean, like, we have flights booked and everything, hotels, the whole shebang. Yeah. And it may or may not our presentation may or may not include certain other I don't think we should go any further. You're going to get us in trouble. Well, we're trying to land some whales. We'll see what we can do. Okay, I'm going to call this MIT nerd alert. I got a very nerdy email from an MIT student, and I teased her and said, I'm going to read this on the air and make fun of you. Is that okay? And she went, oh, yeah, and here's some other stuff you can make fun of me about. Hi, Joshua. Chuck and Jerry. I love your recent episode on how language evolved, but as an MIT senior graduating in a month, which is probably, like, right now, actually, I felt it my duty to make a very important correction to your intro. We are called the MIT Engineers, not the MIT Eggheads. I think I called them eggheads. I'm sure you did indeed. Our unofficial school song is the MIT Engineers Drinking Song, which includes many nerdy jokes, some of the expense of that small liberal arts school up the river, Harvard. Additionally, our mascot is Tim the Beaver. Tim being MIT spelled backwards because beavers are nature's engineers. In fact, every class has a special ring called The Brass Rat, which depicts a beaver on a bezel. B-E-V-E-L. What is that say? I'm so dumb, I don't even know what a bezel is. We would not make it at MIT. Supposedly, it's one of the most recognizable rings in the world. Oh, man. I started listening to the podcast during long hours in lab. And I'm grateful to you guys for entertaining me during my past four years at MIT. PS. At MIT, we refer to everything by number, including majors in buildings, linguistics. The field of Mr. Chomsky is called course 24. The inimitable Mr. Chomsky gnome, I believe. Oh, yeah. And is housed in a pretty crazy looking building, 32, aka the Status Center. Sorry to ramble on. I'm very proud of my soon to be alma mater. And PPS, I thought of one more really geeky thing you might want to make fun of regarding MIT's mascot, the Humble Beaver. One of our cheers for football games is called the Beaver Cheer, and I will do that right now. I'm a Beaver. You're a Beaver. We are beavers all. And when we get together, we do the Beaver call. E to the U-D-U DX e to the X DX cosine secant tangent sine 314159 integral radical Mudv These are smart things. I don't understand. SlipStick, slide rule, MIT go tech. I feel like he just issued some sort of orders that only, like, three people understand, and now they're carrying out some sort of terrible mission. Yeah, like the nuclear suitcase is, like, heating up right now. Yeah. I can't even say your beaver chair. That's how dumb I am. It's okay, Chuck. Who's that from? Laura. Thanks a lot, Laura. That was a good one. And I have one for you. You want to hear an engineer joke that my dad, who was an engineer, taught me a long time ago from the herbal, Elvis himself. Let's hear it takes a minute. Will you bear with me? Sure. So an engineer, a priest, and a doctor are all playing golf one day. And ahead of them are these guys, and they stink. They're driving in, like, the opposite direction of the hole. They're just really terrible at the game of golf. So the beer guy comes around on his cart and the priest is like, do you have any idea who these guys are? I've never seen anybody play golf as badly. And the beer guy goes, Those are three firefighters. And they put out the clubhouse when it caught fire. But they all lost their sight in this fire. So we let them play whenever they want. And the priest takes a step back and puts his heart on and his hand on his heart, and he goes, oh, faith and begor, give me their names. I'm going to go pray for them. I'm going to have my whole church pray for them at Mass this Sunday that their site is restored. And the doctor is like, that is terrible. Like, here's my card. Make sure that these guys get in touch with me because I know some really good eye surgeons and maybe we can do something about them. And the engineer goes, Why can't they just play at night? Pretty good. Very nice, Mr. Clark. Thank you very much. I like a good joke like that. It's a good one. It's not a one liner, but a toll joke. Yeah. Love it. So, let's see, chuck, what were we going to ask for? What is chocolate rain means? Yeah, we want to know what chocolate rain means. Also, if you're Taylor Day and you listen to this, if you tell us what it means, that would hold a lot of water. That'd be great. That'd be pretty special. You can tweet to us, Tasende or otherwise, at SYSK podcast. You can also visit us on Facebook, right? Facebook.com stuffyouinnow. Yes. And you can send us an email at stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…8-sysk-cults.mp3	Cults: Who is this "The Leader?"	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/cults-who-is-this-the-leader	Cults are conventionally understood to be unestablished, non-mainstream religious groups that follow a single leader. So what does it take to be the leader? Tune in as Josh and Chuck take a closer look at cults.	Cults are conventionally understood to be unestablished, non-mainstream religious groups that follow a single leader. So what does it take to be the leader? Tune in as Josh and Chuck take a closer look at cults.	Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:38:46 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2011, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=8, tm_hour=20, tm_min=38, tm_sec=46, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=67, tm_isdst=0)	51671123	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, as brother brother chuck Bryant. Brother chuck, how are you doing today, josh Odie I'm doing just fine. So you know what I was going to lead with? Huh? I just had Josh ODI ready at the ready. Okay. You'll understand everybody in a second, right, Chuck? I guess. Odie, I know you know this, but let's go back to the night of March 23, 1997. You know what happened in Rancho Santa Fe, a suburb of San Diego, that night? I do. Okay. Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. 39 people well, beginning that night, over three days beginning that night, 39 people gave up their lives, and they were collectively known as Heavens Gate. They were the members of the Heavens Gate cult famously wore those black Nikes. And beginning on March 23, which was the spring solstice, the vernal equinox a comet was coming by, a hailbot comet. And what the Heavens Gate members believed was that flying, using the comet as cover, was a spaceship that they could go rendezvous with the pilots and basically be picked up as spirits and attached to the pilots of the spaceship because the world was coming to an end here, and they need to get out of here. Right. But they had to commit ritualistic suicide. So on the first night, about a third of them took a combination of applesauce and pharmaceuticals and I think Jack Daniels or something and died and for good measure, put bags over their heads. Right. And then once they were dead, the other members clean them up and so on. And this happened for three nights in a row until 39 people were dead and found in this mansion. Two didn't make it. They weren't there something and they went and got a hotel room and killed themselves in the desert, like a month later. Interesting. But what's interesting about Heaven's Gate is that all of these were suicides. There was no murder. And you go back and look at what are called, like their exit videos. There's about 10 hours of tape of the members talking, and they seem very excited about what they're going to do, seem very at peace. It's disturbing to watch now, but they seem very relaxed, very at peace, and very much like they know what they're doing. Yeah. So aside from even though these weren't forced, they were suicides. And because it ended in an apocalyptic mass suicide pact, heavensgate would be what's called a destructive cult, which, although it's titled How Cults Work, this episode is actually about destructive cults, the ones that get all depressed. One reason why we need to make that differentiation is because in a lot of ways, in a lot of cases, the only difference between cult and religion is whether or not it's mainstream right. Careful. But it's true. Well, there's a few differences. Mainstream is one. Usually a mainstream religion will have a hierarchy, whereas a cult will have the single leader. And the hierarchy, in theory, keeps one another in check. Right. And the cults usually demand absolute commitment. Right. Like you live there. Yeah. And whereas a mainstream religion generally does not require that you can have your own home. Okay. So we're not saying it's the same thing as religion. No. But if you are a sociologist, a psychologist, and there's going to be very little distinction between the two. True. So that's not the case, though, with destructive or totalist cults. Right. No, they're very different. Right. They are. You can make the case that a religion or a nondestructive cult helps its members get over their vulnerabilities. I think it's how it's put in this article, through spiritual guidance, support. It's a good place of growth is what it's intended to be. A destructive cult is basically run by a person with the intent of absolute control over the members in a complete surrender of their will. I have a question, and this is a good time to put it in there. I wonder sometimes, because we're going to talk about cult leader specifically in a bit, but I wonder if the cult leader, and I think it varies, actually believes like when I see Marshall Applewhite, I think he really believed this stuff. He seemed to when I see a Jim Jones, he seems like a huckster. Well, he was on a lot of drugs. On drugs. Having sex with multiple women. Yeah. Marshall Apple, white was not having sex with multiple women. He was a unique and not into women. Yeah, sure. But my point is, the cult leader, I guess, varies. Sometimes they really actually believe that. Sometimes they're manipulators who are power hungry and maybe after money or what have you. Right. And I think that there's probably a transition that any cult leader would undergo as the power and loyalty grows. And even if you are a huckster, you're eventually going to start buying into your own hype just because it's so appealing. Yeah, good point. But yes, I think that is a great point to put in there, Chuck, that there are cult leaders out there who believe in what they're saying. Sure. So we said, basically the primary characteristic of a destructive cult is that there's absolute control over the members. Yes. A surrender of will to the group and ultimately to the leader. Right. Who is this? The leader? Is that time? Yeah. Okay. There. We mentioned the Simpsons. The movementarians. Yeah. Remember the episode the flying bikes, the hover bikes with the comb and the wax paper? So Simpsons fans hold your emails. Yes, we did. It mentioned it covered. Right. But so let's talk about, I guess, this authoritarian leadership structure, you might call it. What are the hallmarks of it? Well, it's one of the hallmarks, as we said it's typically just one dude when you say dude, because it's usually a man, although there are some instances that's not true. We'll get to those in a minute. That's right. And that's one of the problems, because power, we've seen it time and time again, can corrupt even the most pure at heart. And a lot of these aren't pure at heart to begin with. And then another problem here is that they operate outside the mainstream. So in the case of Jim Jones, which I know we're going to get to in detail, guiana. Oh, God. It's a different place. Right. They're in Guiana, so they were way outside the mainstream, so they didn't have people checking up on them. The isolation factor is huge. Yes. If the religious group that you subscribe to lives on a ranch together, it may be a cult. Yeah. In the woods. Sure. Or in Guiana. Right. There's some other, I guess, kind of giveaways that become less and less apparent the more immersed you become. And that would be deception and recruiting. Right. Yeah. Thought reform techniques, which, although very controversial, are believed to be real and can have an effect on a person's outlook. Yeah, right. We'll get into that as well, in much more detail. And we've got into it big time in brainwashing. We did. And a lot of those are very similar. You brainwashed me. I did. Remember? I do. You are no longer a hipster. That's right. But I still have the goatee. Good outside is bad. Whoever is on the inside is good. It's a huge hallmark. There's like a real us and them a clear divide between us and very much, which can lead to a lot of feelings of persecution, paranoia, and generally an idea that I guess generally supported by the idea that since most destructive cults are religious in nature, that the in group, the cult is saved and everybody outside the bad people are all damned to hell. Right. So let's talk about the leader himself. The leader, yeah. Well, they're usually very charismatic. Yeah. Very charming. They can turn on the world with a smile, or at least their cult with a smile. Sure. Which gets people very much readily able to follow them without question. They're very devoted. They don't question the leader. They don't question what the leader tells them to do. This is once you're initially there may be questions, but after the thought reform takes place, well, you're in the reason for thought reform is to get rid of those questions. Right. Yeah. They are typically either say they're God and considered God or the Messiah, or that they are the only path to God. They're prophets, essentially. Yeah. They have some sort of religious designation. Yeah. Right. Singular religious designation that no one else in the cult has but them. Sure. Which means they're the leader. Yeah. And you can't really top of the leader unless you, too, are a profit, which I imagine that's got to be a surprising day for everybody in the Colt when maybe a number two or three in command goes, you know what? I just found out that I am a prophet as well. And the leaders like, yeah, trouble brewing. The other important thing here, too, I thought it was interesting that typically cult members are devoted to the leader and not even the leaders ideas. Yeah, that's a good point, too. Jim Jones. They worship Jim Jones. Right. Not his Christian ideals. Right. Because as pointed out, jim Jones and David Koresh, who is the leader of the Branch Davidians, both started out in what we would consider mainstream religious groups. Christian Jones was a pastor. Christian pastor, he was the Disciples of Christ was his original Christian group. And David Koresh, he was originally in a 7th day Adventist. How was he? Yes, and one of the ways that cult leaders become cult leaders is that they are often overly enthusiastic, maybe pumped in their mainstream religious groups. They freak their mainstream religious groups out, pretty much, and they're like, you need to get out of here. But their ideas or their charisma or whatever, there's something about them that makes other members of the church go, I'm going with this guy, splinter off. Create your own cult. No longer mainstream. So your cult. Yes. And in the case of Koresh, he showed some instability and some of the things that he was influencing some of the youth in the church. They said, no, you don't like what you're telling the kids, so you need to get out of here. Yeah, and we don't like that you're touching the kids, so you need to get out of here. I'm going, and I'm taking the kids with me. Yeah. Apparently also not Jim Jones, but the prophet Mo who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. Apparently he and David Koresh. I was reading this. I only saw it in one place, but I didn't get a chance to really cross reference it that both of them had their first sexual experiences with far older women, like Caress's first encounter with a woman was with a 76 year old. And you laughed, but, I mean, how old was he? I think he's a teenager. Wow. But what's strange is both of them went the opposite way after that. Koresh's second wife was 14. Right. The prophet Mo kidnapped Elizabeth Smart, and I think she was, like, 14 as well. It's interesting. I think that's something for deeper study, don't you think? Like, if you're sexual encounter the very old person, become a cult leader, that's probably a pretty good predictor. You're going to take very young wives, and the FBI is going to come set your compound on fire. At the very least, it shows you might be unstable. Sure. I don't know if they would just see that and say, hey, variety is a spice of life, or, I mean, surely you've seen Harold and Maude. Yeah, so it can go really well. So you're right, Josh. A lot of times the cult leaders are former religious mainstream religious leaders or members? Not always. In the case of, like, a Charlie Manson who personifies the huxter you're talking about. Yeah, he wasn't a religious dude at all. He was psychotic and emotionally disturbed from the time that he was a young kid and a thief and a vandal and eventually rapist and pimp and fraud. Just a pretty big jerk in general. So he was let out of prison, as everyone knows, at one point in the late 60s, went to San Francisco. All the hippies were very susceptible to his charms, his little, short, midget redneck charms. Right. Because when you're on acid, charlie Manson makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I never heard him talk until later in life, and when I did, I had no idea he was such a redneck. Oh, yeah. I heard his accent, and I was like, you got to be kidding me. This is the guy that got people to murder all these folks? And that forced, like, labored stare, like, look at my eyes, and it's just laughable. Yeah, it is. Sorry, Charlie, but it worked in his case. And the Manson family famously killed how many people? Seven people, including Roman Plants, his wife, most of them at Sharon Tate's house. Sharon Tate? Yeah, and he didn't do it himself, which is one of the traits of a good cult leaders. You can get people to do things for you. Yeah. But the US. Prosecutors still or the California prosecutors still managed to get him put away for life, even though he didn't kill anybody. Just the ordering of these murders, they got them pretty good. I think the state of California was more than willing to keep Charlie Manson locked up forever, though. Well, he's pretty notorious for his parole hearings. Just saying really crazy things still, where they're like, okay, yeah, you clearly don't have any interest. I remember being a kid, and, like, I never understood that. When I came to understand there was a Charlie Manson, and he did say the stuff, and at parole hearings, like, why would you do that? And my dad told me, like, if he gets out of prison, he's dead. And now I don't think that's necessarily true, although he probably would still believe that. But he's probably so institutionalized, he wouldn't know what to do. Yes, because he was in jail for years. Off and on from his teenage years on. Sure. He has a cell phone. They caught him on the cell phone recently. Really? In jail. Where he's calling? I don't know. What? Me. Are you sure? I'm positive. So Manson referred to himself as God and Satan? Both. Well, his followers did. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Squeaky from. Apparently after Charlie was locked up, squeaky from decided that his plight was losing media attention. Oh, the Charlie's plate. Charlie's plight. And so she tried to shoot Gerald Ford. And it definitely got attention again. I think that if anything, if the murders didn't cement the Manson family into the American psyche forever, squeaky Fro managed to finally put the glue and the bone, as it were, with the attempted presidential assassination. Yeah, and she also carved an X in her forehead on the courthouse steps. Yes. And Manson still has the swastika on his forehead. It's tough to get rid of. Yeah. Just ask the inglorious bastards. Right. So, Josh, let's talk about recruitment. Yeah. What kind of a person would fall for this? Clearly a raving lunatic is the only person who could become a cult member. Right. Wrong. What? And a lot of times you think of them as mentally ill, but they've done studies, and apparently there's only a slightly higher incidence of mental instability in cult members than you and me. Well, mental illness at least. Yeah, and then in the regular population. But they have found that most people in the normal population don't have that cult members usually have in common is that when they were recruited, it was during a particularly stressful period in their life. You know, that scale of stressful life events like death of a spouse, divorce, death of a child, adolescence. Yeah. That's up there really far, isn't it? Any of those make you, while you're going through them, better cult recruit than you would normally be. You've been stressed out lately? Oh, I just joined up. Are you? Right. For the picking my robes in my bank. That's not true. Because you're not any of these other things like gullible. You don't think I am? No, of course not. Gullibility is a trait. You got to believe what's going on here pretty easily. Usually you're unassertive your disillusion with what's going on around you and you're looking for some answers. Right. You're a little naive. That's true. And you're looking for some spiritual meaning in your life. Right. And I'm utterly and totally dependent. You are. Well, that's on the list, at least. Yeah, that's true. And there are actually places where people who fit these bills are going through a period of time in their life that's rough tend to hang out more than, say, the average bar or whatever. That would be a self help group, grief support group, basically. Any group where people sit around in a circle and they're crying, that's a pretty good place. You want to be on the lookout for a cult recruiter there. Yeah. You're probably not going to exit the conference room in the local community center after your grief support group and see some guy in a row handing you a flower. It'll be much less obvious than that. It'll probably be someone who's a member of the group. Yeah, that's one of the ways. If you say, I would never fall for that. Think about if someone you knew personally invited you to a meeting where you were going to talk about better ways to help the community raise some money for a new boys club. Right. And you happen to be at church and you're one of the deacons vouched for the person who was talking. You wouldn't even question them. Right? Yeah. That's how it happens sometimes. Or if you were at a group support group and somebody said, hey, this is peanuts compared to this other group support group. This group of people have all been through this tragedy and they are really great at getting people past the stages of grief. So you should come and hang out. You should try this other one, too. There's a lot of deception associated with cult recruitment. As a matter of fact, it's pretty much the hallmark of it. Right. Yeah. Initially, they don't tell you what in the world you're in for, because you probably wouldn't go with those. Right. They isolate you from the get go with their meetings. Usually they'll hold meetings at times where you may normally be with your family, dinner time. They might hold it at a place like a retreat, get you away for the weekend. So you're hearing nothing but the cult ideas and views for a weekend, which makes it seem during that 48 hours, a lot less weird. Yeah. And you've got no feedback. Right. You've got no feedback from the real world. Yes. Because once you go back out in there and you haven't fully joined up, so you're still going to and from your house to these meetings, which are, remember, grief support meetings that have a lot to do with religion that you hadn't noticed before. But it's cool you're asked when you go back home, not to talk about the group until you understand it more about it. You don't want to hear anyone pooping it just yet because they won't get it. Yeah. They won't get it. And so you don't. And like you said, your feedback structure is narrowed, so you don't have anything but self doubt. Your doubts that would normally be of the group are now doubts about yourself. Because why do you always have such a tendency to just criticize everything? I mean, look at all these people. They're all happy and smiling and they seem to criticize. Yeah. Why can't you just get on board? And then you're suddenly a lot more susceptible to joining up. Yeah. Well and at that point, that's when they can hit you with the proper mind control techniques. Brainwashing 101. Should we go over it? Yes. I'm sure there's plenty of people who are hearing this that didn't listen to brainwashing. But you know what? If you have it, you should go back and listen to it. Sure. Twice, three times in a place in the woods where we'll meet you. If you play it backwards, the location will be revealed. We're laughing. Nothing about it's just funny except the things that we're saying. Thought reform, brainwashing, coercive, persuasion. This is the key here. It is the systemic breakdown of your sense of self, and it's similar to what you do in, let's say, Guantanamo Bay, maybe when you're interrogating a prisoner. Sure. Similar techniques. You could also make a pretty strong case that it's similar to what happens to you in boot camp. Yeah. And the article goes out of its way to defend boot camp by saying there's three huge differences. One, the military is accountable for its actions. Destructive cults tend not to be like the government's at your door. Recruits who join up are making an informed decision. They know that they're going to be going in to be broken down and built up as a soldier. Yeah, I'm going to look and dress like the other people and eat the same meals and all that kind of thing. And then there's a set period of time. Yeah. It's not for the rest of your life until you eat the applesauce, fill the GI bill and you're done. Right. So, Chuck, let's talk about the techniques. Well, they're going to deceive you, they're going to trick you. They're going to hide all signs of illness. They're going to hide all signs of anything illegal or immoral at first. So you're buying into it. You're also not going to get the full picture of what the cult is about. Like we said, that grief support group is not really what it is. Sometimes they might even alter your consciousness a bit with meditation or drugs or chanting, that kind of thing, make you vulnerable. We already talked about isolation. That's one of the biggest parts of it. And it doesn't necessarily have to be physical isolation, although it can be Patty Hearst, famously, when she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, she was apparently put into a closet for weeks and she was berated and yelled at and like her family's, capitalist trappings were criticized and she came out like, let's go rob a bank. I bet the late sixty s and seventy s people were probably I mean, that's when Jonestown the SLA Manson family, the Moonies were huge then. Yeah, they're still around, but they were really big in the yeah. It makes you wonder. I don't think we have any idea yet about what part of that period of history made it so readily available for cults to pop up, because it happened in the 19th century, too. There are a lot of cults that came about for some reason out of the blue. I wonder what it was. I thought the Internet helps nowadays, just access to information. Right, but think about it. You don't think of cults being pervasive these days like they were in the 70s? Yeah. No, not at all. What was it about the late 60s? Throughout the made them so no, I meant the lack of internet back then, the lack of information. They were way more in the dark about things. And of course, in Manson's case, he had a bunch of acid head hippies. That's pretty cool. You're into the Beatles. Yeah. Plus Pacman fever, head and hit. Yeah, that's true. So isolation, like we said, is huge. It's one of the biggest hallmarks of thought reform, because when you don't have anyone around you except for people that are doing the same thing you're doing, it seems completely normal. Sure. There's also a complete and utter dependency that's created in the member, right? Yeah. That's the big part, too. If you can get somebody inspired to idolize the leader, then the leader's message that, hey, you belong to this group and here's what we do is paramount. Right? Yeah. It creates a sense of dependency, especially when the leader says, by the way, this group is your family now, right. Don't talk to anybody else. You don't need to interact with the outside world. We grow our own food here or we do our own things, we educate our own children. The cult becomes your life, and everybody needs a life. And especially if you're already predisposed to a real sense of belonging or a need for a sense of belonging, you're going to buy into this a lot more easily and this dependency will be induced even more readily. Yeah, well, and what they do is they hit you with the one two punch, they show you lots of love, but they also offer lots of guilt and shame. If you are dancing around talking to your family or things like that, they shame you, they guilt you. And then when you say, you know what? You're right, it's about the leader, then they reap the love back onto your head. Right. And you're like, wow, these people, this is where it's at. They really care about me. Right. Because again. If you have a need to belong and all of a sudden the members of the group are turning their back on you. Not really talking to you. Just kind of treating you coolly. That's going to have an enormous impact on your psyche. And you're going to go ahead and abandon any doubts or whatever it was that made them turn their backs on you so you can get their approval again and be loved. Yeah. You're striving for acceptance, basically. That's pretty deep. Dependent. Huge. The other thing is that the time clock is very controlled. It's not like, oh, the branch, the Vidians just live in this compound and you just wake up every day and kind of do what you want. Breakfast is it from eight to 830, right. Bible study is from 930 to 945. You have free time for 30 minutes, then we have lunch, then every minute is accounted for. Very structured. Even during free time, you're still talking about the leaders teachings or something like that. It's not like, did you watch American Idol last night? The meals are all ready. A lot of people this appeals to a lot of people because the decision making is taken away from you and you're all of a sudden leading a very peaceful lifestyle, sort of. Right. I don't have to think about anything. It takes the guesswork out of living. Yeah. A lot of people are into that. Some are, yeah. And they make really good cult members, it turns out they're actually, at the very least, the least damaged of the cult members that are damaged by cults. Right. Right. Chuck, there's also a sense of dread. Right. Yeah. One more thing I want to mention, though, and this is interesting to me, is that if you have a talent, a special talent that you're good at yeah. They're going to devalue that and strip it away. They're going to take your guitar at the door, and basically, what made you special before in the outside world is no longer applicable. Right. Because you live for the leader. That's all. There is something unusual about Heaven's Gate in the dependency part, where all members dressed exactly like gender was removed. Like, everyone was supposed to be basically asexual and genderless. There were, of course, the famous, like, black Nikes that everybody wore, but they very much interacted with the outside world. They had that Higher Source web service and they dealt with clients, and apparently their clients were like, these are straight shooters. They were weird, obviously, but they were not, like, bad people. I'm sure apple white men in a business meeting seems like a real affable guy to work. Yeah, right. He's very pleasant. Sure. But you look into those eyes, man. So there was that level of control where, like, if you had a meeting with the Higher Source people, they were all dressed exactly alike, and you couldn't really tell who is the dude and who is the chick. Right. Yeah. But at the same time, you were in a meeting with the Higher Source people. Right. That's very daring of a leader to allow that level of access to the outside world. Or at the very least, it's a lot of trust to show in your followers. Yeah. It's pretty unusual. Yeah. All right, so dread is where I interrupted you. I think it's okay. So tell me about dread. Well, dread is a very unusual sensation in that you can experience dread on some sort of background level at all times. Right. Even when you're happy, you can still have a sense of dread, because dread basically is the idea that you have no idea what's coming around the corner, and it's really possible that it's going to be bad. As a matter of fact, it's likely that what happens to you sooner than later is going to be very bad. Right, right. And is the idea that the sense of dread is in the outside world and that's why you don't want to go out there? Yes. Either that or there's also a constant dread or anxiety that you're going to offend the leader, upset the group, and you're constantly striving. To maintain good relations with the group, in yourself and among the group. But yeah, a sense of dread is just very unusual. It can haunt you. And that is apparently one of the hallmarks of a cult. I don't know if it's purposely instilled, but apparently it's at the very least a huge byproduct among most people especially. And you talked about ones who are just fine living the cult life. They couldn't possibly understand this, but if you enter a cult in a stressful period in your life, and you eventually come out of that stressful period, but now you're in the cult, your former personality and your new personality are going to conflict. That creates a sense of dread. And that's why destructive culture can be so harmful to people, not just mentally, but physically as well. Because you're not supposed to walk around stressed out all the time. Right. It's bad for you. So the old you, that's the old you in the outside world, but you're not supposed to be thinking about the old you, right? And you, my God, you better not talk about the old you or wonder what's going on in the outside world. So you're constantly pressing down natural thoughts in order to conform to the group. And there's just psychological havoc being wreaked on you constantly. You don't know which way is up. Confusion creates paralyzation a lot of times for these people, because some of them said later in the article that some people work for years to get out of a cult, but they're just paralyzed with fear, uncertainty, confusion, dread. Sure. And I think also probably the cult members already were predisposed to this kind of personality, like don't like to make choices, like even small ones. It's not very confident, that kind of thing. But I would imagine, like, those problems are just exacerbated even further in a cult. I would think so. Josh, let's say you're in a cult. Not all cults are the same, but there are a few commonalities, for sure. You talk to people that there's always interviews with people that get out of cults because you can get a lot of insight there, obviously. And plus, they're just sexy press. It's very sexy press. They usually talk about anxiety, fear did I not say that? Being cut off from their family and friends and basically a ceasing of psychological growth. Yes. No questioning, no thinking on your own at all. And they don't realize this, of course, until they get out. But it's not too late because they're out. But it's too late for heaven's gate. Although I made the point before when we talked about Heaven Skate. They're the only ones who know whether or not they manage to escape these vessels. They may be partying on the other side of the Hail BOP. Yeah, you never know. Yeah. Let's talk about money. We mentioned that Heaven's Gate, we're at a successful web design business, some of them, because they need money, you can't operate. I mean, it's sort of like a business. You can't operate a cult without dough. Some of them are fraudulent, tax evaders, stuff like that. Manson I think they were just cheap and hippies and stole things. But for the most part, when you enter a cult, you're basically surrendering your finances. And if you're a wealthy person, you're a very desirable cult member. Yes. Sometimes you have to donate a large sum or all of it, and you don't need it anyway. Just go ahead and sell your house and come live with us for earthly desires. You can leave those behind. Exactly. To me, though, and we'll take care of it. Right, exactly. I'm the signatory on your account now. I think that's probably the most common way that cults finance themselves is through the members. Right? Yeah. So let's say the stress has gotten to you. You're like, you know, I kind of got over adolescence. I'm 54 now, and I just don't feel right. I haven't felt right for 32 years. Right. I think I'm going to leave this cold. There's the door, buddy. Okay, so is it that easy? Because as you saw in the Movementarian episode of The Simpsons, there was that whole Doctor Who bubble moleman was like setting the dogs loose on March. It was very dangerous. Like, anybody can leave at any time, but you really can't. Well, you can sometimes. Sometimes there are no locked doors and barbed wire, and they will just shame you and say, you know what? If you walk out that door, you're never coming back in. You're cut off from your family, your new family, so they will shame you into staying longer, but the door is open. In the case of the Davidians, I had never heard of them. They proceeded to branch the video ends, evidently. Yeah. And they had a leader that said, in the world is coming on this date. And that date came and went, and a few people were like, I think I'm out of here. And he said, no, it's a new date. And then that date came and went, and then more people were like, that kind of stinks. That dude died, I think, and his wife took over and said, I have a new date. That date came and went, and by that time, there were just a handful of people like, we're out of here. Yeah, whatever. That's about it. So you can leave in the case of the Davidians, but sometimes there are locked doors and they don't let you out. Sometimes there are also bullets, too, in the case of Jonestown and Guiana, a fascinating part of that story that a lot of people don't know about. Yeah, shoot out what was his name? Congressman Leo Ryan, I think. Yes. He came and led a delegation to Jones Town to find out what was going on because some of his constituents were like, our family just moved to guiana with the People's Temple and a guy named Jim Jones. Little weird, kind of concerned. So he went to Guiana and apparently met with the People's Temple members, and 16 of them were like, I'm coming back to California with you. And some other members of the People's Temple, followed them to the airport and opened fire on them and wounded eleven. And killed Congressman Ryan. Yeah. Killed three reporters, one member, and Congressman Ryan. I thought it was just Congressman Ryan. Really? Yeah. Killed five people total. Wow. And that's pretty much what triggered Jim Jones, is, like, it's hitting the fan. Yeah. It's time for all to go. Let's get the flavor aid ready. Yes. And I'm glad you said that. Yeah. We got killed in the brainwashing. We did. I will never, ever forget it. Koolaid is not what they drank. Apparently, Flavor Aid is a British knock off of Koolaid, and they drank grape Flavor Aid and filled it with Valium, Finnigan and cyanide. And that did the trick. Yeah. I'll tell the audience, here what I told everybody to email and said, It's Flavor Aid. It's like, you know what, dude? It doesn't matter what it really was. The expression is don't drink the Kool Aid. And that's just revisionist history. But no one says don't drink the flavor. Aid. You want the Brits to get all the attention? Say, don't drink the Flavor Aid sometime in public and see what someone says. Yeah. Don't you mean koolaid? Tell them that they're the high man on the totem pole. Well, actually, you just told them, Chuck. We're going bigger in our old age. All right, let's say it's not as easy to leave as just getting up and walking out. I would say it's probably somewhere between Jonestown and just getting up and walking out. In certain cases, there's something called deprogramming that you can pay a lot of money to a service to go in and kidnap your son or daughter. What you are doing is wrong. They love your family. In the middle of the night, it will drag them out of this, wherever they are compound. Like it's a kidnapping. Yeah, like a kidnap. And there have been lawsuits, because that's wonder if it doesn't happen a whole lot anymore. It's like a repo man, but for people. Yeah. They're repoing your son or daughter. Right. It's not always a son or daughter. I guess it could be a friend or relative. Otherwise not a kid. Right. But you typically think of, like, a rich dad sending in someone to kidnap his little teenage daughter. Yeah. So they will do that. They will drag them out, and then they will begin a process of deprogramming, basically by using ethical psychological techniques to combat the unethical ones that were used. Well, what they do often is give the programmer a crash course in thought reform. This is what's happened to you. Right. Or this is how cults brainwashed people. Does any of this sound familiar? Do you remember this, like, years ago when you first went in? And that's supposed to kind of start to unlock this desire to not think any longer? Yeah. That's followed by critical thinking questions. Right? Yeah. Do you want to encourage them to be independent with their thinking and praise them a lot when they start having their own original thoughts right. Because they haven't had them for so long. Yes. And then maybe even dance out the little teddy bear or the hover bike from their bedroom, say, look at this. You remember little Bun Bun that you grew up with in Sheboygan? Would you like like to go back with Bun Bun? They'll parade out some things from your past maybe that might trigger thoughts of your former life that you might have loved even right at one point. And then all of a sudden, you're like, bing, bang, boom, I'm not a cult member anymore. Well, that's deprogramming. That's the hardcore version. Oh, yeah. And at the end of it, you're like, okay, I'm good. But there's also exit counseling, which is a little more common. It's pretty much deep programming without the kidnapping. Yeah. I would imagine it's much more common these days, but it's got to be way harder because you have to make contact with the person, and if they're isolated, then you have to convince them to come out. Sure. And I would imagine have very brief periods of time where you have the opportunity to talk to them alone and have even a chance to get them to come out on their own. Yeah. Then you kidnapped. Well, you made a joke a second ago, Josh, when you said, bing, bang, boom, they're out, we're all good. Yeah. That's not the case. No, it's just like any traumatic experience, many times they will suffer psychologically for years with depression, anxiety, paranoia, guilt, rage. Psychologist it's a new line psychologist said that he called it floating when you get out. Yeah. Kind of alternating between the former mind and the current mind, and it's very uncertain times. It's sad. Very sad. It's sad. Imagine spending ten years in a cult and then ultimately coming to feel like you just wasted and lost ten years of your life, because what was the psychological where you just stopped growing psychologically? Yeah. That means that you just spent ten years not doing anything. Wasted years. That's terrible. It is. And then all the years after, however long it takes afterward. Right. If ever. So, as you can see, cults are frequently destructive. I want to say, and I'm sure you'll agree with me not all cults are destructive. You said before, like, even in a destructive cult, some people are like, this is exactly what I need. Tell me what shoes to wear. Tell me exactly how much gruel to eat every day. When is breakfast, exactly? I want to go pick some lime beans. Right. But for the most part, I guess you can understand why a destructive cold is called destructive cold now, even if they don't end in the mass suicide of 900 members. True. You want to talk about some notable cult incidents? We hit Heaven's gate. Well, the Branch Davidians, as most people know, ended in a hail of gunfire and fire. Fire. Remember that image of that tank to shooting flames out of it? Yeah, man. We should do a podcast some time on Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians. You got it. Two very dark spots of the Clinton administration. Oh, yeah. And there was a common thread. An FBI guy was involved in both of them that apparently was a little trigger happy. Really? Yes. I saw a great documentary on it. Well, let's do it. All right. Let's do it right now. Okay. Hey, did I mention to you the guy, the Russian psycho eco psychologist who was called out to Waco because he had some sound recording? I told you about him. Right? And it was supposed to drive them out. Yeah, but if it went wrong the FBI asked what would happen if it went wrong. He said they'll end up slitting each other's throats. He was at Waco too. Did they do it? They used it? No. Once he told them that, they were like, go back to Russia. Leave the killing to us. Yeah. What else? We talked about the SLA Manson family. Did we leave anything big out? We did. And we didn't talk about the order of the solar temple. I don't know much about them. School me. The order of the solar Temple. You've heard of the Knights Templar? Oh, boy, have we. So they were like a modern sect based on them in Switzerland and in Canada. And I think 53 members between the two countries were found dead, set on fire, like, 680 years to the day after the last Templar was burned at the stake. Was it the sun? Did the sun set them on fire? It wasn't. They thought it was a mass suicide. But when autopsies were done, they found out that some of the people had, like, up to eight bullet holes in their head. Some died from suffocation, some died from overdose on narcotics. So murder suicide. Some were suicides, but murder suicide, burning. Got you. That's a big tragedy. All right. There's also the Raylins. Have you heard of them? No. They are still around. They're UFO cult. They're doomsday cult, but they're not destructive. Like, they're never going to kill themselves. It's just not in their doctrine. But they follow a when they get a new doctrine well, they follow a leader named Rail, who is actually a French race car driver. Really? And almost all of the railings are like beautiful Frenchies and French Canadian people. They have an outpost pretty close by in Alabama. They have an amusement park or a theme park, a UFO theme park. And what their whole thing is the day is coming very soon where we are going to be visited by these other life forms who are benevolent. And we need to build an international space station to greet them. It has to have, like, a dining table this long. They have, like, specs. Like, the indoor swimming pool has to be this big up in space. Right. And they're having a lot of trouble getting funding for this. You can imagine. But they're kind of like a good time cult, not attractive. Attractive French people. And they made headlines you've heard of them for this? They made headlines years ago because they claimed to be the first to clone a human baby for a Kentucky senator. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah. And it turned out it was a fraud. Really? But no, I mean, remember, it's like, Holy cow. The language they used in the press release made people think, like, oh, wow, this is really something. Well, Josh, let's just finish with saying that we've said he a lot in regards to cult leaders. Most of them have been men, but oddly enough, many years ago, there were some female cult leaders. I heard Joanna Southcott was 19th century British Christian sect, the South Koreans were who followed her, and she had a vision that she was going to give birth to a messiah. She died in 1814, and they waited for days by her dead body for her to give birth. Yes. Finally, she started stinking, and they said, let's cut her open, see what's in there. There was nothing in there. They said the kid must have been born in heaven spiritually. And some people believe that Shiloh, who was to be this child, is actually Prince William. Really? I always suspect that there's a little something extra to him. There was someone named Annalie from Manchester. She was a female cult leader. She was a Quaker who rejected sex and started the Shakers, not the furniture movement. But some people don't say they're a cult, but no, the Shakers are responsible for the furniture as well. Yeah, they are. Okay. Yeah. Well, they did a heck of a job then. Yeah, I love shaker stuff. Shakers, they were an offshoot of Quakers. The big problem is, and it's mentioned here, that they look down on sex like it's pretty much prohibited. Yeah. How do you keep a cult going or any group going if you're not I can't repopulate it. So the Shakers are on very shaky ground, as it were, as far as membership goes, because they can't you have to recruit outside membership. Yeah. There's very few of them now and then. Margaret Peter was in Germany in 1823, and her cult was sort of just her extended family, but they were all kind of nuts. And she was convinced the devil lived in her loft and the devil need to sacrifice one of her sisters immediately hit herself on the head with a mallet. And then the rest of the family beat her to death. The devil was still there. So Margaret said, hey, why don't you crucify me and I'll be resurrected? So they said, sure. Well, they crucified her, beat her to death, and she was not resurrected in three days. Josh no. The police came and arrested them all. That's exactly right. And I think that was the end of that cult. So, ladies, we always like to give you your due. Yeah, that was Chuck, by the way. Chuck was like, what about female cult members? And did some research. So. Way to go, Chuckers. There are some excellent stuff at the end of the article, some actually great information and places you can go if you have been an adult, you are an adult or you have loved ones in a cult and you should go visit some of those sites. One is called Refocus, and I won't read them all, but there are some places you can go to get help. Kidnapped that kid. Nice. If you want to learn more about cults, you can type that in. There's a very comprehensive article on the site. Just type in Cults in the handy search bar. Howstepworks.com. And since I said that, that means it's time for what? Listener mail. Right. As always. As ever. What? Quick announcement. Okay, we are coming to south by Southwest. Josh I know. Yes. In the fourth largest state of the union. That's right. Austin, Texas. That's not right. But we're going to do a live podcast, and to attend, you need an interactive badge. It's going to be the Driscoll Hotel at 11:00 am. On Monday, March 14. Yeah. And if you don't know how to spell driscoll D-R-I-S-K-I-L-L yeah, it looks better with an E, but it's like Old West spelling of Driscoll. So we encourage you, if you have a badge, to come on down and see us and there'll be a great podcast or at least a mediocre podcast, followed by some Q and A. And really, you're not going to be out any money. You might be out an hour of your life. That's about it. Yeah. And there may be sandwiches we're not going to be providing, but there may be somebody with an extra sandwich there, so that alone should get you down there. If you're at south by Southwest, come check us out. Right. Okay, back to it. This is from Tim Has. A neat little thing. That is not the cult, as far as I know. I guess I'm obsessed with making things and giving them to people. I draw daily, though. I think making art is kind of pointless in a day and age when people are hungry and living on the streets. Feeding people is more important than making paintings, amongst many other things. But I still find myself wanting to draw, so I'm constantly trying to make excuses for why it is socially acceptable to make art instead of helping people, but that is another tale. I decided to start a little project in which I would encourage people to give their sketchbooks away to other people who they don't know, with the incentive being that I would make them a drawing and send it to them. Unfortunately, despite making flyers and Internet distribution, my heart got crushed when not a single person responded. He didn't get me a feedback on this, so we're going to help him out. Okay. I want to create a different kind of currency, but it seems like no one cares. Everyone just wants money, and it really stinks. So he started this thing. Tim did it's. Www dot sendmething WordPress.com. And I think the deal is if you say I'm an artist and I will give away my sketchbook to a stranger, then Tim will send you an original drawing. That's very awesome. All for free. So he's doing a kind of a cool thing here, and he says, the pin is mightier than the sword, and the tongue is mightier than the blade. Tim. L so, Tim. Good luck at sendmeanything wordpresscom. I hope you get some people swapping art soon. Yes, that is a great idea. And we want to hear your good ideas for projects that will help make humanity even slightly better. We definitely want to hear those ideas. Yeah. Or if you were in a cult and got out, that's good stuff. I want to hear that. Okay. Either one of those. Or if your cult had a good idea to make humanity even better, we want to hear that, too. If you're still in a cult, say hi. Correct us big time, too. This is definitely an outsider view because neither Chuck nor I have been in a cult as far as we know. So if you are an ex culp member, if you have an idea for a project that will better humanity, or you're still in a cult and you want to correct us, send us an email. To stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseupworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The House the Forks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2009/1236369067530hsw-sysk-who-owns-oceans.mp3	Who owns the oceans?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/who-owns-the-oceans	International waters cover 71% of the Earth's surface, and a separate set of laws and regulations govern human activity on the seas. But who actually owns the oceans? Listen and find out in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	International waters cover 71% of the Earth's surface, and a separate set of laws and regulations govern human activity on the seas. But who actually owns the oceans? Listen and find out in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=10, tm_hour=12, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=69, tm_isdst=0)	22187511	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. comSK and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts. Banking with Capital One is like the easiest decision in the history of decisions. Kind of like choosing to listen to another episode of your favorite podcast. And with their top rated app, you can deposit checks and transfer money anytime, anywhere, making Capital One an even easier decision that's banking reimagined what's in your wallet terms apply capital One NA member FDIC brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry it's ready. Are you welcome to stuff You Should Know from Housetopworkscom, Oregon. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck boy, Chuck. And we are happy to be here. Agreed. That was terrible. Chuck was a terrible time. You're the one that started it. No, I'm just kidding. This is stuff you should know. Aka the Happy Pirate Hour. Right. Although we're not pirates, and these things never run an hour. But, Chuck, the reason I said Arg is because I wanted to know if you knew about these pirates in Somalia. Have you heard about this? I read a little bit about that. The summer or was it in the fall? Oh, it's still going on. But yeah, this past summer and fall, they were at their peak. They captured $100 million worth of Saudi oil. They captured a cargo vessel with 30 Russian tanks on it. It's amazing. They've been making millions of dollars holding these things for ransom. Right. They're getting increasingly sophisticated. The British Navy went head to head with a small fishing boat of ten of them. And after they finally captured these guys, they went on board. And there were assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers. These guys, they're like modern day pirates in a weird way. It's kind of cool. But at the same time, they're pirates. Right. They should send Bill Murray. Right? They should send Bill Murray. Did you see the Life aquatic? Yes. Pirates. Modern pirates in that movie. I'd forgotten about that aspect. That's what I picture, actually. Really? Yeah. But that's kind of what they're like. It's not the days of the skull and crossbones. No, not anymore. There's very few peg legs aboard these ships, I imagine. But actually, Africa has long been a place for piracy. I mean, this goes back centuries, actually. Red Beards, they were actually two brothers. Brothers barbarosa, really. They established piracy in Northern africa. They were Turks, and they were battling the Spanish Christians across the way, and there was a lot of really evil deeds done to one another from both sides. Actually, I'm a blackbeard guy. Oh, yeah? Did he bury his booty in the Outer Banks? Maybe not too far away. I know that Discovery Channel show Treasure Quest, like all these modern day treasure hunters, it's gotten much more sophisticated, and they're starting to find a lot of these shipwrecks with tons of loot. It's great. Finding old pirates is becoming as sophisticated as modern pirates are. The correlation although correlation is not causation. Check. That's what I learned. Okay. So these pirates were really having it free and easy, and they were very successful. And one of the reasons why is because nobody wanted to capture them because they didn't know who would prosecute them. Well, right. They're acting like they own the ocean. Well, number one, their country doesn't have a functioning central government right now and hasn't since the 90s. Right. Yeah, that doesn't but number two, as you said and I'm so sorry to step all over your segue because it's so beautiful do you want to say it again, Josh? They're acting as if they own the oceans. You know what, Chuck? They do, in a sense. Right. So do you, Chuck, and so do all of you out there in podcast land. We all own the oceans. It is the heritage of all mankind, as the UN puts it. We'll get to that a little later, but yeah. So these Somali pirates are being shuffled around from nation to nation. Kenya's prosecuting a lot of them, but really, it's not clear whether anybody has jurisdiction over them. Right. But yeah. So we all own the oceans in a way. Sure. Right. And the waters off of Somalia have been declared the high seas, which makes them international waters, which means everybody owns them. There are portions of the ocean that people that not everyone owns. Right, right. So you want to talk a little bit about the history? All of this is just so cryptic. Let's really get down to the nuts and bolts here. Sure. They figured this out over the course of the past couple of hundred years. Well, there have been treaties dating back to the ancient Romans. Oh, wow. Yeah. But they were very localized and regional. This is like the oceans. But yeah, that's a couple of hundred years. Yes. I guess the first one was the Freedom of the Seas Doctrine, aka the law of the sea. Right. Not to be confused with the custom of the sea, which was basically protocol for cannibalism during a ship. And not to be confused with chicken of the sea. Yes. It's not chicken. Nice. Yeah. So the Freedom of the Sea Doctrine was kind of the first one, and basically that granted exclusive rights for a three mile buffer of ocean that abutted your coastline. Right. And we still have those. It's called territorial CS. Right. But it's expanded quite a bit since then. It has the territorial sea, whether it's 3 miles or however many miles it is now, which we'll get to later. We don't want to ruin the surprise how far offshore a territorial sea goes now. But basically, it's an extension of the sovereign soil of a nation, a coastal nation. So if a ship sails into that and they're acting a little belligerent, they want to shoot the cannons off or whatever, that's an act of war. It's tantamount to invading that nation's soil. Right. And that actually got us into a couple of wars. Right? It did. We took the not the big one that's World War II. No, World War I. War 1812. World War I was the sinking of the Lusitania absolute. And one of the reasons that drew us in is because an attack on another country's vessels in international waters, which is everything outside of the territorial waters, which is most of the ocean. Right, sure. That is an active war as well. So British vessels capturing American sailors provoked a war of 1812. Right. And the Lusitania being sunk by the Germans. The Germans. That was what caused World War One? In large part. Right. American involvement. After that, the United States. I loved that. We were the ones that said, you know what? 3 miles isn't going to cut it. We want 200 miles. And in 1945, we just kind of declared that. So, yeah. The great sea grab of 45, I like to call it basically what happened for 300 years, the law of the sea. It was an unofficial agreement. Right. An unofficial tree. So the fact that it lasted 300 years is pretty significant. Yeah. That's amazing. But by 1945, one of the reasons it lasted so long is because we didn't have the capabilities to draw things like, I don't know, oil, natural gas, huge commercial fishing operations weren't up yet. But by the mid 20th century, we started to develop these capabilities. And so, under pressure from oil companies, truman actually just said, you know what? I'm going to unilaterally extend the US. Territorial waters 200 miles from 3 miles to 200 miles. Right. I got a stat for you. I want to hear it. Speaking of oil 10 00 19 54 we were only pulling out less than 1 million tons of oil per year from the ocean, right. From all the oceans combined. Right? That's right. And by the end of the 1960s, which that much further along, almost 400 million tons per year. Right. So these things had increased in value. Our sophistication in removing them from the bottom of the sea had increased. Right. And all of a sudden, instead of just some ships passing loaded with cigarettes for going from one country to another, the sea became a much busier place because there's a lot of money to be had. Agreed. I have another stat. I want to hear it. In 2004, which was just a short time ago, the United States alone generated $63 billion worth of wages paid out for oceanic activities in just one year. Yeah. Just the United States. Absolutely. Wow. Okay. So it is it's big business, right? Big time. And I imagine that's probably worth even more now. I can't imagine how much oil we're drawing out now. Four years later, it's probably a lot more. Clearly, everybody kind of wants as much of these resources as they can get, which was the 200 miles sea grab at the US. Kicked off. A whole lot of other countries followed suit immediately. It was just a mess. Right. Well, they're doing it. I want money to do it. Exactly. Yeah. And a lot of these overlapped think of Cuba. Cuba is not 200 miles from the US. So there's just a big mess, lots of ramifications. And because it was an informal treaty, the law of the sea, nobody could say anything. Really. Right. True. Even worse, now that we're drawing all these resources out and overfishing in commercial fisheries, everybody wants the resources, but nobody wants the responsibility of taking care of the oceans. And overfishing is a huge problem right now. Right, sure. And one of the reasons why is because there weren't any, I guess, treaties with teeth in place until 1967. Right. Thanks to your buddies in Malta. Yes. The Maltese ambassador of the UN. When Arvid Pardo finally stood up and said, wait, we must do something about this. It's out of hand. Everybody's going nuts. I'm looking at you, United States. Right. And he suggested that they have a convention, and what came out of that was the convention of the law of the c. Right. I can't believe it took a that long to officially do this. Yeah, he said it in 67. Right. And the convention was finally ratified in 1982. Well, 82, and then didn't come into force until 94. So it took that long just to get this thing. Well, that's the UN for you. They're not a fast moving body. Lazy is what they are. Kind of. So at least they did this. Thank you to Mr Pardo, by the way of Malta. Yes. And it had several provisions to it. Yes. One of the things it did was it codified the law of the sea, the territorial sea. Well, the law of the sea. The original treaty, the original agreement that, number one, the oceans really belong to everybody. Right. It set up an international maritime tribunal for complaints and doling out revenge, that kind of thing. Well, also, we finally get to that mystery fact. You ready? Yes. It extended territorial waters from 3 miles to twelve nautical miles, which is 13.8 regular land miles, which are my favorite kind of miles. Don't even ask me how many kilometers that is, because I'm an American. We don't play that way. No, we don't. We're the only people in the world who don't too. And I remember when I was in elementary school, the metric system, we had to study it because we're going to go to the metric system very, very soon. Yes, I remember that. I was in the womb. Yeah. What a joke. Nice, chuck by American. One of the other things that it did was establish exclusive economic zones. Right. You want to talk about these checks? Yeah. EEZ, basically, if territory or waters extend our state's laws to rights of defense, EEZ basically are right to resources. Right. We're talking what we were just saying, fisheries, oil, that kind of thing. And how far do they go? They go 200 miles. So that's really substantial. Right. Basically it said, okay, you can attack somebody if they come within twelve nautical miles of your shore. Right. You can't attack anybody out there. But if there's somebody mining in your EEZ right. You can come to the International tribunal and we'll do out some revenge for you. Right, right. So a lot of people already had, basically what amounted to an EEZ after the sea grab. Right. And basically they were using the continental slope as the boundary. Right. Because that's where there's a continental shelf that goes from shore to the continental slope. And this is a relatively shallow, like 650ft or something. Right. It doesn't sound shallow to me, but I'm not deep seated. Once it hits the slope you're talking about it going miles down. Right. That's frightening to me. Right. And also I want to make a prediction here, Chuck. Okay. Once our technology to remove natural resources advanced enough that we can get it out of the areas in the continental slope, it will be yet another they'll push it out even further. Agree. At some point they may just push it out so far that they all connect. Well, you know, this is going on right now. Is it? There is another sea grab going on around the Arctic Circle, thanks to our friend climate change, which I think we used to call it global warming, but they didn't pan out. Right, right. Okay. So climate change is actually starting to melt the polar ice caps, and there's an estimated 25% of what remains of the world's natural gas and oil reserves locked under that ice. The ice is starting to unlock. So all of a sudden, Canada, the US, russia, Norway, I think sweden, yeah. Denmark. Denmark, they're all trying to claim exclusive economic rights to those. Right. And there's basically a race going on and everyone's using geology now. They're kind of following the UN convention, but no one cares about the polar bear. Yeah, that's not true. People do care, but they're disappearing because of the ice caps and all that's. Sad. Yes. They're not going to have too many places to go very soon, I imagine. No, I was just writing about this is why I brought it up. But it affects their migrating patterns and their ability to hunt, because they hunt from perched on the ice caps, they get the seal. Oh, yeah. No ice, no hunting. It's really sad. Tragic. The other thing, too, Josh, we wanted to mention, or I wanted to mention, was straits. I love straight. They're my favorite body of water. Right. And it's a tricky area because straits are usually more narrow than the twelve mile territorial sea rule. So if you have straights that go between a five mile straight going between two countries, what do you do? You claim it as international water. That's the only fair thing to do. Yeah. And that was actually part of the custom, right? Yeah, that was that the Convention on the Law of the Sea from the UN said, yeah, we're going to stick with that through yeah. Pretty cool. Agreed. Chuck only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast. That's K Twelve. Compodcast and start taking charge of your future. Today, you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? For all their days at the dog park and nights sleeping in bed. Your bed. Yep. We mean that kid your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition for their best health. It's guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. That means digestive health, heart and immunity, support healthy skin and coat hip and joint support and strengthen energy. Find Halo Elevate at Petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores. Learn more@halopets.com. So, Chuck, you might be thinking at this point, okay, this is all well and good for coastal nations. What about landlocked nations? What about Luxembourg? You know what, luxembourg has every right to the international waters, as you and I do. Yes, but how does that help them with, I don't know, things like shipping? They're landlocked, right? Shouldn't they have some sort of access through their coastal neighbors territorial waters? Unfettered unmolested. I think so. And I bet you're about to tell me that they do. They do. That's good. They do. I believe that's part of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that you have to allow them access through your territorial waters to the coast. If you're a coastal nation and you can't tax them, you can't levy tariffs. Basically, it's trying to make it fair. Right. The problem is, if you are a landlocked country, it sucks for you. There's all sorts of figures and statistics that basically show that, especially developing countries, they're called LLDCs landlock developing countries, they can't get a leg up, right? Well, sure, because there's so many resources in the ocean that they can't get access to. Well, it's not just that. You remember you said that the US. Had $63 billion made from just aquatic maritime activities? Well, those are wages paid out, but yeah, right, okay. That's just wages. Right. Not including economic stimulus of any kind. But it's not just that. People in landlocked developing countries have a life expectancy of about three and a half years less on average than their coastal neighbors, who are of the same developmental progress. Really? Yes. They make about three times less salary on average, and their volume of trade is about 60% less than their coastal neighbors. And one of the examples I read about was the Central African Republic, which is a landlocked western African nation. It costs $13,000 to send a shipping container to that country. The standard ones that go from train to ship to whatever right to send it to the Ivory coast, which is their coastal neighbor right there, cost $3,000. So as a result, landlocked western African nations are making about 12% of what their coastal neighbors are and importing exporting revenues. Right. It's a shame, Josh, that these landlocked countries can't partner up with the coastal nations and work out some kind of a trade deal. Like maybe they have better land for growing a crop inland. And in the spirit of global economy, you should be president of the world, Chuck. I think that's a fine idea. I have another question. Josh okay, let's hear it. I was looking at they got some underwater hotels. Now, have you heard of these? It rings a bell, but I think that may be from a Simpsons episode. No, it's actually real. They have one in Dubai that's I believe it's opening very soon called Hydropolis. Cool. Dubai does all this crazy stuff. I know. They got really great imagination. And there's another one off the coast of Fiji that's set to open next year called the Poseidon undersea resort. And these are big money. We're talking like $1,500 a night for a room. And think about the insurance. Sure, these are off the coast, so they're within the territorial area. But my question and I don't have an answer, but my question is, these are private companies opening these things up, so technically they're on the land below the sea that belongs to that country. So I wonder if they had to work out a deal, like whoever opened up Hydropolis had to work out a deal with the Dubai government. We want this little parcel of land under the water to build something to create a lot of revenue. And what kind of rent do we need to pay? Yeah, they probably have a lease, like, I guess an oil company would have for offshore drilling. Okay, I guess that makes sense. It's probably very long and expensive, right? Yeah. Interesting stuff. Yeah. Okay, one last thing. I think we would be remiss in getting out of this podcast if we didn't name the five oceans. Can you name them, Chuck? It's not in the article. Well, Josh, technically, it's all one big ocean because it's all connected. Yes. Nice try, Chuck. You want to try naming the five ocean? I probably can't do this is embarrassing. I'm going to say atlantic, pacific. Indian. Arctic. How many other five? And there's one more. You got one more to go. Arctic and Southern. Yes, it is the Southern Ocean. That's what it's called. Yeah. Who knew? I had no idea there were only four. Oh, wow. There's three continents. All right, well, we all just soak in. Chuck shame. We're going to it's a deep pool, my friend. I think we should go to listener mail, get you out of this one. Great. Time for listener. Josh this week we have a couple of things. We have one I'm just going to call correction coup. This is a correction with a high coup, which is oh, nice. We love these. And then we have an exceptional listener mail. Lee Santel, or Santelli, I'm not sure, wrote us in with a correction coup about just the one we released the other day about Niagara Falls. And you liken to reaper to scuba equipment. You probably knew you were wrong as soon as it came out of your mouth. No, I thought that's the piece that goes in your mouth. No. Josh apparently, a scuba buoyancy control device, or BCD, exhales the same carbon dioxide dioxide that the user exhales, which bubbles to the surface. A rebreather recycles a portion that the user exhales, and the reusable oxygen is rebreathed. So basically, with a rebreather, you have no bubbles, which is why the Navy Seals exactly. I think that's what I was referencing with. Navy Seal Scuba, equipment, not Joe Schmo Scuba. Of course. Yeah. In that case, you were right. And Lee, thanks for nothing. No, just kidding. Here's a haiku, though, that we put it very succinctly. Swimming under blue, passing fishes on the left. Don't forget the air. Very important. Nice. And we have one more, which I like to sell exceptional fan mail from our friend Chrissy is what she calls herself, Christina Cannon in Michigan, and she's a student, and her family, they sit around and listen to our podcast, which is so cool. I know that. Hello, Christie's family. And she wrote a little poem and owed to how stuff works. It goes a little something like this. I used to listen to Coldplay on my daily walks to class, but those days are finished since the House Stuff Works podcast shows are random and funny and make me laugh out loud a lot, but it's not every day I learn what is the best place to be shot. On behalf of us college students, thanks for telling us stuff we should know. I hope you guys have a great weekend and keep up the wonderful show. Nice. In your face, coldplay, I know. So thank you to Chrissie and the other one, Lee. All right, thanks to both of you and everybody who writes in to let us know that we warm the cockles of your heart because you warm ours. And if you want to know more about who owns the ocean, you can type in who owns the Ocean, appropriately enough in the handy search bar of our beloved website. Also, I would recommend going to opendemocracy.com and looking for an article called Aiming for the Sea that argues points about landlocked developing countries. And I took a couple of steps from now, ashamed to admit, right. And we would also like to plug our blog, which should be now live on the website. It's the stuff you should know. Blog. And we want to invite our fans to interact with each other and talk about things that we talk about. And it's a smart group of people out there, you guys. Yeah, you can actually access that through the House Deport home page. There's a little portal through there take you through time and space. Give me a chuck. That's right. And if you want to send us an email wow, this is a lot of information. If you want to send us an email, you can send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylight is longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing pools like, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarra and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You want your kids to eating the best nutrition, right? And by that we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands? Find Halo Elevate at petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-nobel-prize.mp3	What is an Ig Nobel Prize?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-is-an-ig-nobel-prize	Each year, the Ig Nobel Prize is awarded to researchers for unusual -- and generally humorous -- contributions to science. Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss the highlights of this unique awards ceremony in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Each year, the Ig Nobel Prize is awarded to researchers for unusual -- and generally humorous -- contributions to science. Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss the highlights of this unique awards ceremony in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:44:50 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=16, tm_min=44, tm_sec=50, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=246, tm_isdst=0)	22745910	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Objects carry a lot of power. They tell stories about people, places or a time in history. On Mysteries at the Museum, the podcast from Travel Channel Don Wildman searches for objects that tell shocking stories of American history. Like the ordinary blue mailbox that changed the course of a massive spy case in the Cold War. Uncover the histories behind extraordinary objects. Listen to Mysteries at the Museum on Apple podcasts Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, friends. Dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure, but all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony is passionate about creating real love for all. Rooted in compatibility, Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself, like, I don't know what you want in a relationship. And it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes, someone finds love on Eharmony. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from Howstepworkscom Everybody loves Altoids. Little mints that come in tents. But once the mints are gone, you can do some really neat things with the leftover tents. People have made empty three players, cameras, even stoves. Check out Houseopeworks.com Tennovators to find out more. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You sound like you're smiling big. And you are. This is stuff you should know. Of course it's smiling. Yeah, why not? We're in our happy chairs. So good. Is it like August? Mid, late August. August, right? Yeah, mid August. So you know what that means, don't you? It means as hot as Hades in Atlanta. It is. It's gross, man. It keeps raining just long enough to soak the ground and then boom, the sun comes out and it's muggy. Yeah. Awful. Yeah. I actually have spoken to people who have lived in New Orleans and they say that it is as bad as New Orleans. Really? Yeah, I believe it. Thank you, Al Gore. Stupid global warming. But that's not what you were going to talk about anyway. I just totally sidetracked you, didn't I? Yeah, but I went with it, okay? This is my way. So what does August mean? August means that we are one month and change away from the IgNobel Awards. Right. Not to be confused with the Darwin Awards now, which, Chuck, how many people sent us when we did that spontaneous human combustion? Sent us that Darwin Award clip of that Indian man on top of the train. Yeah. Getting electrocuted. Yes. It was very distressing. It is. And only about half of those said, Be warned what you're about to watch. The others were like, Check this out. Kentucky Fried Dude. Yeah. Normally, I don't like watching people die. But that one, I don't know. I thought it was kind of interesting. Yeah. Distressing. Sure. So was he a Darwin Award winner? Yes. I can't remember what for, but he was definitely an award winner. Yeah. The Darwin awards are a different deal. Those people are generally chided for stupidity, and the IG Nobel Prize winners are not made fun of. Plus, the IG Nobel Awards actually recognize honest to goodness, genuine scientific research. Yes. Left of center scientific research a little bit, but scientific research nonetheless. So the IgNobel Awards are coming up? As I said, October 1. They're actually going to have a live webcast this year. Really? Yeah. Beginning at 715 Eastern Standard Time. And I imagine you'll be able to find the webcast, or at least a link to it on Improbableresearch.com. Right. Well, NPR every year. Broadcast it the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year, it's the day before Thanksgiving. Oh, is it? I believe so. Well, look at you. Yeah. But if you don't want to wait and you want to see it live as it happens exactly, yeah. Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving. So what are these dudes, we should go ahead and tell people. It's a riff on two things on the Nobel Prize and the word Ignoble, which means of low character or inferior quality. Right. And I have to say that Mark Abrams, the guy who is the editor of Improbable Research, which is a scientific humor magazine now it's a website. Right. He kind of does a little fancy footwork here or there. What do you mean? Well, he says that yeah. He's like, we're not making fun of people, but we're making fun of people. But he calls it the IG Nobel Prize. Right. He's saying this is actually to spark curiosity in science. Right. But we're celebrating research that shouldn't be replicated or reproduced kind of all over the place. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too, a little bit. He does. And boy, howdy does he ever since, I think, 1991, they've handed out IG Nobel Prizes for all sorts of stuff. Sure. I like it. I think it's fun, and most people do take it light heartedly. I have a very famous case that I can go into later on, someone who did not take it very lightheartedly, but it's meant to be very humorous. And if you look at some of the award winners every year, you can see why. So each year they give a prize out in ten different categories, right? Yes. Do you want me to go through those? Might as well. Those categories, Josh, are nutrition, peace, Archeology, biology, medicine, cognitive Science, economics, physics, chemistry, and literature. Yeah, pretty cool. Like I said, this is actually legitimate research. Sometimes they're given out to patent holders, but a lot of times, also, if you've had a study published in a legitimate journal, you're a candidate. You can be a candidate. I think they get like 5000 nominations every year and they sort through all of them. Right. You can nominate yourself. Right. And the study doesn't have to have been done in the year that the prizes are given out. Oh, really? Yeah. Actually. Chuck, back in 1994, some researchers at Wright Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio we're working on a project that they entitled Harassing, Annoying and Bad Guy Identifying Chemicals. Right. Right. And they sought $7.5 million for research grants. This is the real deal. It is. I've actually seen the documents from the Air Force and basically what they were coming up with was a non lethal project of chemicals that one of them was basically a chemical that they would launch behind enemy lines and it would arouse the ire of stinging insects in the area. So they go and attack the enemy. Another one was to create, I think, chronic or prolonged halitosis among enemy soldiers. So they couldn't stand to be around one another. And then there was the one that got the IG Nobel. Yes. The infamous gay bomb. Yes. It says that this is under the category three chemicals, chemicals that affect human behavior, so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely affected. One distasteful but completely nonlethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior. The Air Force was working on a gay bomb. How much money did they put toward this? Well, hold on. It won the 2007 IgNobel Peace Prize. The Peace Prize? Yes. That's good. How much money is 7.5 million. Wow. And that was don't know what exactly came of it. And the Air Force didn't take kindly to this. Correct. They did not show up to receive their award. Right. I don't think they ever had a statement to the contrary that they were upset, but they didn't show up and say, hey, thanks. This whole gay bomb thing didn't work out, but thanks. Thanks for the props. Right? Yeah. Who judges these things? Actually, what's crazy is that some Nobel Award winners, like real Nobel Award winners, serve on the board of governors to decide who is going to get an IG Nobel Prize. Right. You know who also has the professor from Gilkins Island. No. Yeah. Holy Castle. Johnson served one year. Sweet. Apparently they do that. They get celebrities and certain actors and athletes to be on the panel. And they said regular street Joe is your average Joe off the street. They'll put them on the panel, too. Yeah. And it's held at Harvard. Well, it used to be at MIT, and now it's at Harvard. They have a big ceremony every year. And I think the prize laureates are able to give a 1 minute acceptance speeches. All yeah. They have Little Miss Cutie Poo who basically shouts them off stage when they start exceeding their minute like that. And the criteria for Little Miss Cutie Poo is that she must be an adorable eight year old with ice water in her veins and from the Boston area. And they're actually looking for applicants right now. Really? Yeah. If you're listening in Boston and you're an eight year old terror yeah. You might want to apply with a shrill voice. Yeah. Bring it. Yeah. The award itself, Josh, is different every year, which is kind of cool. They have different designs each year, and one of them was the cereal box labeled IgNobel O's. Kind of fun. And that actually kind of leads as a nice segue into the discussion about this one guy who very famously derided the IG Nobel Awards as stifling science, or at the very least, making fun of it. Serious scientific. Not happy about it. No. Bob May. Yes, it was in 1995, bob May was the head of the Science Ministry for the UK. So he was pretty big cheese. I imagine you could put him on par with maybe the Surgeon General or the head of the National Science Foundation here. Right. And he came out and he wrote a letter to improbable research. And he also had one published in Nature where he just railed on the IG Nobel organizers and improbable research. Yeah. He said not to ever award another one to anyone from England. No, thanks. The people who were getting the award that year had been doing research. They were from the University of East Anglia, who I have to say is the university that produces some really entertaining studies. But this one was the research into the effects of what makes that's good research. Right. Well, he said, don't give it to these people. Don't ever give it to another British scientist again. And actually, he thought he had just put the final stamp of disapproval on it. Actually created this huge outcry in the scientific community about how stuffy the British scientific establishment is. And certainly not doing very much to quell stereotypes, is he? No, he wasn't. And in 2000, his successor actually went no, 2002 actually went to the IG Nobel Awards to basically show that, hey, Great Britain's back on board, baby. That's good. Yeah. I think science, the more you can laugh at certain things and have fun with it, the better, because you want to turn other people on to science. You don't want to turn them off by thinking that we're all so stuffy and uptight that we can't laugh at ourselves. You just gave me yet another segue. Speaking of turning people on. Okay. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. What's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. 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IG Nobel Prize winner for Medicine was a guy named Dr. Peck Van Andel. Is that a real name? Yes, it is. I think he's Dutch. Sounds like a pseudonym. You would think it might be. He won the 2000 Eg Nobel Prize for Medicine for making the first MRI video of human reproductive organs while they're engaged in the act of cotus. I did. And it is an MRI porno. It's crazy. So basically he had two people performing intercourse inside an MRI machine for this? Yeah. Wow. And he has a video of it and it's up on YouTube. Actually. It's an improbable research number. 119, I believe. Right. And I should probably say, if you are listening, you're listening to this at work and you're about to open another tab. You might want to take it easy, wait until you get home. And if you're twelve, don't watch this yet. At least don't tell your parents that it was Josh and Chuck who told you about this. Right. Should we talk about some more of these prizes? Yeah, dude, it's time. I think Robert Lam, who wrote this awesome piece of work, probably had a lot of fun with this one. He wrote that in 2003, Keys W Moleker did a study on the existence of homosexual necrophiliac ducts. And this is all real? Yeah. Actually, this study led to dead Duck Day in the Netherlands. Now. Really? Yeah. Well, funny you should say the Netherlands, because there was one in New Zealand about exploding pants among New Zealand farmers in the 1930s. Someone studied that too. Yeah. What was up with that? I have no idea. I didn't see the final outcome. I went on the improbable research and found some other winners. Chuck, there's some pretty wacky stuff out there at the very least. I mean, you have to think about it. When somebody undertakes this study, they're very serious about it. They want to get to the bottom of it. And obviously, if you look at it like the gay bomb. They didn't say the gay bomb. Plus Arousing sting bees. And there's legitimate research associated with it. It's the gay bomb. They're picking out the funniest angle of looking at this. But there is some legitimate there is very much legitimate research put into this. And you have to imagine funding for this research. Somebody said, okay, yeah, go check out necrophiliac homosexual dots. Right. And then it's published usually in the medical journal. Yes. I have one from last year that was pretty funny. In the field of chemistry. Sherry Ompierre, joseph Hill and Deborah Anderson discovered that Coca Cola is an effective spray. Hermicide and Cy Hong c shi pi woo, and Bngiang accidentally proved that it is not an effective spermicide in the same year. So they were both awarded the Award for Chemistry, which I thought was pretty funny, and they all showed up to receive it. I accept it. Yeah. Both sides of the studies. I think it was last year, Chuck, that Ivan R. Schwab and Philip Ramay won the prize for ornithology what was that? They researched why woodpeckers don't get headaches. Really? Yeah. Or why they give people headaches is what I would follow up with. No. Last year in nutrition, this one I thought was pretty funny. Brian Wansink investigated people's appetite for mindless eating, and his trick was he had a self refilling bowl of soup in front of them that they didn't realize was constantly refilling itself. Oh, you would study if they would just keep on eating and eating without thinking about it. Awesome. I could go for a self refilling bowl of soup. Really? Yeah. Depending on the soup. Loaded baked potato? Definitely. Yeah. I've got one. You ready? Yeah. The IgNobel Prize for Mathematics in 2007 went to Nick Vincent and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization. They calculated the number of photographs you have to take to ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed in one of them. Do you have the stats? No, I don't. But if you want the stat, you can read the June 2006 issue of Velocity, and the article is called Blink Free Photos Guaranteed. I've got one for you, too. We could do this all day. We could, but this one actually could be real. Have real applications in aviation. They discovered that hamsters recover from jetlag more quickly when given Viagra, so there might be something to that. Jet lag is a problem for some people, and maybe something in the Viagra could actually help humans, because rats and hamsters and humans all kind of are wired the same. Well, I don't know if it's groundbreaking research as much as it is just proving conventional wisdom. Well, do you think so? With Viagra, everybody knows Viagra cars, jet lag, and rodents. Okay. Sorry. You got another one. I do. Can you tell by the look on my face? Yeah, you were gasping 2007, the Medicine Prize went to some researchers from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. They did some research into terminating hiccups by digital rectal massage and digital, in this case, dig your finger. Okay. You know, it's funny, I read that earlier. I was like, how can you get a digital rectal massage? I was thinking digitizing. All right. I wasn't thinking fingers. That makes sense. Do you get any more? You want to do another couple? Actually, there was one, the guy who studied strippers and found that strippers get more tips when they're ovulating. Yeah. They won the Economics prize last year. I thought that was pretty interesting. Yeah. So, in essence, it's a lot of fun. They're kind of poking fun. But it is some legitimate research going on and I just think it's a good time. I agree. And if you're interested in checking it out, as I said, the IG Nobel Prizes are going to be on. There's going to be a live webcast at 715 Eastern on October 1, if you want to find out who ends up being Miss Cutie Poo for 2019 in a wig, eight year old steely cold. Yeah, I could hear it. Yeah. So, Chuck, I guess that's it, right? Do you want to read this? I have to say, you said Robert Lambert a great article. I agreed. I think this article has one of the best introductions on the site. Yeah, it's a good one. You can find that by typing in IgG and then Space and Nobel on the handy search bar on hostedoforks.com. And since I said that, that means, my friends, that it is time for listener mail. Yes, indeed. Josh, I'm just going to call this answer to our query about the biggest badass of World War II. Yes, Chuck, I'm very excited about this one. We got a lot of response texture. We called, if you remember correctly, just to recap, we did a thing on Japanese Stragglers. Wait, let's go to the Way Back machine and listen to what we said. Okay. In contrast to Ukoy was the baddest dude in World War II. Probably. As a matter of fact, I invite our listeners to email us any single individual who can top the man we're about to talk about in badness. Okay, I agree. And Josh will personally email you back and debate you. And there it is. So we posted the Onatta was one of the biggest rambos of the war. Sure. And we challenged people to send in one battery. And people did. Yeah. We got a lot of responses. Yeah. But there was one that had overwhelming support. There was. There are actually a couple we want to give a special, I guess you would call it a runner up to Audi Murphy, famous American actor and soldier. Yeah. Baby face. Like a buck 25. But, yeah, I started shooting at him. He went crazy and he was awesome and he was super bad. But I think he gets a little attention because he was a real small guy and he was American. And he was American. He had such a chair of base. Like, people think, oh, man, he's extra bad because he was tough and he was little. We got some votes. There was some British guy that was pretty bad, another couple of Japanese dudes. But wait, you got another one? No, but we have a winner. Yes. Clear winner. This guy is so bad. This is Simo Haiha. The nickname for him was White Death. Yes. Can I tell this guy's story, please? All right, so he was a Finnish farmer, and he was just basically doing his own thing when the Russians invaded Finland. The Winter War. Yes. He didn't like this one bit. So basically, he took a standard bolt action rifle without a sight. No scope. No scope. Sorry. Yes. And went out into the woods, the subarctic woods of Finland, where it gets to about 40 deg below Fahrenheit, and just basically set up in trees or in blinds and waited. And he didn't have to wait very long. Over the course of one year, just using this old rifle, he killed 500 Russians, 505. As a sniper. As a sniper. A lot of these people, when the Russians were finally alerted that there was one sniper out there that was causing them all these problems, they sent detachments with the specific mission of going to kill him. Find the White Death. Yeah. That's when he got the name the White Death. So they send detachment after detachment out, and he just murders every single one of them. He killed 200 people with a submachine gun. So that would, I guess, would be like the close up fight. Right. 705 confirmed kills in a year. Finally, somebody gets close enough to them to shoot him in the face with an exploding bullet. And it's still didn't kill him. He was shot in the jaw. Rumor has it that he shot the other sniper before losing consciousness. So the guy that just shot him before he passed out, he killed him. Immediate retribution. And the guy who wrote in was the best email says unofficially, he had over 800 kills. And this was in under 100 days. It was less than a year. Wow. So he said, it's just a killing machine. Think about it. That is at least five kills per day, plus 200 kills with a World War II submachine gun. And he still didn't die? No. He lost consciousness and woke up, apparently, the day World War II ended. Yeah. And he lived until 1998. So I think the White Death, I'm going to vote for him. Oh, hands down, he is the biggest badass of World War Two. Yes. Although some people are going to write in and say, yeah, but this is sniper stuff, and Audi Murphy fought people with, like, a knife. I got to tell you, Audi Murphy is, to me, a very close second. But the White Death, first of all, the name alone, sure, 40 deg below fahrenheit just sitting out there sniping Russians. I mean, I think he wins the award, in my opinion. He does. So I want to give credit where credit is due here. We want to thank Carson from Toronto. Actually, that's a joke. I'm making a joke. He's actually from Edmonton, and he said, please don't say I'm from Toronto. And he also said something about eating heaven euros and mentioning that so his friends would know it's really him. Okay. So, Carson, we've done. So Carson from Edmonton, timmy in New York City, devon from Georgia, and Adrianne all rode in with White Death, and I think they're actually more so left off. Yeah, definitely don't snipe me. And also, there's a really cool article, Crack.com about Rambo, or basically real life soldiers who make rambo look like something right there. Yeah, that's worth reading. And if you want to send us an email about anything at all, white Death or otherwise, you can send that to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Want morehoused stuffworks? Check out our blogs on the housethepworks.com homepage. Okay, if you're a fan of Altoids, the curiously Strong Mints, you probably have a lot of empty pens laying around. You can do some pretty cool stuff with them. You can make survival kits, flash drives, even robots. Check out Altoids on Facebook to find out more. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health. Who needs better than leaving brands? Find Halo Elevate at petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores."
c45364ee-5460-11e8-b38c-a3dd028c3c52	SYSK Selects: How Jackhammers Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-jackhammers-work	It’s likely that without the invention of the pneumatic jackhammer, the Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have hummed along quite so smoothly. Certainly a lot more trains would go around mountains than through them. Learn about this essential tool in this classic episode.	It’s likely that without the invention of the pneumatic jackhammer, the Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have hummed along quite so smoothly. Certainly a lot more trains would go around mountains than through them. Learn about this essential tool in this classic episode.	Sat, 30 May 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=151, tm_isdst=0)	29507586	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them Halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com. Hey, everybody, this is Chuck here on a Saturday. It's beautiful, it's sunny, it's actually rainy and cold, but maybe by the time this rolls around, it'll be beautiful and sunny. But I know on February 16, 2016, it was not beautiful and sunny because we released an episode that has gone down. And Stuff You Should Know, history is, from our point of view, quite possibly the most boring, worst one. So I thought I would pick this one and rerelease it into the world and just see if it's as bad as I thought it was. This is our very, very infamous episode on Jackhammers. Yes, we did an entire episode on Jackhamers. And here it is right now. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, which means time for stuff you should know. The Jackhammer edition coming at you. That's right. One of the most annoying sounds I know. You hate the leaf blower. Yeah. Established, I think the leaf blower Jack camera up there. Sure. Yeah. But we don't live in New York. If we lived in New York, Jack camera would be number one. I feel like I've never stayed in a hotel in New York where there wasn't a Jack. No way below me. No, not even a chance. Every single time. Yeah, leaf blower. It's a lot more frequent down here in Atlanta then the Jack camera. Not a lot of leaf blowers in New York City. No, not a lot of leaves. Well, that's not necessarily true. None depends on where you are. So we don't usually shout out a thank you at the beginning of an episode, but we got a couple of gifts that are so special we want to do that. We do. So Peter O'Donnell and the gang at Biltsharp Knives B-I-L tsharp out of Philly sent me a chef's knife. Sent you a filet knife. Beautiful. And it's one of the most gorgeous pieces of, like, handmade craftsmanship I've ever seen. Yeah, it's amazing. I cannot wait to catch a fish. Oh, dude, I can't wait for that for you. Cut the thing open. Yeah, after it's dead. Oh, really? You can't lock the head off while it's still alive. No, I think you're supposed to you're supposed to hit it with a hammer. I think some people do. I do not. These things are gorgeous. I mean, the blade itself, they handmake these to handle the weight. It's a piece of art. And not only that, it is the sharpest thing I've ever seen in my life. I know. It's like dangerous. They're knives. They're supposed to be sharp. Yeah, but wield it with respect. Yeah, well, they're respectable knives. You can actually go into tumblr. You can just search hashtag knives. You should know one word and it chronicles in pictures and short captions or brief captions. The process of them making our knots is awesome. Yeah. It's just really neat. And I just love handcrafting and forging steel. Those are lost arts in a lot of ways. And they're doing it right, man. They're really beautiful. Cool, man. So anyway, thank you for indulging. Yeah, thank you, guys. Yeah, thanks, Peter. That was really cool. So jackhammers. Yeah, jackhammers. If they were as sharp as built sharp knives, they'd be onto something. I don't know if it would work quite the same. Probably not. So, yes, it's true we are actually talking about jackhammers. And yes, it's true that jackhammers are about what you think they are, but they're also kind of interesting when you start to look into them. Right? Yeah. So think about I didn't realize this, this article points it out. A jack hammer is a hammer and a chisel. That's right. But it's a hardcore hammer and chisel. Yeah. And it takes out of the equation largely the human whose back and shoulder muscles have to be involved in every single strike of that hammer and chisel. You're talking john Henry and the sledgehammer. Yeah, exactly. Because prior to the advent of the jackhammers, 1850s, by the turn of the last century, we had jackhammers kind of down pat. It was sledgehammers and pickaxes to remove rock. It was a real deal. It killed people. It literally could kill you. That kind of work. Yeah. I mean, mining is still a very dangerous job, but pre industrial revolution mining was no fun. Dangerous, deadly. And even if you didn't die, it's just brutal, brutal, back baking work. Slinging a sledgehammer. Yeah. You ever sling a sledge? Sure. It's the worst. It's hard work. You ever used a jackhammer? No, I haven't. It's awful. Well, that's the thing. It's better than the sledgehammer. Yeah. Well, in some ways, but it's brutally difficult. It is. It is probably one of the most brutal tools you can use on any kind of site for any kind of project. There aren't that many tools out there that are going to take as much out of you as the jackhammer. It's tough on your body yeah. Because they weigh about \u00a3100. Like a normal heavy duty jackhammer weighs about 100 lbs. You have to hold it in place upright because you don't want to jumping around, although it's probably not going to anyway. It's designed not to jump around. Right. But you want to kind of keep it in a fairly confined area, which means you're using your muscles to steady it while it's going up and down at a very fast rate. Some of those things impact with the ground 1000 to 4500 times a minute. Yeah, it's tough. It's the only tool that and the hardwood floor skimmer, like the orbital floor cleaner, you can use that. Like put a sanding pad on a hardwood floor and that thing and the sledgehammer. The only time I've ever used tools that I felt like were controlling me and not me not controlling the tool I got you until you get it. Once you get it, it's a little better. But at first when you first start to use it, you can rent a jackhammer. If you want to bust up your driveway, you can go do it yourself if you're a fool, make sure that you don't need the driveway anymore before you do that. Yeah. But once you get the hang of it, you kind of can wield it a little bit, but it's tough. I mean, it feels like I have no power or control over this thing. Right. I can imagine. So it is a very difficult tool. But again, the alternative is early death. And the other alternative, which is to call someone to do it for you, is the best option of the three. So say that you are King Carlo Alberto of Sardinia and the year is about 1830 something. 1840. Yeah. And you want a train tunnel built through a mountain, and the tunnel is going to need to be 12 km long. You do call somebody else, but that somebody else you call goes, I don't know what to tell you, buddy. We could try pickaxes or whatever, but you're not still going to be alive by the time we finish. Yeah. What can we do? And actually this call for a twelve kilometer long tunnel through a mountain in Sardinia prompted the early forays into developing pneumatic tools like a jackhammer. Yeah. In 1848, a guy named Jonathan Couch built what he called a percussion drill. And this had a bit that went through the piston of a steam engine. So it was piston driven. Then contemporary Joseph Fowl actually attached it to the piston and then he started in 1851 using air, which is pneumatic, to power it. But these were still attached to a piston. And it wasn't until 1895 with Charles Brady King, when he actually is given credit for inventing the traditional looking handheld modern jackhammer. Modern pneumatic powered jackhammer. Right. And he gets a lot of credit for stuff that was already built, like a lot of people say he was actually the inventor of the automobile. No, he wasn't. Well, he was the inventor of the gasoline powered automobile. No, he wasn't. He was the first guy in Detroit to build and drive one around. And he did end up inspiring and mentoring Ransom Olds and Henry Ford and some other early car manufacturers and is almost single handedly responsible for making Detroit Motor City this guy. But he also Stanley. Right. And what's wrong with Ace Frasere? I like that guy's stuff. What do you mean? Didn't he get kicked out of Kiss? Oh, I think he was sort of not invited back. Yeah. I think it's a money move. They don't have to pay the nameless other guitar player nearly as well. He was the founder of the band, right? Yeah. How do you get kicked out like that for money? I think Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons probably own Kiss Incorporated. I know. Anyway, Charles Brady King, he put Detroit on the map as far as auto manufacturer goes. And he did do a lot of refining of Pneumatic tools, including the jackhammer. And he does hold the patent, or he did hold the patent for it. Yeah. And he invented a lot of stuff. He was a sharp guy. And the fact that it's Pneumatic, which means air powered, compressed air powered, is the reason why most jackhammers today are still compressed air powered. It's because of the mining application of it. Yeah. Like when you mine, you're releasing a lot of potentially explosive gasses. And you can't have something like a steam engine that's combustion power down there. Yeah. Or you can't have an engine in there releasing exhaust, and you can't have a jackhammer that will spark a rock. Well, that might happen no matter what. Right. Well, no, that's what I'm saying. You can't have that among volatile gasses. Right. So you're air driven is the perfect key. Because it doesn't matter if that hose is 1000ft long. You're not going to lose power because it's going to be compressed. Yeah, it's going to be compressed air up against compressed air. And up on the surface, you've got a diesel engine that's powering a piston, just like in your car. And the piston moves up and down the cylinder, and as it moves down, it compresses the air in the cylinder and pushes it down into a storage tank where it sits as compressed air. And that's released out the other end through the hose, and it ends up into the jackhammer. And yet, no matter how far away it is, it's still going to be just as powerful. And that compressed air is inflammable. So you can be a happy miner. All to live. Long day. Well, buddy, you're getting excited. So that means we need to take a break and put this pill under your tongue and we'll come back right after this. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system so you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feel like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM. Let's create learn more@ibm.com. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off Ups to stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com. Click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. How are you feeling now? Relaxed. Good. I love the title of this next section. airpowered Destruction. Yeah. You can get an electric jackhammer. If you've ever gone to a hardware store, they have these kind of smaller handheld jack cameras that you can take up, like your bathroom floor tile pretty well with it, plug it into the wall. It has a little chisel bit on the end of it, but that's small beans. You can't do a driveway. No way. Or concrete or asphalt with something like that. Or a twelve kilometer tunnel through a mountain in Sardinia. No, you need the big T shaped jack camera. And here's one of the things that didn't really occur to me. One of the reasons it works so well is because it's so heavy. Right. It's not like they say, well, let's make this thing weigh \u00a315 or \u00a320 to make it easier to run, which it probably could. Yeah, maybe you could do that. But it would jump all over the place. Yeah. You want that thing super heavy because that's part of the power and force behind it. That's right. So these things are pneumatic. Right. And just like on the compressed air compressor up on the surface, when you're down in the mine, jackhammer has a piston and a cylinder in it. Right. Okay. And it's actually a really kind of simple when you cut the thing open and draw a cross section of it, which we did. Yeah. On our hands for crib sheets. You can see that really, the whole mechanism comes down to a trigger valve, right? That's right. So what you have here is you got the pressure chamber. The compressed air enters that chamber, activates the trigger valve, and it just because of the compressed air, opens and shuts really fast. Right. And so the trigger valve moves the air either above the piston or when it closes, the air goes down below the piston, which means chisel goes up. Chisel goes down. Right. Because the piston is striking the top of that chisel bit, driving it downward when the compressed air comes in and pushes the piston down. And then when the valve closes and the air goes underneath the piston, there's also a spring in there that brings the drill bit back up because it wouldn't work very well if it knocked it down. They had to go down and reset it. And apparently the earliest jackhammer had that very design, that feature. That was it. It goes, bam. And then you'd have to reset it. Bam. And then reset it. And they were like, this isn't going to work. Yeah, that's sort of like the pneumatic cattle punch what's his face used and no country for Old Men. Yes, one way. It's exactly like that. Not very good if you're trying to bust up concrete, but good if you want to put a rod in a cow. That's right. It doesn't stun them. It does the eternal stun. I think it stuns a cow and then they kill them. Oh, I thought they put it into the brain to kill the cow. No, I think it can and probably does sometimes. But I think the main purpose of it is to stun the cow. So it's not like it's just days and out of it when they kill it. Hydraulic jackhammers. It's the same a jackhammer would kill a cow. Hydraulics use fluid, same principle, but it doesn't use air. If you've ever seen they have jackhammers, you can they're really large that you can't handle as a person, but it's like attached to a backhoe or something. That's for big, big jobs. And those are usually hydraulic and non pneumatic. Right. But probably not every time. I'm sure someone in the construction industry will correct me on that. Well, I went and looked, and if you go on Alibaba, that site has everything, and they have hydraulic jackhammers for sale. What's Alibaba? Is that like Sky Mall? It's like China's, Amazon, but they sell everything on it. It's nothing like Sky Mall. You think everything's like Sky Mall because you want Sky Mall to come back. I sure do. But it did seem like all of the backhoe attached jackhammers were hydraulic that I saw. Okay, all right. Well, here's what happens. At 1000 to 4500 hits per minute, that chisel bit. And if you're breaking up rock, there are different kinds of bits. A pointy bit if you're breaking up like a driveway or something, is really good. Or you can use a flat bit for other applications. So, yeah, if you're breaking up a driveway and all you want is for the driveway to go by, the pointy bit is the one you want because it's not a controlled cut, right? Like a flat head screwdriver style bit is the kind of where you can really kind of control where the cracking goes. Right. Or if you want to, like I said, if you're taking up your floor tile and you have the handheld version, that's what you want to just scoot it underneath the tile and chip it up. And there's actually some insane mathematicians have actually tried to figure out how you can predict how cracks propagate. Oh, really? Yeah, there's like for the most efficient jack hammering, pretty much. Well, like, what bit will work best and where to place it and how to use it. But one of the things that I didn't understand before is that when you are jack hammering, you are creating different types of flaws, basically in this solid, say, concrete structure, right? And when you're doing that, the first flaw you're doing, the first flaw you're creating is this kind of surface powder that the initial chips you're making are actually powderizing and congealing around the drill bit, right? And that powder actually transmits the impact of the jackhammer throughout the rest of the concrete pad in that immediate area, and that actually starts to create cracks. So you think, well, it's just a drill bit creating crack, it gets in there enough, actually. No, it's generating these different materials from the very concrete itself and it's using those materials to distribute the force and create cracks that ultimately start to spread and propagate. And as they spread and propagate, they get bigger and bigger and then a chip comes off. And when the chip comes off, the amount of force that's generated in there goes down again and you have to build it back up by more jackhammering. But essentially these larger cracks that you're making come together and then big chunks break off. And then when a big chunk breaks off, you want somebody to come in and clear the chunks away while you move the jackhammer because you're just going to be breaking up those chunks. And that's not the point of jackhammer anymore. No, the point is you're trying to remove whatever material in as big a pieces as can be removed, like by a backhoe with a bucket or something. Sure. Obviously it can't be too big because you might have to break up into smaller bits, but you don't want 3 million little tiny rocks at the end of it, right. You're not breaking it into gravel. No, the machines do that. Some of these things actually, when you create a crater that's good, but you don't want your crater full of junk. So some of them actually have air or water that blasts the stuff clear as you're going, which is pretty neat, too. Yeah, that's an issue because the stuff that dust that accumulates, that forms what's called the crush zone, that powder that distributes the force throughout, actually can be a health hazard. And there's actually a lot of health hazards with jackhammers, and we'll talk about them right after this. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You aren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. So you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt and everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com. Click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. All right, Josh. Health hazards of jack hammering dust is no joke. Well, before we go to health hazards, let me say this actually can be a health hazard. It can be dangerous when you get your bit stuck. And the general rule of thumb is you don't want to put the bit farther down. You don't want to keep going down farther than the length of the bit, because if you get your bit stuck, it's really tough to get back out. Yeah. And while it may give you a little break, your boss isn't going to be happy. Or if you're renting that thing by the hour at your house, you're not going to be happy. Yeah. Because you just use all the force of that compressed air to jam that chisel bit several inches into concrete. You need, like, King Arthur to get that out. Yeah. So move it around inches at a time so it doesn't go straight down into one spot. And you want a sharp bit as well. Obviously, a dull bit is going to get stuck easier and it's not going to break up the material as well. Exactly. And like you said at the beginning, jackhammer is one of the noisiest tools around. It's the worst it might be the noisiest tool. Jackhammers create a noise at about 130 decibels. From what this article says, that is the sound of a jet engine taking off. That's how loud those things are. And driving here, no joke, I passed a dude using a jack camera and he wasn't wearing ear protection. You know, I was just about to say is, I bet you've never seen a jack camera operator not use ear protection. I never have until today. That's nuts. Isn't that a weird coincidence, though? It is totally weird and just dumb. He's like screwed. I got health insurance. Construction headphones are a must. Yes. And because we were talking about how much it wears you out, if you're on a road crew, you're probably going to be rotating out jackhammer duty. It's not like chuck you're on the jackhammer for 10 hours today for the rest of your life. Yeah. And it's a real thing. Like, people who use jackhammers as their profession, they do face a lot of problems. That dust is I already mentioned that. But concrete has a silica in it that's been proven to cause lung cancer. And so a lot of these jet cameras will have like a water sprayer at the end of them that just constantly is introducing water that keeps the dust on the ground and like a puddle. All right, and what's the difference or the deal with this? I know I didn't get a chance to look at it, but you sent a pretty interesting thing on the negative effects of vibration on the human body. Yeah, it's weird. What's the deal there? So vibrations are very odd. They used to belong in the realm of Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain. They did a lot of research and the effects of vibration on the body. Right. And it does everything from causal insomnia to digestive issues to motion sickness. And this is bad vibration. I mean, there's also, like, good vibration. There's also good vibration. There's vibrations that vibrate at a certain frequency, certain hurts, and I don't remember what it is, but it's like a low frequency vibration. And there's something called whole body vibration, which apparently GM is dealing with a problem right now. They have their largest I guess maybe they're tahoe or something, but they're large SUVs. They had to really strengthen the cage so that if it rolled over, the bottom of the truck wouldn't crush the roof. But the thing is so rigid that when it goes at like, highway speeds, it vibrates at this frequency. That's perfect. And it's giving the driver's motion sickness. Oh, really? So yeah, there's all this weird stuff that happens from vibrations and exposure to vibrations. Wow. And so that's whole body there's also hand arm vibration, and there's something called reynolds phenomenon. And it's basically like your hands being exposed to vibrations for that many hours out of the day. And this can happen, too, if you're working with, like, a gas powered weed whacker all the time. Right. But especially a jackhammer operator is going to run into this. The circulation gets basically cut off from all the exposure and vibration in your fingers. And it can get so bad, especially when it's cold out there. They just turn white. It's called blanching. Wow. They lose sensation if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, there's a tremendous amount of pain in them. You can't grip things. And if you're a jackhammer operator, that's a big problem because you need to be able to grip the jackhammer. Yeah. And weird psychological issues brought on from fatigue and that constant noise, headaches, and the insomnia that can all lead to you kind of losing it a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I never really thought about that. All of it put together is called vibration sickness, and we're only now just starting to really understand it. Shrapnel is also a danger, of course, if you're on a construction site, you know all this stuff. But since you can go out and rent a full fledged jackhammer because you want to take out your driveway this weekend right. I think a lot of people go into it lightly. Like, I've seen those things on the road. I can do that. Sure. Be careful. Like, don't do it in flip flops or tennis shoes. Oh, man. Get your big heavy hob nail boot. The great Larry Munson said, put those on. Get your ear protection, wear eye protection, wear long pants, and don't be a dummy. Right. It all seems like basic safety issues, but I bet you there's been a dude with short pants and a flip flop. They tried to jackhammer something jackhammered right through his foot. It'll happen. Oh. The also important thing, too, if you're doing this at home and you don't like your sidewalk that leads to your house, get the electrical and gas companies out there. And I don't even think they charge for it, or they might, but they'll come out there with little spray can and they will show you and draw paint on the ground where your gas lines and your power lines are. Yeah. Because you do not want to jackhammer into either of those. No. Not fun. Be careful. Don't be a dummy. That's our PSA. Yeah. Jackhammers the most interesting tool on the planet. Oh, I actually got one more thing, believe it or not. What? In 2000, because these things are so loud, the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory released a helium jack camber called the raptor. The raptor. And some of these things come with rubber boots to try and soften the noise, but I don't think they do a great job. This thing actually lessened the noise to 87 decibels. It's like nothing. Nothing. It's like how loud. I'm talking right now, but apparently it never, like, caught on. Then in 2011, another equipment maker had an electric model that said it's faster than Pneumatic and it's only 100 decibels, and they have sold a few. But apparently breaking into the construction industry with a new type of tool is super hard to do. I think in New York especially, they were very resistant. The unions were like, really won't work. We're not using those. That seems like where they should do it because I looked it up. Apparently, 62% of noise complaints from 2014 to 2015 in New York City were jackhammers. Yeah, that's almost 34,000 complaints in a year. Jackhammer in New York. And supposedly you're not supposed to do it after six or before 07:00 a.m., but they allow it in certain cases. And I feel like that is like all the cases. Is Chuck in a hotel right nearby. Well, then do it. Start at five. That's all I got. If you want to know more about Jackhammers, you can type that one word into the search bar@houseworks.com. And since I said Jack Hammer, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this cool program for kids in Austin, Texas. Oh, yeah. Hope you guys are doing well. I've been listening to the show for some time. I'd like to thank you for giving me the edge on many debates and discussions. I live in Austin, Texas, and I'm writing today to let you know about a program I recently started working for that I think you'll appreciate. It's called totally cool, totally art. TCTA. It is a free afterschool program designed to reach out to youths youth and give them some exposure to the arts. The class I teach is called The Art of Machines, and we build various contraptions. We have sent you an example project, which we call bugs that the students build on our class. Did we get this? We haven't got it yet, I don't think. I don't think I've seen this. Brian. So you sent it a while ago. Oh, he did? If you did, I don't know if we got it. No, we haven't gotten it yet. All right, so if it's recent, Brian, then it's on the way. If not, then send it again. That was one of a kind. See what you think about it. Prototype. I hope not. He said, my dogs go crazy for these things. This is the actual 20th anniversary of the program. We're trying to let people know about it so it can be around for another 20 years. We also have other classes painting, film, fiber, arts, and photography. Anyway, I was just hoping maybe you give a quick shout out for Totally Cool, Totally Art in Austin. It's so totally cool. And you can just look that up on Google or go to yeah, that's from Brian Frytag. And good work, buddy. And we're going to be in Austin for south by Southwest this year. Yeah. Do you know if we're going to be selling tickets or if there's like a registry or what. I don't know. We'll find out and let everyone know. But I believe it's going to our deal. Live podcast going down Sunday night. Yeah, but we're going to be around town. Cool. So look out for us Sunday night, okay? Indeed. If you want to get in touch with this, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook. Comstuffyshonow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housetoforce.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyshow.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's houseworks. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite Murder and Smalltown Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. With Amazon music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
42cd45ce-53a3-11e8-bdec-2b2c7a1af19a	SYSK Live: Andre the Giant	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-live-andre-the-giant	Andre the Giant was a giant both figuratively and literally. Sure he was a wrestler, but more than that he was a human being who left a great legacy behind. Even if you're not a wrestling fan, you can appreciate his story. Join us for this very special live edition of the story of Andre the Giant.	Andre the Giant was a giant both figuratively and literally. Sure he was a wrestler, but more than that he was a human being who left a great legacy behind. Even if you're not a wrestling fan, you can appreciate his story. Join us for this very special live edition of the story of Andre the Giant.	Thu, 26 Dec 2019 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=360, tm_isdst=0)	61600156	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com.com. So I was in the at and T store for an upgrade. I left with at and T's best deal on a smartphone and a choice of plan. But on my way out, here comes this new guy. A non carrier phone and a plan that raised eyebrows. I felt for him when I tell you we left the store grinning from ear to ear with the same deal. I love watching people prosper. You feel me? That's when I learned that whether you joined today or have been with at and T for years, they'll have the same best deals for everyone on every smartphone. Eligible plan required. Offers vary by device. Restrictions may apply. See att. Comdealsfordetails. Hey, Seattle. We'll see you Thursday, January 16, at the More Theater in San Francisco. We're going to be at the Castro on January 18. When else, Chuck? That is it, man. January 18 at the Castro, our annual trip to Sketchfest. We love performing there. We have great crowds there. Go get a ticket. If you want to come see me at Movie Crush the next night on Sunday. And a small venue where you can shake my hand and hug my neck. I would welcome that as well. Well, that's what I was setting you up for when I said, what else? I appreciate that. We'll see you guys. You can get all the info and tickets you need on Sysklive.com or sfsketchfest.com. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's not here, but all of these beautiful, wonderful people are at Plaza live in Orlando, Florida. Arsenio hall. Stuff going on back there. Yeah, I like Florida. Yeah. We indeed thank you for that. Toto is playing here next week. I could relive my childhood. Yes. Puke on the stand, people pulling up their shirt. For those of you at home, you'll just never get it. Jerry, just cut all that out. Yeah. Right? So before we get started, actually, if you guys will indulge me, I would like to dedicate this show to a very special woman named Alice Harrison, who also happens to have been Yumi's grandma. And she passed on Monday, so she is actually a fellow Floridian. She lived outside of Tampa for most of her life, had, like, parrots and peacocks, like, super Florida. Right. And she was just a very wonderful woman. So I want to dedicate this show to Alice Harrison in her memory, everyone. Very nice. Thanks. Great. Thanks for that. And Yummy is here, and she's very proud of you right now. Yeah. Hi, Yumi. So we didn't really just bring you here to talk about Yummy's Grandma exclusively. We asked you all here tonight to talk to you about legends, and in particular, one legend. No. Oh, man. The crowd shouted is rarely funny. Well done. This legend wasn't some drunk. Right? Already deep in this, early in the show. Not bad. That's the last one you get, though. So this legend is even better than Zelda. This legend's name was Andre the Giant. And by the way, if you're not a fan I know this is Florida, but if you're not a fan of wrestling, they're like, what are you talking about? Fear not. I'm not a fan of wrestling. You're not a real fan of wrestling. This is interesting stuff. We wouldn't bring you something so niche that only wrestling fans would enjoy. Right. Trust us. In fact, you can make the case that if you are a wrestling fan, you might not like this show. Yeah. Just excuse yourself. So, to start at the beginning, andre the Giant was not born Andre the Giant. He was born Andre Renee Rusamoff on May 19, 1946, in Columbia, France, which is a town that is close to where he was raised, in a French farming town called Molian. I'm sorry, I don't have peanut butter in my mouth. Mulian. And in Mulian, he was raised by his parents, Boris and Marianne Russimoff, who were of Bulgarian and Polish descent, respectively, and he was the third of five siblings. And he was born at \u00a311, which we're told is kind of big. I heard a couple of women gasp. Yeah. Someone sucked air through their teeth. Yeah. Boris Russimoff. I'm surprised he's Bulgarian with that name. Terry, cut that one. You can't just cut everything. Sure we can. You've got to put yourself out there, live on the edge like that. Boris Russimoff's, bulgarian. Who would have thunk it? There you go. All right. Who would have sunk it? Cut that one, too. No, they were a family of farmers and he worked on the family farm, as did all the kids. I think he was the third of five children. And here's one thing that may or may not be true, but an interesting little tidbit will throw out. Supposedly, when he was in school, along with the other children, they're in rural France, they would occasionally get rides in the pickup truck to school from playwright Samuel Beckett. Yeah, right. That's the appropriate response to that. Like a little surprise, but not like, totally blown away. But little Andre, who was never little because he was \u00a311 at birth, he began to grow very early. All of his siblings and even his parents were all just sort of average size, so no one knew what was coming. When little Andre, by the age of twelve, was 6ft tall and weighed \u00a3240. Yes. And so his parents, being farmers, were like, yes, we have an ox. Yeah. For our third child. And they were pretty happy about this. And andre said, don't get too comfortable, because in two years I'm going to quit school in 8th grade and go find my fortunes in Paris. And he did. And it's one of those things where when you're researching and telling people that he went to Paris to find his fortunes after dropping out of 8th grade, if you stop and think about it, imagine letting your 14 year old son move to Paris by himself to go find a fortune. That's a different time. Those are cool parents. Very cool parents. Or maybe they just didn't miss them. They had four others wandering around. No, but I'm sure that they tried to talk about it. They're like, you swing a sight like no one I've ever seen who's going to pull the cart? Right? So he did. He actually started to find his fortunes. Not the best fortunes, but he found some. He started moving furniture. Go figure. He just kind of threw couches through doorways, upstairs, that kind of stuff. Sure. And then later he became a professional rugby player, which is okay. It's getting closer and closer. But rugby actually led him inadvertently and accidentally into the world of wrestling. That's right, because he trained at a gym as a rugby player, along with some other wrestlers. There were wrestlers that trained there with him. And one day one of the wrestlers got hurt. They looked around the gym and they said, hey, huge human, come over here. Forget rugby. You should wrestle with us, because it was France, and they say, Wrestle? Sure, they did, and he did, and he really took to it. And before you know it, he was touring as a pro wrestler in Japan, Africa and New Zealand. Yeah. And in Japan in particular, he had this persona named was it Monster Russimoff? Well, he had a few names, right? Yeah. Well, he wrestled under the butcher was one. Yeah. Andre The Butcher Russimoff. So so one was the French Giant, which is way too on the nose. It's just like the American podcaster. If I were a wrestler or something like that, and then another, can you imagine? I would get my ass kicked every match. Not if you were writing the match. It's fake, by the way, everybody. Oh, yeah. Well, I guess we should just cut to the chase. Wrestling is fake. Yes. End of the podcast. And then the other one, chuck, what was the third one? Well, the third one, I think we can all agree, is the best, maybe best wrestling name of all time. Monster Eiffel Tower. What does it do? Is the gap between the second and third stories, like the mouth that each I guess so there's no arms. It bends over and jabs you or something. It just doesn't make any sense. If you really think about it. It's pretty good, though. They ate it up in Japan, though. They did. So in Japan. He had a different name, monster Russimoff and Monster russimoff was what in wrestling parlance is called a heel, a bad guy. Right. And in Japan, Andre really ate that up, like, in the ring and outside of the ring. At matches, he would taunt the fans on the street. So he's a big celebrity on the street. If somebody took a picture of them, he'd chase them down and break their camera. He loved being a heel. Right. All in good fun. Right. Tell that to the Japanese guy who had to go buy another camera because Monster Russia off broke the other one, and none of his friends would believe him. So he eventually went to Europe to wrestle, and there he wrestled under the name Jean Fair, which is a play on the term or the name Grand Fair, who was a hero in French folklore who would kill English invaders. Or cologne. I can never say that word. Cologne. Colonists. You're adding, like, five or six extra silhouettes. Colonialists. Colonists. No. Colonialist. No, that's just wrong. Who says colonialist? Yeah, colonialism. They're colonialists, right? No, like a bird. Colonists, guys. Colonists. Right. Okay. I'm not losing my mind, Chuck. It colonial right here in front of everybody. It usually doesn't happen till later in the show. Someone snorting, it makes me feel a lot better. So regardless of what they call the English invaders, colonists in folklore, grand Ferret would kill them with an axe, and he was this big French hero in the storybooks. And so Jean Fair was a play on that name. Right. And so when he became Jean Fair, he became a hero in the wrestling world or what's known as a baby face or a face. So you got heels and faces. Good guys. Everyone in this room doesn't know that already. Right? So as Jean Fair, he became pretty big around Europe, so much so that there's a legend that he told himself once in an interview we read, where he went back home at age 19, I think. So it's been about five years since he left home. He went back home after he made it. He shows up in a Rolls Royce, goes up to the door and knocks on it and says, hey, how are you doing, mom and dad? And they didn't recognize him at first, but they did recognize Jean Fare, their favorite wrestler, who had just shown up on their doorstep and said, I'm your son. They had been watching him all the time, and Andre the Giant had changed so much, they didn't recognize them. They just became fans of Jean Fair. I really want to believe that. I do, too. Even if it's BS. It's still a pretty great story. But it'd be like if, like stone cold Steve Austin showed up on your doorstep is like, I'm your son. It's basically the same thing. It's just a different person. That's right. He's really trying to keep it together here, everybody. Yeah, this is good. Florida's, forgiving God. This didn't happen in Maine. We have to cut that part out. Those manners will come for us. I've seen I Know What you Did Last Summer. Four people asleep in the audience in Maine. We've seen that before. Very disconcerting. Just so you know, if you're in the first five rows, please just stay awake. I'm used to it. You have to laugh. Just stay awake. That's your job tonight. Yeah, that's it. If you see your partners start to fall asleep, just give them one of those. It's very disconcerting. Basically, we're watching you is what we're trying. So around 1970, Andre was working with a man named Eduard Carpentier, the Flying Frenchman, and he was a wrestler, believe it or not, turned promoter. And he claimed, and there are a lot of tall tales in this story, and we're not sure which ones are true, but he claimed that he met Andre when he was driving down the road in France and there was a redwood tree that had fallen and Andre emerged and moved the tree. I think that one might not be true. Sounds pretty good, though. That's a good story. But that's not true. But he figures in very important to Andre's life because he took him to Quebec to wrestle Jean Fair and made a very important introduction to a man named Vince McMahon Senior. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. So Vince McMahon's Senior. For those of you, the five of you who don't know who he is, he was a big time wrestling promoter at a time when wrestling in America was regional. Right. It was not a nationwide thing. The country was cut up into different regions. And Vince McMahon was the head of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation, the Www F. Apparently Vince McMahon didn't know that worldwide is one word. They put it on marketing materials and everything. He would go on to shorten that later. Yeah, later on, his son would correct the massive spelling error that his father had started years before. But before that, Mr. Fan had this really great idea. He said you John Fair. We're going to change that name in a minute. You are really something special. Rather than put you on one circuit or one town or whatever, just sticking to one region where you're going to be huge at first and then just kind of become whatever, just a so so guy, I'm going to take you from region to region around the country and promote you. And he did. And in doing so, Andre the Giant became one of the nation's first wrestling stars because he went from town to town and it was a big deal when he came to town every time. Yeah, it was a really big deal. They would start promoting the storylines ahead of time because as we said, wrestling is fake. So they would drove these stories about this Giant that would come to town. And because all the heels were getting out of hand in Memphis or in Jacksonville or wherever. And so they would bring in Andre to get them all in line. And the Big Giant is going to come into town. He's a good guy and he's huge, and no one's ever seen anything like them. And that really got people in the seats in a really big way. Like, the promoters would charge more than was normal because they knew that people were going to pay to come see Andre set the universe right again, right in America. He finally got the name Andre the Giant. I believe it was Vincent McMahon Senior who gave him that name. And he debuted in 1973 at Madison Square Gardens as Andre the Giant. And he was billed as the 8th Wonder of the World at 7ft four inches. \u00a3520. Right. Yeah. He wrestled, I think, between for most of his career, except at the end, WrestleMania three. There are reports that he weighed as much as 650 watts. And you could tell he was not in the best of shape at that point. No. Well, he was 650. Yeah. The story will get sad at some point, so just get ready. Sorry, his height is in dispute. Basically, there are people who have dedicated entire websites to trying to prove that Andre the Giant was 7ft four inches, but most credible sources say nice about 6ft seven inches. Some people say maybe he was toward the end of his career, but he underwent back surgery 1986, and they removed some vertebrae there. So he was seven foot four inches, and they shrunk him down to six foot, seven inches. And most people say, you live in your mom's basement, don't you? And that ends the argument every single time. I'm not a back surgeon. I don't think that's how that works. I don't think it's one vertebrae out. Let's get another one out. The good news is your back won't hurt, but you're eight inches shorter. I don't think that's how it works. So he was truly enormous, though there are other great stories. One is that his wrists were nearly a foot in diameter. Right? Yeah. So everybody, this is plainly obvious. An enormous wrist. But we had no frame of reference except for my tiny wrist. Right. Which we know is not a foot. Mine's not either. So we went to the Splendorrist.com. That is a real website. We said, what is the average human man's wrist? Circumference? And we found out it's seven inches, 7.4 inches. So his is about five inches bigger around than the average man's wrist, which is huge. Which I guess we should have just stuck to a foot in circumference, and I should have explained that into the ground. Well, I just like knowing there's a website called the Slenderist.com and then I'm not on it. So he wore a size 26 wrestling boot just for comparison. Shaquille O'Neal is a very large man. Started out his career playing for a little team called the Orlando Magic. Yeah. The 22. Andre were 26. Yeah. So what else? There were other legends. He could pass a silver dollar coin through his rings and then another one that I don't think is true, that he had two hearts and multiple rows of teeth, like a monster. And apparently, Rick Flair, the nature boy. Wow, that was coming. We're in the right place. He believed both of those, the heart one and the teeth one. And whenever he was talking to Andrea the Giant, he said that he would kind of try to look into his mouth while he was talking. We've met Rick Flair. He totally believed that. Yeah. We can attest, for some reason, was a guest star on our TV show that we had. Maybe that was one reason why it wasn't so great. I think he was the reason. It wasn't totally terrible, really. It was a good little guest appearance. We found out the day of that he was coming to shoot. That's right. It's a weird day. So he was ridiculously strong, though. He would do with this little party trick where when his friends were in a bar, he would move their cars. It's little small European cars. Not with the keys. He would pick it up and move it. There's footage of him lifting a 2000 pound weight. Like, you tried to lift \u00a32000, you can't do it. Has anyone ever tried to lift \u00a32000? I've not tried. Well, believe me, you can't do it. I've not tried to lift \u00a320. He said, they're picking up a 2000 I mean, I presume it was a 2000 pound weight. It was a weight that said \u00a32000 on it. What weight? Lies. And it wasn't a cartoon. Right. The thing is, he was feared because of his strength by other wrestlers. Not because he was known to be like a malicious, brutal guy, but because just one slip in wrestling, he could really injure somebody, but he almost never did because he was a genuinely good wrestler. That's one of the things about Andre the Giant confetti. Yeah. There's been a steady stream of confetti falling. I think the Flaming Lips might have played here last night. So Andre the Giant was a legitimately good wrestler? Oh, sure. Into that paragraph. So his English was never great. He was born and raised in France and could speak English, but not the greatest. And he also just put a pin in this. He had a medical condition that we're going to get back to later, but because of that condition as well, enunciating was a little difficult for him. So a lot of people thought that he was just this big dummy, this big brute, and that was not true at all. He was a very smart guy, very savvy businessman, a great showman, very observant and very shrewd. He was not just some big oath in a singlet right. No, he wasn't. To help him, though, with that language barrier, when he moved from quebec down in North America or down in the United States? I guess technically, Quebec is in North America. Technically. He hired a guy named Frank Valois, and Frank Valois was a referee on the Quebec circuit who served as his interpreter, and he hung out with them for a few years, and then he just became like a friend of his rather than somebody he worked with. And that was kind of par for the course with Andre the Giant. Compared to other sports stars, he had a very small, if nonexistent, entourage. He didn't have the hangers on and the toady's and the lackeys and the agents and the drug dealers or whoever else you have hanging around you if you're yeah. He never took steroids. No, he was a bit of a loner. But the friends he had were like true, legitimate friends. So he was kind of an anomaly in that sense in the sports world. Yeah. And apparently he did have a very pretty strict list, and you were either a friend or you were an enemy. And once you were on that list, you were kind of on it for life. His list of friends was very long because he was a good guy and really loved people. But he did have a few enemies in the wrestling world. One was Big John Studd, who was another very large man who wrestled, and he allegedly called Andrea a circus frequence once. And as you will see as we go on, andre was a very sensitive guy about his size, and he didn't want to be called a circus freak. Who does? Good point. He also had a thing with the iron chic, for reasons that are unclear. He also had a very long standing beef with Randy The Macho Man Savage. That's right. And this one boils down to the fact that Randy like, to oil up. He would baby oil himself, which was a common thing in wrestling because I guess shiny muscles read on camera. I don't know. I'm not sure. That's not why I oil up. No, but apparently it looks better on TV. And so Randy would oil up in a big way, baby, and people would tell Randy, like, Andre doesn't like the oil in the wrestling match, so when you wrestle him, can you not oil up? And he said, no, I got to oil up. Right. As an aside, by the way, everybody, it's one of the tragic unknown facts of Randy the Macho Man Savage's life, that he was physically incapable of snapping into his own slim gym because his fingers were so oily, he had to walk around on the street begging common strangers to snap into a slim gen forum denigrating himself. Sad. Apparently. That's good. Apparently, years later, Andre has a daughter named Robin, and she wasn't super close with her dad, and we're going to get to that a little bit more. It's very sad. But she was trying to get information about her dad and get stories from wrestlers and friends. And she went to Randy Savage, and he said, I wish I could tell you more, but your dad just didn't like me. I had nothing but the utmost respect for him, but he just didn't like me. And then he just slipped and slid down the street, and that's the last anyone ever told. That's great. So when Andre was wrestling one of his enemies, he would dole out, like, a little more punishment than was normal. And one of the punishments he had reserved for Macho Man in particular was he would throw them down to the math, step on his hair, and then yank them up and leave, like, tufts of hair on the map behind him. And he does for two reasons. One, clearly, it hurts to have tufts of hair pulled out of your head. But also, he knew Macho Man was very sensitive about losing his hair, so he would yank it out by the foot full. The footfall kind of mean that size 26 foot full. Right? Exactly. That's a lot of hair. His friends he liked to mess with, too, because he was a very fun guy in the ring. And what are you going to do to Andre the Giant? Like, he kind of ran the show when he was in there, so he would mess around with his buddies. Hacksaw Jim Duggan told a story one time about Andre choking him with a strap. He was very famous for that one. Single, old school wrestling singlet. He choked him with that strap and then would wring out the sweat into his mouth. Oh, just wait. Are you going to make me say that? Yes. He also would push his opponent down, sit on them, and fart. And that sounds pretty bad, but it turns out that an Andre the Giant fart lasted apparently no joke for, like, 30 seconds. Like, they would cut to commercial break and come back, and they'd still be starting on this person. Just Google Andre the Giant fart, and they were, like, dozens of stories. Yeah, I can't remember who said it, but somebody in an interview called it an event. Yeah, I think this is going pretty well, aren't you? I think so far. You guys think it's going all right? Well, that means that we might release this, which means then that we have to work in message break, so we're going to do that. If you guys will bear with us, we will be right back after these messages. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy, which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yes, LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock. comStuff that's Lifelock.com stuff for 25% off your first year, LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. Today's episode of Stuffy Shinod is brought to you by SimpliSafe Home security. SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family. So they offer advanced whole home security that puts you, your home, and your family safety first. With 24/7 professional monitoring, SimpliSafe agents take action the moment a threat is detected, dispatching police or first responders in an emergency, even if you're not home. Yeah, and Simply Safe uses proprietary video verification technology so that monitoring agents can visually confirm the threat in order to get higher priority 911 dispatch. And SimpliSafe offers comprehensive protection not only against intruders and burglary, but against expensive home hazards. From flooding to fires. You can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at SimpliSafe. comStuff. Go today and claim a free indoor security camera, plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. Just go to SimpliSafe stuff. All right, we're back, everybody. That works magic of editing. I don't know if you remember where we left off, but Andre the Giant was farting on people. Right. Then we went to commercial break, and we went to commercial break, just like I said. So what happened in his career was he got really famous for being what's called the king of the cage match. And if you don't know what wrestling is in, cage matches are also called the Battle Royale. When they would literally put a cage around the ring and they would put 20 dudes in there and they would all just fake hit each other until no one could fake it anymore. And then the last man standing was the victor. And Andre really dominated these matches. Right. He was known as king of the cage match, actually. That's right, because it wasn't a joke. Once he hit the American circuit, his star rose very quickly. By the mid 70s, he was the highest paid wrestler in the world. He was listed as such in the Guinness Book of World Records. They said that he made a smooth four hundred k that year in 1974, which is a lot of cheese back then. There's a lot of cheese now, but it's cute now when you look at what athletes are taking it. Right, exactly. But he was one of the highest paid athletes, period, in the world. He was. And he was also one of the most famous. There was a 1981 profile of them in Sports Illustrated that said that with the. Possible exception of Muhammad Ali, he was the most recognizable active figure in sports in the world. That's super famous. That's right. So what are you going to do when you're a super famous wrestler? You're going to start being on TV. And he did this a lot. He would show up. And if you were around in the Watch Network television like the rest of us did, you might see him pop up on BJ and the Bear. Right. Yeah. People in Maine had no idea what BJ and the Bear was stunned silent. He was in a two parter BJ and the Bear. He played bigfoot, a little on the nose in an episode of the $6 Million Man. And there was this one scene where Lee Majors, a star of $6 million man, was supposed to get thrown across the room by bigfoot Andre the Giant. And he was a little worried that he was going to get hurt. And he was very pleased to find out that Andre the Giant was, like we said, a very skilled athlete and knew how to do this stuff. Right. He sold the pounce, basically. And if you really stop and think about the subtext of that, it strongly suggests that Lee Majors thought pro wrestling was real. Yes, quite possible. I thought he was just going to injure me. I mean, he jumped on me from what else was he in? He was in Konan. The Destroyer. Sure. Alongside Schwarzenegger, Wilt Chamberlain and Grace Jones. Weirdest cast in movie history. He was a weird cast, but it holds up. Does it? Sure. I mean, it didn't hold up originally, so it hasn't gotten any worse. How about that? It holds up as well as it ever did, right? Exactly. He was on a very famous honeycomb commercial where he played a giant, but wait for it, a medieval giant invading a treehouse full of kids because he was hungry for a big honey taste. That's why Andrea the Giant protein is good. Pretty terrible. He gets the honeycombs, by the way, in the end. And there was also a very weird time in the 80s where the singer, Cindy Lauper somehow got involved in pro wrestling and she would go to events and take part in some events and then would have wrestlers being her videos. The 80s were weird. Everybody. This is a very strange time, but it just sort of signifies, like, what a big pop culture icon Andre the Giant was. He really was. He got the big hoist at the end of the Goonies themed video we did. Yeah. That's the big shot. That's the one you want. The Hoisting, Cindy Lauper. Everybody's going to pay attention to that one. He also liked the ladies, but by all accounts, he was a true gentleman. There's a quote here from one of his friends that said, everywhere he goes, there are women. Women who range wildly in socioeconomic level age and even interest in pro wrestling. And he treats them all the same. Splendidly. Andre simply enjoys the company of women, and they enjoy his. He seems like a good dude. He was, even by today's standards. So as wealthy and famous as he was, he had extremely simple tastes. Like, don't forget, he was raised a farm boy in France, and he definitely never lost his roots. So his favorite things to do were, like, hanging out with friends, unless he wanted to be alone, playing cards, and specifically Uno and Cribbage, where his game is big time so much. Hey, Cribbage fans here. So get this. Andre the Giant loved Cribbage so much that he would be playing it backstage constantly, and sometimes he would put off going out into the ring during a televised match because he hadn't finished his Cribbage game yet. He had to finish that first before he went out there. So he was like, Cribbage for life. C. Ferrell is cribbage with a C. Yeah. Okay, just make sure it wasn't A-K-I have to cut that part out. Yeah. So now we're going to get to the part where we talk about Andre the Giants drinking. If you know anything about the guy, if you saw the documentary on HBO, you know that he drank a lot, a lot, because he liked to drink, and he was humongous. Put those two things together and you get statistics like this. He was estimated to have consumed about 7000 calories of alcohol per day. That's right. Somebody went, Boom, bud. Break toto I remember you. An average day or an average beer drinking sesh. He would plow down 52 cans of beer. This is a normal day. Yeah. Or eleven bottles of red wine. One wrestler talked about one match where Andre drank six bottles of wine before he wrestled the match, and no one could tell. Literally nobody could tell. Yeah. He was famous for drinking planes dry of their mini bottles. Like, just gone, like, Sorry, everybody, you can't have your Bloody Mary, because Andrea the Giants here, and he drank all the liquor on the plane. And as far as beers go, the most beers he ever drank in one sitting, the highest number we've seen is 156 in one sitting. And some people more cautious souls are like, don't be foolish. Of course you didn't drink 156 beers. You drank 119. Somewhere between 119 and 156 is the truth. That's astounding. It is astounding. And he could hold it. But none of this is to say that he didn't get drunk, because he would definitely get drunk. He can't drink 119 beers. Eventually, it's going to affect even the largest cow in the field. So there were stories of him. One time he and Dusty Roads stole horse drawn carriages in New York City and rode them around the parks. A couple of stories about him passing out, like, he would make it back to the hotel and just flop on the floor of the lobby. And what do you do? Bellhop. Move this man. No. So there are two stories. One that they just threw a piano cover over him, and another one, and this is the best that they just made him a feature. They just put a velvet rope around him. The 8th wonder of the world right there in charge of nickel per visit. Hear him snore, smell his part. It's an event. Amazing. So it wasn't all salad days for Andrea Giant. While he was wrestling. When he was in Japan, when he was first starting out, back in around 1970, he made a rare visit to the doctor. He hated going to the doctor, hated medicine, hated anything like that. But he went to see the doctors in Japan, and while he was there, they diagnosed him with a condition. The condition Chuck was referring to earlier called acromegaly. And acromegaly is a pituitary gland disorder that causes gigantism. So Andre the Giant was, by definition a giant. And while he was there at the doctor's office, they said, this is actually something we can easily correct. We just need to kind of get in there and you have a lesion or tumor on your pituitary gland, we can treat it and this will cease, this will stop. And he said, no, it's okay. They said, well, wait a minute, if you don't do this, you're probably not going to make it past 50. I said, that's okay. And he leaves. And twelve years later he goes to the hospital again. And the doctors do the same thing, different doctors at Duke University, they diagnose him with acromegaly. And they say, we can treat this. And he said, no, I'm all good. He said, if this is the size God wanted me to be, then this is the size I'm going to remain. Very sweet. He might have thought he would shrink or something, because part of it was a business decision. He thought he couldn't lose his wrestling career by having a surgery. I don't know if they didn't explain it to him well or not. Or maybe he was just a little younger because he continued to grow into his 30s. He was still growing. Right. And with acromegaly in particular, it causes, obviously it's a runaway growth hormone that's being produced by your pituitary gland because something is leaning on it. And from this you keep growing and growing well into your thirty s, and your bones grow too, and often in strange ways. So your facial features just change, your bones get way denser and bigger than would be normal. You also have secondary stuff like carpal tunnel and arthritis and diabetes and things like this. So it's not a good condition to have. And it also can be very psychologically damaging too. And you could say that it definitely had an impact on the psyche of Andre the Giant as well. Yeah, it was very sad. You think about the world is sort of made for average size folks. And you don't think about the fact that being seven foot four or 7ft tall or 68 and \u00a3500 and what that does to your life and just moving around in the world. And it was tough on him. He would find himself seated, like, on the floor of a van because he couldn't sit in the seat. Think about when he's flying on a plane. There are pictures of him on airplanes where he's occupying three rows of seats, which is great because he was rich and famous and they could accommodate him. But think about going to the bathroom. I can barely fit in an airplane bathroom. They're terrible. Andre the Giant couldn't even think about it, so he had to suffer indignities, like getting flight attendants to hold up curtains so he could urinate in a bucket on a flight, like on a long flight if he couldn't hold it that long. And everyone on the plane would just suddenly talk very loudly about anything but the fact that Andre the Giant was peeing into an ice bucket right over there. By the way, Randy The Macho Man Savage could pop right into any airplane bathroom you please right in. I slipped right in. Oh, man. Nice call back. But like I said, he did have money and he was famous, so they could accommodate him as much as possible. Vince McMahon bought this extra large van that was super beefed up, and it had the roof popped up and an extra large couch inside. I know. This is Florida. You're all like, so a van, right? You had a party van, is what you're saying. Yeah, there's like a wizard writing a unicorn painted on the side. They're driven by man. But there's one very sad quote he had where he said, I would give much money to be able to spend one day per week as a man of regular size. I would shop, I would go to the cinema, and I would drive around in a sports car or walk down Fifth Avenue and stare at other people for a change. Yeah, that's right. Because here's the thing. He had two choices every day or really one choice. He could either hide or go out and endure the spotlight. Because I think it was Holcogan said other wrestlers can put on a disguise, can go, like, find a dark corner in a bar or restaurant and just kind of lay low. Andre the Giant couldn't do that. Whether he was a famous wrestler or not, the world felt entitled to gawk at him whenever he was out on the streets. And because he was famous, it actually didn't help. It actually made things worse, because when he went to bars, drunks would try to pick fights with them or pull knives on them, and he'd have to, like, break their ribs just to get them to go away, which he did, actually. And then even people who didn't pull knives could still get to them. Like, they would just be like, Jeez, look at that on that guy. He's huge. That kind of stuff. And he's walking down the street and he would actually cry in private. Like, he was a very sensitive guy, and that kind of stuff got to him. Cherry, we'll retake this in the studio. He loves kids, but kids were afraid of him, which was very heartbreaking. He was very gentle with kids. He said, I try to be very soft with children. I don't want them to fear me. But often when I go to the homes of people who have kids, they will run for me even though they've seen me on television. I understand why they do this, but it's a sad feeling for me. Even so, it's a pretty surprising paradox that somebody who's, like some total of their issues will be found in this condition and who had such trouble making it through the world would choose pro wrestling as a career because he had to travel all the time. Like, during the 70s, he would wrestle 330 to 340 nights a year, almost always in a different city every night. Like, this is someone who really valued a leap year, you know what I mean? Like, it meant something to him. When he got breaks, though, those rare breaks that he would get, he would go home. And his home in the United States ended up being in North Carolina, in a town called Ellerby. He bought a ranch there in 1977. A little ranch house and 49 acres wasn't over the top. It was very kind of a modest home. But he loved the land. He had rottweilers and he had cattle and he had horses, and he had a Honda ATV that he would ride around. There was this couple, Frenchy and Jackie, that were some of his best friends, and they kind of took care of the place while he was gone. And that's really where he went to just be Andre the Giant, where he knew that he was among friends and loved ones and wouldn't be stared and gawked at. He also get this. I didn't realize this. Yummy told me this today. He had a fish camp called Giants Fish Camp in Sefener, Florida, near Sarasota. Has anybody ever heard of it? Yeah. Well, apparently that was Andre the Giant fish camp. And it turns out my father in law and Yummy's grandpa is my father in law's dad. Regardless your grandpa in law? Yeah. They would go fishing at this fish camp with Andre the Giant. Like, my father in law used to go fishing with Andre the Giant. And he said Andre the Giant used to carry this, like, custom made Adirondack chair with special cushions around in the back of his pickup truck because this was, like, the chair he could sit in. It was his chair. And he would sell rings off of his giant fingers that he'd autographed. And apparently he gave one to my father in law. What? Yes. And he doesn't know where it is? Yeah, man is right. We'll find him one day. I just picture him telling you the story over dinner as he takes, like, this napkin ring off and just sets it on the table. And nobody knows that's it or a bracelet just kind of slyly slides off of his hand. I don't know where that thing went. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. So Yummy's grandpa and Andre the Giant would speak Polish to one another. Really? Yeah. Wow. Got some Polish people in the audience. Yeah. All right. I thought you were going to say it was like Yuumi's prom choker or something. Right? The classic prom choker from Andre the Giant. Sweaty fingers. So he also shopped on QVC a lot. One other little fact about him. Very cute. So by the early 1980s, by this point, it was the WWF. It was a really big spectacle in the US. And they had Andre the Giant to thank for a lot of this. Everywhere he went, it was a big deal. It was getting TV viewers from around the world more into wrestling. And wrestlers benefited just from wrestling with him. Even losing against them was a big deal because you'd be on TV in front of the biggest audiences or at Madison Square Garden to a sold out show. And no one benefited more from this relationship than a wrestler named Hulk Hogan. Right. So Hulk Hogan, did you guys know that he started out as a heel, as a bad guy? He's a bad guy. I had no idea. Well, he finally made the conversion over to a face. And when he did, he became the WWF, like biggest star at a time when the WWF by this time they dropped that third w was as big as it ever was, as a matter of fact. So he was huge. And he had Andre the Giant to thank for that, largely. And there was this ongoing KFAB fake rivalry friendship between Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan. They were kind of frenemies on the WWF. And then WrestleMania two came, I think, in one nine. And Andre the Giant won a 20 man battle royale. And he said, you know what? That's it. I'm good. I'm going to go into semi retirement. I'm not going to officially retire, but my body is breaking down from acromegaly. I drink 52 beers a day on an average day. I think I'm good. I'm just going to go off and rest a little bit. And rather than wrestle, I'm going to focus on a little film. I just got hired to be an actor called the Princess Prize. I saw people pre clapping when you said a little film. This lady on the front with yeah. Fans of that movie. Anyone? Seriously? I've never met anyone that's like, yeah, sucked. Right? Totally fake. You know, that a few weeks ago, they announced they were remaking it. Yeah, you told me that right. People are going nuts. And then other people are like, who cares? It doesn't take away from the original. No, it doesn't. People are arguing on the Internet, if you believe that. Normally, I am kind of like, it doesn't do anything to detract from the original. We don't go see it. This one violates the laws of the universe. Remaking The Princess Bride. This one matters. Totally agree. Let's get on the street, because you know that Fezek is going to be like The Rock or somebody. And I like the rock. Sure, he's fine. He'll try a little too hard. He couldn't be Fesk. No. I'm worried the rock is going to be Fesic. Who else? I'm not going to sleep tonight. There's a fruit fly gene. Did you know this? It's called the pheasic gene because if you remove it, it produces fruit flies of unusual size. That's right. That's not a joke. The last part was a joke. It wasn't really a joke. It was a little one yap on the end of it. I wish I was not here. This part was supposed to be funny. The middle part sort of be a little sad and then be funny again at the end. We can cut all that out. Yeah, we will. Can't cut reality out right now, though. They love you. This is your second home. See? Say another insider joke about the billboard guy or whatever, if you feel like you're losing them. Yeah, we know enough to stay away from Daytona Beach. Am I right? Oh, that's great. Maybe I know where I am now. Princess Bride. That's where we are. So Rob Reiner hired him on the advice of the writer of the book. And he said, there's this guy you should hire, andre the Giant. Rob Reiner had never heard of him. I know he's like, more famous than Muhammad Ali, but Rob Reiner, I don't know where he was at the time. He was on drugs. It's not true. It could be true. So he was on all of the family. That's what he was doing. So he didn't know who Andre the Giant was. They send him into audition and he couldn't understand what he was saying. And he was like, what am I supposed to do here? And they said, just hire Andre the Giant. Trust me, he fits the part, and he's one of the biggest stars in the world. And he went, okay. Yeah. And it was kind of that easy. He said we needed a giant. This guy was a giant. I just hired the giant. So Andre did not stop drinking during the film shoot. He continued on his normal ways. And there were three gentlemen named Chris, Sarandon, Kerry lying, or Elvis, apparently, is how you really pronounce it. Really? Yeah. I've been saying ly's my whole life. Yeah, I've been saying Elvis, not Elvis. He's riding the King's Coattails and Mandy Patenkin all thought that they could hang with Andre the Giant at the bars. They were dead wrong, and they could not. So many days on set, there are reports of those three guys andre showing up, being like, let's go. Let's do this. And those three kind of dragging their heels is probably the nicest way to say it. When he checked out of his room at the London Hyatt after the end of his shoot, he had a $40,000 bar tab to pay to settle up, which means that he drank nearly all the contents of the minibar in his room. Little hotel humor. Yeah. So that began as a fact, and then I added a joke at the end. Oh, man, it's so much more fun than in the studio. Yeah. So. I mean, no offense. We have a good time. I didn't take offense. Attention hadn't even crossed my mind. I didn't want to make it sound like we'd have fun in the studio, but when you add 800 people, it's always more fun. Now I know I'm there. I know we have fun. It's like bud break up in here. There's a lot of cows snapping in the studio. We have a good time. A lot of miso. A lot. So Andre was really very sweet through this whole production and very nervous about his performance. He really wanted to do a good job because he was on a movie set, and it was a big movie, and it was a really big deal to him. And he was very nervous when he went to Toronto. I can say Toronto here. Yeah, it's Toronto, apparently. Just in Toronto. Yes, everywhere else is Toronto. In Toronto. At the premiere, 1987, his friend Tim White said he was actually shaking nervous during the premiere of the movie because he wasn't sure how the other actors were going to accept him afterward, when they cheered and patted him on the back and everything, he was the happiest guy in the world, and so was I for him. It's very sweet. Yeah, he's a good friend. He loved his character so much, he would carry a VHS copy of The Princess Bride around with him. Not like in his bag or in his hotel room around with him, right? He would say, look, right. Probably the scale, actually, if anyone remembers. VHS tapes, right? You got me with that, man. Just threw me off. So when he was on tour wrestling, afterward, he would invite fellow wrestlers out there friends with to hang out in his room. And while he was there, he'd be like, hey, here's the room service man. You want to order anything? You want to eat or drink? And he'd wait till it arrived, and then whoever was there would start eating and drinking, and he'd be like, hey, you want to watch The Princess Bride now that I have you trapped? Yeah. And apparently so. Lanny Papo is Randy Savage's brother. And Andre was good friends with Lanny Papo. He did. Randy loved Lanny. He did this to Lanny six times on one tour. By the end of the tour, Lanny was like, dodging, like, hiding behind plants when he saw Andre because he didn't want to get invited up to watch The Princess Friday. I can't believe he kept falling for it. After four times, he was like, all right, I'll order the steak, but we're not going to watch the movie, right? No. Here, have dessert. Have dessert. All right. But he said Andre would point at the TV, like when his part was coming up, and then when his part came and went, he'd laugh and clap and ask how he did every time. He loved that movie and he loved that he had had a part in it. I love it. So during the shoot, his body was breaking down pretty bad, though. There was that one scene where he has to catch Robin Wright, who jumps into his arms, and Rob Reiner, when he hired him, thought like, this is great. We have this athlete and this wrestler, and we won't have to hire a stunt person and he can do all this stuff. Turns out he couldn't do any of it because of his back. And they had to lower Robin Wright down, who weighed like \u00a3100 on cables that they then had to Greek out. Interesting term. It was pretty impressive. It was a big deal. His body was breaking down. He was in really bad shape. He kind of soldiered through because it was important to him. But he found himself at the end of Princess Bride in pretty rough shape physically. He did. He also found himself being visited, a surprise visit by Vince McMahon Jr. Who had by then dropped the W from www, just made a WWF and had overseen, like, its meteoric rise. And he showed up in England trying to convince Andre the Giant to come back to wrestling. And Andre was like, no, I really shouldn't do that. It's probably the worst thing I could do. My body's breaking down. I'm in bad shape. I can't even hold 100 pound Robin Wright pen. It's terrible. I was paraphrasing him and Vince McMahon wouldn't take no for an answer and finally managed to break down his resistance and talk them into getting back surgery and arranged for it in England. And that is, I said before, Andre the Giant didn't even like to go to the doctor's office, wouldn't take pills, wouldn't take medications, didn't even take illicit drugs. In the 80s, in wrestling, all he did was drink. That was his medication, drinking. So the fact that he agreed to undergo back surgery, it's pretty baffling. But he did. He underwent back surgery in 1986, like I said, in England, and there's some urban legends about the surgery like that they had to use oversized surgical tools meant for a large animal veterinarian, may or may not be true, but that the anesthesiologist had to guess at how much anesthesia to use. I'm sure that's super correct. Sure. But he did it based on how much alcohol Andre the Giant drank. Like, how much does it take for him to fall up out in the lobby of a hotel? Exactly what they call a piano cover night. How much is that? So it depends on who you're talking to to see how this is viewed. Vince McMahon and big wrestling fans think they did him a big favor by revitalizing his career and bringing him back in the spotlight. Other people like us, who are a little more contrarian to that point of view, saying, no, you took advantage of this guy who's obviously breaking down just to sell more tickets and to exploit him, kind of till the end of his life, and then kicking him out into the cold when you're done with them, which some people say, Boom. Vince McMahon. Boom. There you go. So now we can't wait to what? We have to take another message back? I just realized, sorry, the spirit of the lizard on the toilet just spoke to me, said, Josh, don't blow it. This is a really good one. You may release it. You got to get a second one in there. Don't pee on me. If you'll bear with us yes, really? It's a pretty dangerous spot. If you'll bear with us, we will be right back. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical goldmine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy. Which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yes, LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thieves have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to Lifelock.com Stuff. That's Life Lock.com slash stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity Theft protection starts here. Today's episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by SimpliSafe home security. SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family, so they offer advanced, whole home security that puts you, your home, and your family safety first. With 24/7, professional monitoring simply saves, agents take action the moment a threat is detected, dispatching police or first responders in an emergency, even if you're not home. Yeah. And SimpliSafe uses proprietary video verification technology so that monitoring agents can visually confirm the threat in order to get higher. Priority 911 dispatch. And SimpliSafe offers comprehensive protection not only against intruders and burglary, but against expensive home hazards. From flooding to fires. You can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at SimpliSafe. comStuff. Go today and claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. Just go to SimpliSafe.com stuff. All right, we're back again, everyone. You guys like that every time, huh? To recap where we left Andre the Giant body breaking down, vince McMahon brings them back. And now we stumble upon a little event called WrestleMania Three, which if you're a wrestling fan, it's this legendary event. It was held in Detroit at the Pontiac Silver Dome. They had plenty of smoke, trust me. 90000 people at the Pontiac Silver Dome in Michigan. And it was one of the biggest sporting events sort of in history up to that point. And for this match, which Hulk Hogan wrote. And when Lee Majors heard that, he's like, wait, what? Hulk Hogan wrote the match. But Andre the Giant was toying with him for weeks leading up to it because in the match, Hulk Hogan wins and becomes like the champ of the WWF and it's a big deal. But when he would say like, hey, Andre, have you seen the script? Are you good with it? Andre would just say something like, yeah, don't worry about it. We'll work it out in the ring or whatever. And would not tell Hulk like, yes, you're going to win. We'll go along with your script. And in fact, Hulk Hogan didn't know he was going to win until the very end of this match when Andre the Giant calls for a body slam and a leg drop. And apparently when Hulk Hogan body slammed Andre the Giant, he pulled a bicep and a quadricep trying to pick him up. And Andre the Giant was even like, pressing off of him to help him. And Hulk Hogan still injured himself, which you're going to do when you pick up Andre the Giant. Just part and parcel with it. But he did win. And the crowd went nuts. That's right. After WrestleMania three, he continued wrestling because the WWF sort of kicked him to the curve. But it was very sad. So he went back to where he started. He went to Japan and to Mexico and wrestled on those circuits for a little while. He fought his last match in Japan just one month before he died. And by that time he had wrestled more than 5000 matches in his career 5000 times. It's crazy. Yeah. So toward the end, he was like, nobody kicks onto the Giant of the curve. I'm going to wrestle on my own terms. And he started touring all over the place. And he became a little more of like a booster. So he was like big time into tag team matches by them because, one, he could walk out to the ring with his arm slung over his tag team partner, which people in the crowd was like, oh, that's great. They're like total teammates. But really, Andre was using the guy as a cane. And then also he could just kind of stand in the corner and play up the drama, but not actually wrestle. And the fans, though, they were just happy he was there. Yeah. They didn't care. Just having him in the building was enough. It was really pretty cool. Yeah. So here we are at the end, very sadly. Andre's father, Boris, was approaching death in January of 1993 at the age of 87. And Andre went to see him in France before he died. He stayed there for his father's funeral and then he would die two weeks after that. Yeah. In France. So on the last day on Earth for Andre the Giant, he did what he loved more than anything else. He hung out with his oldest friends from his childhood in France. His family there played tons of cribbage and drank lots and lots of really good French wine. Right. It's farted on everybody. Yes. And he got dropped off at a hotel in Paris that he was staying at, and he went up the stairs, and that was the last time anyone saw him alive. The next morning, when he was supposed to be picked up, they went up to his room and knocked, and he didn't appear and finally opened up the door and found Andre the Giant dead in bed. He had died in the night of heart failure. Because the thing with Acromegally is most of your body grows and grows and grows, but the heart doesn't. And the heart gets taxed over 46 years, in the case of Andre the Giant, until it just can't beat any longer. And so that's what happened. Andrea the Giant, his heart just gave out. So there wasn't a crematorium in France that could handle his body. So they flew him back to North Carolina and a Giant custom built coffin. And apparently did the WWF steal the coffin? Just the word you could use. Yeah. After they flew him back? Yeah. They didn't roll his body out mid flight or something? They just basically went to fly him back? No. Okay. They flew him back, then stole it. Yes. Basically take the headquarters to put on display. Okay. You see, Chuck? We're working it out mid show. So the WWE at this point established its hall of Fame, and Andre the Giant was the very first and only inductee in that inaugural class. And every year now, the WWE still holds a Battle Royale named after Andre the Giant in his honor, which is, if you stop to think about it, the pinnacle of human existence to have a Battle Royale held in your name every year. Like each one of us in this room should aspire to that in this life. Okay, let's make a pack right now, everybody. We can do it so I mentioned his daughter Robin earlier and the fact that they weren't close, and this is sort of one of the sad parts of his life, was that when you're wrestling 5000 times in a career, in 330 nights a year, you're not like anyone in the entertainment business who tours and travels a lot. You're not going to be around your family much. So he had a daughter that he did not get to see that much. He had an ex wife that he did not get along with at all, which didn't help matters. I don't think they were ever actually married. Oh, no. Just an ex. Okay, so an ex that didn't get along with so they weren't not like working it out so he could see Robin. There was one time where he tried to have her flown to North Carolina, and she was sort of scared to fly. So he sent his good friend Jackie to go collect her and meet her at the airport. And at the last second, she kind of backed out. Yeah. Because she was like, I'm going to hang out with my dad who I've met twice, and my mom's not allowed to come, and I'm nine years old. I'm a little freaked out. That's right. So that trip didn't work out. They did keep in touch, mostly over the phone, but whenever he came through town for wrestling, she would come and hang out with him backstage. And Jackie McAuley, one of his two closest friends, later said that no matter what it looked like from the outside, andre really loved his daughter. And when he died, he left a sum to Jackie, a sum to his other best friend, Frenchie. And then the rest was left to Robin. Yes. Including the rights to his likeness and image, which I think we all know is where the real money sets. That's the sweetest plow. So I think she was trying to do a documentary or something about him for a while, at the very least, interviewing old friends of his so she could learn more about him. Right. Very sweet. So he had a quote toward the end of his life I'm sorry, the height of his career, where he said, I've had good fortune and I'm grateful for my life. If I were to die tomorrow, I know I've eaten more good food, drunk more beer and fine wine, and had more friends and seen more of the world than most men ever will. I've had everything in life but a family, and I hope to have that one day. For now, I know a family wouldn't work because of my traveling, but one day, who knows? I might myself have a giant for a grandson. That is Andre the Giant, everybody. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Stuff you should know is the production of Iheartradios how stuff works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will Have You hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today, you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition guaranteed. Need to support your dog's top five health needs? Better than leading brands? Find Halo elevate at Petco Pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores."
a6f11e76-5462-11e8-b449-73f9106e97b1	SYSK Live Christmas Spectacular!	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-live-christmas-spectacular	This year, Josh and Chuck go live for their annual Christmas Spectacular. Recorded from the Center Stage Theater in Atlanta, pour up some eggnog, light a fire and enjoy this live show with the whole family.	This year, Josh and Chuck go live for their annual Christmas Spectacular. Recorded from the Center Stage Theater in Atlanta, pour up some eggnog, light a fire and enjoy this live show with the whole family.	Tue, 25 Dec 2018 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=359, tm_isdst=0)	72761926	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hello. Hey, everybody. What you're about to hear is our very first live Christmas spectacular. Hey, everybody, josh is here, too. So yeah, this is a lot of fun, man. We did a hometown live Christmas show at the Center Stage Theater in Atlanta. This was in real time. This is what last just a few days ago, it was. And it was a great show. We brought the house down, I think is how they put it. Yeah, man. And it was cold and rainy, and Atlanta United was playing in a championship game, and people still packed out the center stage. And that really meant a lot to us. It was great. It was a Christmas miracle, frankly. Yeah. And you're going to notice something different. We actually used visual cues in this episode for the first time, and we're going to post those on Facebook. So if you want to see the pictures that we're talking about in our different segments, you can go to Facebook, check those out. And we also did a Christmas reading this year of a contemporary book, which was kind of cool. We did a reading from a wonderful, wonderful kids book called Meet the Latkes, and it tells the actual real story of Hanukkah and how that came about in a very fun, childlike way. And it was written by a man named Alan Silberberg. You can buy that wherever you buy your books. It's really wonderful. Or you can go to Silverbooks.com, that is Sibe Rbooks.com, and check out what Alan is up to. And it's not just for Jewish families. Like, you should just spread the word of Hanukkah to all children because it's a really great story. Yeah, it's a really great book, too. So thanks to Allen. And here we go. Where we go. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. Jerry is even out there somewhere. And we are here live at Center Stage Theater in our hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. We love you, too. I just lost the only gift you've ever given me. That's not true, by the way. Are you going to put it on? Well, I had it on. I was like, God, why am I hotter than usual? All right, there it is. Fits perfectly. Yeah, I have the tailor made for it. Nice. So we wanted to give you guys some information because this is a podcast, right? Yes. I'm redoing the horrible, clumsy segway that I did already before we started. And we're going to talk to you about a history of aluminum trees. Does anybody have an aluminum tree in here? Okay. Few people over 80. Do you see that over there? There is an aluminum tree over here. And Chuck wants to get that. Yeah. The story here is that this now belongs to us and my family. This belongs to Emily's grandmother. She's still with us. She's not here tonight because as you all know, Mary is how old is she now? 98? Yes. Oh, they're over there. I was like, that's so weird that that person over there knows what Mary is. And she sounds just like my wife, who I've been looking at over here. And that lady is like, chuck's a total creep. She's just looking at me. Emily's, throw your voice is what it is. So she's 98 years old. She's still with us, which is amazing. But that was their tree. And as you can tell, if you're on this side of the stage, we will describe all these things in greater detail. But that is an original, I guess, from the 1950s or early 60s. Aluminum tree completes with color wheel over there. I'm sorry. You can see it peeking above the bar. So it's an aluminum tree, as Chuck said. And the aluminum trees got their start through the great American process of intellectual property theft. That's right. There is a guy from a company called Aluminum Specialty. He was walking down the street in Chicago one day, and he stopped. He saw a tree made out of aluminum. And he thought it was the most amazing thing ever. When he looked at the price, he's like, $100. It seems a little steep, and it looks a little heavy. I'll bet I can do better than that. So we went back to headquarters, and he said, look, guys, I saw a tree made out of wait for it, aluminum. But it was too heavy. It was too expensive. We can do better. And aluminum specialty. Said giddy up. That's right. And by the way, I heard a bell jingling, and I was looking here, and I was looking there. It's my hat. I was like, Is there someone behind me? Sorry, everyone. The acid is kicking in. Should be a good show. So I know you're the inflation calculator man, but I did a little calculating. So those original trees from Chicago that he saw and decided to rip off in today's dollars were close to $900. What? Yes, $885. And so Mr. Tom Gannon of Aluminum Specialty, like you said, was like, they're getting ripped off. And I think if we can package these for $20 to $25, and we can make them so that a lady with her little lady arms can pick them up, that's literally well, you didn't say that. This was set at a marketing strategy meeting, though. But it really was. They were like, well, we need to make them all in a box light enough for women to pick them up off the shelf, because it's but they did just that. Then they put them in a box, and on the box that said, aluminum for lasting beauty, because your tree will rot and die. Just try to keep it around past February. It's going to go up in flames, right? We do. Plus, it was the safety tree, too, because it won't go up in flames. No matter how long you keep it around. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. That thing looks highly flammable to me. That one? Yeah. I'm not going to test it. I think it just kind of melts into a pool. Okay. And then we die from the fumes where we get so they set up shop. They already had a plant in Manitoac, Wisconsin, right there on the shores really? Right there. Represent. Right there on the shores of Lake Michigan. During World War II, they were building submarines, I guess, out of aluminum, which I don't think it's true at all. I had to beat something more durable than that. Right. Well, I don't think Aluminum Specialties is making submarines. The town was known for oh, I told you I was unprepared. So they started getting these out the door for $20 to $25. They had models that were 4246 and 7ft high. And initially, people made fun of them. They called them ten tannin bombs. People were mad when they saw them at first in 1959, because they thought it was gaudy and gross and not a real tree, not some beautiful what one they appreciated as, like, a kitchy. Beautiful item. Well, plus, also, it's like, what do you mean, an aluminum tree? We just want tree trees. What are you, a communist? I want a tree made out of tree. Exactly. I'll try to take my real tree. Let's say Happy holidays to me. Right. There you go. Aluminum Specialties cookies were staged by, believe it or not, tire salespeople. So in Wisconsin in the wintertime, they don't sell a lot of tires. And so tire stores said, well, we need to make some bread somehow. We got to get Christmas presents for our kids. How are we going to do this? And they heard about these aluminum trees, and they started setting them up in their showrooms. And of course, the pride of every town is the tire store that everyone walks past constantly. But people started walking past the tire store, seeing the aluminum trees in there and said, okay, they actually are quite beautiful. I want one. And they started selling them like hotcakes. Here's an actual quote. I wish you could have found out who this person was. This was someone who worked at Aluminum Tree Makers of America. He said it was a salesman's dream to have this happen. Suddenly the guy who wouldn't give you the time of day is your best friend. I think that was actually a tire store guy. Sure. Come on, give me more aluminum trees. I need a man. I'm selling them too fast. So they sold something like, I think 90,000 in the first year, is that correct, Chuck? Yeah. No, they sold over 100,000. They sold 40,000 in the first month. Got you. Which is crazy. So within, of course, weeks, because Aluminum Specialty stole it from this other company, other people started stealing Aluminum Specialties idea in the American way. They came out with this thing. Within weeks, other people were selling aluminum treats. And so everybody started having an aluminum treat. Some of them were more expensive, some were less. But aluminum specialty played it smart. They went right down the middle, and they had, like 65% of the market share. And even today, their evergreens product is like the most sought after. It's like the Cadillac of aluminum trees. I guess that's a terrible analogy, but you get what I say. I like it. Tires, Cadillacs. It's all coming around. Sure. So some of these companies, because it's the 1950s, we thought we'd read some of these names of companies that ripped them off, because it's just so 1950s. Morris Novelties, holiday Industries, regal Electronics. Hold on. Holiday Industry. That's my favorite. Astralite Ltd. Not bad. That's a British company. And asbestos farms. Sweet. I made up that last one like my neck is itched when you said that? I'm getting uncomfortable. Just like every time I look over there, I want to take that off to you. Can I take this off, everybody? Yeah, you're going to literally cut off. Thank you. Thank you. Will, something for you. And look, it's a nice moundy garland. Thank you, everybody. All right. So they started to gussy up their trees a bit. One of these is gussied up because you see those little pom poms on the end? That was an addition that they made the later trees because I guess they just wanted to make them special. They made them different colors. I think the pink ones these days are the most prized ones that you can buy on ebay. Yeah, one of them sold for, like, $3,600 once. Yeah, that's the appropriate one. What can I get for that one? I don't know. Are you familiar with the term struggling? Yeah, sure. That tree is struggling. There's. Somewhere in Snowville, there's a 98 year old woman very angry at you, so you struggling. She's not in Snowville. She's down at the football game. Yes. She's watching Atlanta United lose. No, I don't want that to happen, everybody. I'm just from Atlanta. I'm preparing myself. You just turned the crowd on it. I know. All right. So these things are moving like hotcakes. They literally sell over a million of these combined. And then, of course, like every sort of Christmas fad that comes, it goes. And some people lay the blame at defeat of none other than Charlie Brown. Yeah. Most people think that Charlie Brown did away with the aluminum Christmas tree. Because in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, lucy sends Charlie Brown and linus out to go get a treat. The biggest aluminum tree you can find, preferably pink. Right. And so they go off on this mission, and they find some linus taps on one, and it sounds like he's tapping on a ship's hole. And Charlie Brown is like, no, I'm not doing this. I'm going with this tree. This little weird creakly tree. A struggling Christmas tree, and Charlie Brown takes it home and loved it. And it was like the spirit of Christmas was found in this little tree. And the commercialization of Christmas was personified in the aluminum trees. And some people say that's what kind of turned the tide. That's right. Other people say it was just coincidence, and it was bound to be a Christmas fad no matter what. Charlie Brown just kind of helped push it over the cliff. Charlie Brown, as he does, he's got a lot of blood on his hands. But also gradually over the years, they did come back, thanks to things like ebay and Etsy and people with extra money in their pockets that want to pay $3,000 for vintage street people with no kids, I think, in other words. Exactly. But we still have ours, and it still looks great, despite what Josh says. Let's give it up for the treat. We made it through a segment. We made it through one tomorrow. So it wouldn't be Christmas, everybody, without a good Christmas miracle story or three. And we just so happen to have three of them for you. We had more, but we found out that a lot of them actually don't really add up once you start digging into them. These are legitimate bona fide. The pope has signed off on them christmas miracles. Okay. Hey, everybody. That's when the pope says, hey, everybody. That was Irish. I don't even know what's going on. All right, miracle number one then. This one's going to knock your socks off. This was a 1931 we're going back in the way back machine further in time. That's what powers the way back machine. That's right. Woah, everyone. Really? We went too far, you dummy. We're like 1852 dinosaurs. Can you guys say whoops in, like, reverse? That works. It's working. All right, well, I've never felt this powerful before in my life. All right, so 1931, there's a couple of names, ed and Julia Stewart, and they were making their way across Arizona on Christmas Eve, going home, and they stopped to change a tire because they got a flat out in the middle of nowhere near a town called Superior, Arizona. By the way, I looked up the population. Yes, because you kept saying it's in the middle of nowhere. I was like, yeah, we'll see about that. Okay, their population in 1930 was about 4500 people, and now it's about 2800 people. Yeah, that's a steep decline for some. They're not going in the right direction. But even still in 1931, 4500 people, it's not that many. Plus, Arizona is not even a state yet. It's just basically a bunch of people camping out together in the desert is what Superior, Arizona was. And this couple. Their names were Ed and Julia Stewart. They were about 10 miles west of Superior when their car got a flat on Christmas eve. Oh, just wait. Just remember it's Christmas Eve when this happens. So they pull over. Ed's fixing the car, and his wife is like, well, I got to go to the restroom, I guess, out here behind a cactus, because there's no one around. And, oh, my gosh, there's a hat box laying in the sand, and it's crying. Yes, there was a baby and a hat box. I know, everyone, but this is a Christmas miracle story. They don't get too worried about poke. It's a little girl in there, and she's like, this is weird. There's a little baby in a hat box. I almost peed on it. Yeah, they got it cried. And so I think we should do the right thing and not leave this baby in the middle of the desert. I'm hoping that it wasn't even a thought. I'm hoping she didn't even have that thought. They flipped a coin and decided to take little hat box baby. They went Anton Chigger on the thing. They're like, hey, baby, call it heads or tails. Everyone seen no country for old men. Yeah, that was what that was referencing. So they pick up hatbox baby. They take hatbox baby to a hospital. You're laughing, but that's what they call this baby in the news. Baby. Seriously? It should be called a baby Christmas Eve. Sure. Or just baby Eve. That's a real name? Yeah, sure. Yeah. No one thinks your kid hatbox. No, hat box baby. I'm sure somebody sang, like, a barbershop quartet song, too. It's 1931. Yes, that's true. You're my hatbox baby. So 17 couples ended up that wanted a little baby born in a hat box, and they all applied to adopt little hat box baby. 17 couples, and this is the part I don't get. How many showed up? Two. Why? What happened in between then? And that was yesterday. I sort of excited. I think hatbox baby fell out of the news a little bit. You know what I'm saying? And so two really had what they call sticktoitiveness even back then. And of those two couples, a judge had to be like, you guys, thanks for coming. There's some other baby not from a hat box that they also found in the desert. They're like, no, not interested. Right, exactly. I don't want cactus baby. Right. Raised by coyotes. So, in the end, they did find one couple, and they named the baby Sharon. My mother in law's name. All right. Named him after my future mother in law, little Sharon Elliot. Never met her biological parents because this was the 1930s, when you buried the stuff deep under the sand and lived a lie your entire life. Not only that, she didn't know she was the hatbox baby until 1989. Seriously? Yes, she knew of the hatbox baby. Don't we all? But she didn't know she was the hat box baby. Did she find out by opening a hat box and having this weird psychic flashback? Yeah, she's like, got to get out. Get out. There's coyotes after me. Coyotes. Is that the end of the story? Oh, no, the end is she did not meet her parents, which is very sad. But for the 1930, she went on to have a career in the aerospace industry, which was uncommon for a woman at the time. So she did really well for herself and lived a long and fruitful life. And she's here tonight, everybody give it up. Hatbox, baby. She's going to fly in on it. That's how you end the story. That was miracle one. We have another one for you. Two of three, starting now. All right. We actually had five and we had to cancel two miracles. Yeah. I told him one because it wasn't that interesting. And I'm just going to briefly say, I don't know. There was this one story about a lady who got lost and buried in the snow for three days but lived and they found her. And I was like, this is amazing. I did some more research and apparently it was a suicide attempt and she lost her arms and legs and then sued the hospital. And I was like, I think we should not do this one miracle here. It's the exact opposite of a miracle. Yeah, it's really bad. Of a Christmas miracle. I can't believe you told them that. Actually. I'm proud of you for stuff you should know way. All right. So where are we going? Are we going to Korea. We are. We're going to Korea. During the onset of the Korean War, and the Communists were coming down from China into the Korean peninsula. Sorry. And they were pushing the North Koreans further and further south. And a bunch of North Korean people had assembled at the docks at Hong Nam. And in Hong Nam, there were a lot of people hanging out, something like 100,000 civilians, plus a ton of allied troops being evacuated. There were ships coming and going and coming and going and getting people out, but they were mostly getting the soldiers out. And there were a lot of civilians standing there stranded. But luckily for those civilians, there was a captain with one of the greatest names ever, leonard Leroux. And Leonard Le Roux said, oh, you're going to die at the hands of the Communists who are coming down, not on Leonard Lerou's watch. And he just happened to captain a ship called the SS Meredith Victory. And the SS Meredith Victory was a large cargo ship, but it was in no way, shape or form a passenger ship. That's right. And it was actually weirdly named after Meredith College in North Carolina where my niece went to school. It's all full circle. Somehow this Christmas miracle from Korea, 1950, has to do with Chuck. That's right, everybody. I like to feel like I had a hand in it. So they pull up this SS Meredith Victory, and here's where I got confused. And Josh was kind of to clear it up because in this research it said that it was only designed to hold 60 people. Why don't you lower the boom on how many civilians they ended up fitting on this? Leonard Leroux, in one shot, fit 14,000 people. This was a shoddy article. Yeah. So I saw that and I was like, we're going to have to erase this one, because that's obviously a lie. You can't fit 140 people on a 60 person chip. But that was like 60 beds in the crew area. It was a large cargo ship. It wasn't large for 14,000 people. No, they literally stuffed them in there like sardines. They were all standing, like, elbow to elbow. No one could sit. No one could move. On deck, below deck, there was no water, no food, no heat, no toilets. Yeah, think about that. And 14,000 civilians think about that. 14,000 civilians from Korea were packed elbow to elbow in the ship navigating mine infested waters for two days at sea. Yeah, I saw a quote from one of the dudes that worked on the ship. What do you got? Most people dudes that work on the ship. Ship dudes? Yeah. One of the crew members oh, yeah. Years later recounted and he was like, the Korean people are somewhat stoic in their nature, he said. But I couldn't believe, even with that, the way they behaved. And he said it was so orderly. No one fought, no one jostled. Everyone just sort of worked together to make this Christmas miracle happen. Okay. There are two miracles that came out of this. So they make land at Gay OJ Island on Christmas Day. That's right. And two miracles happen. One, over this two day period, under these very treacherous conditions, not one person died, not one person was injured. Miracle one. Yeah, you can clap for that. Sure. Wait a minute. Please clap. That was I got political again. I'm sorry. That was miracle one. What was miracle two? Miracle number two is they showed up with 14,005 people because guess what? Five little beebies were born. Everyone in this little journey. There was a medic on board that worked with the crew, I found out, that didn't have any training, of course, delivering babies, just running around with the hat box, like, just drop it in here. The hat box is getting kind of gross after number two. But they lived with it. Jerry, cut this part out. Seriously. Make a note. Yeah. Five little babies were born. Everyone lived. Those little five babies were all right. And they're here tonight, everybody. One of these signs is going to come true. Oh, man. Wouldn't that be great? That was miracle two. Miracle three is as follows, starting now. We should have done this in a different order. Now that I'm seeing what miracle this is. Does anyone out there like dogs? Same here. What about miracle dogs? Simpson's reference. I know. Okay. You told me never to acknowledge people from the stage. Oh, yeah. This is a special show. I'm sorry, buddy. I was just doing it to sir. All right. So. April 2006 Aurora, Colorado A woman named Vonda Lundstrom had a heartbreak when her little pet rat terrier Daisy got out from her fence and didn't come home ever. Which is, first of all, it's a miracle store. Everyone. A rat and a terrier. It's disgusting. It must have been, like, the ugliest dog on the planet. It's not how that works. Well, explain it to me later. Let's keep things going. Like a German bulldog doesn't mean a German man and a bulldog, actually well, no, not so sure. What happens? Find closed doors. So Daisy the rat terrier ran off, and Vaughn de Lundstrom said, well, I guess that's it for me. And being happy so long, Daisy. I know she spent months looking and then just kind of gave up, resigned herself that she would never see her dog again, never knew what happened to her. And this is like, all my heart is broken. On Christmas day of that year, she gets a call, and this call is from a woman in Knoxville, Tennessee, saying, hey, guess what? Oh, yeah. I got some Knoxville people here, huh? Well, prepare to be proud of your town, because a woman from your town found Daisy in Knoxville, Tennessee. She had made it 1300 miles from Aurora, Colorado to Knoxville, Tennessee. No one has any idea how. And showed up on this woman in Knoxville, Tennessee doorstep. Yeah, she said, Where are you from, little dog? And she went, Colorado. It's pretty good. It's so dumb. I can't believe I did that in front of 250 people. Now, she did what you should do, which is called the little number on the tag got in touch. It was a rabies tag. So I got in touch with veterinarian in Colorado. She said, I think I have the wrong number. This is a weird area code to be calling for a lost dog in my neighborhood in Knoxville. And he said, yeah, it is weird. It's in Colorado. And she said, I got a little rat terrier named Daisy. And the vet went, what? A rat terrier? What are you talking about? I don't know how you do it in Tennessee, lady, right here in Colorado, we breed dogs with dogs. Oh, that's not how we do it in Tennessee. So he said, I think that we have a match here. This is one of my clients. And he called up Bonda, and he said, believe it or not, we think we found Daisy. This dog was missing in April, and this was Christmas. You do the math. Yeah. Had it not been Christmas, it would have just been a miracle, not a Christmas miracle. That's right. They were reunited. And I guess if we've already told the other story about the other Christmas miracle, we can kind of pull the rug out on this one, too. Daisy was reunited with Vonda, and Daisy got home to find out that Vanda had replaced Daisy and she had to share her house with another dog. Yeah, that must have been pretty awkward for Daisy, like, finally back home and runs inside and is like, oh, this is my spot. You haven't been here for a while, so let me tell you what the rules are. Daisy. Yeah. And the dogs like, no, I all over that. And I'm about to again. That her last miracle. That was it. That's what I'm saying. We did them out of order. All right, thanks, everybody. We can tell you guys are the hardcore stuff you should know fans, because you clapped for that one. So I don't know if you guys have noticed the theme or not yet, but we're talking a lot about Christmas. I've noticed you shifting it. Is there a rhyme or reason there? Nervous habit. Okay. I thought you were just that was the first time I've shipped. All right, next segment, right? Wait, no, we just graduated. You don't want that side to get cheated. Show them your ball, big. Everybody get a look at the load. Shouldn't be hearing. So we're talking Christmas. What would Christmas be without shoving elbows to the teeth? Maybe, like, a little bit choking you're like, oh, wait, I can go to jail for that. Over the must have toy of the season. And we found out that there was a toy that spanned not one, but two Christmas seasons, and that toy spanned the Christmases of 1986 and 1987, and his name was Teddy Rux. Yeah. Let's go ahead and remember that little guy. How adorable. Comes with a cassette and a storybook. Yeah. And you can buy more cassettes and more storybooks and more cassettes and more story books. That's how they get you, right? That's how they got you with Teddy Ruxpin. And he was super groundbreaking at the time, right? Teddy Ruxpin. If you don't know what Teddy Ruxpin is, he's this guy. But your kid would put a cassette in his back and press play with sticky little chocolatey fingers and Teddy Ruxpin. Here we go. There you go. We don't want to give away the horror that awaits. And Teddy Ruxpin would come to life and be like, hey, you're my friend whether you like it or not, kid. His eyes would open and close, and his nose would spin, and he'd start talking. But he would talk not just babble or just talk about his day or something like that. He would tell a story, right? I was born in a hat box. He was an amazing bear that told your kid's stories, and every kid wanted one. But there was actually a pretty great story leading up to it, and it was a Disney imagineer named Ken Forsee, who was the guy who came up with Teddy Ruxpin. And he worked on him for so long that his original idea was for Teddy Ruxpin to have been a monkey. Because he wanted to salute the space program. That's how long the guy had been working on Teddy Ruxpin. So I did a little more research into this guy. Like you said, he worked at Disney what do they call themselves? Imagineers. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Imagineers. He actually helped design he was one of the designers on the Haunted Mansion. So big ups for that. Best ride ever. And then if you're a long time Atlanta, you might remember over at where Philips Arena now is the old Omni CNN. And they had the World of Sidin marty Croft, which is weird. LSD fueled amusement park, indoor amusement park. And he helped design that, too, which is kind of cool. Yeah. So, like we said, he worked at Disney, and he was like, I've been to the hall of Presidents. Why don't I just take Abraham Lincoln and wrap them in fur? Cut his head off, wrap them in FIR. Sure. And I think I have a million seller. Right. But he worked on it for a while. And the reason it took him so long is because originally, Teddy Rucksman came in two parts. You had Teddy Ruxpin, and then you had a box, a big, clunky, ugly box with sharp edges with, like, catch fire. And this box sent FM signals to Teddy. And then that's how Teddy, with the receiver and his face, would talk and move his mouth. Literal radio signals. Right. He could not have been more complicated if he tried. Right. But also really clumsy and cumbersome. A two piece set. No kid wants to set up a receiver and twist the dials. No, they want the hard, sharp box inside the bear. Right. But it was a huge move when they managed to combine the two together. And what they figured out was that they could use one track and a regular cassette tape to record the story, Teddy's voice. And then the other track, they recorded ultra high frequency radio signals that told Teddy how to move his face. Yeah, it was connected to a little motor cassette's recording stereo. So there's two sides, and they just use one to send a signal to a little motor control. And all of a sudden, he could come to life and haunt your dreams. And with that, he took off. 1985. They released him in September, and they were sold out within a month, I think. 43,000 units. Just overnight. Yeah. This guy was thinking big, though. Like, he was like, this is not a Teddy bear, everyone. He created this whole backstory, and he wanted television shows and movies and things to accompany this, and it actually worked. He went into the office and said, oh, he's not a bear. He's in Iliop, which is a species native to the fantasy world of Grundo and the people he was selling it to. Can you just be a bear? I don't want to talk about this today. He got a bear that talks like, that's seriously, all you need. He's like, no, first of all, he's wearing a tunic. Bears don't wear tunics. Don't be ridiculous. He's an ilyow. So it was a pretty big breakthrough. Teddy Rocksman started to take off 43,000 units in the first month. They sold a million within the first three or four months. It was like a hit. So much so that it spanned 1986 and 1987 Christmas. Yeah. And so much so that he did get two specials out of ABC, believe it or not. He tried HBO, and they're like, that's weird. We're HBO. But ABC was like, sure, why not? So in November, December of 1985, they had two live action Teddy Rucksman specials about this cute little iliop from Grondo. From Grundo. And it came back over the years. I mean, here's the deal. Parents hated this thing. It was like, $75 back then, which is like a million dollars today. Million dollars. And these cassettes, because the kids are like, I married that one. I want to hear the next one. And they were 1295 a pop to get the little book in the cassette. And he was like, oh, I can write stories all day long, children. Yeah. In the middle of these stories, you'd be like, hey, tell your parents to go get another cassette. Tell them, just say what I'm about to say. You will hold your breath until you pass out unless you get another cassette today. Okay. All right. Okay. So, anyway, in Grundo, it's always lovely out. That's how we would talk, like there was something wrong with them. I found a few of these titles, too, by the way. Yeah, there was one called they all had colons, too. One was called the Mushroom Forest. You can be anything you want to be. It's like a gladwell. Wonder what was going on there. Oh, yeah, there was one in the early ninety s, and this is not a joke, everyone. Grunge music. Tap your feet to the beat. You lie. Mysterious, you lie. Because Grunge is the most totinous genre wow. Of music out there. Right? And then finally but also that's a Teddy Ruxman title. What did he tell the story? I don't know. A bunch of stage dive and iliops, I guess. And then finally and Teddy Ruxman came back a few times over the years. In fact, I think you can still buy them. Like, just a few years ago, there was another company. It's like, sure, we'll buy the license. We'll take a crack. Ted there was one, finally where he jumped the shark. That was called this is the title. Teddy Ruxman visits the dentist colon sponsored by Crest. It wasn't implied. That was the title. Right? Anyway, we have to take a message. Break, everybody. I'm kidding. I was making a joke about the Cresting. Settle down. Yeah, I do have my Christmas on, though. I do. I wear my Christmas light Me. Andy's it's authentic, everyone. So, Teddy rugspin. He went away. The market got saturated. There was something called rapping rabbit. There was one called Blabbering Bear, which is just a terrible name. They did zero market research. That's how fast everybody's getting this stuff. That's the one I would have gotten, like the Sears version. Blabber Bear. Not by your own choice. Same here, buddy. I know what you mean. Nights of the Round Table. Yeah, it looks just like Polo, except for a little flag. Like the kids at school are not going to buy this. Is that the end of that segment? That's the end of that. It's going great. It's going not bad. So again, we're talking Christmas. And what would Christmas be without the most horrific assemblage of monsters that you've ever encountered in your entire life? Well, if you're scared by this kind of thing, if you don't like monsters, they make you uneasy. Thank you. Lucky stars that you were not raised in Europe, because Europe has the scariest Christmas traditions of all time ever. And we're going to tell you about some of them. Yeah, we've talked about this in past Christmas specials, how Christmas was basically co opted by Christians from weird pagan holidays with horrific beasts. They're like, yeah, let's turn that into the birth of Jesus in Christmas. It's wonderful, right? What about this angry forest got us three wise men find they're going to be happy to get presents. It's fine. So we're going to start you can go ahead and move the slide. Yes. We're going to start in Iceland. Everyone with the yule cat, you have to say it in the Icelandic chuck. That friendly guy. Yes. In Icelandic it is yolak kutarin. I'm sorry. Everybody say, Yolak, Bjork, please. Oh, Yolak Kutarin. Yeah. Hey, that was a bad that was my best fjord. It was a good bjork. It's so quiet and the face and the movement. Oh, you got to do that. She actually records these songs, right? Yeah. You can go on to YouTube and look up Yola Kutin and just guess how it's spelled or Icelandic yulekat. And there's a poem that Bjork has sung where they put the music, and it's weird and creepy and perfect, but there's this tradition in Iceland that if you are a good kid and you do all of your chores and your work and your parents are hard working, too, then you as a kid will be rewarded with a new piece of clothing on Christmas. Right? That's what you're looking forward to as a kid in isolate, like, it socks and you're happy to have it because if you don't have new socks or new shoes or something, the yulekat will come along and eat you on Christmas Eve. We'll eat you in your house in front of your family. You see that kid? He knows, he's like, there's totally a cat behind me right now. And his friends are going, Nope. Wearing their new jacket. Yeah. Members only. We're all good. So the whole thing is the ulcase goes from house to house. I think. Christmas Eve or Christmas one of the two. I think if you're being eaten by the ulcat, it doesn't matter. Sure, it's one extra day. Ulcat is looking into the windows like you own new shoes. Okay, you're off limits. New apron. I guess that's an article of clothing. It's just going from house to house. And then the yule cat will inevitably find some kid who was lazy and didn't do their chores, so they didn't get a new piece of clothing. Yeah. Pounce tear, rip meow. Right. You'll cat get this done. But there's something really sad about this, too. What if you're like a good kid and you do all your chores, but your parents are not well off? Well, TS for you. The yule cat is going to get you anyway, because yule cat doesn't discriminate. The yule cat just goes by whether you have clothing or not. He hates all children, right. So what's very sweet is if you read this yule cat poem, in the end, it says, hopefully this will have you give a thought, children to kids who are less fortunate than you, so you can make sure that they have a new piece of clothing around in the holidays so they won't get eaten by the yolkat. Right. And if not, the blood is on your hands, right? Meow, meow. Yolak. Kutrin. What I love about all these is when you look at the progression, christmas softened to the point now where it's like you get cold in your stocking. And back then it was like a cat will come and eat you, eat you in front of your family. Because it's all like, good kid, bad kid. What are you going to get? Are you going to get a present or cole back then it was like, will you live or will you die? It's really amazing. All right, so this next one, we are going to Germany, the home of many horrors. A lot germany and Austria, which featured this kind woman, I guess her band of her soul eaters. Yeah, clearly. This is Frau Perksta. Frau Perksa was a witch who would, if she thought you were pretty good, give you some candy. If she thought you were bad, she would cut you open and tear out your guts and stuff you with garbage. That's what they taught kids, better not be bad or your guts are going to get pulled out and replaced with garbage by fraud. Parker yeah, she would visit over the twelve days of Christmas because she had a lot of work to do. I saw one descriptor that she was often described as having one abnormally large foot called a goosefoot. I haven't heard that one. I don't know. It's a good one. It's called drop foot. I don't even know what that is. You got the goose foot. Did you ever miss hep at the Manny Petty place? So the other thing is said, too, that she would slip their bellies open and stuff it with straw and pebbles. Like I garbage. I like garbage. Because it also makes you think, like what kind of garbage? Like coffee grounds and banana peels or something or more. I don't think she's composting. All right, okay. That's garbage. Because remember, you have to turn the kid every two days. Exactly. Keep it on the sun so it gets nice and steamy. Maybe put some worms in there, too. Well, she was a forest goddess, so it makes sense. Look at her. So fraud, parachta. Not who you wanted to run into if you're a bad kid. All right, who's next? Germany again? Yeah. Of course, if you're in Germany or nowadays if you're in Pennsylvania Dutch country, which is in Pennsylvania, you might run into a little guy named Bellstickle. Bring up Bellstickle. Guys like that kid is not joking around in that photo. This is supposed to be fun, holiday fun in Germany. I know it looks like a hostage situation. It does. At, like, an Olympic games. Can you imagine if that guy came in through your door and was like, no, not your parents. I'm here to see you. Come here. Wow. So the thing about Belsnickel was this. Belch nickel was like his name means either what is it? Beltsin means to wallop in German. So he either means like Walloping St. Nick or St. Nick and Pelts in first. And if you ran across Bell Stickley, he's like this all kind of woodsy guy who would show up a couple of days before Christmas to find out whether you are naughty or nice. And he would find out like this. He'd take some candy, maybe a few nuts, because again, you're like a Pennsylvania Dutch kid, so you'll go crazy for a few walnuts even, he would throw them onto the ground. And he just wants you like, what are you going to do? And the kid who went after it, like Augustus Loop or something like that, just jumped onto the ground after the candy. He'd get a switch right to his back like two days before Christmas as part of the Christmas tradition. And that's what Bells Nicholl was doing. He was there to sort the naughty kids from the night. But he's not nearly as bad as like fraud character or anything like that because he would take time with the naughty kids. Sure. And kind of teach them like, no, that's what's going on right there, I think. So this kid is about to be indoctrinated into the Bell Schnickle way of doing things. He just showed himself to be a Schnickle way. Right. But he would spend time with the kids who were bad to basically say, this is how you do it. Here's some candy. And it was meant to be a warning before St. Nick came to say you can still be good right before Christmas. I think that's a great warning. Let's go to the next slide. That's another picture of him, just in case you needed some more nightmare fuel. And then let's go one more. Yes. If that sounded familiar to anyone, there was an episode of The Office. Everyone knows Dwight Trudeau's from Pennsylvania Dutch country, and so he brought the legend of Bell Schnickle to The Office in an episode. It's pretty good. So moving along, we're going to go on over to the Lorraine, alcohol Lorraine regions of France. Actually, this has nothing to do with any of these, except that this was a Christmas photo from Germany, the home of Belchnickel. All right, let's get away from that. All right, here we go. So Hans Trop, that's Hans drop coming in the window there. Oh, it is. Okay. So this is nothing. The next slide will really kind of give you the feeling of what Hans Chop is all about. Hans Chop is a man who is a rich, wealthy man who decided that he wanted to eat children. He was that rich and wealthy, and so he was just going to do it. So he waited for a kid one day and pounced on them and took them and cooked them, got this far and was about to eat them, and then got intervened and struck him down with lightning before he could actually eat the kid. Wasn't this a true story? Yes, it was a true story. No, but there was really a guy named Hans Trop, though, right. According to legend, that was a cannibal Satanist right. And Christmas enthusiast right. Who is struck down by lighting by God. Right. Okay. So Hans Trop was resurrected as a scarecrow man who will come through yeah, let's go through the next one around Christmas time to make sure the kids are behaving so that they are not eaten by him. That's yet another threat. Christmas in Germany. Everyone right behind me. Well, this is France, actually. Oh, all right. I took off Germany for a minute then. Right. I thought that was Germany. Now. Hans Chop is my least favorite Christmas figure. We're going to stay in France. Everyone with the last one, let's switch that slide. Not bad, comparatively. Right. I'll take this guy any day over the rest of them. How do you pronounce that? You're the Frenchie here among us. Perfuetad. That last really finishes it off nicely. This is the French legend. The name translates to Father Whipper. And there was another evil butcher who craved children to eat. This is a constant theme in Europe around Christmas, and if you listen to our Grimm Fairy Tales or the Grimm Brothers, it's a constant theme in children's literature that if you did not behave, you would be eaten by an adult. Right. Very sweet. So he craved children to eat, and he and his wife would lure three boys into the butcher shop, whether they would kill, chop up, and salt these children until st. Nicholas comes to the rescue, resurrecting the boys and taking custody of the butcher. I love that he takes custody. He said, you're with me now. You work for me. I'm St. Nick. Yeah. And he literally put him to work. He was not like, you go to the authorities. He was like, Come on back to the North Pole. They got something for you. But it wasn't like, Come on back to the North Pole. I want you to start painting checkerboards for the little boys and girls. It was, no, I like the cut of your jib. I want you to come do that for me. So we would send them out ahead of time to basically bells Nickel. All the little kids, have you heard of bells nickel? Just do that. Then St. Nick would come in and be like, oh, hey, at least I'm not pair through a tard, right? St. Nick, good cop, bad cop. Basically exactly like that. Except the bad cop had no choice in the matter because he was in the custody of St. Nick. That's right. And that's France. Who needs a drink? All right, we just so happen to have a bar over here, so we're going to go to it now. All right, everybody, we're moving to the bar set. Yes. Hold on. Oh, thank you, chuck's going to get my thing. We're going to talk about hot toddy. Is anybody a hot toddy fan? Thank you. But we're hot Toddy fans too. Chuck, have you not had one before or you haven't had one for a while? I feel like Emily's made me a hot toddy when I was sick, because alcoholics like to tell each other that it's good for a cold when it's really just like, I'm sick, but I really still like to drink. Right? They're like, oh, well, this is great for that. Put some lemon and honey in it and you're all set. Sure. Josh is the bartender. Why don't you walk us through? Well, first of all, we should talk a little bit about where the Hot Toddy might have come from. So they actually don't know. They think possibly it came from Scotland, edinburgh. And in Edinburgh, there was a well. You didn't say that right. It's Edinburgh, right? There was a well that everybody drew water from, and water is like a big feature of the Hot Toddy. And the well was called Todd's well tod's well. And they think, well, there you go. That's story one. Maybe there's another one. In India, they drink a medicinal drink called the tari tari, the tati, and it's made from tree SAP. Now, there's another one. There was a guy named Robert Bentley. Todd Bentley Todd. He was a doctor, and he would prescribe this stuff constantly, whether you were sick or not. He'd be like, Just drink this. And they think maybe he was the inventor of the Toddy. No, I like that one. You like that one? Yeah. The fourth one that I came across was that it was invented to make Scotch more palatable to women. And I think that's probably where that came up. So they could sell more Scotch, basically. And then they came up with these backstories for it. That's right. So you're brewing up some water. What do we have here tonight? Got a little local rye, it looks like resurgence. Rye whiskey, everybody. So if you don't know how to make a toddy, it's super easy and it's really actually quite good. Great. This show just took a turn to the left. But a toddy is just whiskey of some sort. Usually it can be Scotch, it could be Irish, it can be bourbon. We're doing bourbon or rye or something like that. A little sweetener. Usually honey, some citrus and then some hot water. That's it. That's it. Right. But depending on where you are in the country, there are variations. Of course, when you get geographically specific. In New England, you might have one made with clam juice. Now they actually use maple syrup instead of honey in New England. Where else in Ireland they use potato water? No, just a joke. We really have gotten into dad joke territory in the last couple of years. People have pointed it out and I'm like, my God, that's right. That is pretty lazy. I'm like Ireland potatoes. Right, right. Irish whiskey there. In Scotland, they use you and McGregor sweat. Well, that's just heavenly. Kidding. He's Scotch. And then William Faulkner actually had a recipe that used bourbon. I don't have a William Faulkner joke. Very serious man. So tell us what we're doing here, Josh. What do we got? I put about an ounce and a half, 2oz. This jigger doesn't actually say how big it is, but you want to put one to 2oz in a couple of tablespoons of honey, a bunch of lemon, because that's what makes it the honey and the lemon makes it medicinal, right? That's right, said the alcoholic. I'm going to put it's talking about me, by the way. All right. I was like, just not I'm going to put a little less than a whole lemon in between the two of them. And then the kuda grass, which I found out means death below, not the final touch. Did you guys know that I've been saying CUDA grass my whole life, thinking like, oh, it's the final touch. No, it means to cut off the head a little bit of water. All right, I will say this, though. Jokes about alcoholism aside, here's another one. There are no there are doctors like Mayo Clinic doctors that have said there is a little bit of legitimacy here. The lemon does help. The honey does help. Warm liquid. I know people are like, yeah, whatever. Warm liquids help with congestion. They help loosen things up to help stimulate your saliva. They also said there is a mentally desired effect, which is just a nice warm drink, which, if you're stressed out around the holidays, that can help if you're sick. And the booze and I'm like, are the Mayo Clinic doctors all alcoholics? Because this all sounds like enabling speech. They recommend a little nip three times a day. So how is it? Have you tried it yet? No, I smelled it. Oh, that's pretty good. Is it? Cheers. Happy holidays. Happy holidays, everybody. You like that? That's nice. Does it need any more honey or anything? I'll make it right. I think it's perfect. Okay, good. Well, that's our drink. That's the Hot Toddy. And the hot toddy. Only at Christmas. All right. And every other show where there's a bottle of booze on the stage. This is all so delicious. I think we should retire by the fire, my friend. We are. We're going to take our hotties and we're going to go over and we're going to read well, we're going to talk first, and then we're going to read a story. Okay? Okay. Seriously, this set, I love to have a set like this at our house. We get one of these yummy little fake fireplace. I feel like I should be walking like this during this song. Tip toe. So has anyone ever really paid attention to that famous Andy Williams song, it's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, usually sung by Johnny Mathis. But if you really pay attention to the lyrics, he says, there will be scary ghost stories and tales of the glory of Christmases long ago. I have totally never noticed that until you brought me this a week ago. Has anyone else heard that and been like, what are they talking about? Like, this doesn't even make sense. It does make sense if you know a little bit about the history of Christmas. You are very close to your Don't Be Dumb set right now. Any don't Be dumb. I need a plank right here. You tell them Josh sent you? Yeah, there's that guy. Thank you. I just broke the fifth wall. Think about it. I know. So the reason why that song says there will be scary ghost stories is that ghost stories were a part of Christmas for Eons. Remember we were talking about, like, Frau Perekta and Belshnickel and all of them, and how they were kind of co opted from pagan lore? That's where Christmas originally came from, was the winter solstice. And at the winter solstice, that's the longest night of the year, the shortest day of the year, and it was typically kind of celebrated by the pagans as the death of the sun. And then the next day, it was the resurrection of the sun, the sun came back, and there was a promise of another year. But on this night, on the night of the winter solstice, which usually was around December 21, 22nd, maybe the 25th, who knows? The barrier, the veneer between the living and the dead was the thinnest. And so the dead could kind of come and go as they please and maybe finish up some unfinished business, that kind of stuff. Maybe watch with delight as Belchnickel scare the pants off of little kids. Whatever you wanted to do, you could do it that night. Yeah. There's a British humorous name. Jerome. Sorry? Jerome fuzzy oh, no, wait. His name is Jerome. Jerome? Jerome K. Jerome. Yeah. I thought I was reading that wrong. His name is Jerome. Jerome? Yes. Good Lord. What is happening? So he sort of explained that around England, he said this whenever five or six English speaking people meet round the fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic antidotes about Specters. I love each other. Jerome K. Jerome. That was wonderful. Delightful chat. That was great. That's exactly how Jerome k jerome talks, by the way. Specters. There's a very rare grainy phonograph of him talking. And that's exactly what he said, is like, Chuck spent weeks I saw a bunch of photos and he was doing this in all of them. So it was well known in Victoria and England that ghost stories were part of Christmas. And that actually explains another weird thing. If you step back and think about it, why there's a bunch of ghosts in Charles Thickens a Christmas Carol? Yes. I never really thought about that because it didn't make sense. I think it makes sense just because you're born reading that story, right, and seeing those movies. But when you look back, it doesn't make any sense that these ghosts are coming on Christmas Eve. Because here in America, we associate ghosts with Halloween. Exactly. But in jolly old England, the spectators come out. He's going to keep at it until you guys give him a good laugh. So I just get it over with now. There were three or four good laughs in there. No, I'm with you. All right. So in the Christmas carol, Jacob Marley comes and is like, Scrooge. Don't be like me. He's finishing up unfinished business because he can kind of cross over to the other side. So that's why ghosts pop up from time to time and Christmas stories, right. And Christmas songs. Isn't it delightful? Because it is a tradition to tell a ghost story around Christmas, which is why we are not doing that. We're going to tell a story about Latkes at Hanukkah. That's right. Because we are nontraditional. Look at that, everyone. Has anyone read this yet? Do you have any Jewish friends in the audience? All right. This is for you, ma'am. So this is a story called Meet the Latkes. Chuck and I just happened to have the Hard bound edition in different editions as it's upside down. Thank you. And we're going to read you the story of the Latka family, which hopefully you will love. Yes. We haven't even practiced this yet, so we'll see how. It goes. Meet the lockers by Allen Silverbert. All right, let's go forward two slides. One more. All right, here we go. You want to start off for me? I'll start. All right. Are you going to do voices and stuff? I don't know. Let's see how it goes. Okay. Meet the Laca family. They're just like you and me, except their potato pancakes. That's Lucy Lakka and her dog Applesauce, who, despite his name, seems to also be a Laca. So Lucy says hello and Applesauce says, I got to say, we are doing a dog named Applesauce is pretty great. Yeah. But as you'll find, Applesauce is a bit of a knowitall. You probably won't like Applesauce by the end of this. All right, moving on. I'm going to read the top and I'm going to make you read this word. Well, I just happened to look it up, so I will probably get it partially right. Mama and Papa are busy in the kitchen making fried jelly donuts. Souf kanayakt. Nice. How was that, ma'am? Good. Check out. All right. All right, next slide. Lucy's older brother Lex, who apparently was raised on the Teddy Ruxpin Grunge story lex is reading comic books. Get out of my room. He shouts. Lex is a teenager. He doesn't care about anything. I don't care. Should care. Because philips. Tonight is the night. Lucy things she just turned into Neil Diamond. It's the first night of Hanukkah. No, it's not. All right. There's someone else in the Locka family. Yes, Grandpa. Hi there. Tonight's not Hanukkah. Grandpa says it's Hanukkah. That's what I said. Lucy is confused, as I believe Chuck said we hadn't run through this yet. Hanukkah. Can I keep going? Let me take this one, too. Yeah. Or did you really want this one? No, that's all you, Grandpa Grumbles. Say it with me. So this is when Applesauce comes along to clear things up, right? This is about the time when you'll probably stop liking applesauce. Actually, both Hanukkah and Hanukkah are right. The holidays name is Hebrew, everyone. So there are different ways to spell it and say it in English. I'm a dog named Applesauce. That was a good apple sauce. Thanks. Applesauce says Lucy. Says Grandpa. They're still getting ready for Hanukkah, everyone. Hanukkah. The Latcha family cooks and sings just wonderful. They're singing the Dreidel song, everyone. Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel you know the rest. Yeah, it's very nice. We're singing. Don't worry. Yeah, and they decorate the house. Look, they've even decorated applesauce. Applesauce. Actually, this is more bunting than decoration. He didn't hear Applesauce eat this. Except for Lex. He still doesn't care about anything. I still don't care. I could do Lex all day. I'm trying to decide who the villain here is. Is it Lex or applesauce? It's Applesauce. You knew I've disliked Applesauce since day one. But you're kind of a Lex, though, at the end of the day, aren't you? Do you really think so? I don't know. I thought more of a Lucy. I thought you were kind of a grandpa. I was kind of happy. Well, yeah, maybe I identify with Grandpa more. Sure. Yeah. All right. So after the menorah is lit and the dreidels are spun and the gelt gets gobbled, grandpa plops Lucy onto his lap. Do you want to hear about the miracle of Hanukkah, my little lockha? And this is the best part, everyone. It tells the true story of Hanukkah. It's not just fun and games. I do, Lucy says, biting into her last chocolate coin. That's the guilt. Did someone just correct my pronunciation of guilt? Grandpa begins with just a whisper. First, you need to know about the bees. Bees? Lucy asked. Grandpa nods. Hanukkah is a celebration of how the Jewish temple was saved from destruction. We celebrate this holiday thanks to the brave bees who buzzed and stung and fought to keep our people safe. I'm going to take the despicable apple sauce. Okay, I'm pretty sure there aren't any bees in the history of Hanukkah or Hanukkah, says Grandpa. Whose story is this? Your dog named Applesauce. That's who that last part is. I don't know if you guys are following along. So Lucy's eyes widen. Were the bees? Big Grandpa Big? They were huge giants. They were megabies. And then Applesauce comes in. You mean Maccabees? Grandpa says. No, definitely Megabies. And the biggest, bravest of them all was Judah Megaby. That's Judah McCabe. He was a mighty warrior and a heroic Jew who lived in Israel more than 2000 years ago. And there were no bees. Wolf pee. But too late, Applesauce. Lucy can see it now. Judah and his swarm of giant bees, buzzing and stinging and fighting to save the Jewish temple and the lives of everyone who worshiped there. And who do you think Judah and his big bees were battling? Grandpa asked. That's easy. Oh, my goodness. Everyone, it's alien potatoes. What's the planet's name? Sure. Thank you, planet. I just thought it was a coincidence. I don't understand why you said planet. I'll explain it later, okay? Wow, it's getting too small for my old eyes, said Grandpa. Grandpa continues. Outer space. Spuds invaded Earth. Lasers shot from their eyes, and they had a lot of eyes. Everyone was doomed. This is ridiculous said applesauce. Because he's a cynic. Are you kidding me? The enemy wasn't a bunch of alien potatoes. It was a terrible king named Antiochus. Well, it is true. Antiochus demanded that everyone believed in the same religion as he did. Applesauce goes on. So for the Jews, that meant no more studying the Torah, no more celebrating Shabbat, and never again worshiping God. King Antiochus and his followers almost completely destroyed the Jewish temple. He was a tyrant. Oh, look. He threw a menorah and hit Applesauce in the head and said Yup. Yes. A tyrant agrees. Grandpa. Judah and the Megabytes were trapped by those evil tater tyrants from Planet. Prisoners. In their own hive. They only had enough honey to last one day. Running out of honey? No, they were running out of oil. They needed oil to keep the temple's eternal flame blowing and burning. And they weren't bees. Everybody, applesauce is going to find his way to a hat box in the desert. I love dogs and I hate applesauce. The Megabytes plotted and schemed, grandpa says. In the next morning, when the sun rose on the temple, an enormous wooden dreidel stood in the village square. What could it be? The alien potatoes all wondered. And why does it buzz? Lucy waves her arms. I know the Megabies were hiding inside the dreidel. Lucy was right. All right, everyone, we'll spin it strong, smart latke, says Grandpa. Platts plots. The Megabese burst from the dreidel and sliced and whipped and mashed those tater tyrants into taters tattered. Tater tyrants. Lucias, try saying that three times, Grandpa says. Tether tater tyrants. Tether tater tyrants. Tether tater tyrants. All right, you all get guilt. It's not bad, everybody. And then miracles, Grandpa says, bringing it down a little bit. Judah Megaby stood in the middle of all those spoiled spots. What a waste, he said. And so that great warrior added some egg and onion and a pinch of flour to make something good from the bad potato latkes. Applesauce. Do we have any Applesauce fans? No? That's great. I love the scrout. Okay, got two people like apple sauce. Lucy's eyes and mouth are wide open. So the miracle of Hanukkah is that a long time ago, megabies turned alien potatoes into latkes. Is that really true? Of course it's not true. You keep it up with applesauce on the next one. The miracle of Hanukkah, or Hanukkah, is that not only did a small group of maccabees protect their temple from King Antiochus powerful army, but also the tiny bit of oil left to light the holy menorah didn't last for just one day. The oil kept the eternal light bright for eight whole days. That's right. You can applaud that. That's fine. Lucy points to her family's glowing menorah. Eight candle holders. Eight days of the Hanukkah miracle. And how do you pronounce that? Shamus. Okay, and the shamus? The tallest candle to light all the others. You know what? Says Grandpa. I like the dog's miracle better. Me, too, says Mama, who we all forgot about. Me, too, says Papa. The same. I don't care, says Lex, stepping his face with chocolate gel. Lex, you left your room. Cries Mama. It's another Hanukkah miracle. And she gives him a hug, squeezing his beats by dre clean off of his head. And that is Meet the Vodkas by Alan Zieberberg. Silverberg. You want to sing? I think we should sing. You guys want to sing? Okay, we're going to sing a carol we're going to lead you guys in singing a carol and we're not joking, okay? And this is how we're closing the show, everyone so thank you for being here with us. We hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas time. A wonderful holiday time. Happy Hanukkah. And here we go. Wow, what a performance. Chuck, you did great, my friend. You did great as well. And I think this might be a new annual tradition, my friend. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. We did readings, we talked about monsters and miracles. We sang a carol together. There was an amazing set on stage. Yeah, man, it was great. It was a good time by all. So, I guess. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Holidays. And may the tidings of the season treat you as gladness no matter who you are or where you are. For more on this and thousands of other topics is it how stuff works.com?"
https://podcasts.howstuf…-own-country.mp3	How do I start my own country?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-do-i-start-my-own-country	Whether through revolution, colonization or other means, every country has its start somewhere. But how does the process work? Join Josh and Chuck as they explain how countries get created -- and why some countries aren't always recognized by others.	Whether through revolution, colonization or other means, every country has its start somewhere. But how does the process work? Join Josh and Chuck as they explain how countries get created -- and why some countries aren't always recognized by others.	Thu, 26 May 2011 22:37:55 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2011, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=22, tm_min=37, tm_sec=55, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=146, tm_isdst=0)	33397110	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetoporkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I haven't said that in a long time, and I said it's just like PF tomkins for some reason. Oh, yeah. That's kind of how he would say it. But you're not wearing a vest in bow tie. No, my mustache is nonexistent too or pork by hat. I've got nothing except for that one inflection. Okay. That's the only similarity. So Josh is in a great mood because it's Friday. Yes. And we're actually not like we aren't usually pleased to be here, but we haven't done this in two weeks because we've been doing other stuff and we stacked up recordings, and it's like it's a genuine pleasure to be back in here doing this. It is. I could feel like I could do this with my eyes closed. Yeah, try it. Start podcast. I can't see my notes. Okay. It's still pretty good. Chuck, you got a joke in there. Anyway, thank you. Yeah. I'm happy to be here because I know I can do this. Right. There's not a camera in front of us. Exactly. Inferior. You feel good. I feel good too, Chuck. So I'm going to use that good feeling to give you an introduction. Okay. Let's hear it. Let's say, Chuckers, that you did not have a very good time in high school. But I did. But I'll imagine that you're suspending disbelief here. Okay. You were one of the less popular kids, perhaps because of that one time you wore that cape to school. It didn't go nearly as well as you had expected it would. I thought I would be lauded as a superhero among my peers, but they made fun of me. Right. Okay. And that pretty much set the timber for the rest of your high school experience. It really stuck with you. It really got in your crawl that you were so mistreated in high school. Right. And you had a couple of friends, Kevin and Jim, and they had similar experiences. And you guys are now in your 30s or forty s. You got a little money, and you still are driven by bitter anger. You want vengeance. Right. Right. You're not exactly the type to kill somebody. No. And your idea of revenge is pretty grand. So what you decide to do is to start your own country. Hey, that's a good way to get back at the jerks in high school. Exactly. This is the legal way to do it. Right. Okay. All you do start your own country, and you invite these guys to come visit and then throw them in prison the moment they get there. Okay. Maybe even put them on a terrorist watch list before they get there and not alert your authorities of what's going on. And then just sit back and wait for the good times to roll. Right. Okay. All right. Done. There's a couple of problems here. Okay. One, you have no idea how to start your own country well, in real life, because I've read your article, but yeah, well, that's what I was going to say. We're here to tell you that's. Right. So everyone who hears this podcast will know how to start their own country. Pretty much. And it's easier than you'd think in theory. Sure. Well, let's talk about it, Chuck. All right. Okay. Well, one way, Josh, that you can do so, and history has shown that it works, is a larger nation, let's say Great Britain. They used to be into colonizing places all over the world. Yeah. Here they are. Lovely places. They like to relax on the beach, and they did so well. Rhodesia is not exactly on the beach, but I was speaking of, like, the Virgin Islands. Sure. But they did that a larger nation, colonized a smaller one and changed the name to Rhodesia and said, this is a new country. Yes. You are now Rhodesians. Yeah. And if you don't like it, we've got guns here. And that is one way to do it. And then there's the opposite way to do it. You could be a Rhodesian and be like, you know what? We have guns now, too. Right. Or Zimbabwe. And now this place is called Zimbabwe. The kind of secession where you go buy an island and basically say, okay, this island is now its own thing. Yeah. I think didn't Marlon Brando own his own island? Yeah, I don't think he tried to make it his own country, although he may have. There are a significant number of islands for sale in the world. Really? Yeah. They're pretty small, though. Or I guess they range. I mean, they're small enough or they're big enough. Right. The problem is you're getting electricity. That's the big problem, I think. Yeah. Although if I was going to buy an island, I would try and keep it off grid or do the solar thing. Sure. Yeah. I'd deck my island out. Well, I'd want mine decked out, though. But you can still deck it out with solar panels, like the Swiss Family Robinson or something. Yeah. Okay. That's just how I roll but the more customary way of starting your own country is like we were saying, zimbabwe, or something like that, is called a land based secession. Yeah. Not as easy. No, it really isn't, because whereas if you were to buy a deserted tropical island, that no country that a country technically owned but wasn't doing anything with, they probably wouldn't put up too much of a fight. If you own property in a country and say, this is no longer part of this country, you're going to get some sort of resistance. Yeah, absolutely right. Like Russia. Soviet Union obviously dissolved, and they're still doing battle with Georgians today. They didn't just forget and say, yeah, it's no big deal. Right. Yeah. Relations among the former Soviet states with Russia are definitely strained. Yes. Where else? Chechnya. Yeah, chechen rebels are not the most happy people around and they will kill children. They've shown to secede. Secessions are bloody and horrible. Were they the school? Yeah. Okay, what was it? The Swap podcast? Yes, I think so. Let's see, what else? Oh, Yugoslavia. Yeah, that's another really good example, too. There is a guy named Joseph Tito, right. Not Tito Jackson or Tito's handmade vodka. Okay. Tito was this guy who is a brutal, iron fisted dictator, but he had a reputation where people would say, tito is a brutal, iron fisted dictator. But you got to hand it to him, he's keeping Yugoslavia together. And this is amazing. Right. Yugoslavia before Tito and then after Tito were a bunch of ethnic people groups living together that it hated each other for 1000 years. I think the problem between the Albanians and the Serbs went back to a massacre or the murder of a martyr in like twelve something. Really? 13th century. Wow. So Tito comes along and is like, no, you all live together in my country. After Tito dies, Yugoslavia falls apart and all of a sudden you have Albania, Serbia, all that stuff. But these were huge, enormous problems for the world. The Balkans are a big match or a big flashpoint, right? Sure. But ultimately what happened was a bunch of ethnic Albanians said, you know what? We're no longer part of Serbia. We have our own nations now. Right. That's one way to do it. That's land based assession. And like we said, it's usually kind of bloody, right? That's right. But there are a few steps that Albanians took, that Serbs eventually took and that other people have taken. They're basically like a four part means of becoming an independent nation. Yeah. Also, I have to give a huge shout out to Joshua Keating, who wrote a really cool article on foreign policy, foreign Policy magazine about this that form the basis of this article. It's just way better. This is way better. Oh, really? Yeah. Mine is way better than the editor at Foreign Policy magazine. Well, so three things, Josh, and we're going to talk about the four steps, but three things that generally give you a leg up if you want to form a new country is a population of, I would guess, like minded folks. Not just a population, a permanent population, like these people's homeland or this is where they live, this is where they farm right now they're on vacation here. Let's get a country going. Yeah, exactly. Government and land that will really give you a leg up. If you've got those three things, it's a good starter kit. And there's a fourth one that's not necessarily those three are internationally recognized as yes. If you have those three things, then you're on your way to forming a country with the fourth currency. Now, the fourth is that the government has to be able to communicate with the outside world. And then that came out of a treaty in 1933 in Montevideo, where the US. Said. Okay. We'll leave Latin America alone. You guys are your own sovereign nations now. We'll just undermine you covertly rather than overtly. That's kind of disputed. I think the United States recognizes it still, but other countries don't necessarily see that as criteria for nationhood. Well, it's tricky, and we'll see here in a minute when we start talking about the awesomely, funny and wacky sea land I can't wait being recognized. Some people recognize certain things, and some people say you're a sovereign nation or an independent. It's very formal and informal, whether or not you're recognized or not. And I can't really tell when you're a legitimate country anymore. No, really. The only way there isn't is another recognized country recognizes you. Even that doesn't necessarily mean anything because take Taiwan. Taiwan used to be a recognized country, part of the UN. And then in 1009, seven one, Nixon threw to the dogs as an olive branch to China. And Taiwan hasn't been part of the UN since then. Are they trying to be? Yes. Really? A couple of years they petitioned to come back into the UN. Not even come in the first time to come back. Right. They got booted out because Nixon was like, yeah, the US. Isn't backing you. We got a little empty chair there with our little placard. I see it right there with the microphone. Exactly. There's a little earpiece interpreter that's like a cobweb dust on it. Yeah. So Taiwan is a sovereign nation as far as it's concerned, as far as many other nations are concerned. But it's not officially recognized by other countries. Right. Well, very big important one. Yeah. And UN protection. That's big. Because that means that your former country, if you're all of a sudden recognized by the UN, can't roll in there and take you back by force, at least for the UN's rules. They can't. They're not supposed to. No. Because once you do that, that's war. And first, I should say, once you've completed step two, which is declare independence. Right. You got to write your own declaration of independence. Right. And then once you write your own declaration of independence, send it to the important people that need to see that, I guess. Right. Well, the country that you're succeeding from, well, they'd be first on the list. Sure. And then if you can get recognized, then you're a sovereign nation basically on the international stage. And that's an act of war, an unprovoked act of aggression on par with Pearl Harbor or 911 or whatever. Sure. And I think that would you mentioned Kosovo and Montenegro is being on the winning side of those laws that kept them protected from Serbia. Yeah. So. That's because the US Recognized Kosovo on the day it declared independence. George Bush was like, hey, yeah, we're going to recognize you as a sovereign nation. And they're like, what? Like Cassava. We recognize you. Right. And the reason why keating points out that back in the day, during the Cold War, it used to be that all you had to do was say, I'm anti Soviet, and the US would recognize you immediately. Right. Or you could be like, American capitalist pig dogs, and the USSR would be like, hey, you're on our team. Your country. Right. And they both start printing stamps. Right. But with Kosovo in particular, declaring independence, it was kind of like a thumb in the eye to Russia, because former Soviet state satellite. And so Bush recognizing it was kind of like the Russians. What? Josh, what was that? You know what it was. Hey, everyone, when you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off Ups to stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No longterm commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. Yes, Josh. And those rules that we're talking about, the UN rules, are a remnant of the Cold War to protect new states that were not yet recognized by one side of the block or the other. Right. They hadn't unilaterally declared the LLC not New Kids on the Block with a K. Do they spell it with a K? Yeah. That wouldn't be New Kids on the Block. That would have been a different band. So that was the first three steps, I believe. Right. You have criteria. Declare independence, you petition for UN recognition. And I should also say it's incredibly easy to petition for unrecognition. How easy it is. It's almost adorable that you can just write a letter tell them, Chuck. No, you just write a letter to the Secretary General and say, I would like to be a country that was a mix of, like, eight accents, so don't call me out a lot. Like, yeah, that's exactly what it sounded like. Thank you very much. So, yeah, you just write a letter. And getting in I mean, the letter writing part is easy. That's the big part. And as a matter of fact, as a PSA, we're going to give you the address to send your letter to if you are going to declare your independence. You want to address your letter to Bonkee Moon, secretary General of the United Nations, First Avenue at 46th Street, New York, new York 10017. And all you have to do is say, mr. Bond, we would like to be a nation. We have a sedentary population, we have a government. Our government can even talk to people, if you're into that kind of thing. Yeah. You got phones. Yeah. And we have a geography, so let us in, huh? Chuck? Also, to be accepted into the UN, you need recognition by a two thirds vote. Okay. And two thirds majority says that you're a, quote, peace loving state that can carry out the duties of the UN charter. That means you are in. Yes, but that can be easily vetoed by member nations. And as you pointed out in the article, I guess you want to make friends with the big players in the UN and get them on your side. That would definitely help. Yeah. Neutral countries are always like, sure, well, neutral whatever you want to do, pal. Right. They don't carry much weight, though. No, not nearly as much as you can basically call them bully countries. Countries that have the economic and military might to push everybody else around, make decisions for the rest of the world. So if you can get recognized and get in bed with one of those guys, your nation's going to start to thrive. Another way to get your nation to thrive is to attract foreign investors. Yeah. You pointed out natural resources. If you happen to have an island like the big one, let's say the Waponi Woos had boobaroo. Do you remember? I don't remember that boobaroo was this mineral, I believe, that the Waponis had I remember he wanted their island. That was the whole point. He wanted it for boob Row, because it helped out with whatever his business was. Lloyd Bridges. Of course, we're talking about the late, great Lloyd Bridges. I liked his little stint on Seinfeld. Towards the end of his life, he just came out of nowhere. Because he was the father of the old trainer, right? No, he was a trainer, and then his son would, like, drive the car right, while he was turned around, like, shouting out of a bullhorn at Jerry, but wasn't even older. His son was an old man, and he was, like, older man. Anyway, we were talking about Joe versus Volcano, obviously, which we've mentioned before, and in that movie, he wanted the mineral rights to this imaginary element or mineral, and that's a good way to get sovereignty is to attract, I guess, a wealthy entrepreneur and say, hey, I've got some awesome sand on this island. Right. You've got that? You can also create currency and back it with said mineral or natural resource. Like, this is eight gas bucks if you have natural gas. What's this Nevada thing? There's a guy who what's the name of the place? The Republic of Molasses. Okay. There's a guy in Nevada who owns, like, a parcel of arid land that no one else wants in Nevada, and he has declared it in a republic. Really? It will never, ever get recognized internationally because it's in the United States. Yeah, right. And that's a perfect example, Chuck, of what international recognition is. Like, imagine if China recognized the Republic of Malassia as an independent nation within Nevada. Can you imagine what a thumb in the eye of the United States? It would go nowhere. There would be nothing. The Chinese aren't going to arm this guy. Right. So that's what is going on. I mean, think about this. American Indian tribes, native American tribes have petitioned for independence, and they can't get it. This guy in Molasses is never going to get it. Yeah. And they were here long before that guy. Now, imagine if this were serious and there were really huge mineral rights at stake. These people were accepting arms. They were warring with somebody that could pull you into a war. Sure. Then it starts to get like a little more nerve wracking. But the thing is, the exact same people recognize nations just to tick off other nations, to embroil other nations in war or problems, or to show, to scoff it. It's basically like pushing another popular kid into a locker. That's like recognizing a new nation right. That's often accompanied to it and then shutting a locker. Yeah. What does the guy in Nevada back? His currency? Does he have currency or just he backs it with chocolate chip cookie dough. And you pointed out that that's not very valid. But I point out I countered that, sir. Okay. And say that I would love for things to be backed with chocolate chip cookie dough. I mean, I guess I would, too, but after a while I'd be like, I don't want any more money. Yeah, that's true. You eat enough cookie, done. You're going to get sick to your stomach. I would strongly recommend reading that Chicago Tribune story on that guy because it is extremely interesting. It's called One Nation under Me by Colleen Mastoni. That came out in 2008 on the Republic of Molasses. He is not the only wacky guy running around with saying, like, I'm an independent nation. Right. I mean, he's kind of serious, but not really. I get the impression he's half performance artists. Sure. There's a guy who founded his own nation in the 60s off the coast of Great Britain, and it's still around today. Sealand it is. It's an amazing story. It is. I think they're making it, or they talked about making a movie. And this has been requested. In fact, I didn't hear about this at all until someone had requested it a while ago, about six months ago. So whoever that was, thank you. So, Chuck, apparently in World War II, the British made a bunch of military outposts that were basically like oil Derek or oil platforms that weren't pumping oil. They were just stationary out in the North Sea off the British coast to basically shoot down German airplanes in case of attack. Yeah, just big, almost like stationary aircraft carriers. Right. And they tore most of them down after the war, except they left one up. Apparently no one has any idea why this one particular one left up, but it was about 7 miles, seven nautical miles, which is like 1.1 something landmile. Okay. I don't even know why they have those miles. Yeah, it's different out in the water, buddy. Bet we hear about it off of the coast of England, right. Which puts it outside of the three mile range of territorial waters. Member who owns the ocean. That's right. Okay, so this thing is in international waters. Even though the British built it, rust Tower was the name of this particular one and like you said, it stayed there. The rest of them were abandoned and then torn down. And this one was just it was abandoned and left up. Yeah, abandoned and left up. So a guy a pirate radio broadcaster, which at the time England was lousy with pirate radio broadcasters that weren't allowed to broadcast certain things in England, so they'd go outside to international waters. That's what Christian Slater did. That's right. And there's a movie Philip Seymour Hoffman was just in about pirate radio, okay, I believe called pirate radio. Yeah, sounds familiar. But anyway, this guy, English Major Patty Roy Bates was a pirate radio broadcaster who took up residence September 1967, about 6000 sqft this platform is, and said, you know what, I'm the prince of Sealand and his wife just shake her head. And he said, but doe you're the princess of sea land, so don't shake your head. Alright? Yes. And then she was down with it. And this is the principality of Sealand and we are our own nation and we are not a part of England, so be it. And that was pretty much how it started. So I guess the story would probably end there. But this guy was bound and determined. He was dead serious. Yeah. To get wrecked. Call him a crackpot or whatever, but this guy made this place. Right. One of the great crack pots though, I guess. What was that? That was in 67. The next year the British Navy sailed into this guy's waters. They were aware of them. Yeah. They went to fix a buoy. Is that what happened? Yeah, there was some sort of buoy out there that needed maintenance. So they entered his waters, air quotes and his son Michael, actually, I think this was wrong. I think his son Michael, who fired warning shots in the air and got in trouble. Well, you get the attention of the Navy when you start firing shots for their attention. Sure. And yeah, that was a big deal. Back on the island of England, a lot of people were calling for this guy to be court marshall. They're thrown in jail or something. Right? Yeah. So a case was brought against him in the House of Commons or in the common court. Right. The lawsuit, basically and the court ruled, we can't do anything. This is not within our jurisdiction. It's not within English jurisdiction. They went, sweet. And through that ruling, it was recognized and documented that this guy had a de facto sovereign nation. That's right. The court of another nation. Another sovereign nation ruled that it had no jurisdiction over this place called Sealant. This platform. Yeah. Out in the ocean. So seven years later, they proclaimed the Constitution. They, since then have developed a flag. They have a coat of arms. Coat. Coat of arms. Yeah. It's nice. And it's on the flag. They have a national anthem. They have stamps. They have currency, sealand dollars, which are equivalent to one American dollar, I guess whatever the American dollar happens to be that's Sealand changes along with us. And they had passports made. Yeah. And they gave them out to people. They didn't sell them. There's about 200 of them in existence. Real ones today? Yes. There's 500 times more forged ones in existence. Right. Because people started to use Sealand as, like, a way to open bank account. Okay. They just forge these documents, and since no one had ever seen them, people would say, what is this? And then they go do some research, and they'd say, oh, well, okay, this is a real thing. Okay. And they would give them the loan. August there'd be a lot of okay, august of 78. Let's flash forward a bit. They quote, unquote, win a war. This guy named Alexander Akenbach, who called himself the Prime Minister of Sealand, apparently, when Roy was I'm sorry, the prince of Sealand and the princess were on the British mainland, he sent in some mercenaries to take the I keep wanting to call an island to take Sea Land. Why? I didn't find out. Why? I'm not sure, to be honest. Okay. He said he was a prime minister, so maybe he was trying to he had enough of Prince Roy's iron fisted rule or something, and he wanted to take it for himself. Right. He was tired of him strutting around, so they sent these helicopters and speedboats in. There was a battle. They kidnapped the son, Michael. Yeah. This is serious. Took sea land by force. And then Roy here's this obviously, he gets on it and wages a battle against these mercenaries and wins and retakes Sealand, holds these people captive, releases the Dutch. There were Dutch and Germans. Right. And charges Akinbach with treason because he was prime Minister of Sealand, holds him. And this is the best part of the whole thing. Eventually, Germany sent a diplomat to Sealand to negotiate his release. And that is used today still as de facto evidence, because an official diplomat from a country came to our country to negotiate with us. So that is de facto proof that we are a sovereign nation. Well, it's proof two out of two, at least. Yeah. Although all the stuff they were doing internally, like issuing passports and forming currency in a flag and other national treasures, that definitely suggest that they're a sovereign nation as well. Yeah. They prove they said, hey, this guy recognizes this German diplomat, came here. Plus, not just sovereign, but that's like a war. Yeah, they won the war, like you said, technically. And also that's a lot like the mouse that roared. Yeah, I thought of that same thing, man. Yeah, well, I mean, it's like almost exactly the same. Yeah. Great. What was that, 1959, I think. The book or the movie? The movie with Peter Sellers. David Niven. I'm sure those two are inseparable. What was the deal? America declared a kind of a phony war on a small nation. Small nation that was going under. Declared war on America so that they could surrender. Not just get pressed, but so they could get international aid. Right. For having lost a war with America. Apparently, the humanitarian aid pours in, but they won. Right. Yeah, I remember. I read that guy. Did you? Yeah. Good for you, Chuck. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, Stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the homepage and enter code stuff. So flashforward a bit more. And to Britain extended territorial waters to twelve nautical miles. The day before Britain does this, Prince Roy does the same thing. So they have overlapping waters. And even though they've never negotiated anything, apparently there's an understanding that it's split down the middle. When this happens between countries, you do not mess with Prince Roy. Understand? The other cool thing is because international law doesn't allow you. To claim new land when you extend your sea rights. It was grandfathered in and just to this day is still sitting there. Well, speaking of to this day, after 40 years, prince Roy is like, I'm done. I did it. He's got to be old. He is old. I think he tried to give it to his son. So I was like, yeah. So Prince Roy is trying to sell it. Michael's in London. He's like, yeah, it experienced a revival with some investment from Haven Co. Limited, which basically says, hey, we have Internet servers on this island, and they're in a sovereign nation, which means they can't be shut down except by attack. Right. And that attracted a lot of people who like Pirate Bay. Sure. Like rogue BitTorrent sites, mirror their stuff on the servers. Got you. It's a lot like the Internet's version of offshore bank accounts in the Caymans. Got you. Do they sell it? The Pirate Bay was looking at buying it, I think, in 2007, but it fell through, as far as I know. You could conceivably buy Sealand today. Well, Pirate Bay was going to buy it, but they found out there was no hardwood floors under the carpet, so they said, yeah, no thanks. They were rotted. Right? Yeah. So that's sea land. Yeah. And it's still going strong. I mean, they claim de facto recognition still to this day. Oh, yeah. Well, it's a sovereign country. Yeah. Dude, if Britain's like, we can't mess with you. And they went to war with Germany. Right, okay. And he doesn't pay into the health system. Britain said, all right, you don't have to pay into the health system. Yeah, but don't call us when you get sick. Yeah, probably. So that's what's considered a micronation. Although I realize there are also other micronations that exist only on the web. Right. We need to do one on those, I think, have we not? All right. It's on the list. All right. You should go do a little more research on this, on howstep works.com. You should probably check out how do I start my own country, for starters. There's some good links in that article, too. We mentioned who owns the oceans. You need to know that. And then how currency works is probably a good one to brush up on as well. Right? Yeah. Go read the mouse at Rod or watch it. Yeah, do that, too. You can find all that by using the Dapper search bar@houseoffworks.com. Right. I said Dapper. So that triggers listen to Mail today. That's right, Josh. This is another update from Sarah, the amazing FAM. Oh, hey, Sarah. We get these usually around her birthday, and I get some as everybody knows, we have been keeping up with Sarah since she was eleven. The amazing eleven year old fan. And Sarah is about to turn 14. Wow. Growing up not right before our eyes, but right before our ears. And she just writes the best email. So this is from Sarah Deer, Chuck, Josh, Jerry, Frank, the chair, handy dandy microphones, and last but not least, the last chance garage hat. Wow. She wrote into my hat. Wow, what a year. I don't know if you all have been keeping track. I seriously doubt it, but I can dream, right? But I will be turning 14 in 15 days on the 24th, and I'm not sure when this is coming out, but it should be sometime around there. Yeah. Not only is my birthday in two weeks, but my 8th grade graduation falls on the day before, meaning that my class trip to Six Flags, by the way, is on my birthday. Yay. Smiley face. Because of the two and a half hour to three hour drive, I'll probably be listening to some epic podcasts on the way. Now to the real topic of this email. I'm going to share my hardcore parkour experience. After I read the blog that Chuckers posted on parkour in the computer lab at school, I went on a parkour rampage. Well, not really a rampage, but I just decided to randomly walk up to things, jump next to them and say parkour. When I did a parkour jump next to one of my friends, she goes, do you watch The Office? Apparently there was an episode where some of the characters went on a parkour rampage similar to mine. Yeah, we mentioned that. Right? I decided to look it up and found that it was really hilarious. You may want to start a parkour club right there@housetohorcs.com. We are way too fat and old for that. Yeah, we've learned that this week. So she says, ha ha. Loving rockets. Sarah the amazing 13, almost 14 year old fan. That is awesome. And she made a Daniel Ash reference there at the end, with love and rockets. Yeah, I don't even know if she meant that, but I think it's an adorable way to sign an email. Well, it's Sarah. She's adorable all over. Absolutely. Sarah, happy, happy birthday. We're so glad you've been growing up with us. We appreciate you. You stay safe. Parkouring out there. Please do. Have fun at six legs. Be careful on the roller coasters. They make me nervous and well, heck, we'll say happy birthday again to you next year, okay? Absolutely. All right. If you have a flag, if you have a name of a country, if you have any ideas for starting your own country, we want to hear about them. You can post them on our Facebook page. That is stuff you should know. Aftercom. After Facebook. After www Dot after colon, after P, after T and after an H, right? Do that in reverse order in a URL bar, anywhere, and it's going to take you to our Facebook page. You can also reach us on Twitter at syskpodcast and you can send us regular oldfashioned email to stuffpodcast@housetepworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcasts, Stuff from the future, join House Deport staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
d1b540a8-8912-4b69-b7c6-ae8900f4d5df	Short Stuff: Shar Pei	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-shar-pei	Today we dive into the lovable folds of the Shar Pei. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Today we dive into the lovable folds of the Shar Pei. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Wed, 04 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=4, tm_hour=4, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=124, tm_isdst=0)	10397705	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Shar. Josh there's Shar. Chuck. Shajeri is here too, and we're just playing around. And this is short stuff. Is that off the top of your head? Please tell me you're don't prescript these. No, not something that terrible. Okay, I see like, furiously scribbling now, crossing it out. You want to talk sharpei? Yes. It sounds like you got to stop. It sounds like and I didn't look it up, but Char Pay sounds wrong. And it just seems like the plural sharpe is probably sharpe. That's what I take it as. Sure. Okay. Yeah. And it came from China originally, the sharpe breed did, yeah. This is a dog, by the way. Yeah, we should probably say that. I think every single person who's ever been familiar with dogs is also familiar with Sharpie because they're one of the most unique and unusual looking dogs on the planet because they have huge, floppy, folding skin flaps all over their head and neck and shoulders that differentiates them from basically every other dog. They make bloodhounds, hang their jowls in shame. They have that many folds and flaps of skin. That's right. And by the way, this comes from Patty Rasmussen@housetepworks.com. And you said it came from China originally, the breed. And in Chinese it translates to sand skin. The plural of translate is translate to sands skin and a fully grown sharpe. They're pretty big, between 45 and \u00a360, a couple of feet tall. Those folds, like you said, are unmistakable. They're kind of light brownish in color, although they can be apparently up to 17 different shades in different colors. Yeah. They also have a really prominent, big, stout muzzle, too, that really fits them. It seems appropriate to the rest of their body size, but it's also unique. But you only notice the muzzle after you notice all the skin folds. And then after you notice the muzzle, you'll notice they have these tiny little kind of soft eyes that are made even softer by the huge flaps and folds of skin hanging around them. They just kind of have this sweet kind of droopy look about them that makes you want to just come up. Yeah. And as we'll see here in a few minutes, all the skin action around the eyes can cause a lot of problems. Sadly. Yeah, that's the problem. It's like, it's super cute and super sweet of the dogs. Like, please call the police. Right, so let's talk about these folds. They actually interviewed for this article. Patty Rasmussen interviewed Doctor Kirsten Lynnblad Tow of upSlow University in Sweden. That's some pretty good digging. Yeah, for sure. And apparently Dr. Lynn Blatto knows all about these folds and where they come from. And it comes from something called hyaluronin. And this is like a gel. It's described as a gel around the cells in the skin. And Charpaise just have a lot of this stuff accumulating basically in the skin. Yes. And that may sound familiar to you if you have anything like a skincare regime, because hyaluronic acid is having a real moment right now and has for a few years. Yeah, but this is the actual stuff that kind of pads and makes the cells kind of floppy and elastic and gives them kind of buoyancy and bounciness and vibrancy and youth and CoverGirl and all that stuff. And all of it is produced at bottom by the hyaluronic acid Synthase II gene. And it turns out that sharpe dogs. No. Chuck now that I was about to say, I think chart's work charts have hyaluronic synthesis, two genes basically on steroids. That's right. And so you're getting way too much accumulation of it and that's what produces the wrinkles. It's really they figured it out and this is the kind of thing that sharpe lovers love. They buy these dogs for a lot of money and if you want to know, I guess maybe we'll take a break and we'll tell you a little bit about the breed and what they are like as dogs. What are they like? Josh, you got eight sharpes. That's true. Each one more cuddly than the last. That's right. No, I have one momo and she is in no way Sharpay, although she is Shih Tzu, so I guess she's from the same homeland, to an extent. Very interesting. Yeah. So the Sharpie is apparently it's a good dog if you're looking for a loyal dog that doesn't really play well with other dogs and doesn't like strangers. That seems to be one of the big tenets of the sharpe breed. Yeah, it is a big tenant and I'm sure we'll hear from sharpe owners that will either kind of verify this or tell us, like, we've got it all wrong because their dog is nothing like this. But one thing you're going to want to be accustomed to and up for is maybe a little more vet care than you would your average Mutt Street dog, because sharpei, because of the unique situation with the has two Jean, there can be a lot of sort of a host of problems that can happen to the sharpe. Yeah. A lot of them have to do with the eyes. Yeah. And it ultimately goes back to the skin fold, so the eyes themselves can have all sorts of problems. But if you really kind of look into it, it seems to be from skin pressing up against the eyes, coming in contact with the eyes. There's one where the dog can actually go blind from the skin just pressing on his or her retina for so long, because they have that kind of sand skin. Kind of course, a fold of that turned inward onto their cornea over probably a very brief amount of time, is going to damage their cornea. And that's another issue you can have. So just from skin coming in contact with the eyes, but they also have other stuff that, like the eyes themselves can just be kind of weaker and sturdy. And that's just one very common, widespread problem that Sharpays have. They also have a lot of genetic disorders, too. And again, it has to do with hyaluronic acid. Oh, is the fever disease linked to that, too? That's what I took it as. Yeah. Okay. I see that the study does link that gene. It is called periodic fever disease. They sometimes even call it familial Sharp a fever. And it seems to just come out of nowhere. The dog will get feverish and sort of listless and yeah, apparently that Hyaluronan. Jeez is to blame for this periodic disease, as well as some autoimmune issues. Yeah. And then there's also Sharpay auto inflammatory disease, or spade with an eye. And it has all sorts of stuff in addition to fever, arthritis, dermatitis, ear infections, organ infections, just a whole host of problems. And again, it has to do with that mutation that leads to the skin flaps that's been selected to for more and more over generations and generations of Sharpies. I guess the breeders had no idea that they were also selecting for the most genetically unsound of the bunch, too, as far as this disorder, this autoimmune disorder goes, yeah, sort of like the Bulldogs having trouble breathing, and they've been bred so their noses have been bred so smashed up against their face. I remember reading not that long ago, Chuck, that I believe in the 19th century, the Bulldogs had a reputation like pit bulls have today, that they were brutal, vicious dogs. And there was a big public outcry about them as a breed to basically just destroy the entire breed. And to avoid that, bulldog breeders bred them. They started selecting them to be way more mellow, way less physically capable of violence, and just generally nicer and happier. And so we have the bulldog today, which basically in no way resembles the bulldog of the 19th century. Interesting. Yeah. We should do something on the pit bull at some point, too, because those were nanny dogs. Pit bulls are great. Okay. Love those dogs. I've had those dogs. So as far as the Sharpie being a good dog in the house, like you said, they're very loyal, so they're great in that aspect. The AKC says that the puppies might be better if you have older kids, so they might be a little rambunctious. They're really smart. They're pretty independent, but they are loyal. I think initially they were hunters and guard dogs, so they're going to take some training. They do suggest obedience training and that they typically aren't great with other dogs and strangers. So it sounds like one of those breeds where you kind of got your hands full if you're a Sharp, a lover, I'm sure that you know what you're getting into, but they sound like they're not the easiest dog to have. No, but I have a feeling that if you are a Sharpie lover. You don't care and love them entirely, so that's cool. Exactly. They're interesting looking animals, I will say that. Yeah. You did a call out for sharpe owners, so I want to second that. If you have a Sharpay, tell us all about your dog we want here, please do. And in the meantime, we're just going to say that short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts podcast my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1226943422352hsw-sysk-eco-anxiety.mp3	How Eco-anxiety Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-eco-anxiety-works	Eco-anxiety -- a chronic fear of environmental doom -- is a recent, specialized type of anxiety disorder gripping an estimated 40 million people in the United States. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about eco-anxiety.	Eco-anxiety -- a chronic fear of environmental doom -- is a recent, specialized type of anxiety disorder gripping an estimated 40 million people in the United States. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about eco-anxiety.	Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:00:18 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=18, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=323, tm_isdst=0)	13554071	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housestepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. This is stuff you should know. As you know, I don't think you've ever said that the title of our podcast. I'm trying out something new. I like that. It's a Mighty Eagle sword chef. I agree. Yeah. So have you ever heard of eugenics, Chuck? No, because you tease me before we went on the air and I asked you what it was, so I had the conversation and refused. I refuse to tell you, didn't I? Yes. Genuine. You really, genuinely don't know? I have no idea if it's segue that you already know the answer to. No. Okay, well, let me tell you a little bit about eugenics. It's a little history lesson. American history, to be exact. Early 20th century, there was a movement afoot in the scientific community to basically purify the human race to make humans the best we can possibly be. Right? But to do that, we had to get rid of humans that were deemed deficient. And for those of you listening out there, I just made very strong air quotes with my fingers. So these deficient humans were anybody from the mentally infirm epileptic, people born blind or deaf mute, and just basically anybody who clubs. You did not want to be club foot in 1920 in America. Right. But this is a little known aspect of American history. The government got behind this, the eugenics movement. And actually, I believe there's a few people alive today that were sterilized by the federal government. That's eugenics. Wow. It really happened. Well, I'm glad it didn't take. It didn't take, although it almost did elsewhere in a little place we called Germany. Right. Adolf Hitler actually didn't come up with this idea of the superman of the Aryan race, the perfect race on his own. He got it from the eugenics movement and a guy named Henry Ford, who is a huge proponent of eugenics. Really? Yes. Little known fact. Wow. Let's fast forward to the 21st century. All right? Right now, there are at least two women walking the planet who voluntarily had themselves sterilized. Do you know why they did this? So they couldn't have babies. That's precisely right, Chuck. How insightful of you. The reason that they did this yes. Was because they didn't want to contribute to the population and it's negative effects on the environment. This is their service to the environment. They were making sure they didn't procreate ever. And I'm sure they probably went to the press to tout this. Most definitely, yeah. And yeah, it was a big deal. There was a couple of articles I read on them, and I guess when I'm trying to say is, I would call that an example of eco anxiety. Yeah, I would agree with you there. Do you want to define eco anxiety? Sure. Eco anxiety is sort of a new affliction that they've very new, where people have chronic fears of environmental doom in one way or the other, whether it's global warming, flood, famine, heat waves, extinction, that kind of thing. And I don't know exactly how widely held this diagnosis is right. But apparently it is real. And it's somewhat like a general anxiety disorder where you have insomnia, nervousness, depression, that kind of thing, except it's very specifically triggered from thinking about or being presented with evidence of the destruction of the environment. Right. Or even actually I did a little extra research for a change, and a lot of these folks even just obsessed over like a can or a water bottle, they'll be walking down the street and they'll see a can on the road and they'll want to stop their car. Well, I guess they'll be driving. They want to stop their car. Just can probably bike this one lady assist. Yeah, they'd be on a bike. I guess they sift through the trash sometimes looking for recyclables. I've actually done that before. I don't consider myself eco anxious. So it's more just like this can be recycled. Well, I've done that. I've taken something off the top, perhaps. Yeah. I didn't like getting my hands really dirty. Right. But I don't make it a point to go around two trash cans to sift through them, which I think some of these folks do. Actually. If that is a symptom of eco anxiety, then maybe this isn't new because hobos have been doing that for years, maybe. Right, yeah. So maybe these are just hobos in disguise. Right. They were the first eco anxious. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so that's eco anxiety. We got that covered. And it seems like people who are eco anxious are just kind of maybe nervous Nellies and this is a real outlet for them. I have a feeling that might be the case because general anxiety. Yeah, exactly. It seems like there's general anxiety and then emanating from that are these things that can trigger it. Right. Think about it. Eco anxiety is new and it's kind of developed along with our consciousness of how badly we are treating the planet these days. Sure, but was fear of flying around before airplanes were invented? Exactly. There's also a lot of psychologists that believe that claustrophobia didn't really generate until or develop until the modern city. Right. And that kind of living close and all that actually led to claustrophobia. So it almost seems like this is totally neopining here, but it seems like there's general anxiety disorders and then there are triggers for it. Different triggers for different folks. Right. Almost like you look for something to be anxious about. Exactly. Well, eco anxiety is the new anxiety du jour. So we should probably tell everybody what they can possibly do about this kind of thing. Right. Well, I know that many people who suffer from eco anxiety feel a great deal or a great lack of support, rather from friends and family. A lot of times they aren't very understanding because they think it's not exactly cookie. Yeah. They think it's a little kooky or if nothing else, unfounded. Although I did notice in the article that a Gallup poll states that 36% of Americans say they worry a great deal about global warming. And that same poll found 35% of people think that global warming will pose a threat to their life or their lifestyle within their lifetime. Right. I kind of believe that as well. I believe in global warming, and I think that it's already having some negative effects, but I don't carry it around with me on a daily basis. As far as worrying about it, I think it's a difference. Right. And I think my problem with the eco anxiety diagnosis is that any gesture toward the environment, toward protecting the environment that isn't born exclusively out of a sense of responsibility qualifies as eco anxiety. Right. Which I kind of disagree with. I do, too. But there's a pretty good explanation for eco anxiety that eco psychologists have come up with and that basically it's a symptom or a byproduct of our increasing disconnection from the planet. Right. We've created technology that has effectively taken us out of any kind of need to be cared for by the planet. Or we've at least created that idea in our minds that we have insulated ourselves from the planet through technology. We don't need it any longer except to walk on and drink the water from. And any problems we face, we can basically engineer our way out of it. Right. But apparently we're supposed to connect with the planet. We're supposed to feel connected with the planet. So as we get less and less connected to it, we're getting more and more eco anxious. That's the explanation, as I understand it. Right. And on that same note, one thing I thought was kind of funny, actually, if you want me to be honest. Okay. One of the things that eco therapists will do at a rate of 250 an hour to help you cure this will be to advise you to carry around a rock or a piece of bark to connect yourself with Mother Nature. Again. The other suggestion that I read that I liked was to go outside. I would love to charge somebody $250 for 50 minutes to tell them to go outside. Right. I mean, how do you do that? That's awesome. Sure. Yeah. And we don't want to belittle because it is a valid if it's a valid concern for somebody, then who are we to say that it's not? Who are we to draw judgment on somebody who walks around in a constant state of panic when they see an idling car, let's say, or a water bottle sitting on the ground? So while we might think it's a bit silly they might think that my fear of mice is silly. I think your fear of mice is really silly, right? Yeah. But yeah, I can understand what you're saying, and I think that's a legitimate thing to point out, because however it manifests itself, it's still in a form of anxiety. But this is perhaps maybe the most productive form of anxiety there is. You don't want to just curl up in the corner with your knees drawn up to your chest, rocking back and forth. You want to go pick recyclables out of the trash and buy something. Maybe go fight off Japanese whalers in the Arctic. Something like that. Right. Join Greenpeace something. I mean, at least it motivates you to do something that has a happy end. Happy ending. Or just carry around a piece of bark in your pocket. Really? That's not very good advice, if you ask me. I think they can inspire somebody to actually make change instead of just carrying a rock. Yeah. Or bark. So there was one other aspect that I found kind of interesting about eco anxiety was that it was largely driven by the media. Yeah. I completely agree with that. Right. Our friend Al Gore. I know. Leo DiCaprio yeah. Has inspired with his film An Inconvenient Truth, which was kind of frightening. Yeah. Well, as with any kind of public policy push or campaign, the problem has to be identified and the public has to be alerted to it. But we generally, especially in America, are fairly lazy and like to have things spoon fed to us. So the best way to get us to get off of the Lazy Boy and drop our budweiser and maybe get out there and do something is to scare the hell out of us. Right. And it's a legitimate marketing tactic. There's this acronym called FUD fear, Uncertainty, and Dread, and these are actually three marketing ploys to get people to do something. So whether it's saving the polar bears or getting you to go to the Midnight Madness sale right. It's the same tactics. And I can see how especially missing the Midnight Madness hill, that's pretty bad. But eventually you're going to get over it. You're like, that sucks. I missed out on those savings, but I'll live. It's fun with the environment, the stakes are so much higher that I think if you're going to try to get people to act, you have to be slightly more delicate, maybe. Sure. Because you have the eco anxious out there. Right. You got to be careful with these folks. Yeah. My wife, I wouldn't call her eco anxious, but she does worry about the polar bears. Sure. Stuff like that. Well, don't we all? Yeah. So I guess my advice to our readers would be, and I think I speak for Chuck as well the next time you see a well dressed liberal rooting through the trash and pulling cans out, be extra nice to them, because they may be among the eco anxious right. Or tout yourself, as an eco therapist and take money from them. Yeah. Keep loads of bark handy. Right. Like pharmaceutical samples. Right. Don't go anywhere. We want you to stick around to find out which article Chuck and I think has the most useful, useless information we've heard in quite some time. Chuck, do you want to be the big boy who tells them which article we think has the most useful, useless information in it? Yes. Why is it a bad idea to Scare a Vulture, written by our colleague Kristen Conner. Yes. And do you want to tell everybody why it's a bad idea? Yeah. Because apparently, if the vulture gets scared, it will vomit on queue. And this vomit is not ordinary vomit, apparently. Vulture vomit. It smells like dead things, appropriately enough, but it also burns, right. Like, very acidic. So you should probably just steer clear. Vultures anyway. Right. I would say we say useless useful or useful useless, depending on where you're coming from, because it sounds silly. But if you ever scared of vulture and it puked on you, then you'd find out it's not so silly. Yeah, exactly. You can arm yourself against this eventuality. Learn some vulture psychology, how to keep away from that kind of thing. Type in Why Is it a bad idea to scare a Vulture? Into our handy daily search bar. You can learn more about eco anxiety by typing in How Eco Anxiety Works, both of those articles that would be found in only one place. That is how stuff works.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseoffworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast@housestaffworks.com brought to you by The Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
https://podcasts.howstuf…ysk-termites.mp3	Termites: They Bore But They Aren't Boring	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/termites-they-bore-but-they-arent-boring	Their soft white bodies look creepy and, to be sure, they are, but termites are pretty amazing bugs. They build ventilation systems into their mounds, poop on their enemies and grow mushrooms. Learn all the neat stuff you didn't know about termites here.	Their soft white bodies look creepy and, to be sure, they are, but termites are pretty amazing bugs. They build ventilation systems into their mounds, poop on their enemies and grow mushrooms. Learn all the neat stuff you didn't know about termites here.	Tue, 25 Feb 2014 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=56, tm_isdst=0)	40317690	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from howstepworkscom? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry. So it's stuff you should know. Howdy? Hey. Hey. This is a fan recommendation. Really? Yes. Aaron Mullins from the Max funcon cruise that I went on last year. Works with termites, I believe. Like a termite circus. Yeah, he runs a termite circus. No, but he said he said, Dude, you got it. You should do Termites. He said they're really fascinating. They are pretty fascinating. And I said, yeah, we'll get to it, buddy. And here we are. So. Aaron Mullins, this one's for you. Way to go, Mullins. Yeah, this is a good suggestion. I mean, it's Termites. I can't tell you how many people went I'm not listening to that one. They just lost out. And all of you, dear listeners, the ones who are hearing our voices talk about Termites, you are very blessed. Yeah. It was the fact of the podcast thing that we like to do. I had a hard time picking out, like, five or six. I don't know. Don't give them away. Let's just take them in stride. Okay. Chuck? Yes. Are you familiar with I am. Someone's not going to have a good intro. I got a good intro. Okay. As a matter of fact, this is a Tracey Wilson joint. Yeah, she had a pretty good intro. She points out that termites are kind of paradoxes. Sure. The concept of termites is a paradox and that they are extremely vulnerable to changes in temperature, changes in humidity. They can dry out and die. They die of dehydration pretty easy. Yeah. They're not super hardy. Right. But they can be. Yeah. They can also sell the an entire house, given enough time. They develop wings. Some of them do. But they're not really good at flying. This is a lot like cicadas. Oh, yeah. You remember we saw those things first hand, just flying terribly. Yeah. And then soldier termites, for example. Very strong, huge mandibles and pincers. They can't even feed themselves. They're like big babies. Yeah. There's just a lot of things going on. Tournament. Do you think you understand them? Oh, but what about this part? Bam. Right. That's kind of what happens when you look into them. That's why they're fascinating. That's why Aaron Mullins Mullins recommended it. Yeah, I agree. Should we get into it? You know, what's said is there's just going to be an awkward pause in the podcast because people couldn't see me looking at you like, what's the guy's name? That's right. We can tighten that up with the magic of editing. Jerry, will you tighten that up? No, it says Jerry. All right. So, yes, let's get into this. Chuck, let's talk termites. All right. I guess usually when we do these, we've done cocka, roaches, and fleas. And did we do fleas? We did ticks. Yeah, we've done ticks. We've done bees. Have we not done. Fleas. We need to do that. Are you sure? Yeah. Remember, ticks is like the most boring episode we've ever done. No, but people went crazy for it because of the T shirt offer. Remember, if you made it all the way through that one, you got a free T shirt incentive. Anyway, we usually start with anatomy and that's a good place for termites. Obviously, they are insects and you're going to find them you can really find them anywhere where you don't go into a hard freeze in the winter. Right. But they are most common in tropical environments or most abundant, I guess. Well, they make the range all the way into temperate climates, though, too. Yeah, I mean, we've got them here, of course. Sure. And we freeze in the winter. Yeah, but the ground doesn't freeze all the way through. No, and not for prolonged periods either. They look like ants a lot of times, but they're not even that closely related to ants. Well, no, they're more closely related to cockroaches. Right. I think that's where they came from. Yeah, and they've been around for about 50 million years and there are nearly 3000 species of termites. So that's just a little background. We should also say termites are extraordinarily social insects. That's how they survive. Like one termite is, like we said, an extremely vulnerable organism. But if you put hundreds of thousands or millions upon millions of these things together in a single colony, they get the job done. Yeah, they are social and they're very structured. Some similarities to bees in that there is a definite social ladder in there. It's called a cast, actually, for termites. And they all have the little jobs that they do, and they all have their distinct physical features, one from another, which is kind of neat. So I guess we can start with the reproducers or reproductive, the egg layers. Right. In any colony you have one king and one queen and they're easily distinguishable from the rest because they're the only ones who are really dark in color. The reason they're the only ones that are dark in color is because they're the only ones that are fully mature in the entire colony. The only ones. It's crazy. That's one of the facts of the show for me, Bam. Yeah, but the king and queen aren't the only ones who can lay eggs. Soldiers and workers, which we'll talk about in a second, they're both sterile. They got nothing going on with the sexy stuff. Nothing. But the king and queen have kind of backup support with laying eggs. They are secondary and tertiary reproducers. Tertiary, by the way, is like one of the great overlooked wonderful words. I love that word. Me too. Yeah. Here's to me another fact of the podcast, okay? The king and the queen have eyes and the rest of them are blind. Okay, not all of them are blind, though, because I read somewhere else that that wasn't quite right. Yeah, I did too, man. Basically, if you develop wings, what is it? An ally? Yeah, when you develop those wings, you also develop eyes. Okay. You're like, Holy cow, I can see now because I got these wings. I guess if you're going to fly, you got to see. Right. So I guess at the point where there's just a king and queen, there's no allies. Yeah. The king and queen may be the only ones with eyes. I think you're right. And it's also possible that Tracy was talking about specific species. Like there's 3000 species, so it's possible some species, only the king and queen have eyes and it came in time. True. The rest, the blind ones that is, navigate with smell scent and with moisture trails and moisture and saliva is big in the termite world, as we will find throughout the podcast. There's a lot of regurgitating and spitting out to accomplish their needs. Yeah, the saliva is kind of magical. Not only do they use it to keep their eggs moist, they salivate on their eggs. They also use it for things like building shoring up interior of their little caves and tunnels. Yeah, building their entire mounds. They use their spit for that too. It's magic stuff. So it's reproductive. Yeah. You mentioned that they navigate the ones that can't see navigate through scent using pheromones. And the king and queen produce a certain type of pheromone that kind of controls how the colony population is at any given time. Yeah, it's really amazing. Like if they need and bees were sort of like this, too. If they need more soldiers, then they deposit the pheromone that makes more soldiers. They need more workers, then they're going to use the pheromone that makes more workers. Right. The awesome difference though is with bees, they went through and either laid an egg that had been fertilized with sperm to make a male or else they laid an egg that wasn't fertilized to make a female. And that's how they made different kinds of bees. With termites, a termite might actually regress in development, go back to the starting point to become a nymph again, or a larvae, I think, and then start over and then go from maybe being a worker to a soldier or something. It's pretty cool. It's all carried out by pheromones. So let's talk about soldiers. Yeah, they are obviously named So because they are the defenders of the nest and they're invaders. And when I say defenders, they're not going to fight off a bat or an ArtBar. They're going to lose that. But they can defend against other termites and ants and things like that. What's his name? Aaron Mullins. Mullins was right to say that termites are fascinating because there's some stuff that wasn't in this article about soldiers. So we said that termites are extremely social. Yeah, they're so social that they actually display suicidal behavior that benefits the colony. So some workers and some species develop this blue sack filled with this blue toxic fluid. And as they age, they kind of lose their purpose, socially speaking. They can't harvest as much stuff, like everybody. The big difference is that when we age, we don't come across an attacker and kill ourselves by blowing the stack up and spraying the attacker with toxic chemicals. So when they don't have their purpose anymore, they fall on the sword for the sake of the colony. Exactly. Wow. And there's another kind that's a soldier that's really good at pooping, and they shoot their poop onto enemies. Really? That's pretty amazing. You're going to be hard pressed to find too many other bugs that can accurately aim and shoot their poop and ward off other enemies. Wow. Those are terminals, all right. That's pretty fantastic. Is that the fact of the podcast? It ranks. Okay. So aside from pooping on other ones, they have the largest mandibles, which are the little pincers to battle the ants and other termites. And their heads might be a little darker than their bodies, but they're not going to be dark like the king and queen. Yeah. Just the heads. Yeah. And we talked about the spittle and the regurgitation. It can be toxic and sticky like a trap for another termite or just flat out kill them with the toxicity it burns. It's like you're coming into my joint. I'm going to either poop on you or vomit on you this toxic acid or explode my blue sack on you. That's right. So then you have the workers. Yes. And sadly, the workers are exactly what you think they are blind. They're probably the ones you see most often if you get like a rotten log or something. The little milky, creamy looking dudes. That just work. And that's all they do. They eat wood and they poop it back out. They do have mandibles, but they're not as big as the soldiers. And they dig tunnels, they gather food, they babysit the king and queen, and soldiers can't even feed themselves. The workers have to feed the other termites above them. And what's cool is termites can't even eat their own food. They need help from microorganisms for that. Yeah. So cellulose, which is the glucose polymer, very tight glucose polymer that provides structure to all plants. Yeah. You like that tree? Thank you. Yeah, that's cellulose. You can take cellulose. It would be a big lump if it wasn't for cellulose. Grass is another one. It's got cellulose. And the termites can't eat they can eat the cellulose, but they can't break it down just like we can. We can eat sucrose. Sure. Because our bodies produce succeeds, which breaks sucrose down into glucose, which we use for energy. Sure. Same thing with the termites. Their bodies don't produce cellulose, which breaks down cellulose like we don't either. You can sit there and eat wood all day long and it's just going to come out the other end exactly the same way I've done it. Give you splinters on the way. Right? Yeah. It's not nice. And it's the same thing with the termites. But the big difference between us and the termites, the termites have this hind gut that contains microorganisms that break down the cellulose into glucose. Can use that's. Right. And that's the only thing in here I thought was a decent band name. Hind gut. Yeah. That's pretty good. It's not bad. So the organisms are bacteria and protozoans, and they can't live without one another, like the protozoans and bacteria can't live without the termite either. Yeah, it's another cool symbiotic termite. And it's not just these microbacteria that they have a symbiotic relationship with. Some termites have symbiotic relationship with the fungus that we'll see. Yeah. I mean, they're harmonious folks. That's a good way to say I like that about them. Mostly they're categorized by where they live. There can be subterranean if they nest underground. They are primitive. If they are kind of like the ones you find in the rotten log. Those are primitive? Yeah. The three quarters of all termite species are higher termites. And it's not just their physical evolution, but also their behavioral evolution. The higher ones are the mound builders, whereas primitive termites are the ones that make a nest where they're eating, like in a hollowed out log. Yeah. The big problem with that, and this is why they're not as highly evolved, is that when the log runs out, the colony is like, oh, we're dead. Yeah. I was surprised that they didn't move on to another log or something. That's why they're primitive. Yeah, I guess so. In this sense, primitive equals dumb. That's true. One thing we didn't mention about the king and queen that I thought was kind of neat, too, is that they are monogamous. And the queen can store sperm in her body enough to keep reproducing without sex, but she still throws the old man a bone even though she doesn't need to. Yes. She's like, I have enough sperm, but come on, let's go do it. Right. That's probably what she said. And the king is just, I imagine, very appreciative of that. Sure. I think that's cute about them. It's good to be the king. They're very social. So let's see when we're talking about reproduction, right? Well, yeah, I guess we might as well go at it. That's a pretty good segue, Chuck. Thank you. So you've got an egg. Yes. Let's just look at one individual termite. Okay. The termite is born an egg, and out of the egg emerges a larva. And from the larvae stage, a couple of molts go on and you enter the nymph stage. And I believe it's the nymph stage that's the real it's like the stem cell stage. Any termite there's no determination whatsoever. Any termite can become any member of the cast. Yeah. Like, once you're born, can be a worker or a soldier. Right. Or even a reproductive. Yeah, that's true. So in the Nymph stage, they go through a few more molds. Say if they're going to become a worker, they'll molt maybe once, if they molt another time. After that, they can become a soldier. I'm not quite sure exactly what process takes place for them to become a reproductive, because obviously some sort of sexual emergence has to take place. Probably a screen test, maybe. So those are the three casts. And then from the reproductives, depending on what takes place, they can become secondary or tertiary or the king and the queen. Yeah. And like you said earlier, which is, I think one of the facts of the show for sure is that they can go backward and they don't like reverse aging or anything, but it is a reverse malt with a regressive malt, where they can go from soldier back to worker. Right. They would go soldier back to Nymph, I think, and then to worker. Yes. They have to go two steps back to go one step forward. You have to go to homebase, pretty much. Okay. Like we said, every colony has one king and one queen, but sometimes it's not enough. Like, the colony may get too big. And so when that happens, some of the reproductives, the secondary or tertiary reproductive will start to grow wings and possibly eyes as well. And that's probably pretty freaky, I'm sure, if they spend their lives in a certain way. And all of a sudden they're like, whoa, this thing's coming out of my back is like the fly. Right? What's happening to you? The movie. The fly. Right, okay. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Okay. Just intuitively. I did. Yeah, we did one of flies, too, didn't we? Yes, we did. Okay. That one is pretty interesting. The insects, we all so as your friend is starting to grow wings and eyes, and you're not right. You're like, well, I guess I'll stay here. Yeah. We can't see it, though. At least you can hear it, though. Are you growing wings? I'm not growing wings. I can hear you. It sounds like wings. No, don't worry about it. But the other difference with your friend is that he or she is suddenly attracted to light, which is unusual with termites. Light equals dried out. So they're normally, like, away from the light. They're not big on the light. Yeah. Now they are attracted to light, which means that they all start to kind of hang out around the entrance of the colony. Yeah. Like what's out there? Yeah. And then maybe one warm day, a humid day, possibly after rain, a day that they're not going to dry out, maybe after sundown, they all stumble out of the colony, do some terrible flying, and try to go find other mates. Yeah. And that's called a swarm, and that is called a nuptial flight. And for obvious reasons that we will see here in a second. Right. And that's their only flight. And it's not like they just fly around that's it. The only reason they have those wings is to kind of get from the nest to another termite. Right. And apparently the vast majority of them are going to be eating fat food or frog food or whatever. Right. Lots of things eat termites, including people. Some do survive. And the other interesting thing is one colony will swarm at the same time. Another colony way far away will swarm. And scientists think that this is a way that they keep the gene pool deep. Yeah, that makes total sense. So you just mate with someone from another colony. Right. And it's like a tea party. Right? It's like a social like a box speed dating. Yeah. Ice cream social. Ice cream social. Speed dating. You find a little mate, a male goes out, he sees a female elite that he likes. Yeah, I don't think we said a late is Latin for wing. And they land, they break their wings off. So now they're called delates, and they say, hey, you're kind of cute. You want to go and see if we can make a go of this? And she says, sure, let's go found a colony. Exactly. So they look for a shelter. They dig into a hole and then they seal it to set the mood. They don't want light coming in there. They seal it with poop and saliva. Yeah. Their poop is also their poop and their saliva are really handy. Super handy. He's just like, Let me take care of this. Right. Like, it's windy. Let me go poop and seal up our door. Right. Mix it with my spit. Yeah. Maybe some wood and soil. And then they have a little love nest and they mate and the new queen lays her eggs. What's cute is, like, now they're the new king and the new queen of this colony that they just founded. That's right. The first generation, they're going to kind of not really. No. It's kind of like the opposite of Jamestown. There's a lot of birth. Yes. So the king and the queen will take care of this first generation until they have enough workers to take over the duties. Yeah. Then they get lazy and then they just they go back. And the queen the queen doesn't exactly get lazy. She's laying thousands of eggs every day. Yeah. The most prolific. That's like the high end, for sure. But it can happen. Well, and it takes about two to four years for a colony to become fully mature. And depending on whether it's a primitive or higher termite species, there can be tens of thousands or millions of individuals in this mature colony. And then eventually it becomes clear that they need to swarm again and the whole process just takes over again. Yes. And the king and queen will find out later. They live in the deepest safest part of their nest, whatever it may be. And here, I think, to me is finally the fact of the podcast, what? Queens can live to be 25 years old. Okay, buddy. If you thought that was the fact of the podcast, 25 years old for an insect I saw elsewhere, 60 to 70 years. Really? Yes. Wow. Man, that is crazy. Yeah. So that's for the queen only. But even the workers can live two to five years, which is pretty impressive. Yes. In the insects world. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And that's of course, barring accident and bats and frogs, it'll be the same thing with us once we overcome aging. You'll still be able to die from an accident. Yeah. And I keep saying people eat them. I didn't look into it that much, but they're definitely on the menu in a lot of countries. Is that the United States and Europe and Canada are the only countries that don't eat insects? I think so. In the world. And if you need to survive I know if you've watched Survivor, man, a termite nest is like a really great thing to happen upon if you're like, trapped in the woods. A lot of protein. Yeah. And if you're an artwork or an anteater, same deal. Exactly. So you've got your colony and they need a place to live. They don't just wander around. They're not bedouins. Right. They've built a nest, but they haven't really built their home yet. The shelter, they've got the house, but they haven't made it a home. Kind of. Okay. But they haven't expanded it into a city. Okay. They've established a house. Right. It's on the middle of nowhere. Now they need to build the infrastructure. Yeah. In a society, basically. Exactly. And once they raise that first generation of workers, then it starts to take over and the colony grows exponentially from there. Yeah. Their nests are going to be called they all build nests no matter what species. They're called area. And even though they all build nests, they can be quite different depending on what the species is and where you find them. Like we said, the primitives are going to be living in the wood that they're consuming until it's gone and then they die. And they are categorized according to the wood that they like to eat, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Like damp, dry or rotten. Yeah, they probably love that stuff. Sure. The rotten stuff. And then you talked earlier about the fungi that they share their home with and bacteria, which is pretty cool. That's very much symbiosis as well. Well, actually it's not. No, it is. One guy can't live without the termite. Yeah. Okay. There's a specific type of termite, macro terminate. You sound like an islander. Yeah, I got it, though. They actually grow mushrooms like they garden. That was one of the facts of the podcast, too. Isn't that neat? Yeah. They grow these specific types of mushrooms that eventually grow out of the termite mound. The termites grow these, and the reason the termites grow them is because this fungus helps to break down the cellulosic material that the mound is built against. So they're growing these mushrooms to help them break this stuff down so they can, in turn, eat it more efficiently. Yeah. They're actually gardening. It's really amazing. Yeah, it is. What's his name? Aaron Mullins. He was right. They are fascinating. So we'll get to the mounds in a second, but we'll cover subterranean. Now they are the ones underground, obviously. And it's sort of like when you've looked at like the little ant farms that you buy, all the little series of tubes and caves and tunnels. That's what they're building down there. Some they have galleries for storage and for classroom education and raising the young. Right. And then they obviously live down there as well. And then they connect it all together. Sometimes they connected to their food source. Like they'll build a nest near a tree route that connects right to it and they can just tap right into it. Yeah. And then I guess does that kill the tree eventually? Well, it just disintegrates the tree. It's not there any longer. Yeah, but it's already dead tree. They eat rotting wood or dead wood? I don't think they eat live wood. Okay, so this is just like an old route, I guess. Yeah. Okay. And they'll build their nests such that if it's cold out yeah. It'll be deep enough that they can all migrate down to a warmer spot on the earth. Yes. There's like different areas within the colony that they'll take root. Right. And if it's hot out or something, they'll maybe go to part of the colony that's under the shade of a tree or something like that. They're pretty complex. Yeah. And if they are building their nest underground and they come upon a big slab of rock or something, they build little what's called shelter tubes about the size of a pencil in diameter. And they're basically just little alternate highways. Like detours. Well, yeah, it's an extension of the nest that protects the termites from exposure to sunlight or the air or anything like that. Yeah. But a lot of times just to get around something, too. Right. But rather than having to, like, crawl up over the rock and be exposed, they build this basically like a tunnel. It's like the opposite of a tunnel because it's exposed, it's above ground. So let's say you have a subterranean colony, Chuck, and here's the ground, and an inch above the ground is your house. But between the ground and your house is cement. The slab that your house is built on, they may build a what's it called a shelter tube from the ground, from their nest to your house. And it's just like an extension of their colony, of their subterranean nest. Okay. So those are the subs. They're also mounds. I encourage you to Google Giant Termite Mound and see some of these things that are like 20ft tall. Some of them are uncannily like houses. They look like human houses. Yeah. And really neat. Like, you'll find these in Africa. You're not going to find these in Georgia or anything like that. Not this tall. But they are domed towered structures and they are made up of soil and excrement and poop and saliva and all the glue, light, moisture they can secrete, I guess. Right. And some of them are little nests, like on the side of stumps or trees, but some of them are just free standing out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. And like freestanding and structurally sound. Yeah. They'll survive longer than the termites will. Yeah. They can survive brush fires. Seen pictures of brush fires that just went past the termite mound floods. The flood will kill the termite colony, but the mound itself will remain intact. And they also have a built in heating and cooling system, ventilation system, where they build chimneys into the mounds and there's ventilation shafts coming in the other way, and it forces heat out and cool air in. And there's actually a mixed use development in Harare, Zimbabwe, called Eastgate Center, and it has no central HVAC. It uses termite inspired chimney ducks for heating and cooling of this place. It's pretty cool. Wow. So they just got their idea from how they do their work. Yeah. It's like biomimicry. Yeah. We talked about that before. Yeah. I don't think we ever did an episode on it. No. Added to the list, my friend. So another way that termites, they're going to get eaten a lot, but that is another way that they benefit the ecosystem. If you are part of the food chain and other animals are going to eat you and poop you out, then you're doing your job. Right, sadly. But termites also eat other animals poop. Yes. They eat herbivores poop because there's frequently cellulosic material left over, and the termites eat that. If they're cellulose, they're going to eat it. They don't care if it's poop. Yeah. And they play a really vital role to their ecosystems. In some places, termites are the only things breaking down cellulosic material. Yeah. Like a fallen tree. Sure. Or animal poop that would build up otherwise if the termites didn't eat it. Yeah. They get a bad rap among humans, but apparently 90% of the species are beneficial. Yeah, that's true. And I guess this is the point where we should get into the sad part, which is if you want to prevent termites from coming to where you live or get rid of them if they are there. But right after this message break, if you have a wood house, the termite doesn't know that it's not just a fallen log. Right. It's deadwood, as far as they're concerned, and it's on the menu, especially if that wood is making direct. Contact with the ground. Yeah. That's always a good thing not to have. Good starting point for a termite though. So around the world where termites are really, really bad, you might even see house puts on stilts with like metal posts so the termites can't get up in there. It's not nearly like that around here, but it sounds like Africa and Australia have some serious problems with termites. Right. In Australia. Yeah. And I mean, those are the places where you will see stilt with metal around it because of termites. Which makes sense because if there's enough termites, there's not a lot you can do. So you just take preventative measures and live with it. Yeah. Like before you build your house these days, they will treat the ground before they even break ground. But that stuff is pretty toxic and it only lasts about five years. Yeah. If you're not into that, you can say, no, thank you for the toxic treatment. I would just like to do this every few years. It's still probably pretty toxic though. Yeah. I have the stuff, I have these little they're not traps they're built into the ground all around my house. And the termite guy, the only reason to know he's been there is because he leaves a little note on my door and said to check your traps. But they're not traps. It's probably just leaching nasty stuff into my soil is what it's doing. Probably. Yeah. Which is no good, but it works. Yeah. You don't have termites. Right? That's true. And like we said, you don't want your wood coming into direct contact with the soil. That's going to be basically an open invite for termites to come in there you don't want. But I mean, termite prevention can be as simple as that. Yeah. If you put like a moisture barrier in your basement yeah. Just keep it dry. It's going to keep your basement dry and that will kill termites just in and of itself. And then if you don't have any dirt up against any wood part of your house, every once in a while you just walk around your house and make sure there's no shelter tubes crawling up to the wood on your house. You should be fine. Yeah. And before you buy your house, you're going to get a termite inspection. That's like one of the big things that you should do if you live in an area prone to termites, that is. But let's say you do suspect that there's been a termite infestation. What are some of the signs? Well, seeing termites in your house, that's the one that means you're screwed because they're already through the wood, especially if you see a swarm. Oh, yeah. You're super screwed because that means there's so many already in your house that they have to go form another colony elsewhere in your house. Yeah. That's when it's time to call a termite professional. That's right. They might look like ants. So if you think you have an ant problem, you want to look extra close in. Yeah. Flying ants. Yeah. Their waist ants have a narrower waist than termites do. Yeah. Ants front wings are a lot longer than the back wings, whereas termites wings are the same length. So that's another good way to tell. And they fold over one another to make, like, a straight line. Yeah. That's a big giveaway. Yeah. And then the antenna and ant's antenna is bent and the termites is straight and looks like little round pearls. Yeah. Yeah. Look closely. Yes. Catch one. Hold it gently. Look closely. Yeah, you could do that. There might also be other signs, less obvious signs. Like, you might find little tiny wings, like flying ant wings around your windows and your lights. That's a sign that term might have been there and have already sworn because they went from allates to de allates. Yeah. Do you have decayed wood? If you tap your wood with a hammer, does the hammer go right through it? If so, that's a pretty good sign. You have terminology. It's like a bad infomercial. Yeah, I pretty much do in every episode. No, you don't. But it can also get confused with, like, water damage and things. The way you can tell the difference is termite damage follows the grain of the wood and it's also lined with wood and soil. Right. And that's obviously not the case with water damage. Yeah. And then, like you said, just look for the shelter tubes. That's a pretty big giveaway, too, like, pick up a cinder block and do you see tubes and termites? Yeah. What's great, though, is if you see this, you don't need to panic. No. Like, it takes many years for termites to really do significant damage to your house. Yeah. But on the flip side, though, it's often invisible until it's too late. Right. You got to get around. Sure. If you see a couple of swarms in your house, then yeah. You need to handle that immediately. You should handle it immediately, no matter what. Yeah. But if you spotted a shelter tube for the first time and you just also looked last week right. You're not necessarily in any danger. And the point is, since it takes a while, you want to take a while in finding the right exterminator because you're going to make friends with this person because they have some serious work to do. Yeah. And you need an exterminator. This isn't the kind of problem you can get rid of on your own. Right. It's not for civilians to tackle. And we're not shills for exterminators either. We're really saying this. So you don't want to tackle it on your own. Right. You want to hire your exterminator. The first thing they're going to do is obviously verify that it is infect termites and not water damage or something. They're going to hit the wood in your house with a hammer? Yeah, pretty much. They have all kinds of things like heat sensors and little tiny infrared cameras they'll stick into your walls and stethoscopes. I can hear them. Do they? They have sound sensors. Okay. Yeah. It's just like a high tech stethoscope. One of the things they can do is use baits, which is basically, unfortunately, wood soaked in pesticide. It's poisoned food. And they say, hey, come here and eat this, and they eat it, and then they take it back to their colony and kill everybody. It's exactly like Snow White. Yeah. It's awful, though. I had grown to love Termites by the end of this, and then I started reading about how they kill them. I'm like, that's awful. Can't you just relocate them? I feel very much the same way. Yeah, you can't, though. No, you can't. You can't relocate them. You have to kill them. Or you could move. Just leave them the house? Kind of. Why not? Repellent is another thing they can use, my friend. Oh, yeah. And that's just like any kind of insect repellent that keeps them from like if you see a swarm near your house, you're going to use a repellent. That means they're not at the house yet and you can keep them away. Is that what you guys are doing with the little trap thing or whatever? It's probably using a repellent. Yeah, it's some sort of I don't think it's killing, like, an ultrasonic wave that just shatters their head. I don't know what it is. It's so weird. This little round when you walk by, it looks like a little round disk, green disk. And then I've seen him pull it up, though, and it goes like, six inches into the ground. I think that's probably repellent. Yeah, I think it's got to be. And the cool thing about repellents, too, is the ones that are already inside are trapped inside, and they're cut off from the rest of their safe colony, which means that they probably die of dehydration pretty soon. So that's cool and very sad. Right. Well, I'm just saying. He called me out. The final thing that they can do is just kill them with a traumatocide. And that means pumping sometimes hundreds of gallons of poison crazy into their nests and killing them into your house. Yeah, which is the thing. That's why you just move and leave them the house. You tell the bank, like, sorry, guys, I'm not paying on this anymore. Go hit the Termites up for your monthly payment if you're brave. You got anything else? No, it did kind of we were hanging on by our fingernails there. I wish we had one more, like, great fact. Let's just make one up. And then at the end, they turn into Carrot Top. Pretty good. Keep going. It's active, the show. I've got one. Oh, we didn't cover the foremost is that what you're going to talk about? No. Okay. I didn't even highlight that one. Yeah. The termite poop is called fras. Frass. And fras is rich in magnesium. So when they poop, they enrich the soil. They're just pretty much perfect in every way, except for when they're eating your house. All right, that's a great way to end it. Fresh. No, your carrot top one is the best way to end it. So let's see if you want to learn more about termites. Right. Yeah, you go type that. We're in the search bar@houseteporks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this bird killer in our show on Mythbusting, common misconceptions. Oh, yeah. I told the story about killing a bird, and Josh told the story about yummy microwaving a bird. But you say not killing right? It eventually died. She didn't kill it in the microwave. It just died later from microwave internal applications. I think it just died of being overtreated. Okay, so we got a letter from Matt about that. Hi, guys. You broke my heart this morning. I was listening to your Mythbusting podcast on the drive in. I don't like this one. I read this one. I don't like it. Should I not read it? Yes, you can if you want. It's just oh, God. You can excuse yourself if you want to leave. No, I'll sit there. You started talking about the mama bird baby bird myth, and it brought tears to my eyes. You see, when I was in the fourth grade, my friend John and I were playing in the woods in the beautiful south hills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We encountered a baby bird, and I, being an animal lover, picked it up because it was so cute. As soon as I did, I remembered that I had just doomed it to a slow death of lonely starvation because his mother would never care for it again. For some reason, even though I was an amine animal person, neither John nor I thought of raising it ourselves. Instead, we thought we would spare it a horrible slow death by smashing it with a cinder block, which we did. Just so you know, guys, I haven't killed an animal since, and I'm not a serial killer currently. Until this morning, I actually thought that we did the right thing. So this dude from the fourth grade until last week thought that he had spared this bird euthanasia. Yes. Now I can't stop thinking about the mama bird watching from high in a tree as we smashed her baby with the cinder block. So thanks for that. Also, I have an anti joke. We got a lot of anti jokes, by the way. We did. Apparently there's some, like, established anti jokes. Yeah, the rabbits in the bathtub. I didn't see that one. Two rabbits in the bathtub. One said, hey, pass me the soap. And the other one said, what do I look like, a typewriter? That one didn't do it. I like this one, though. A man walks into a bar, he's an alcoholic and is destroying his family. Oh, yeah, I saw that one, too. I love it. In all seriousness, though, guys, thanks for the best podcast around. And that is from Matt. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate that. Sorry burst your bubble, my friend. Actually, I don't appreciate that one at all. No. If you want to send something that traumatizes Chuck or me, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffychnow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcasteddiscovery.com. And as always, you can hang out with us at our home on the Web stuffyhoodof.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Hey. Netflix streams TV shows and movies directly to your TV, computer, wireless device or game console. You can get a 30 day free trial membership. Go to www dot netflix. Comstand up now. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from exactly right media, my Favorite Murder has something forever, everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgara and Georgia Hardstarkk, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
433b6bf8-53a3-11e8-bdec-cb3f35409b4e	Could A Robot Tax Win the War on Poverty?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/could-a-robot-tax-win-the-war-on-poverty	An old idea – giving every resident of a country a set amount of money every month with no strings attached – became a hot item in Silicon Valley and on the 2020 campaign trail. Could it alleviate the impending job loss coming from automation?	An old idea – giving every resident of a country a set amount of money every month with no strings attached – became a hot item in Silicon Valley and on the 2020 campaign trail. Could it alleviate the impending job loss coming from automation?	Tue, 24 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=24, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=84, tm_isdst=0)	51961614	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Wait, what's the opposite? How about doo doo doo doo sad trombone. Vancouver and Portland, Oregon. We can't come see right now. We're sorry to say it's not us, it's the Coronavirus told us not to come. That's right. Local authorities are shutting down shows of the size. We are not able to come. We are postponing. We will have more information coming. As far as rescheduling, I believe how it works is your tickets are good if you want to come to that other show, but we don't know all the details yet, so just bear with us while we try and figure this out. Right. And in the meantime, you can get in touch with the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and the Chan Center box offices to figure out what's what. Yeah, they'll probably have good info, but we really apologize for any inconvenience, and we will eventually see you guys, we promise. In the meantime, stay well. Wash those hands and don't panic. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there. And there's Jerry. And this is stuff you should know the podcast about. Universal basic income on the podcast? That's right. UBI, baby. Yeah. It's like the most bland set of words I've ever seen strung together in my life, but they have a big punch if you really dig into them. Yeah, I found myself kind of it was cool reading all this stuff and researching it, because I don't think I had much of an opinion on it before, and I'm going to try to not get too opinionated this time. But now you're like, well, all poor people can just die off for all I care. A lot of this made sense to me, especially when you're talking about replacing a bloated kind of broken system anyway, because my first thought was, like, universal basic income in addition to welfare and food stamps and all the other social safety nets. But replacing it with something that's a little more straightforward kind of spoke to me a little bit. Yeah. And I think that speaks to a lot of people, too, and we'll kind of explain a little more obviously what we're talking about. But one thing that stuck out to me about that, Chuck, was what about people who are physically incapable of working, of making a living? That this would be their only means of support, or who have aged out of working and don't have a way to support themselves anymore? Wouldn't you still need some sort of social safety net in addition to that for those people? I don't know if this would replace disability or would it? I guess it depends on whose plan. Now, some people there's a conservative economist who will talk about later on named Charles Murray, who's, like, get rid of everything. This is it. Okay. And he goes on to say, well, he wrote like a whole book about it, but I read kind of his synopsis of the book, but he kind of explains, like, here's how this could actually work. He doesn't just say that, but there is a sense of there's definitely a real disdain for the bloated bureaucracy that is the entitlement or welfare system in the United States, for sure. And I get the sense that it's on both sides. So that is kind of an appealing part of this, that this could conceivably replace it under the right circumstances. Yeah. And this also made me think a little bit about the push for a flat tax that happens every so often where it's like, we've got such a convoluted tax system. Can we just settle on a very fair percentage that everyone pays across the board? The problem with that one, it's a great idea on its face. Sure. A lot of problems. The basic problem that I have with it is that it automatically makes it aggressive. If you're a millionaire and you pay 10%, that 10% is going to mean a lot less to you than if you're a person living near the poverty line, and that 10% means rent or food or something like that, you know what I mean? So therefore, it's a regressive tax. And I've never heard a good way to kind of set up that flat tax to make it non regressive so that doesn't just automatically introduce this other new convoluted tax code too, you know what I mean? Yeah. And if you look back at the history of flat tax proposals, it's usually some super rich old white guy that proposes it. Sure. So that makes you kind of want to go like, wait a minute, right? Can you loophole your way out of that, too? Well, no, I mean, it's not a loophole. It's more just super aggressive. Right, but that's a different episode. We've never done a flat tax episode. Right, no, I think we should do it. Yeah, we totally should, but I'm actually kind of surprised we haven't. But yeah, so that's a totally different episode. But what we're talking about instead is called universal basic income. Universal is really important because there's different proposals, but in a universal basic income scheme, the government takes X number of dollars, say $1,000 a month, and mails that check out to every adult, say, 18. And over in the United States, everybody, no questions asked, no strings attached. You don't have to be poor. It doesn't matter if you're rich. It doesn't matter what you do with that money. You can go spend it all on crack if you want to. It's your money. Like, the cops may bust you for buying crack or smoking crack or whatever, but you can use it for crack. Or ideally, you would use it in myriad other beneficial ways. But I guess I'm just trying to point out there's no guidance on how you're to use that money that's your money. And because it's coming from the federal government and it's guaranteed basic income, you can rely on that every month. And so you can start to build your life around knowing that at the very least, you're going to have $1,000 tax free. From what I understand from the government, that would be so United States to give you $1,000 a month and then take back like, $300. So if you were a fan of Andrew Yang during his, I don't want to say, brief presidential bid, not long enough, I'll tell you that. You like Yang? I like Yang. Yumu is crazy for Yang. But I just thought his ideas were very level headed, were very apolitical. I thought it was great. Yes, he spoke to me, too, but he called it the freedom dividend. And that's what we're talking about. $1,000 a month, no questions asked. If you were Bill Gates, you get $1,000. If you don't have two pennies to rub together, you get $1,000. And we'll talk. This is one of the few episodes, I think, where the history addressing that later kind of works. I thought so, too, but there is some history beyond him, and he's not the only person there. A lot of the Bill Gates is and the Zuckerbergs and the Musk of the world. Yeah, it's huge in Silicon Valley right now. It is in Silicon Valley, as we will learn, is one of the areas that they would it's in the crosshairs for providing this money to a large degree through taxes. Because one of the fears is, and it's a legit fear, and I know in your Existential Risk podcast series, you talk about automation and robots and things. Yeah. But the fact is we are automating more and more. Some say that in the next twelve, 1012 years, that about 33% of all working Americans will lose their jobs to robots. Do you realize what an increase in unemployment that is? Huge. 33%. I think right now we're at somewhere around 3% unemployment, which is really low. It's very close to full employment, if not like, statistically full employment, 33% all of a sudden. And how many years did you say it said twelve. I mean, that's an estimation. So that's probably like a sky is falling kind of scenario. Maybe. But there are a lot of smart people out there who say, okay, maybe twelve years is a little soon. Maybe that percentage is a little high. Definitely some people will be put out of work in that time, but let's say let's expand that window to 30 years or 50 years. Then we might start getting into some really high percentages of people who are being put out of work. And not like you could go over to Company B, your job is just gone. Because we develop machines that are way better and way more efficient and way cheaper at doing that than you are. And so what do you do with those people. And it's not just a question for governments of what do you do with that physical person who's now poverty stricken because their job doesn't exist any longer for people? But all of the social safety nets and a lot of other stuff that we have in this country that those people would need to participate in, those are funded by payroll taxes and unemployment tax and stuff that is a tax on labor and employment. And so if you have a person whose job doesn't exist anymore, you can't tax that labor, you can't tax that employment. So now you have the problem of somebody who says, I need this assistance and then the way of providing that assistance has just been removed because we automated that job away. Right. And there are some people like Bill Gates that are saying, hey, companies that are automating all this stuff, you're avoiding all these payroll taxes now you should pay it on the robot as well. Which, what I didn't see necessarily was whether or not that's and I assume it is one of the big benefits of automation is that you don't have to pay those payroll taxes any longer if you're a business. Sure, yeah. That'd be a huge yes if you can get rid of people, people are generally expensive and if you're just strictly a utilitarian business owner, it's very much in your favor of automating whatever jobs you can yeah. You're not paying payroll tax. You're not having to pay for that person the portion of their health care. You don't have to worry about unions striking people getting sick. Right. So as we become more automated, there are people speaking up and saying, sure, there's also a lot of job creation that happens with automating things. But the person that is taking care of your sanitation every week, if that was replaced by a robot self driving truck and Clamper that dumps the garbage in there, the Clamper trademark WinCo. That person is not necessarily going to be the person that can be like, hey, I'll just get a job building these robots too. Right, yes. Which is ultimately it's a supplementary part to this whole discussion of we're still going to need people to do things like build robots. So how much of this should really be how much of this attention and effort should be directed toward training people for this new economy? Yeah. And it's the same idea when you talk about alternative energy, teach the coal miner to build wind turbines. In an ideal world, all that happens very seamlessly and you're just like, well, let's just take all these people that are out those jobs and give them the new jobs. It just doesn't work that way all the time. Right. You can't idealize that. No, you can't. And you shouldn't. Like, these need to be like Frank stark, sober discussion that we have about this because we're a little drunk. We're talking it doesn't hurt. Maybe some nice homemade thumbprint cookies with the Hershey's Kiss in there. Oh, man, you get a little peckish. But, yeah, we do need to talk about this stuff because we're talking about human beings and who are gainfully employed now, who may be, again, poverty stricken because their job doesn't exist in the next decade or so. And, yes, we need to be thinking about this now. And then other people, Chuck, say, okay, that's a real possibility. This robot taxes, automated economy that we're clearly moving toward, we don't know when it's going to really kick in. Is it going to be twelve years? Is it going to be 30? Is it going to be 50? We don't know. But basically, everybody agrees that that is the direction that we're heading. Yes, you have to be basically cuckoo to argue against that. Right, right. It's just, when are the effects really going to be felt? Other people say, yeah, that's a big problem, and I'm glad we're thinking about it, but we have had poor people in the United States and a huge inequality gap, basically, since World War II. It's a national blemish of shame on our character, our country's character. There are people that are just gobsmackingly rich and other people who are gob smackingly poor, and they deserve to not live in poverty because they are citizens of the world's wealthiest economy. Just the fact that they are Americans says that they shouldn't have a life of poverty because we can provide for them at least enough so that they don't have to be poverty stricken. And that's another argument for universal basic income as well, one that was championed by Martin Luther King. Look, we can take care of people, and we should we have a moral obligation to. And I just realized I suddenly started just talking like Bernie Sanders. Did you catch that stammering kind of delivery? That was weird. Yeah, my hair turned white just now, didn't it? And Shaggy? Yes. I hope it grows back to normal. So maybe we should take a break here in a minute. Wait, what about my hair? Do you think it's going to go back to normal? Let's take a break now. Okay, Bernie? Because that was a good set up. And we'll talk a little bit about what exactly is and some of the pros and cons right after this. All right, so we talked about the Freedom Dividend from Andrew Yang and his team, and where you get $1,000 a month whether you're working or not, whether you're rich or poor. And the idea is that it would replace the safety net programs that all have strings attached. So if you are part of the Snap program and you get food stamps, you need to prove that you are below a certain income level. If you're getting unemployment, you have to show you're looking for work. If you're getting Social Security, then you have paid into that for a number of years. If you have disability, then you have a doctor vouching for you. This is no questions Asked, which is sound radical to some people, but other people say it just makes perfect sense. Yeah. And Yang is not the only one to address this. Like you said, it's kind of a hot topic in Silicon Valley, and has been for the last five, six, seven years, to the point now where it's probably like old news and everybody's moved on to something else, like debtors. Prisons are the new thing in Silicon Valley. But one of the cofounders of Facebook named Chris Hughes, he wrote a book. I can't remember what it's called. I read that it was half memoir, half basically, policy layout. That's what I would like to do. Yeah. And it was basically arguing in favor of a universal basic income. And this guy put his money where his mouth is. He actually funded a pilot program in Stockton. I think he said, Here, take four families. Right? Exactly. I'm going to give them $100, $5 each a month. No, his was $500 a month. But he hit on something that I saw other people have hit on, too, that in addition to universal basic income. That's pretty good, but you have to go a little further. And people would need to have at least catastrophic health insurance to where if they needed surgery or long term care or something like that, they had insurance that covered it. Those two things would probably help people get by. And then there's plenty of other people running experiments on the stuff that we'll talk about later. But the general idea is that, yes, no questions asked, no strings attached, you get some amount per month just for being an adult. Some other plans say maybe per household. Sure would be a good way to cut it down. Or maybe if you make less than a certain amount of money, sure. But one of the things that about universal basic income, typically, is that there's no cutoff for wealth. Everybody gets it just for being an American, and that it isn't per household, it's per individual, which really is beneficial for a whole segment of society, which are unpaid caregivers. Everybody from stay at home moms to people who are caring for their parent with Alzheimer's, those people get $1,000 themselves. And now, all of a sudden, a household with two adults in it who pull their resources has $24,000 a year rather than just twelve. Yeah. So that's one of the pros. Another is if you are poverty stricken, if you live, if you're one of the one in eight Americans, which is striking, that lives below the poverty line, you are probably not doing a lot of things to meet your health needs. You're probably not getting up every day and saying, I need to work out and eat really healthy. We've talked about the problem, the food problem in this country, and how the poorest people eat the biggest garbage diets because it's cheap. You're not thinking, you're not eating well, you're not exercising, you're not paying as much attention to your kids doing homework. Sure, if you want to idealize everything, you should be doing all those things. But if you're struggling day to day just to live and survive, a lot of these things go by the wayside. So the idea is that a universal basic income would provide you with enough of a buffer to where you can tackle some of these other things or you can maybe go back to school and get that degree or start your own business. Right. And another thing, for the very like, the poverty stricken working class, they would be given this buffer or this check that everybody gets for them would be like a floor that would allow them to say, you know what? I don't have to take this job because I'm not desperate any longer to put food on the table so I can hold out for a better job that affords me more dignity or that isn't actually dangerous to do because the working conditions are so poor. So there's a whole employer exploitation that would largely dissolve because the working class really right around the poverty level, working class would have this kind of buffer that they could use to negotiate better working conditions and higher wages. Yeah. And we should point out everything we're saying here. We should have this term in front of it. Is this is the idea that these things will happen. Right. This is all in theory, right? Exactly. The one thing I didn't see listed as a pro, which I think is an obvious one, is if you make a certain amount of money, then I imagine a lot of people would treat this twelve grand a year as something that they could just spend, thus propping up the economy or donate. Right? Yeah. I would hope that if you were very wealthy that it would become kind of trendy to just donate this part. Yeah, I haven't seen people talking about that in anything that I've read. And that just seems like a real obvious one to me because a lot of people that are doing pretty well and they might get a tax return and that's like TV time or whatever. Right. Let me go by that flat screen. Well, actually, if we can throw out one of the cons, actually dovetails with what you're talking about, that there is a concern among economists that if all of a sudden every adult over 18 in America was getting $1,000 a month, they would be like, heck yeah, I'm going to get a TV this month. Next month I'm going to go get some clothes or I'm going to save up a few months and get a car. That's sooner than I normally would have. Yes. Because if all of a sudden a couple of hundred million Americans are all doing this, spending more money way more than we have been before. Oh, I see where this is going. That we would outstrip demand, would outstrip supply, and so the prices of goods would go up inflation, and so it would cancel out any benefit there was from the universal basic income because we would have all caused inflation to make prices rise in the cost of goods increase. That's valid. Oh, totally. It's very valid. But what's great about it is people are thinking about it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. The other thing I like about this, too, is it's not just liberals who are crazy about this. Libertarians too, and some conservatives as well are totally cool with it, too, for a number of reasons. Libertarians like the idea that it would conceivably replace that bloated welfare state because libertarians are not ones for big, giant government bureaucracies. Correct. And also, in the same vein, that thing about the universal basic income just being like, here's your money, go do what you want with it. Not, here's some money. You have to spend it on food. And wait, you have to spend it on specifically these types of food. But libertarians love it because you're just saying, like, I'm the government and I'm telling you how to spend this money on this particular kind of food. Here's your money, do what you want with it. Which is just libertarian dream kind of stuff. Yeah. And that economist, Charles Murray, you said he was a conservative economist. He's the one that's like, man, this would cost less than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Snap program and the entire welfare state. We could get rid of it, and this would actually be better for us in the long run and cut down on just the bureaucracy and the paperwork and it's a much cleaner system. Yeah. Just the fact that the bureaucracy itself would be slimmed down, which ironically would put a bunch of people out of work. That in and of itself would be a cost efficiency savings. Right. Yeah. And I guess I was looking, I was like, well, how much do we spend on entitlement programs in the United States? No one knows. Apparently there's like some I saw a Heritage report, which I believe is a conservative think tank. They were saying actually there's like a shadow welfare program budget that's like a trillion dollars in addition to the other trillion and a half dollars that's on the books or whatever. So if that's all correct, then this is about the same, because the rough estimates are that it cost about $2.3 trillion a year to mail $1,000 check every month to every adult over 18 in the United States. Roughly 200 million adults, $2.3 trillion a year. But again, you're sending the same check out to every single person over age 18. And that in and of itself could be very easily automated. So it would be cheaper to actually do even if the actual amount of money you're shelling out is roughly the same. Yes. Another one of the pros. And we'll talk about some of the limited studies they've done on this, but an interesting one in Kenya is they had a lot of malnourishment due to drought. And so the government said, you know what? Instead of giving food aid to vulnerable households, let's do a direct cash test, basically. And they found that about 90% of these people, they bought some food, but 90% of them also used it to launch small businesses or to restock their herd of goats or whatever kind of reinvest in themselves. Right. Again, the idealized version is people use this money in an entrepreneurial way. Yeah. These little pilot programs are just coming back with really mixed results. But one of the ones I saw, I think it was like a Nathan Heller piece in New Yorker from a couple of years ago, he was talking about that Kenya experiment, and he pointed out one heavy drinking resident use that money not to go on a bender, but instead to buy, like, a taxi cab and start his own taxi cab business. Bought a couple of milk cows and did a couple of other things that were fairly surprising considering most people would expect that he would just squandered it all on booze or gambling or whatever you might expect somebody like that to do. Right. That's one of the big fears, and one of the big arguments against it is, is it really a good idea to just give $1,000 a month, no strings attached, to absolutely everybody. Right. Including people who are addicted to whatever, including people who are terrible with money, including people who are con artists just because they're Americans. And I don't know if that's one of the flaws, but also simultaneously, one of the benefits of it is yes. The answer is yes. Everybody gets it, and then it's up to that person to spend it in the best possible way. All right, should we take another break? Sure, man. All right. We'll take another break and talk about the criticisms and more like how they're going to pay for this right after this. All right. So if you are against this, you probably fall into one of two camps or both. One is that it's expensive and how you're going to pay for this. And the other is sort of combined with a lot of ways that certain Americans think, which is like, you shouldn't get anything for free. There are no free lunches. And if you do that, then people aren't going to work. They'll just find a way to live on that twelve grand a year and it won't change anything for them. Yeah. Which is apparently some of the data that's coming back from these trials. Like I said, they're mixed. So some people spend it on a taxi cab and start their own business, and other people are like, I don't have to work at all. This is great. And it's a big problem in a productive economy that relies on human labor. A government program that basically pays people not to work is disastrous. Right. And that's one of the big criticisms of the current welfare system, is that it traps people in a cycle of poverty by disincentivising them from working, where if you reach a certain point with your wages, you lose all of your safety net, you lose your food stamps, you lose your health care, you lose unemployment checks, you lose all that stuff because you now are employed. And on the one hand, it makes sense because you don't need support, supposedly. But the problem is when it really washes out into practicality, you still do need that support, but you've just been booted off of this stuff for working. So it's actually better for you to not work. People say they're worried about the same thing with universal basic income. Yeah, I mean, I guess what's important is the overall picture, because there's the idealized version where you give people $12,000 a year and they're like, man, I was laid off. Now I can afford to go back to school and make my rent every month and get a better job, or now I can concentrate on health and wellness and invest in my children, or I can care for my mother or my family member who's old, or I can be a stayathome parent or just live less stressed. Yeah, I mean, those are the idealized versions. There are also, of course, going to be people that gamble it away or drink it away or drug it away. The idea is you look at the overall picture, does the good outweigh the bad or vice versa. Vice versa. I can't believe I just said that. I like it. It's got a little lawn yap to it, you know what I'm saying? So it's that overall picture. But I think we need to talk a little bit about how it would be paid for. We talked a little bit about it. Redirecting those safety net programs right now would be part of it. And this is like one of Yang's proposals are a bunch of different ones. A value added tax of 10%, which I read up on that a little bit. It's a little bit confusing to me. Yeah, me too. Should we talk about it, what it is? Yeah, I think just a little bit, essentially. So from what I gathered, and just correct me if I'm wrong, you have a different understanding, but at each stage of production, the thing is taxed so as like a raw material is sold to a manufacturer to make candy. I think I saw that cocoa and all that stuff is taxed at 10%. Right? Well, then the manufacturer turns that cocoa into candy and they sell it to a retailer, it's taxed at 10%. Then the retailer sells it to the consumer, it's taxed at 10%. And the government doesn't get. 10%, like 30% of the total value they get overall. 10% of the total value. That's right. And that's this value add tax. And it's like they use it in Europe and have for decades now, basically everyone but the US. Has a value added tax. The great part about it is there's no way around it. You can't hire from what I saw, you can't hire a really great accountant to find loopholes in the tax code. Like you're going to pay this 10% tax. It's a sales tax for every stage of a product's life. So companies can't get away with not paying any corporate taxes because they're paying this consumption tax. The problem with it is you, the consumer, are still paying that ultimate 10% tax on the end that's coming out of your pocket. Even if some of it is going to the business and some of it is going to the government, in addition to your sales tax, you're still paying that, right? I don't know if I don't think it replaces it, does it? Okay, it might be in addition to but the thing that Yang's plan this was his big thing, to use a value added tax to pay for the basic income was that this would be mostly on luxury goods and that basic staples and necessities would be exempted from this value added tax, which would prevent it from being a regressive tax. All right, that makes sense. Yeah. So Yang also said, let's tax investment income, which would obviously target a certain very small percentage of the country. How about we tax carbon polluters? Put a carbon tax, right. Some people like Bill Gates, I think I mentioned earlier, he's like, hey, all these companies that are replacing people with robots and skirting payroll taxes and medical insurance and stuff like that, why don't you tax them with a robot tax? Right. Every robot that they replace a human being with, or several human beings with, they have to pay a tax for every single one or software or something like that. The problem that I saw with that is that no one has any idea how to actually quantify it. Like, you can say this robot replaced five factory workers on the factory floor. That's easy enough. But what is, like, software that helps transfer phone calls or something like that, how many people does that display? It's really hard to say, which is, from what I can tell, at least on the reddit Yang gang thread, they explained it. That's why Yang went with a value added tax, because corporations can't get around it. There's no way to loophole your way out of it, and it's much more quantifiable than taxing software. Right, but the robot tech still captures that same sentiment, right? Yeah, that the people who are the ones who are automating away jobs are the ones who need to pay for the people who are being put out of jobs. That's kind of the spirit of the robot tax. Right. As far as studies, it's sort of been all over the place. There have been some studies in Canada, in the US. And in Europe that seem to indicate that, hey, these people just won't want to work, isn't really going to be a problem. Like I said, some people will, of course. But overall, these studies are coming back saying, now people are going to use this in the spirit as it is intended. Generally. Yeah. So Ruth helped us put this together. He pointed to the Alaska Permanent Fund. I'm not sure where he saw that, but that's so small, though. It's kind of a tough. It's not exactly apples to apples. $1,600 a resident a year. In 2019, each resident of Alaska received $1,600. And it is just such a small amount that you couldn't possibly really work less because of that. I bet hippie Rob would find a way to get by on bucks a year. Some people would, for sure. Right. You can go fish with your bare hands in Alaska, so maybe that could supplement things. But the big question is yes. What really happens when you give a bunch of people, a large group of people, $12,000 a year? Would that mean that they would stop working and not even necessarily stop working, but work less? And from what I saw, it seems to be on both sides of the aisle or both political stripes for economists that, yeah, there probably will be a reduction in worked hours, but that it would be nothing. That would stall the economy out. People are not going to just quit jobs and droves. They just might work a little less. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Like, what are they doing with that time? That's kind of what is the key factor? Sure. Are they volunteering? Are they sitting around playing PlayStation games? Some other economists have said that. I can't remember which one I saw. There was a technology review article I think I saw that really kind of they didn't poopoo the concept, they just poopooed some points of it. But one of the things they pointed to is that there are plenty of studies out there that show that when people reduce work hours, they just sit around and watch TV. You have to say, that's not really what you want to do. But again, if you're a libertarian economist, you would say, well, that's people you're right. But then you should probably turn in your economist shield. Because if you're an economist, you kind of want people working. Sure. Unless you're John Maynard Keynes. We talked about him before. Keynesian economics. Sure. Usually the super, like, government can spend its way out of recession kind of stuff. That all came from Keynes. And in, I think, 1933, Cain wrote this essay. Oh, man, I can't remember the name of it, but something about work and our grandchildren, something about Team Yang. He basically predicted in 100 years back in 1933, that we would not be working any longer because we would have automated all our jobs away, but everybody would be living a life of leisure. And we missed that mark big time for all manner of reasons. But you can kind of look at Keynes prediction and say, well, maybe he was off by 50 years, maybe it's not 100 years, but the same thing is going to happen 50 years or 150 years from when he predicted it back in 1933. And so some people say, OK, this robot tax idea, in principle works really well, or it could work really well, but we are way premature with it, that this is something we need to start doing 30 years from now, not now, and that it would actually harm our economy if we do it now, because there are people who will stop working. We would be paying some people to not work anymore. And we still are adding hundreds of thousands of jobs, a quarter in the United States alone. We still need human labor, so we don't want to prevent people from doing it. But when we do automate jobs like gangbusters, then, yeah, we should take a significant amount of that wealth that's going to be generated by these robots and not only make sure that people have their basic necessities provided for, why not just make it so every single person in America is wealthy compared to our standards here today? Just because we have robots doing all this work and generating all this wealth for us, why not just share it for everybody? Why should just a handful of people who own the robots have all the wealth while everybody else has been put out of work? Why not just make it so everybody's wealthy? Because the robots are doing all the work for us. Right. Whoa. I agree. And that has caused some people to say, well, wait a minute. It makes you wonder why Silicon Valley is into this whole thing as much as they are right now. Have they seen that this may be a road that we follow in the next 2030 years and they're trying to stem the tide now and say, hey, how about we give you guys $10,000 a year? Right. Actually, how about the federal government gives you guys $10,000 money here just to basically get to be bought off now, cheaper now than we would be in the future when the real problem starts to come along. And so there are some people who say it's a good idea in principle, but it's too soon, and we need to be wary of people who come bearing gifts of $10,000 a year today. Yeah, interesting. I thought so too. We promised a little history. I think you mentioned Keynes, but in the late 1930s, there was a free market economist named Milton Friedman I'm sorry, Milton, milton Friedman, who had an idea sort of like this to ensure that people had a minimum standard of living, but this was through this was called a negative income tax. So it essentially works kind of the same way. Once you do your taxes, if you were below a certain threshold, then you would actually get money from the IRS. We mentioned Martin Luther King. What might surprise you is that a little guy named Tricky Dick Nixon isn't this surprising? Very surprising. We were surprised by someone else recently. What was that? He was the first president that had the first African American guest in the Lincoln bedroom who was Tammy Davis Jr. That's right. Yeah. So in 1969, Nixon said, hey, how about this? Why don't we start a program where it's the equivalent of about eleven grand a year today, where we pay people $1,600 a year plus food stamps if you are a family of four that doesn't have an income. Basically, here's a quote that says, what I'm proposing is that the federal government build a foundation under the income of every American family that cannot care for itself and wherever in America that family may live. This was Richard Nixon saying this? Yeah. And that's universal basic income to a certain degree. It's not everybody, but he's saying, hey, if you don't have any money and you're an American, then we'll give some to you because you have a right to have a very basic level of income. Yeah. It was called the Family Assistance Plan. That actor was or that bill was, and it went made its way through Congress and Congress said no. But there was one part of it that the Senate, I guess, said, oh, we like this, though it was a work requirement. And so from that point on, if you wanted federal assistance, you had to prove that you were working. And that still survives today. And it's been upheld by not just GOP presidents, but Bill Clinton made sure that that was part of his welfare reforms as well. Yeah, sure. And it came from that. So they said, no, we're going to do away with this guaranteed minimum income, but we like the work requirement part. And that was the legacy of it. Yeah. I mean, one thing is for sure. If this has any traction in the United States, there's going to have to be a lot more data behind these trial programs. And even if that data comes back in the positive that this would be a good thing, there would need to be a sea change of thought, change with a lot of Americans about giving people money. Yeah. We would basically have to say, like, the point of life is not work, which is not the way Americans think these days. I mean, we might say that we don't, but no, we actually act differently. Like working is largely the purpose of life and there is a lot of pleasure to be gained from feeling productive. And I think even if everybody did have was able to just stop working and be wealthy, people would still find stuff to do. You'd still go like garden or learn to paint. Like you wouldn't just lay around and smoke opium all day or anything like that. Most of us wouldn't. Right. So I think there is, like, a lot of value to work. But I forgot what started this off. What did you say when I was saying there would need to be a sea change of the fact that the government is giving hand outs to people right. And that the value of work was divorced from the right to live life wealthy or cared for. It would require an enormous change. Although there are programs in place right now that kind of resemble this. And some people say, hey, there's this thing called the Earned Income Tax Credit, right? It's basically melton Friedman's negative income tax thing. And you know, Friedman, he was basically one of the architects of neoliberalism. So this negative income tax plan he came up with kind of became the Earned Income Tax, which is Earned Income Tax Credit, which is, if you're below a certain level of income, not only do you not have to pay tax, this tax credit actually pays you back. Like you get a check from the IRS rather than vice versa. And then it fades out as you go. You get further along the scale of wealth until you don't get anything and you're paying lots of taxes. Or that's when you got all these great loopholes. Right, exactly. No, that's after that part. That's beyond like a middle class and upper class. That's the point of 1% stuff. Right. So some people are saying, forget this universal basic income. We've already got this earned income tax credit. Let's expand that. Let's make it so more people are able to get it. One of the big criticisms is that it incentivizes people to have children that they might not otherwise have. Do you think that's true? Well, yes, I think it is. From what I've seen, at the very least, if you're talking in hypotheticals like we were talking about the idealized version yeah, it's at least as real as that. There are people that are like, man, let's go have a few more kids to get those sweet write offs. Well, here's the thing. Let me put it to you like this. If you're a family with three or more kids, your maximum earned Income tax credit is $6,318. If you have zero kids, your maximum is $510. Yeah, but right. Kids are nothing but a money drain. Totally true. And so you remember that conservative economist? What was his name? Charles what? Murray? Yeah, Charles Murray. He pointed out that under the current entitlement welfare system, there are programs where you get additional benefits if you have kids, which theoretically can incentivize somebody to have a kid that they might not otherwise have. Right. One of the things that he said this is a great thing about universal basic income is it does away with those entitlement programs and replaces it with that money. And now all of a sudden, you're disincentivized to have a kid you wouldn't otherwise have because all you have is that ten grand, and you can keep it all yourself, or you can have a kid and have to support your kid with that ten grand because nobody else is going to help you support the kid. Right. There's no benefits. You don't get ten grand plus two grand for having a kid. Right. You get ten grand no matter if you have zero kids or ten kids. Right, yeah. So in that sense, it kind of disincentivizes people from having kids where they otherwise wouldn't. And this is why some GOP people love it. Like that whole focus on the family thing. Although the GOP doesn't have the market cornered on families. It's not what I mean to say, but there is a bit of a focus on traditional families and family values. Sure. And this is I think, who he was kind of speaking to was if you are a couple and you pull your $10,000 together a year, you've got $20,000, but you're also just having to pay rent once, pay for maybe a car, maybe two groceries for the whole house. There's an economy of scale to building a family, and so now it makes sense to have kids more than it does just by yourself with that ten grand, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But I tell you what, if you want to save all your money, don't have kids or pets. Right. That's just basic Economy 101. Yeah. Keep all that sweet dough for yourself. Yeah, exactly. I'm curious to know if, like, you were asking if that actually does happen in real life and to what degree. I don't know, man. I just have a hard time believing that there's that much, like, planning of, like, well, let me think here. If I have three kids, I could get back all this tax money and they would cost me this much, and here's what the difference would be. So I'm coming out ahead by like, $1,000 a year. Right. And even if there are people doing that, what proportion of the general population do they represent? And is it really enough to prevent taking risks that could have huge pay offs, like something like a universal basic income just because a few people are going to do it wrong? For me, the answer is no. But I'm not fully sold on a universal basic income now. Right. I'm not either. And I'm also for someone who just said, keep all that sweet money for yourself, this is coming from someone who has four pets and an adopted child. Right. So I'm the biggest jump in the history of jumps. And also if we're getting all self perspective and all that stuff, we should probably say it's a lot easier for us to be like, we don't need that universal basic income now, because you and I don't necessarily need it, but there are plenty of people who really do need it and put it to get you. So maybe we should just keep our fat mouth shut. Well, I would like to think that if this kind of thing came along, I can pay my bills and I would donate that money. There you go. Just starting out, Chuck. I already do. Chuck. What a great guy. You got anything else? What I feel guilty about is not donating enough time. Oh, yeah. Because donating money is great, but feet on the ground volunteer work is very valuable and valued, and the best thing you can possibly do is walk around volunteering and throwing money, tossing it just like, hey, I'm here to clean up the dog kennels and here's a lot of cash. Exactly. But you have to do it like De Niro. You shake somebody's hand and all of a sudden you've got, like, a man. How did that happen? Right. And wear a suit while you're cleaning up the dog kennel. Oh, man, I wish I was cool enough to palm a $50 bill without noticing. All it takes is practice. That's right. Okay, well, if you want to know more about universal basic income, just move to Silicon Valley and start talking to people. Although I am curious, if it's not hot any longer, what's the new thing? Let me know. Silicon Valley. Okay, let us know. And since I said, let us know silicon Valley It's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this from a listener I met in person recently. I've been doing as, you know, a little bit of alumnus work with the University of Georgia. Doing some little speaking thing the other night. Nice. How did it go? It went great. They went really great. I had a lot of fun and I was able to speak to about 75 semi recent graduates about podcasting. That's awesome. And everyone was super cool. There were a lot of stuff you should know. People in the audience that were just delighted to get in a small room at a whisky distillery. Oh, that's a great place for it. Big shout out to the ASW distillery. Another alumnus. Nice. They make some good stuff. You know what something you'll get a kick out of what is during the Q and A, one of the first questions they said was, what was your reaction when you were first asked to come back and talk to the university students and stuff like that. And I said, My first reaction, honestly, was, what took you so long? I've been waiting for years for UGA to show me a little love. Stick it to them, Chuck. They Laugh they thought it was funny. You put them on the spot. I did. I like it. But this was from Greg Bell. And I met Greg afterwards and he told me a great story and I was like, you know what? Send that in an email. And I'll read it. So he said, hey Chuck had the great pleasure of meeting you at the Young alumni event about ten years ago. I was about six months away from graduating high school and had big plans to become a long haul truck driver. I stumbled across your podcast while looking for things to listen to on the road and was hooked. Your show was incredible to me because I didn't think I liked learning. But every Tuesday and Thursday morning, I found myself refreshing my podcast feed just to see what you guys would be talking about over the next few months. Back then I came to realize that I loved learning and I loved telling other people about the things I was learning from you both. I talked about you so much that I got my dad and my wife to both start listening. And now we have conversations every time we're together about what episodes we've been listening to. We love this stuff. When families I'll eat this up all day. Yeah, man. Family that listens to stuff you should know together what's the same rarely argue. Sure. I think that's the thing. You were both a major factor in meltdown making a decision to stay in school and get my undergrad degree in history. Today I am an educator at an art museum in North Georgia, and I seriously can't imagine how much different my life would be if I hadn't found stuff you should know when I did. Thank you both so much for the work that you do and the impact you have on so many people around the world. If you ever find yourselves in cartersville would like a tour of the Booth Western Art Museum. Oh, that's a good one. I would be more than happy to make that happen. And that is from Greg Bell. And I met Greg and his wife and they were just great. Super cool. Greg Bell is one of the most UGA names I've ever heard in my life. You think? Aside from maybe Tucker Carlson. And I don't think he went to UGA, but that's a different side of UGA. Greg Bell is like straight ahead UGA name. I like it. Greg Bell freshman. I think I might take him up on that museum tour. You love your museums. I do. Just got to make it up to Cartersville. That's the downside. That'd be great. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, like Greg did apparently show up at Chuck speaking gigs at Whiskey Distilleries. Yeah, there's more of those coming up. If you're a UJ alumnus, pay attention. That's awesome, Chuck. Seriously, pay attention to everybody. And if you are not a UGA alumnus or you can't make it out to one of these things, you can also get in touch with us via email. Wrap your email up. Spank it on the bottom and send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is the production of Iheartradios how Stuff works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. 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https://podcasts.howstuf…hili-peppers.mp3	How Chili Peppers Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-chili-peppers-work	Born and raised in South America, chilis were the earliest crop domesticated in the continent and among the first items brought back to Europe by Columbus. Today people are really, really into them.	Born and raised in South America, chilis were the earliest crop domesticated in the continent and among the first items brought back to Europe by Columbus. Today people are really, really into them.	Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:02:24 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=10, tm_hour=14, tm_min=2, tm_sec=24, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=253, tm_isdst=0)	49818300	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry. And that makes this stuff you should know. I was so going to quote the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They apparently used them at Guantanamo Bay to torture prisoners. Really? Yeah. That surprises me. I know usually I've heard of stories like that, but usually it's some kind of dark metal or something. Like super Starlay and vocal band. Some might say abrasive. Some might think it's very soothing to hear dark metal. Supposedly there's a study out there that had a ridiculously small study population that found that it's calming. It has a calming influence. Metal music to us. Paid for by the Metal Association of North America, Scandinavia. Yeah. I'm kind of surprised they played the Chili Peppers. That's pretty easy on the ears, isn't it? Well, one of the songs is California Casin. Yes, they are. Later stuff isn't this good. I could go a little crazy with that one. I'll talk what were you going to quote? I was going to say Give it away. Give it away now, or something like that. Or fight like a brave I haven't heard that one. That's early stuff. You could just say, like, under the bridge downtown. Yeah, I ate a chili pepper. I actually read his biography. I guess it was an autobiography. Anthony Ketos, because was he writing about himself? Yeah, I was just going through a kick where I was reading music autobiographies for just rock star stories. Didn't you recommend the Motley crew biography? Which one was it? There's one quintessential one. I can't remember what it's called. The Quintessential Crew. Yeah, just look up. I mean, that's not an autobiography. That's just topography. Yeah, but that one's really good. The Slash one is good, and the Keto one is good. Man, that guy, he had troubles. Oh, yeah. Just bad drug troubles and woman troubles. Over and over and over. But he's good now. Well, good for him. Yeah. Welcome back to the fray. Anthony Keith. That's what I say. So we're not talking about the red hot chili peppers. We're talking about red hot chili peppers. Right. Not the right, we're talking about chili peppers. Depending on where you are in the world. C-H-I-L-I peppers or C-H-I-L-E peppers or just Chilis? Yeah, you could say that. I think a lot of chefs just call them chilis. Well, yeah, because they don't waste words. No, they don't say peppers. It's a couple of extra syllables. Yeah, exactly. No, chef, give me some of those chilies. It is the bell pepper and the celery stalk, and the onion is part of the trinity of I guess you would call it Nolan's cooking. Sure. The bell pepper is a chili pepper. It's just a non hot chili pepper, but it's still the same thing. Yeah. And it turns out that we get that terminology, chili. It actually was used by the Aztecs or the Triple Alliance in Mesoamerica. The Triple Lindy's the Triple alliance prior to the arrival of Columbus. And it was Columbus himself where we get the misnomer chili pepper. Because Columbus, he's a big dummy. Can that guy get anything right? No. So he comes across the chili pepper and decides that it must be a relative of the black pepper with which he and the rest of Europe are already very familiar. So he calls it the chili pepper because he hears up in Mexico, they call it Chiles. The Triple Alliance calls it so that's where it came from, chili peppers. But it has no relation whatsoever to the chili or the pepper. The black pepper. Yeah, and it's been around it's actually one of the oldest domesticated crops in the Americas, actually. Yeah, it started out in South America about 6000 years ago. I saw 9000, say between five and twelve. And they don't know whether it was Bolivia or Brazil. There's a heated debate in the pepper community on the country of origin. But they do know that birds are the ones who disperse them. And birds can't feel heat in their mouth. Right. They carry them around and propagate the seeds. And then Columbus, of course, brought them to Europe and that's how things spread. That's why you can use hot sauce or chili pepper spray or something like that on your bird seed to deter squirrels. Yeah, because the birds are fine. Yeah, but the squirrels, the squirrels just run around going and it says here the birds can't digest pepper seeds. But nobody can really digest pepper seeds if they can hole. I totally can. No, you can't. I will show you right now. You're going to show me your stool? No, we can't digest them either, because we don't digest seeds that aren't chewed because they're covered in cellulose. And it just goes straight through to our poop. Exactly. Same with corn. Yeah, because that is a seed. It is. I'm glad you finally said that. Somebody needed to say it. I think that's one of the trendy facts, don't you think? Was that corn as a seed? Yeah, probably. Seems like I saw that all over the Internet. It's pretty hot right now. Corn and poop. It's a hot topic. So I did a dump. You dumb on that. On Hot Topics, man. No, corn. Corn in your poop. Yeah, see? Hot Topic. So Columbus brings the stuff back and it spreads like crazy. Like syphilis. Yeah, because think about this. Chili peppers are native to the Americas, and we're unknown outside of the Americas until about 500 or so years ago. Now they're grown in just about every country in the world. There's all different types of varieties, but it turns out that there's 25 wild species and five domesticated species. And one of the noteworthy things about chili peppers is most of the time when humans domesticated a wild crop, they would stop using the wild version of it because it was just so far inferior to the domesticated version. Right. Not so with chilis. Wild chilies are just as prized, if not more prized than domesticated ones. They're delicious. So there's five species, chuck. And by the way, chili peppers belong to the nightshade family. Yes. With potatoes, tomatoes, goji berries, eggplants, and nightshade. And the five species are fun to say. Yeah. I wouldn't even do it, but I encourage you to. Okay. Capsicum anuum, Capsicum Chinese, Capsicum Fruit Essence, Capsicum Bacadam, and Capsicum Pubescence does have little hairs on them. Yeah, I saw that one coming. So those are the five families. Peppers are generally hot, although we'll get into all that with the varieties. Like you said, the bells. Everyone knows bells aren't very hot. Right. But what you're talking about with the heat is what's called their pungency. And the heat actually comes from alkaloids present in the peppers called capsaicin. Yes. Which we talked about in December of 2011 pepper spray episode, because that's what they're using in pepper spray. If you didn't listen to it, go check it out. It's a good one. But yeah, it's kind of funny to think about. Self defense tool is really just canned hot pepper. Yeah, because that stuff can be work. And with the pungency of a pepper, most people think that it's found in the seeds. It's actually a myth. Well, it is found in the seeds. It's not housed in the seeds. Right. So the seeds are attached to the pepper itself through something called the placenta. It's a membrane, that white stuff that's inside of a pepper, right? Yes. And that's where the capsaicin is stored. And since the seeds are attached to the membrane, a lot of that stuff makes it's way to the seeds. But if you really want the high heat, you eat the membrane. If you want the high heat, just eat the whole thing. I deseed and demmembrane mine, but if you're looking for heat, then just don't even sweat it. Literally, don't sweat it. Yeah. That's like the second, at least pun that you've made. Oh, yeah. What was the first one? Something was they were both accidental hot. I can't remember what it was. Oh, well, those are just words. No, it was perfect. It was really great. So the pain is actually not coming from your taste buds because they don't feel pain. It's coming from pain receptors in your mouth, and it sends a message to your brain saying, this is super hot. I wouldn't eat that much unless you like it. Right. It's the same pain receptors that tell you that, say, the sip of coffee you just took is too hot or something is thermally too hot? It's triggered by capsaicin. It's the TRPV one receptor, and that triggers the release of a neurotransmitter called substance p, which capsaicin can also block. What's crazy is yes, we'll talk about it a little more later. But capsaicin is used as a topical pain reliever. Right? Like Shaquille O'Neal knows that. I think I see hot. Yeah. Really? So capsaicin, if you rub it on the skin, it goes to those TRPV one receptors and basically overloads them so thoroughly that they're no longer able to transmit the sensation of pain in that area. So it's a local anesthetic. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, it is. And lots of other health benefits that we'll talk about. Peppers are great for you. Peppers are super. They do not cause ulcers. That is a myth. And in fact they protect the stomach lining or can, and they can also thin the blood. So you need to watch out for that if you are on an anticoagulant. Yeah, I don't know if they say that on the prescription or not. The pepper prescription? No. Prescribed in Jalapeno today. No, the antiquaculant prescription. Of course it might, but if you are in a contest or just at dinner and your mouth becomes inflamed, well, you can drink water. I think it provides pretty stupid a temporary respite. I don't know if it even does that. It does for me. It basically moves the stuff around and throughout your mouth. Yeah, just not good. What you want is something fatty like milk. Yeah, because capsaicin dissolves in the presence of fat. Or like if you eat a lot of Mexican food or Indian food, that sour cream and that yogurt is a nice way to smooth that out. That's what it's there for, baby. Well that in taste and flavor and texture and everything else. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it's not like they're like you said, some sour cream cause this is too hot. Right. But it definitely helps. I read article actually with a guy who was in a contest and he was a hot pepper guy and he described, I think he ate like three ghost peppers just in 20 seconds. And he was fine at first, then it got hot not in his mouth but in his throat. And then he just kept going through waves like he said it would go away. And I thought it was good. He was like an hour later it felt like a red hot burning nickel on my sternum and it was just moving its way down, I guess. Man. And then he said he felt jubilation, like exhilaration, which we'll talk about. This is one of the effects of peppers that can pick up your mood. But he said he felt like he was on cocaine. Weird. Yeah. Because they trigger a release of endorphins. Exactly. So you can get a runner's high or some sort of high off of eating pepper. Cocaine high, which is why some people eat peppers. It really makes them feel great. Yes. I guess this guy wasn't a runner. He must have just done some cocaine before his wine. Right, that was his go to. So you said that birds are immune to the effects of peppers, and they also spread the seed by pooping it out. Right. Yes. Mammals are not immune to the effects of it, including humans. And apparently humans are the only mammals that purposely eat peppers, and it's been called a form of benign masochism. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. But it makes sense. And the reason why they think peppers have that kind of burning thing is to protect itself, to ward off mammals from eating it. Sure. But the idea that we can get some sort of rush from it is kind of counterintuitive, if you think about it, as far as evolution goes from the pepper standpoint. Sure, yeah. Because that encourages people to keep eating you. Yeah, it's a good point. All right, well, let's take a break here, and we'll come back and talk a little bit about how the heat is measured in a hot pepper. All right. I guess we need to talk about Wilbur Scoville. Mr. Scoville. Was he a doctor now? He's a pharmacist. Yeah, but I wondered if he was a doctor. I think he got an honorary doctorate. He deserved one. Do you count those? Sure. All right. Probably depends on where it's from, what it's for, but sure. Yeah, I would. Of course, you can call me. He was a pharmacist, like you said. He developed something called the scoville organo leptic test in twelve. It's just a hilarious name for what it is. It is kind of weird, isn't it? You should just call it the chili test or something. It just made me laugh like a goon. Well, previous to this test, the only test was basically just to have people eat them and ask them how hot. It's pretty hot. Okay. That's a pretty hot pepper. Give me some milk fat. All right. Technically, pork fat, whatever, you just eat a slab of fat and get rid of it real quick. Yeah, they said chocolate too will help. Yeah, well, it's a fatty full of lipids. I think that's people just like to eat chocolate with their hot stuff. So Scofield says there's got to be a better way. And he says, Why don't we devise a test where we have people eat peppers and ask them how hot it is? Pretty much, but let's do it in a little bit different way. Let's keep feeding them peppers that are more diluted until they can't feel heat any longer. Right. And just make it a little more organized and formal. So the Scoville Heat unit is what it comes up with. Right. So, for example, a bell pepper has a zero, not hot, but say a habanero. Some types of habanero peppers can get up to, like, 500,000, I think the red something. What is it? I'm sorry. The red Savinia habanero pepper got up to 570,000 Scoville Heat units. Yeah, it's very hot. And what that means is that it would take 570,000 cups of water to dilute one cup of extract from the red Savannah habeniro and one shot of milk fat right. Before anybody could say, I detect no heat whatsoever. Yes. It's a tremendous amount. And it's not like he was pouring a whole cup of this stuff into 570,000 cups of water. It's math. I think he just used fractions. Yeah, probably so. Yeah. Give me a minute to come to that conclusion. I was like, what kind of bat and this guy had in his yard? A big one. So that was the old test. And even though they no longer use that, they still use that Shu Scoville heat unit as the unit of measure, which I think is a nice little tip of the cap. It is. Because it could have changed it. Wilbert Scoville's ghost is like, I approve. Now, what they do is use liquid chromatography, and they've been doing that since about the that's not specific to testing peppers. It's basically just separating and analyzing compounds of any mixture. Right. But you can target the specific type of compound, and in this case, you're looking for the alkaloid capsaicin. Yes. And you determine how many parts per million is present in a given pepper, and it takes the subjectivity out. Yeah. And it's literally just measuring the level capsaicin level in any pepper. But what's neat is they figured out Scoville is clearly onto something, because they figured out that if you take this high performance liquid chromatography measurement and multiply the number it spits out by 16, you will come to the Scoville unit that you would get by a factor of 16. Not bad, but that's neat that you can it's not like 16.95 seven or something like that. Or multiply it by the fact that you can multiply it by a standard number and come to this Coville heat unit each time. Means he's doing something right. There's something there. Yeah. Scoville. Way to go. That sounds like one of the real Men of Genius commercials or something. I guess. Well, should we get to some of the types of peppers now? Are we there? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Because if you're a scientist, there are two ways to classify a pepper by its heat, using the Scoville heat unit index and by its shape. Yes. And then color. Well, apparently scientists don't classify them by color. I'm talking about you and me, buddy. Hot heads. We're in the kitchen. Okay. And we're looking at peppers. Yeah. And we're like, look at that red one. Look at that green wrinkly one. All right. That one's shaped funny. That's a funny shape. That's how we classify it. Read funny shaped one. Really hot wrinkly or smooth is another thing you might notice. But you're right. As far as science is concerned, it's heat and shapes, and then the shapes go from shape a to shape. I right. And my favorite descriptor is the lantern shape. I think that's great. Yeah. That's the habanero. Yeah. Very thin skinned. And very hot. Yes. Can you eat peppers? I didn't even ask this. I eat a lot of peppers. My heat tolerance isn't great. I do like the heat, but I'm a bit of a wimp. What kind of pepper do you normally eat? Can you eat, like, a Scotch bonnet? Well, I mean, I cook a lot with just bells. Of course, that doesn't count. Sure. They do. Okay. Because they're peppers. All right. So I cook a lot with those, but I cook a lot with Pablo's, Anaheim's, Chipotle, jalapenos, serranos, and chipotle is you just threw me off it's chipotle. Chipotle. Chipotle is a smoked Tabago, right? Yeah. And ancho is a dried serrano. Ancho is dried poblano. That's right. Ancho powder. Yeah. That's from Pueblo, Mexico. Right. Poblanos are great if you want to make a good chili reino. Oh, yeah. Because they're about the right size, and they're really just hardy, thick waxy. They hold up well. Yeah. You mean I'm aficionados of those things. Of the poblano? No, of the chili reigno. Oh, yeah. Find a good one of those. Yes. You know, it's funny. In college, I worked at Mexicalli Grill, which I don't think is even a thing anymore. Oh, really? I know. The one on Atlanta Highway closed, which was very surprised. It was an institution. Sure. And they're Chilerino. Like a lot of the when you go to some kind of the cheaper Mexican places that have, like, the menu with 80 combination dinners, a lot of times you'll find a chillerina, which is a ball of beef wrapped in cheese sitting on top of a one inch square green bell pepper. I've not seen that one. Yeah, that was what our chillerino was, basically just meat and cheese, man. No, but you want the real thing, which is stuffed in a real pepper. And a lot of people use breading. Unnecessary. I can have it both ways. Well, it's supposed to have some sort of fried wrapper around it, and the breading is usually too much. The better way to do it is like a thin omelet, almost like a crepe around it every once in a while. It's so good. Yeah, good stuff. All right, well, let's back up then. Okay. Back to the bells, which you don't consider peppers, evidently. Well, I mean, as far as you're talking heat. Yeah, no heat. But they're great to grill, and I can't say anything. I can't really go beyond a jalapeno. Oh, you can't stand the heat. No. So I'm frequently getting out of the kitchen, but I actually made a New Year's resolution to eat more hot stuff because I realized I'm such a total wuss when it comes to this. You can build up a tolerance, and I have. I've gotten much better at eating spicy stuff, but Habanero is way too hot for me. It depends on what kind of spice it is to a lot of times, I'm more tolerant of some than others, but I've learned that once you get past that very unpleasant, painful sensation, there's like a whole new world of tastes out there. Yeah, good point. So the bells are the little squatty? Dudes, they can be. I don't know if a lot of people know this. All the different colors of the bell pepper is the same pepper. The red bell, the green bell, the yellow bell, the orange bell. It's all the same. But they taste differently. Yes, because it's how long they're ripened. What? The green one is ripened or harvested first. Wait a minute, wait a minute. It's all the same pepper. Wait a minute. Hold on. That's why you'll get a red pepper that still has a little green, buddy. Like a little patch of green. Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. So you didn't know this? No. Wow. All right. Well, that didn't happen much. For real? Yeah. Well, that's great, man. Thank you for teaching us that the green peppers is picked first. That's why they're less expensive, too. And they are a little bitter, and they are not nearly as sweet. Then you have yellow, then orange, then red as they ripen. And that's why the red is most expensive. And it's because it's the most mature. It's delicious. It is delicious. And they are sweet and kind of fruity. Smoked one. They're not smoked one. Roasted. Yes. Oh, I do it all the time. And then you just peel the skin off. Yeah. What I do? This article says to do it in the oven. I either put it on the grill I do it with fire. Yeah, fire works real well. Or just on the stove. I'll just put it on the you got a gas stove? Sure. That's a convection. You just put, like, an old piece of notebook paper on it. Brush your pepper over there. Yeah, I'll just throw the red pepper on the fire until it's all black, and then I throw it in a paper bag. I don't do paper because I don't usually plastic bags. Yeah, I'll just put it in, like, a grocery store bag. That seems carcinogenic. No, I don't think so. We'll find out. Yeah. Check back with me in 20 years. Well, because then you run into the sink and wash all that char off of it. So I don't think it's coming to contact what you're eating with the plastic. Right. So you use the sink, huh? Yeah, because it's really hot to the touch still. Oh, well, that's the other thing that I noticed in this article. It says leave it for, like, 15 minutes. It seems smart. I don't ever have time for that. Got you. So I just put it under the cold water, get all the seeds in the membrane and the skin off. Got you. And then slice it up and throw it in the salad. It is delicious. Very delicious. Okay. The red pepper has more because it's matured longer, has eleven times more. Betacarotene than green and one and a half times more vitamin C. So they're healthier. That's what you're paying for the betacarotene. That's right. Big money in beta carotene. And then you can also have chocolate, purple, and even white bell peppers. Now you're just lying. No, I think those are just different varieties, though. I don't think those are like, how mature they are. Like the white ones are grown in the dark or something like that. I don't know. I have no idea. The pimento and paprika are both where they come from. Red Bells, though. Got you. And paprika is well then how does that have any kind of paprika? Has a little bit of heat to it, doesn't it? No, I'm thinking of cayenne pepper. Yes. Cayenne is made from hot red chilies, and paprika is just smoked. Unless it's Hungarian paprika, and that's sweeter and that's not smoked. Got you. So if you see a recipe that says paprika, you should probably know whether it's smoked or Hungarian. Yeah. And if not, I would probably just go with Hungarian. Oh, you think? Well, unless you just know, you want a smoky flavor. Got you. This has been quite a roller coaster. Banana peppers, very mild. Pepper, Chinese, very mild. Yeah. Is on your Subway sandwich. Yeah. Or like as a side on a Papa John's pizza. Oh, yeah, something like that. That's right. I knew I'd seen those. And then, of course, the best one of all, the Pablo no pepper. Right. And then the pimeno, which we just mentioned. And that is a variety of the Red Bell, I think. And that's what they put in olives. Yeah. And cheese. Right. What about the hot guys? See, I don't mess with them that much, but yeah, like we said, there's jalapeno, serrano, habanero, chipotle. So it is chipotle. Yeah. What did you think it was? We were saying chipotle or were you saying chipotle? I was saying chipotle. I've always said that. And then Anaheim. Anaheim. Yeah. I think some people transpose the L and say chipotle. Yeah, they definitely do. I got confused. I know how to say it right, but earlier I was like, wait, it didn't sound right. And then of course, you have the delicious Thai chilies or bird's Eye chilies, and those are really good and super hot, and they are small and thin, but pack a punch. So normally the rule of thumb is thin, long ones that are red are going to be your hottest. Right. But there are exceptions to those rules, which is the Scotch bonnet. Scotch bonnet is like it's like more pumpkin shaped. It's like habanero. Okay. But it's less lantern shaped and more pumpkin shaped. And I think it's like a yellow, orange and very hot. Okay. Very frequently found in, like, Jamaican cuisine. The Scotch bonnet. Got you. If you dry the pepper out and you have like, the ancho pepper, the chipotle dried stuff that we're talking about, it's going to be hotter. With that in mind, some people who like peppers will just put them in a food dehydrator and eat them like that. Yeah. Or just let them just dry out in the sun. Sure. If you're slack, if you're a hippie. Chuck. We also said that if you're a scientist, you say, this pepper is shape A and has a Scoville rating of 5 trillion. Right. Okay. Then you've just described a pepper to another scientist. They know what you're talking about. Sure. But there's something called the Chili Pepper Institute. It's an institute that's associated with the University of New Mexico. And New Mexico, by the way, is the foremost domestic producer of chili peppers in the United States correct. Thanks to a man named Fabio and Garcia correct. Who was a pioneer in cultivating peppers here in the United States. In 1021, he released his first variety, the New Mexico number nine. I thought you were going to say his first album, mambo. No, five. Yeah. But he's known as the father of chili peppers in the US. Yes. The North American Chile, and in India, they're the world's largest producer of chili's oh, yeah. By far. Yeah. So there's another way to describe them beyond shape, color, and heat. And the Chili Pepper Institute came up with this. It's for the heat profile. And basically there are five components to the heat profile. There's the Scoville heat unit to it. Yeah. Then there's how fast it hits. Yeah. That's a big one. Like you were saying, that guy who ate some ghost chilies, it took a minute to come on. He's like, this isn't so bad. There are some peppers that hit, like, immediately. Yeah. So that would be the second descriptor, the second component. The third would be whether it lingers or dissipates quickly. Sure. Or how fast it dissipates, eventually it's going to dissipate. You hope. Yeah. And then come and burn the next day. Coming out the other end. Yeah. And then the fourth one is where it's sensed, like is it in the throat? Is it on your tongue? Is it in the roof of your mouth? Where does it attack, basically? And then the last one is whether it's flat or sharp. So flat is, say I saw it in, I think, that New Yorker article, or maybe the Smithsonian one that I sent you. Flat is where it's like your whole tongue is just coated in the sensation of heat, whereas sharp is where it feels like little hot needles in your mouth or something like that. And the preference in America is for a flat sensation. Sure. Whereas Asian countries tend to prefer the sharp sensation. Like the Thai chilies. Yes. Interesting. Sharp. That's right. Do you like hot Asian food? Yeah, yeah. I like curries and stuff like that. Nothing too hot, though. I'm still a pretty big woosh. No, I'm the same way. And I'm also comfortable enough of myself that I don't feel the. Need to show off or accept a dare. No, of course not. No. So, yeah, I don't need that hottest stuff, but I will sometimes. Yeah. If you're still accepting food related dares in your late 30s or 40s, then you should seek some help. Did you read about that guy? Ted Busser or Busser? Oh, he was in the New Yorker article. That's exactly what he does. How old is he? Thirty s. Forty s. He's on YouTube, seeks some help and he accepts challenges, food challenges. So people send him like the most disgusting thing they can find and then he eats it on air. But one of the things that he eats are like really hot peppers. He has become kind of like a de facto pepper judge. Right. Because there is this whole community out there. Yeah. We'll talk about that after we take a break. How about that? So, Chuck, we kind of teased that there's a community of chili pepper fishingados out there, tough guys and women. Yes. I meant that in the non gender specific. Yeah. And they range from just people who like to eat them to people who make their own hot sauce, to people who are competing by growing cultivators. Yeah. The hottest peppers on the planet, literally. Yeah. And it gets pretty dicey. They get very competitive and very snippy from what I read. Yeah. About the legitimacy of the heat that they claim. Yeah. So there's again a really great New Yorker article called The Fire Eaters from, I think, a year or two back. And it gives a really great outsiders view of this community. And it is very snippy. One of the problems is there is no official central body that says this is the hottest pepper on the planet. Well, Guinness does. Guinness doesn't. A lot of people defer to Guinness. To some other people, like, Guinness doesn't know there's no food. They're dilettants. What we need is a governing body that's dedicated only to chili peppers, not Guinness. Right. Yeah. And one reason why is because it changes. Like people are cultivating these things. There could be a new hottest pepper every three months. Exact. And Guinness isn't going to stay on top of that. Right. So there's kind of like, why are you being talking to those guys? So some people do deferred again, this because it is the closest thing that they have to a judgment saying this is the world's hottest people, just like we're saying that. But there's no organizing central body that is dedicated to judging which is the hottest chili pepper. And there should be, according to these people, they could use it. They think the government should supply it, but they can't even decide on whether that the hottest pepper in the world should be its peak or what it averages. It's mean. So right now, Guinness goes by the means. And as it stands in the world, the hottest chili pepper as of August 2013 is called the Carolina Reaper. Yeah. The HP 22 BNH. Seven out of Rock Hill, South Carolina. Yup. And the Carolina reaper has an average. Remember that Red Savinia Habanero had 570000 Scoville heat units. Yes. This one averages 1,569,300 Scoville heat units. That's right. And a peak of over 2.2 million. Yeah. And hats off to Ed Curry of Pucker, Butt, Pepper Company and Fort Mill. He's a very controversial pepper grower. He is. He blended. The original crossbreed was between a ghost pepper, which was the previous hottest pepper introduced to the North American 2000, the infamous ghost pepper. And then he crossbreeded that with bread. That with a red habanero. So the Boot Julokia is the ghost pepper. That's from India. And from 2007 to 2013 it was the reigning champ. Yes. And from before that was that Red Savinia from 1994 to 2007. Again, that's as far as Guinness is concerned. But there are peppers out there. There's the what's? The scorpion one. The Trinidad Scorpion. Butch Tea. Yeah. So that was actually grown by some guys in Australia who crossed a Trinidad Scorpion, which is already very hot, with a pepper that was grown by a guy named Butch Taylor in, I think, Mississippi. He's right outside of Baton Rouge. Big on this, as it turns out. Yes, big time. I think the thing is, if there's people who listen to like, front two four two and go boar hunting, if there's a larger population of them in that country, that country is going to be more likely to be into eating hot peppers. What's front two for two? They're like an industrial band. Oh, really? Yeah. What does that mean about me? Because I never even heard of it. You don't need the hot peppers. Okay. There are some who claim in fact, the grower in Southern California says I had a pepper once that was over 3 million. But I don't even publish that stuff, he says, because it's a fluke. Right. So that's the question. Should that one be considered the world's hottest pepper or should that plant have to that species consistently have to put out something at 3 million? Yeah. Or does it matter? It's another question entirely. I know they get specific about it and they want their due, but it seems like we can just say all of these are very hot. Very hot. You're welcome. Yeah, I don't know. It's scary stuff if you ask me. It is. Christopher Guest should do a mockumentary about pepper hot heads. It's ripe for it. Alright, so let's say you want to pick out a pepper at a grocery store. Look for firm skin, look for super bright colors, which, I don't know, I'm pretty down on produce in big box grocery stores. But if you go to a farmer's market, and especially like a local farmer's market, you're going to see weird shaped, super bright colored peppers. Yeah, weird shaped is right. Remember? Yeah, we've talked about this before. Grocery stores won't sell ones that are perfectly awesome and maybe even better tasting because they look weird. Right. That bell pepper looks like Richard Nixon throw it in the trash. Yeah. And it's like her arm not a crook. The longer they ripen, the hotter they get. Like you said, the red ones, if the red ones still have a little green, they're not fully ripe yet, so they probably won't be as hot. But that's the case with the bell probably. Anyway. So you're not looking for heat, right? You're looking for sweet. If you are cooking with peppers, it says in here, be sure to wash your hands. Yeah. But what you really need to do, if you're serious, is wear gloves where doctors what are they called? Rubber gloves. Yeah, rubber gloves. Because that is truly the only way if you come into contact with your fingers and that membrane or the seeds, you can wash your hands ten times and you forget. And, like, the next day, you will get an eye booger out. Yeah. And you'll be like, what in the world? My eyes on fire. You take your contacts and you go to put them in the next one. Oh, I can't imagine. I cooked one night some paella and used some hot peppers and did not wear gloves. And I went peepee later. Oh, no, I didn't think about it. And I had a speaking of syphilis burning sensation down below. It was bad. That's how they simulate it for medical students. Oh, really? It was bad. So I learned the hard way. I just got a box of those. Is it nitrate gloves? Nitrate or nitrite? One explodes, the other one is fine, I think. Well, I put them in the kitchen. I also wear a painters respirator. What kind of peppers are you working with? The hot stuff. Like ghost peppers? No, but I cook with habaneros and stuff sometimes, and it's like it's nuclear. The fumes are yeah. If you're over the sink cleaning the mountain and you're breathing it in, you'll find yourself, or at least I do, coughing and burning. So I will wear the respirator and my clothes. You mean I would juice sometimes? Yeah. And every once in a while, she put, like, a pepper in there, like a jalapeno. Interesting. And it would just turn the kitchen into a tear gas bomb had gone off. It's crazy. It gets everywhere. It does. Because these things are basically vaporized, and they just spread so easily through the air. Juicing of pepper. It definitely gives it a kick. Oh. If you want to store peppers, like we said, you can dry them out, and they'll keep for a long time. You don't want to wash them. You want to just put them unwashed into your fridge. Yeah, true. And they'll just keep just regular peppers will keep for a long time. It's not something that goes bad very quickly, but you can freeze them if you slice them, put them on a baking tray in the freezer, then you can collect them and just throw them in a bag and you can keep them for like a year. Nice. But I don't see why you would freeze peppers. Just buy the amount you need and cook with them or pickle them. That's great. Pickled peppers are wonderful. I can just eat those straight. I don't like pickled things, so I'm not into it. Yeah, I know. It's so good for you. Pickling. Pickled foods are so good for you. There are so many health benefits. You'll eat other healthy things that I enjoy. But how do you not like pickled stuff? Like I could eat pickled. You could cut your finger off and pickle it. I'd probably eat it. How does anyone not like anything? But I mean, what about it? You don't like the tartness? No, just the taste. Anything pickled. Like a pickle sauerkraut. You don't like sauerkraut? I hate sauerkraut. I guess I could have seen that. I hate pickled so much that I have to ask and rest. Like when I go to a pub and have like, a burger and fries to leave the pickle off, because invariably they will put the pickle down, soaking into the French fries and the bun, and it'll ruin that for me. Wow. You hate pickles that much? I hate pickles that much. Well, I'll eat the pickles that you get on the side for now. Okay, well, Emily eats the pickles. You can arm wrestle her forton. Okay, that's fine. That's the deal. But when I said you shouldn't just buy the amount if you're growing pickles or I'm sorry, growing peppers, pickles. Pickled peppers, then you might end up with a lot of peppers. And that's why you might want to pickle them or pickle them if you're into that. Yeah, because we grew peppers one year and they were easy to grow and bountiful. Yeah. Pepper plank goes, yeah, that equals a lot of peppers. I guess we should talk about growing them a little bit, huh? I guess so. They're perennials, so that means they stick around. Well, it depends on where you live. Yeah. If it's cold, you might grow them as animals. Right. They're pretty flexible. You can start them as seeds ten weeks prior to the first frost. You want to germinate them in little trays. First you soak the seeds for a couple of days. Then you germinate them with a little bit of starter. Ten weeks prior to frost. After the last frost comes and goes, you can start to harden them by moving them outside a couple of hours at a time and talk to them, say, this is good for you. Right. You shake them, takes a couple of weeks, a few hours each day more, until they are hard and ready. Right. And then they start to grow. You want to fertilize them. When the peppers grow out and turn hard, you can cut them. And when you do, you want to cut some stem because it extends the shelf life. And then you have peppers. You can also just go to the store and buy some peppers. Yeah. If you're into gardening garden, yeah. If not I've just grown from seed, man, it seems like such a nightmare to me. Well, it's for people who have time and are hobbyists. But I also get, like, if it's an heirloom something. Sure. Or just something you're not going to find anywhere with peppers. I mean, sure, there are some. Like, if you want to buy the Carolina Reaper, you can get packed with those seeds for like $10 or something. Right. You're not going to find those at any store. So I get growing those from seed. But, like, growing like, a squash plant from seed, it's like, what are you doing, man? You should have better things to do with your time than that. We grew squashed last year from seed. Yeah. What are you doing, man? We have a garden. Right, but you can just buy, like, the seedlings. Yeah, you could do that. Okay. Are you saying why do people garden? No, I love gardening. Okay. I'm just saying growing from seed a plant. Like, if you like growing from seed, you should get a seed catalog and find something that you can't find elsewhere. That's what I'm saying. I have a very strong opinion on growing things. They each their own with everything but gardening. We use starter plants a lot, too. Not everything is from seed, because you're saying sensible people. But do you see my point? I guess. Do you get seed catalogs? They're fun to look through. Not catalogs, I don't think, but we buy seeds online. You should get your hands on seed catalog. Yeah, yeah. I can't remember the name of the company. That sounds like good toilet book reading. Yes, it is. Yes. It's very delightful. It makes you so excited for spring off. Label uses of peppers will say you can eat them or you can rub them on your pain parts. Yeah, because remember, they overload your nociceptor, that's right. They can lower your blood pressure. They can be antiquagulants. I think that's one in the same. Think about it. If it thins the blood, it's going to also lower your blood pressure. True, I would think. Okay. It's also been shown, Chuck, it lowers bad cholesterol. Not just any cholesterol. It lowers your bad cholesterol. And not only does it lower the cholesterol present in your blood, I think it attracts it. Right. Because, remember, it's fat soluble. Yeah. And then it gets flushed out of the system. It actually removes the buildup of bad cholesterol plaque in your arteries. Man, this stuff, it makes me want to eat more peppers. I already eat quite a bit of peppers. I need to eat more. I think in the future, they hope to use it for cancer prevention, stroke, heart attack prevention, I guess it already works. Is that if it's lowering your blood pressure? That's what I got from that, too. Yeah, but the cancer, it's its own thing. They found that capsaicin itself basically attacks tumors. Are you upset about the growing from seed tyrant? Oh, no, I don't care. Okay, good. What, like it was directed at me? Yeah. I didn't mean for it to be no, but it took a pretty hard turn at the end there. No, right to your front door. I don't care. Right to your garden door. No. We have an article called can Ghost Peppers Kill You? On our website. It cannot. It's not good, but apparently \u00a33 of peppers can kill you. Is that right? Yes. How like, what's the mode of death? I don't know. They don't say. That's why it's not a good article. Well, so these pain receptors, the TRPV, it's a toxin. Capsaicin is TRPV one. They're also responsible for regulating your body heat, helping regulate your body heat. So I wonder if you have like a heat stroke or something like that. I don't know. I would just say if it's a toxin and you eat too much of any toxin, you could die. Yeah, but you die from, like some toxins slow your respiration, and you stop breathing from lack of oxygen. You know what? I bet you have something to do with respiration. Because if you are in a hot pepper eating contest, one thing they will talk about is their throat swelling and having a hard time breathing. That'd be my guess. I think there was a Science Daily article originally that said that. So there is a speaking of ghost peppers, up until last year, in 2014, there was a restaurant in Grantham, Lincolnshire, which I take to be in England, probably called Bindi. The restaurant was named Bindi. It was an Indian restaurant, and it had a curry called the Widower that used 20 ghost peppers, among a ton of other ones. And apparently they had sold like 5600 of them. And about three quarters of the people finished it. Managed to finish it. Not bad. Yes. If you think like the ghost pepper that was like the one that got all the press in 2007. I think what's remarkable is that people that are ordering this are probably have a very high tolerance anyway, and if they're not able to finish it, that says a lot. Exactly. So that's chili peppers, everybody go forth and eat something. You said that it doesn't give you ulcers and in fact, it actually helps with cases of ulcers, right? That's right. Isn't that amazing? It is. Okay, so if you want to know more about chili peppers, you can type that word into the search barhousofworks.com and it will bring up this article. And I said, search bar. I'm going to call this a rarely granted shout out. We get requests a lot for shout outs, and we couldn't do them all otherwise. Our show would be called Shoutouts you should know. But this one was from a 14 year old girl who sounded very sweet from reading it. Hi guys. I'm a 14 year old girl who's been listening for a long time and I wanted to say thanks for the time that you spend to make it smarter. It's been really fun for my sister Anna and I to listen to your podcast before you go to sleep. However, she's leaving for college soon to study studio art and I'll be all alone when I listen to you guys. So if it isn't too much to ask, could you give her a shout out and tell her that she is an awesome sister and will be missed? Sarah, you could tell her that yourself too, by the way. You should express your emotions. I don't like to talk. You can also say to my brothers Jonathan, Stephen and Tommy that they are okay. Too many kids are in this family. Sounds like 12345. That was my guess. She said no. Don't mention the 6th one. Just kidding. If you do this, then you guys will be the best podcasters ever. Not like you aren't already. Actually, Ana just sent an email, or maybe it's Anna to you guys last night about hula hoops and if you could put both our emails on the air, that would be the best. I'm not going to do that. But I did write her back, so this is a secret from Anna, so it would be a big surprise. So Sarah to Anna. Anna, good luck at college. You will be missed. You're a great sister. That's so nice. The brothers Jonathan, Stephen and Tommy. Okay, man, that was nice. Very kind of you never know. Well, if you want to see if you can target Chuck's heartstrings, give your best shot. Good luck. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyoushhnnow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast athousedupworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseoffworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out. The sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing Poolsite, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder. From exactly right. Media. My favorite murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarra and Georgia Hardstock, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more. Before you can't listen to new episodes of My Favorite Murder one week early on Amazon Music, download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
c48c5cf4-5460-11e8-b38c-cbb7f9572290	SYSK Selects: How The Human Microbiome Project Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-the-human-microbiome-project-work	If it was possible to take a full scan of all of the DNA of every cell in and on your body the results would be startling: Only 1 percent would be human. The other 99 percent comprises all of the bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microbes you literally cannot live without. Learn more in this classic episode.	If it was possible to take a full scan of all of the DNA of every cell in and on your body the results would be startling: Only 1 percent would be human. The other 99 percent comprises all of the bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microbes you literally cannot live without. Learn more in this classic episode.	Sat, 15 Aug 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=228, tm_isdst=0)	34465436	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you were a global bank who wanted to crunch billions of transactions against thousands of compliance controls? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data, and now you can supercharge your audit system with AI. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com. Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. And for this week's case selects, I've chosen how the Human Microbiome project works, which we released back in May of 2014. And even after all these years, six years on, this information is still just totally mind blowing to me. And I love it. It's one of my favorite episodes of all time. I kind of forgotten about it and discovered it again, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Welcome to Step. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I almost just forgot what I was going to say. Your name? Yeah. Wow. There's, Charles. W, tuck bright piping in. And there's the trio, the Trifecta, and this terrible Ikea lamp. Do you think? Well, we are getting a little heat off of it right now, which is nice. Did you ever see that Ikea commercial about the lamp that was thrown out on the street? No. It was really good. What happened to it? Was it like the monkey at the Ikea? No, it was like a lamp gets thrown out. Like someone's just redoing parts of their apartment and the lamp is kicked to the curb as a word computer animated. So it's human formed. Okay. Not human formed. What I'm saying? Anthropogenic. Anthropomorphize. And, like, looks up at the apartment that he was just thrown out of and stuff like that. Did he go back to Sweden? I don't remember how it ends. Just remember the lamp, like, turns all human. It was sad. It was, like, sad. I got teared up. Did you go buy one of those lamps? No. Of course it didn't work. No. So I guess you're feeling pretty good since you're talking about lamps and everything. You know me and lamps. I do. That means it's a good day. It's a clear signal, checks in a good mood, everybody. You know, one of the reasons why you're in a good mood because your guts are functioning properly yeah. Ish yeah. You know me. It's day to day with my stomach. Well, that's exactly right. Things change very quickly because of your stomach, and your stomach can affect your mood. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of the serotonin, which is a mood stabilizing neurotransmitter, is produced in your gut. Yeah. And the way that things like serotonin and other stuff is produced is thanks to our microbiome, dude. Yeah, our microbiome. This is the most fascinating thing going on in medicine science right now. Yeah. I get the impression, reading various articles, when scientists talk about it, they all seem really pumped up. It's like the breakthrough of the 21st century. And this thing just started. It's 2014, and this could remain the breakthrough of the century. Yeah. And if you think about the timeline, up until the 20th century, you were like a plant or an animal. Right. And then it was literally like the 1950s, and they started saying, maybe we should break things down a little further. And they came up with the five kingdoms. Right. I think they're now even as a six kingdom. Well, there's three domains now. Eight kingdoms. Oh, there's eight. There's eight. And two of the domains account for two of the kingdoms as well. Bacteria and Archaea. And Archaea used to be thought that they were the same as bacteria. Yes. Then they started looking into them a little more, and they're like, oh, these guys are made up of different amino acids, and they have different characteristics. And Archaea, for example, are the kind of microbial life that you'll only find around undersea hot water, sulfur vents. Yeah. Like volcanoes. Crazy places. Not in your vagina or in your mouth. Well, no, because they're extremophiles. And a vagina or a mouth isn't that extreme. Well, it is, because our Kia lives there. That's right. So the fact that we figured out that Archaea are different than bacteria, and not only that, they don't just live in extreme environments, but also on the human body. Yeah. That was something we can thank the Human Microbiome Project for. Yeah. And I think they didn't even discover Archaea till the 19th 70s, so all this stuff is brand new. Right. And exciting. And by the way, the three domains are bacteria, Archaea, and eukaryotes, which are us. Yes. Or eukaryotes, because we have Nucleus as nuclei. Yeah. Let's talk about this man we have before. I'm sure you remember in the fecal transplant episode yes. Because it definitely factors into it. You can poop shakes. Yeah. You can cure clostridium difficile. Which is something where it's a gut microbe that's very harmful to humans. That can colonize your guts after you take antibiotics. Which is basically just like a slash and burn approach. Which. Again. Thanks to the Human Microbiome Project. We're starting to understand we might want to use antibiotics. Because what we used to just think of is almost entirely bad. Are actually mostly beneficial. Sure. And even some of the bad bacteria, aka germs, are actually present in our microbiome and normally live in harmony. Yeah. It just appears that when the microbiome gets out of whack, that's when disease happens. Yeah. Like, you may have E. Coli in your body right now. Yeah, I probably do. But it's not a big deal. If you're always talking about stasis homeostasis. Yeah. Keeping things balanced in life is the key. Yes. And it's definitely the key with your own personal microbiome, which we have learned is very individualized, which we'll get to with the project. Right. So if you take a human body and you scanned all the genes in it, what you would find is there are about 100 times more microbial genes than human genes in a genetic scan of a human body. Yeah. Our human cells only make up about 10% of the cells in the body. And here's another great stat. The healthiest person on the planet has between two and \u00a35 of bacteria pounds yeah. Of your body weight, about up to \u00a35. Is it chemical? Yes. What's crazy is that that's even considering that microbial cells are anywhere from a 10th to 100th the size of an average human cell yes. Do you know how much \u00a35 would have to that adds to quite a few. Yes. As a matter of fact, there's an estimated 100 trillion microbes on an average human person just in on. And a part of such a part of us and our normal functioning that we're finding very quickly that they're pretty much interchangeable. They are one with us, and as their host, we are kind of one with them. Yeah. Like you have fungus on your skin. Yeah. No big deal. Right. Well, that's another thing too, we should talk about. When people say microbe, it's kind of a catch all word for tiny. Yeah. Any tiny, typically unicellular life. And that's the case here, too. But it doesn't just mean bacteria. The human microbiome is made up of lots of bacteria and lots of different types of bacteria. For example, the mouth may have up to 5000 different species of bacteria. Yeah. And they're not just laying around in your body like they are responsible for keeping your body in check or sometimes responsible for it being out of whack. Right. But they're all doing something or laying there waiting to do something. You also have what's called a virum. You have viruses in your microbiome and they appear to be present to keep the bacteria populations from getting out of control. Like they're there to infect bacteria to kill them off. And it's kind of like they're the lions to the gazelles of the microbiome. Okay. You take away the lions, you got too many gazelles, they all start to starve. They don't function correctly. They may even eat each other. You don't want to see a gazelle eat another gazelle. So you have lions there and the lions, these apex predators, keep the gazelle population in check and ultimately healthy. Paradoxically. True. Same thing with the viral and your microbiome. Yeah. We know they gut bacteria, AIDS digestion and we'll get to gut bacteria more. I mean, they're discovering just all kinds of things it affects. Right. Synthesize vitamins. When you poop in the toilet and you look at your poop, which you should do, by the way, on a regular basis. How much is it? Is it? Half of January? From the third to half. So a third to half of that is microbial biomass. It's not food. No. It's like dead and living bacteria that you're pooping out. Yeah, about half. I saw something that was kind of mind blowing, too. It's really neat and accurate, especially on a microbial level, to imagine your alimentary system, your digestive system, as the inside of that is technically outside of your body. You have a hole, a trail running through the middle of your body. Yeah. That's technically the outside. Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. Just chew on it for a minute. Yeah. Like, the inside of your digestive system is technically the outside of your body. Like, ain't here. That's outside of your body. Yeah. It's confusing. It is. But once your head wraps around it, it's like one hand clapping kind of thing. Right. And you're just like, Whoa, that is neat. All right, so that's, I guess, the briefest of overviews of microbes and bacteria, which we've talked about ad nauseum on the show. Yeah. And our Great Digestion podcast. That was one of my favorite ones. And then we've already talked about the poop shakes. So the National Institutes of Health came up with a plan, got some money together and said, let's try and do what the Human Genome Project did. Let's try and map out the human microbiome. Which is a very tough task because everyone is different. Well, yeah, everyone's microbiome is different. And I just saw today, it was released from the University of Michigan. They've kind of already determined there is no such thing as a baseline healthy microbiome. Yeah. And that was one of the goals of this project that was started in 2007, was that to establish a baseline microbiome, they didn't know what one looked like. They knew that people had tons of bacteria and protozoa and viruses all over us and in us. But what is that supposed to look like? And when you figure out what it's supposed to look like, then you can figure out what an unhealthy one looks like, and then possibly how to correct that by adjusting this microbial ecosystem back to a baseline. But I'm not surprised that they found that there isn't a baseline that is too different. And that doesn't mean that they can't learn a lot and help us out a lot. What they're basically saying is you take a dozen completely healthy people, and their microbiomes are going to be completely different still. Yeah. And there was one huge revolution in the study of bacterial or microbial life that made this project possible. Same with the human genome, but much more for this. It's called metagenomics. And prior to the advent of metagenomics, if you wanted to study bacteria, you had to find a bacteria that could be replicated, cloned cultured. Yeah. In a laboratory setting. And this accounted for just a very small fraction of the number of microbes out there. What's more. So not only did you not have a representative sample, but you also didn't have anything less than an artificial setting. So even if you did get these microbes, if you could replicate them in the lab, they weren't going to behave the way they would in their natural setting, like on your body. So what metagenomics did was you can now take, like, a representative sample, say, like a clump of soil or a swab of somebody's ear fold, and get all of the microbes in there. And then basically just do this rough scan of them, separate all the DNA out, add these enzymes that go and clip coherent fragments of this DNA out. And then you take it and you put it into what's called a model organism. And that model organism starts to replicate as cells. And then each cell displays a certain characteristic associated with a different microbe. So all of a sudden, you can start studying the different cells and say, oh, well, this has to do with this microbe, and this means that this Protozo is present, and so on and so forth. And now you can get a truly representative sample of what's in a microbiome. And without metagnomics, none of this would be possible. But now we're starting to find all sorts of new not just information, but even new species of bacteria, protozoa, and fungi from the study of this stuff, which is a great thing. It is a great thing, and we'll explain why it's a great thing right after this break. Today's episode of Stuffy Shannon is brought to you by SimpliSafe home security. SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family. So they offer advanced, whole home security that puts you, your home, and your family safety first. 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And we were talking about the microbiome project, which is being rolled out in phases, the first of which, obviously, is to get as many of those samples via this new technology and basically just get a big reference set, throw them out on the table like a crawfish boil in the hopes of establishing that baseline. Well, not just a baseline, just basically cataloging everything with the ultimate goal of seeing what this means to our body and how these different things interact. So they put the word out on the street. The NIH said, hey, we need some volunteers. Do you think you're a very healthy person? If so, come volunteer. And 600 people who consider themselves very healthy showed up and said, I'm a healthy person. Yeah. They were dismayed to learn that half of them weren't healthy. Yeah. Apparently over half were rejected outright. Yeah. And that doesn't mean they're, like, super unhealthy. It just means for the purposes of this, they needed the healthiest of the healthy people. And I read that even still, of the ones that were accepted, the 242 that made the cut, 85% of those people still had to have periodontal disease and cavities treated first, and then basically, they had to be treated for that stuff, and then they were deemed fully healthy. But that's how the level of help they needed for this study or that they wanted for it. Yeah. And it surprised me. They only got subjects from two cities. I thought it would have been, like, spread out, but Houston, Texas, and St. Louis, Missouri, are where the final subjects came from, and and they were all white, too. Oh, really? They were white men and women aged 18 to 40, I believe. And they were the picture of perfect health after the dentist got finished with them. While white people I wonder. I don't know. But it's not that the Human Microbiome Project has been criticized for it. It's more just been like so you guys got a swab of just a small fragment of humanity. Yeah, maybe. There's so much starting point. Right? Well, yes, because they can't include every ethnic group and race when you're just starting out. Right, okay. But it is surprising that they just went with Caucasian only, so they finally get these healthy people, a couple of hundred scientists, 80 different institutions. It's a big group thing. It's not just like, one university that's running the show budget of about $170,000,000 to start out with and a bunch of cotton swabs. Yeah, lots of them. Over 11,000 cotton swabs. Generic cotton swabs. Yeah. They swabbed each man in 15 locations. Women in 18 locations. Three of the locations were in the vagina. Men don't have vaginas. They don't. But men have ears and armpits, elbow folds. Yeah. Mouths up your nose, stool samples. They're swabbing all the moist places. Right? Yeah, that's exactly right. Not just moist places, but I think that's where you're going to find the gold. Sure. Yeah. Well, no, it's true. Like, your forearm actually is typically pretty dry, but it has one of the most diverse array of bacterial species in your whole microbiome, you have about an average of 43. Yeah. And people, when you hear this, don't think they didn't get the reaction I was expecting. Well, that seemed low to me. Yeah. Because I'm used to hearing, like, thousands, thousands of bacteria, not necessarily species. Yeah, that's true. Although I think the mouth is going to top that. From what I read. Remember I said up to 5000 species. I believe it. Yeah, but I think one of our goals here, and the goal of scientists is to stop people from changing the tide of how we even think about this stuff. So when you hear that all the bacteria in your mouth and under your armpit don't think gross, think awesome. Well, yeah, for the most part. The project, I guess, is still very much in its nascent stages. Chuck, basically, the project itself. Yeah, they did the initial leg work and then they did the second phase, which is sequencing these things, which again, I just painted the broadest picture of metagenomic sequencing. It is one of the most involved insane complex processes I've ever tried to understand. It's more complex than the breathalyzer. Remember that it used, like, kryptonite somehow? Yeah, that was very surprising. Yes. If you don't know what we're talking about, go listen to our breathalyzers episode. It was really those are complicated machines. Yes. I thought there were fairies inside the little box that just pretty much smells like beer. Yeah. Metagenomics, it's better to just kind of understand it like little fairies performing magic than to really dive into it. But the point is, this project, they have all this data now. Now they have to sort through it. They have the problem of big data, whether it's just an overwhelming amount of data, like trillions of bytes of data, 3.5 trillion bytes of data, which is about 1000 times more than the Human Genome Project. And at first you're like, Wait, that doesn't make sense. We're talking about bacteria. And you go, oh, yeah, that's right. We have about 100 to 200 times the genes in our microbiome than we do in just the human genome. So, yeah, that's a lot of data. And now they're starting to figure out how to sort through it. All right, so I guess after this break we can talk about some of the things we have learned thus far. Today's episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by SimpliSafe home security. SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family. So they offer advanced, whole home security that puts you, your home and your family safety first. With 24/7 professional monitoring simply saves agents take action the moment a threat is detected, dispatching police or first responders in an emergency, even if you're not home. Yeah. And SimpliSafe uses proprietary video verification technology so that monitoring agents can visually confirm the threat in order to get higher priority 911 dispatch. And SimpliSafe offers comprehensive protection not only against intruders and burglary, but against expensive home hazards. From flooding to fires. You can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at SimpliSafe. comStuff. Go today and claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off with interactive monitoring just go to SimpliSafe. comStuff. Okay, we're back. All right, so now I guess we can talk about some of these great findings, some of the newest findings in the last what year is it? Well, they started in 2017, seven years old. And it seems like the first crop of amazing stuff started in about 2012. Yes. So after they had categorized things and got, like, thrown all the crawfish out on the table right. The corn, the little corn is good. Have you ever done that? I've had that before. Yeah, it's good stuff. It's fun. Like, go to a big party. There's a place on Beaufort Highway called the Crawfish Shack. I've heard of that, but I haven't been did they do it like that? Do they just dump it on the table? It's all picnic tables. No, it's in like bowls and stuff like that, but it's all picnic tables inside and just huge rolls of paper towels and dude, that place is so good. Yeah, I guess you can't do that as a restaurant, but if you go to a true crawfish boil at someone's home, you have the picnic table covered with the plastic thing and you just dump it on the table and everyone stands around like a bunch of animals. Right. Getting drunk and eating, like sucking the heads of crawfish. My family used to do something similar to that when I was little in Toledo, we would eat my dad call it garbage Pail Stew. Yeah. Are you familiar? Is it like all the leftovers? No, it's like you use a trash can to make it oh, I've never heard of it. Over, like, a flame. Okay. And obviously you use a new trash can, like a brand new one. So I guess when dad got a new trash can, we would have garbage pills, too. Anyway. A metal trash can? Yes. Okay. It was more like no, the plastic just added like the old large ones. Right. One of the old timing ones. What kind of flame you got in your house? I don't remember what he cooked it on. Interesting. In my mind's eye, I can't look down, I can just see the kind of the top of it. But anyway, it was like a Yankee northern Midwestern version of it. So there's like lots of cabbage in it and like kilbasa and stuff like that. But it was essentially the same thing. Yeah. And you would eat it on, like, newspaper. I can't wait to get emails from people who are like, we did that same thing. I've looked around, I've never seen it since. I'm sure that yeah, that sounds like a thing or although your dad is very unique person. Insane is the way to put it. All right, so back to the project and the findings. One of the things they've learned is that periodontist is gum disease. Some bacteria are elevated if you have periodontist. So that's going to give you a little insight to maybe how you can better take care of your mouth, what kind of bacteria you need in there, what kind you don't yeah, exactly. Like, for example, Streptococcus mutans is responsible for cavities. So you want to take care of your streptococcus mutans. Mutton. The thing is, Chuck, reading this made me wonder, like, are we going to go the other direction now where it's like, we understand that you can't just use antibiotics to get rid of everything, but if we identify bacteria that's like, oh, well, that one gives you cavities, let's get rid of all of that and find some sort of medicine that just gets rid of that. It could make things even worse in a whole other direction. One thing that I figured out from this is that the microbiome appears to exist in balance, like stuff that should make us sick, e. Coli, right, kinds of stress staff, that kind of thing. It exists on a healthy person's microbiome and it's just hanging out there. So it doesn't mean that they're inherently disease causing for us or that they're inevitably disease causing. Apparently, if they exist in harmony with their neighbors, that's the way it's supposed to be. And we can't just root out just ones that make us sick and get rid of those because I think it will have repercussions. But we might have a future where instead of an antibiotic, you actually take a bacteria that will attack the other bacteria, the bad stuff. Right, exactly. As long as we're not intervening and going after a specific bacteria, we can aid the bacteria, like you say, that will fight it naturally, like by eating some sort of sugary paste or probiotics. I mean, that's what that is, right? Yeah, I mean, that's an issue that's being examined in more detail thanks to the microbiome. Do probiotics work? Yeah. And apparently the jury is still out. In theory, they should work, but it depends on whether these things are actually colonizing your guts. And also I have the impression that it's like you don't really know what you're doing when you're adding all these new people to the neighborhood. Yeah. And because everyone's microbiome is so different, some one probiotic for one person might be great and for another person might not do anything or make things worse. I don't know. Yeah. Which is another goal of the Human microbiome project, that if we start to understand what a colony maybe there's not a normal colony for everybody, but what an individual's normal colony looks like. Right. Then you can take blood or samples and make adjustments based specifically on what you need right there. It could be the end of pharmaceutical drugs. Conceivably. I know they're doing a lot of research into how your gut bacteria affects obesity in your weight. They have found obese mice and transferred micro microbes from their gut into skinny mice, and the skinny mice gained weight and just type in gut bacteria and obesity and there are a lot of studies going on now thinking that maybe correcting your gut bacteria could actually help your metabolism straighten out. Right. Like, they think the bacteria itself directly informs how the body uses or stores energy. The one that blew me away was there's a type of bacteria that helps break down milk in humans, and typically it's in the gut. But as a woman advances in pregnancy, some of it moves down to the vagina. Yeah. And at first, the researchers who found this were like, what's the deal with that? And then they figured it out. They think when a baby is born and it passes through the vagina, it basically becomes covered in this bacteria, ingests some of it, and that bacteria goes down and colonizes the baby's gut and prepares it almost immediately to start breaking down breast milk. Yeah. Evidently, brand new babies are just sponges, and they're experimenting with cesarean sections to just swab. Like, after you have the cesarean Cection, you bring the baby out, swab it with vaginal mucus, and basically it just soaks right into the skin and maybe have the same result. Right. Or swab their mouth or something like that. Yeah. Another way, and I guess it's kind of related, too, is with the immune system. Apparently, the microbiome acts as kind of like a teacher to the early immune system and says, like, hey, these are the good ones, these are the bad ones. Why don't you go ahead and produce some killer T cells, but not too many, and we'll just go ahead and keep the homeostasis going. And they basically, like, teach a young immune system how to operate at an optimal level. And they found that by engineering mice that are, like, totally germ free, their immune systems have a tendency to go crazy. Like, they'll become inflamed in the presence of what are, say, non harmful fungi. They'll become so inflamed that they'll damage the surrounding tissue. Or they'll have, like, irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn's disease. I think also is a flux state of the microbiome in the gut. So apparently it directly impacts the immune system as well, which, my friend, lends a lot of weight to the hygiene hypothesis. Yeah. That's basically the notion that here in the west and even in developing countries now, children are seeing such a decrease in infection when they're kids that when they grow up, they have an increased number of allergies and maybe autoimmune issues. Yeah. And you kind of see it playing out. Right. It's a real thing. Like, if you're slathering your child with purell, you're not doing them any favors. Right. They may have asthma later on because of that. Exactly. They're coming to think that it's because of just a stunted growth of the microbiome. Yeah. And I think they found out even they think they have a direct link between your gut bacteria and allergies. So if you get hay fever, it may be because of. Your gut bacteria. Right. And it makes just utter and complete sense, too. Yeah. Like, your body has been exposed to these things early on, learning that they're not harmful and no longer produces antibodies as a result of their presence, because that's all. An allergy. Is it's a case of mistaken identity? Your immune system thinks that pollen or something is harmful for an invader and launches your immune response. Pretty cool. Some of the other interesting things they found so far is that there wasn't a single microbe that everyone had in the study, which is pretty interesting, and that microbes are most similar on the same site of different people. So, like, you and I have more similar microbes in our armpit, even though we're different people. Right. Then your microbes in your armpit has to do with your belly button. Yes. Ours are more similar than the ones in different places on your body. Yeah, that's pretty neat. And different microbes can do completely different things, like the way you digest food might use one microbe, and I might use another. Or that same microbe might have a completely different function in you than it does in me. Right. So personalized. It feels like the beginning of hyper personalized medicine. I think it is. In the future. I definitely think it is. I think it's also the beginning of a kinder, gentler approach to treating disease. All disease. It's entirely possible, especially if you take a brain based view of mental illness. It's possible that every bit of disease can be cured by understanding the microbiome. Even cancer, apparently. They found from this that some types of cancer manage to cloak themselves by taking, like, residue from certain types of bacteria and basically sneaking past your immune system and going and lodging itself into cells and hijacking them and creating tumors. But it cloaks itself by getting buddy buddy with certain kinds of bacteria. Cancer is a jerk. Yes, cancer is a big time jerk. We've kind of covered it here and there, but I could see more specific cancer podcasts in our future. Sure. You know what? So far, we've done two that specifically got into the microbiome, but we've never done, like, a microbiome one. So I think we should come back, like, a year from now and even more stuff is out and do like, the microbiome. Yeah. It seems like they're making breakthroughs at a pretty rapid pace. So in a year, everyone might be skinny. Yes. Because of the microbiome pill. Have you seen a picture of an obese mouse next to a skinny or normal sized mouse? Yeah, it's pretty depressing. It is sad mouse. Okay, so I will see you here at the end of next April, god willing, for the microbiome one. Yeah. Deal. All right. If you want to learn more about the human microbiome, you can type those words into the search bar housetofworks.com. And I said, howtofworks.com. So it's time for the listener mail. Josh I'm going to call this response from a creationist. Oh, okay, we got a few of these. Yes. Hey guys, listen to your podcast on natural selection and really enjoyed it. I'm a biologist who is a Christian and creationist, natural selection is not what we disagree on. And when I say we, I mean most creationists. But of course with every group there are outliers. We agree with micro evolution changes that occur within the species, not macro evolution. Species developed into a completely different species, which is what most people tend to associate with evolution. The only major differences between creationists and evolutionists is that we believe the earth is between six and 10,000 years old and again, excluding the outliers, and that all organisms were created in their basic form by our God. For example, we believe that everyone came from Adam and Eve who through methods of natural selection evolved into the many nationalities we have today. Same thing with animals. We believe that a small number of species were created by our God and all the forms we have today evolved through natural selection. So the only main difference that we have with evolutionists is the ultimate origin of species. The areas of evolution that we can see clearly occurring in front of our eyes, we agree with it's the areas that evolution is theorized about that we don't agree with. So while there are differences between creationism and evolution, there are actually more similarities. And that is Eric from South Bend, Indiana. Thanks a lot, Eric. Very salient point. Yeah. Biologist. Yeah. I love it when experts come out of the woodwork, especially when they're experts with a twist. Yes. And we love being refuted and refuting and reading reputations. And we'll always read these things reputation, life. That's right. If you want to refute something we've said or agree with us or whatever, if you just want to get in touch about anything, you can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com, stuff. You know we're on Pinterest or on Instagram. And if you want to send an email to Chuck, Jerry and me, you can address it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. Stuff you should know is production of Iheartradios how stuff works. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio App, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, you know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients plus probiotics. For digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ystal-skulls.mp3	What are crystal skulls?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-are-crystal-skulls	Back in the early 20th-century mysterious skulls made from polished crystals began to enter the collections of private enthusiasts of the occult. Discovered by adventurers raiding sacred areas of the ancient world, these skulls were said to possess unusua	Back in the early 20th-century mysterious skulls made from polished crystals began to enter the collections of private enthusiasts of the occult. Discovered by adventurers raiding sacred areas of the ancient world, these skulls were said to possess unusua	Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=30, tm_isdst=0)	32530257	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, friends. You know, dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure. But all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony. Is passionate about creating real love for all, rooted it in compatibility. Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself, like, I don't know what you want in a relationship. And it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes, someone finds love on Eharmony. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hey, Chuck. We are in the present time. Yes. Which means that we need to take this opportunity to do a little bit of an intro for the episode everybody's about to hear, because it's a long episode. Yeah. This has never happened to us before. But you said, hey, I thought we already recorded one on crystal skulls. Yeah, I think you're right. And Jerry went, oh, it's right here in my desk drawer. We forgot to publish it. Yeah, so this is a long lost episode, and we decided to publish it anyway. And just with a little caveat because I'm sure there's some stuff that sounds stated. It's stated right off the bat. We talk about whether the world's going to end or not. 2012, that's kind of the dead giveaway. Cool. There's some dating to it, but yeah. So it's a lost episode, and thanks to whoever it was on Twitter that suggested a crystal skulls episode because that's what started this whole thing in the first place. Well, you certainly gave them their due by calling them whoever it was. Right. Thanks. Whoever. All right, so cool. So here we go with crystal skulls. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This Charles W. Chuck. Oh, my God. Everything's coming to an end. Brian that makes this stuff you should know, right? Yeah. How are you doing? I shouldn't even ask. My life is a little upside down right now. I'll be all right. It's not like it's Mayan and it's 2012 or anything. Well, we've already done that one. Yeah. And I guess we know that the world isn't necessarily going to end in 2012 because that kind of presupposes how we feel about this podcast, I guess, right, actually. But let me give some news first. And you know this because you found this and it's literally today's news. Yeah. That doesn't often happen. Yeah, but we're talking about crystal skulls, and there was a piece on crystal skull that was found recently in a home in a Bavarian village. And the crystal skull, it weighs, I think, \u00a39. It's life size. No, it weighs nearly \u00a320. It's life size, maybe a little bigger. It matches the death head insignia worn by Nazi SS officers, which is appropriate because his crystal skull apparently belonged to Heinrich Hemler that's right. Who is the chief of the SS. Yeah. And I wrote an article we should podcast on this sometime about the Nazis interest in archaeology. All the Indiana Jones stuff was right on the money. They had all sorts of programs, archaeology programs, basically, to try and prove through historical research that the Ariane race was superior. Right. Yes. That was behind it all. And supposedly the Nazi Party arose from some sort of kind of, like, good time sex cult that all of the people who were eventually like the head of the Nazi Party were members of. Hitler comes along and it's like, you guys are freaks, but I'm going to use this to my advantage. Right. And bada boom, boda being underfoot and everything starts to go horribly awry. But back to today's news. A crystal skull was found, which is a very unusual thing, and it was found hidden on a rafter in the attic of this house in Veria that belonged to a woman who had been married to a high ranking SS officer. And it's now in the possession of Swiss journalist Luke Bergen. Yes. He makes quite a claim. He claims that, quote, I am 99% sure that this is one of the skulls of the Mayans, but we need clarity and all available tests will be carried out to ascertain authenticity. So what Luke Bergen has just said is that he's about to be very disappointed. It's spoken like a man who just got his first Christmas call yeah, exactly. And has done zero research on it, basically. Chuck, we should hold on. Let's bring sarcasm down a little. Okay, sorry. The legend behind the crystal skulls and anybody who has not seen a crystal skull, just type that into your favorite search engine and find an image and you'll be like, oh, yeah, crystal skull. Crystal skull. There's supposedly 13 of them that were crafted by the Mayans and they were scattered throughout the globe, and nine of them were colored to represent the races of man. And then four of them were clear to represent the animals that crawl, walk, slither, slide, slide and fly. Basically, the world's us to end on December 21, 2012 at 11:11 a.m.. And if these 13 skulls aren't reunited, discovered and reunited in a specific alignment, I would imagine probably at some sort of Mayan temple, then the world will end. If we can get them aligned in this proper alignment by this time, we can prevent the world from ending. Yeah. Problem is, though, Josh, there's a lot more than 13 of these things floating around the world. Yes. So there's some doubts as to their legitimacy and depending on what this call looks like, I don't know if the Daily Mirror was the new source that you got this from. Tabloid. They're a tabloids. Tabloid, actually. Well, I believe that this skull was found, I'm sure, but the picture that they've used, I don't know if that's the skull that was supposedly found or whatever, but there are some telltale signs that a skull might be a fake, that it could be real. Let's start digging in. Chuck okay, let's dig into crystal skulls. Well, they can vary in size and appearance. Some of them are sort of crudely shaped. Some of them are really detailed. Some of them are beautiful and clear. Some of them are hazy and colored. Right. Some of them have detached jaws, some of them do not. Some of them have eye sockets, some of them don't. Right. That's just a brief overview. It's the crystal skull of the appearance, and some people believe that they are from the ancient Mayans, descendants of the underwater Atlantis. Atlantis? Is that where the Mayans came from? Some people say that. Some say they're direct descents of Atlantis, but I don't know. So this whole idea that the Mayans created crystal skulls or that these crystal skulls are of Mayan descent are based somewhat on fact. The Mayans did they do reference crystal skulls in their creation myth. Oh, they do? Yeah. So, I mean, it's not like somebody's like crystal skull and Mayan got you. There's definitely a legitimate connection between the two. Okay. But whether the crystal skulls that are in existence right now, our Mayan and origin, is what's up for debate and not really up for debate. Sure. And whether or not they're rumored to have healing properties. The visions, like a crystal ball that you can see into the future, into the past. It's like a crystal ball, but cooler. Yeah. What else is there? They say they can do they make sounds? Yes. Like singing choir. I think it's mainly healing and visions. Okay. That's pretty good enlightenment of some sort. Yeah. But the world of crystal skulls, when you start to kind of dig into it, it doesn't really matter what you believe. It's a really interesting world filled by almost caricatures of people, adventurers, fraudsters, and hucksters. Yeah. So let's start with, I guess, the most famous crystal skull of all, the Mitchell Hedges skull. This one kind of set the tone for most other. Basically, the Mitchell Hedges said, this is what crystal skull study is going to be all about. We're going to provide all the character for it and everybody else following our footsteps. Okay. That's right. And supposedly it was discovered and we're going to say allegedly and supposedly a lot, because these stories are not verified as fact. Anna out of reverence for a dead 100 year old woman. Who Anna? She's dead now. April 2007. Oh, really? Yeah. That's a bummer. Yeah. So it was discovered allegedly in the 1920s. By who? We just referenced Anna Mitchell Hedges, who is the adopted daughter of FA Mitchell Hedges, world adventurer. Yeah. And he really was, too. Yeah, from the sounds of it, he was. She says that she found the skull beneath the Mayan temple at an altar in Lubatan. How he pronounced that. That's what I took. Have you seen the pictures of that place? No. Like a ruined Mayan city, really, in Belize. It's awesome. It's like overgrown temples and stuff like that. It's very neat. I like the Mayan temples. So, anyway, Anna says that she found this thing near Belize on her 17th birthday, and she said that the Mayans actually told her that it was a skull used to will death. So a priest would be too old to continue his priesting, and he would lie down and transfer his knowledge to a younger priest via the powers of the skull and then die. Right. So that's our story. That's what the skull was for. That's what she said. Sorry. That's right. And the Mitchell Hege skull is like the Trendsetting skull in another way, in that it's pretty much the pinnacle of craftsmanship of crystal skulls. Yeah. It's clear quartz crystal. It's very pretty. It's life size. It's about five inches high, five inches wide, eight inches long, totally transparent. \u00a312. It's got the ridges and cheekbones and nose socket and eye sockets that are, like, very anatomically correct. And as far as I know, it's the only one that has a detachable jawbone. Really? Which is really anatomically correct. This is just an amazing work of art. Sure. And that's how they should be viewed. Josh, why did I just ruin it? Do you want to poke some holes in Anna's story? Yeah. First of all, in 1936, a description of this skull was in a British journal called man, but they said it was owned by a guy named Sidney Bernie. Right. And it says, oh, no way. My dad, FA gave it to Sydney and he auctioned it off to pay a debt in the then we bought it from Sotheby's from him to get it back in the family. Right. Like it came down to the wire at the Sotheby's auction. So basically, what you can take from that story is that FA Mitchell Hedges acquired this Mitchell Hedges skull at Sotheby's. That part is completely documentable. Yeah. But they think that may be where he got it for the first time, probably. Because in that 1936 journal, the author, I guess Bernie, wrote a letter that was I'm sorry, it was quoted later, but the guy who actually had that Mitchell Hedges school before Mitchell hedges said that he acquired it from a collector who had it for several years, and that collector bought it from another collector who had it for several years. No mention of FA Mitchell, who was not a collector. He was an adventurer. He probably called it the burning skull, too. Yeah, I'm sure that was in 33, which by this time, FA mitchell had just supposedly already had it or owned it. Right. And then there are several other weird parts. Mitchell Hedges, FA. We'll just call him or FA. He only wrote about this goal once. This is my favorite part of this article. In the name of his book. He wrote a book about his adventures, I guess some sort of memoir. And it was called danger my ally. That's the way you say it, too? Yeah. That was from 1954, I think. And in that book, that's the first and only mention he makes of the crystal skull. By this time, it was in his possession. He owned it. Seems like he would have mentioned it. Yeah. Prior to this, he says, Chuck, that it dates back at least 3600 years. That it took about 150 years to rub down with sand from a single block of quartz. Yes. He alleges it was shaped from rubbing sand on it and not actually carved with tools. Right. Over the period of 150 years, which I mean, that's a lot of dedicated people. A lot of sand rubbing. Yeah. He never mentions that his adopted daughter found it. No, he doesn't. He actually says that he has reason to not mention how it came into his possession. Yeah. He warned very forebodingly about several people have cynically laughed at it and died. Others have been stricken ill. So he says how I got it. I have reasons to not tell you. This is a really easy way to get around not telling people. Yes, that's what we should say whenever somebody wants to know, what's your backstory? How did you guys meet? We have reasons to not tell you. We have very important reasons. Because it's very boring. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need, right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off Ups to stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the homepage, and enter code stuff. And then also, Chuck, there were two people. So FA Mitchell Hedges did actually go down to Lou Baton's adventures, right? Sure. And he was there in 1926. That's documented. There's plenty of photos of the day. Two friends who went with him who later wrote about this experience never mentioned Anna being there. Certainly never mentioned the crystal skull. Yeah. Lady Richmond Brown and Dr. Thomas Gan. Right. And then lastly, Anna, in different interviews, gave different dates of when she acquired the school, never the correct one. Right. So there's a lot of holes in her story. Yet up to her death, she alleged that this was the truth and she had what it takes to be an indomitable spirit. Like, you could tell her just about anything, but she knew what was right with the crystal skull. Yeah. And she also claimed not verified, but claimed that it had been used for healing a number of times, and she didn't get very specific with that and that she hoped one day it would go to an institution where it could be studied. And that might happen if you go on to Mitchellhedgescull.com or Mitchellhedges.com. I think there's a hyphen in there. Not Benson and Hedges. No. The skull is now in the possession of its newest owner, Bill Hollman oh, really? Who is very dashing guy, likes to wear, like, an Indiana Jones hat. Of course he does. He loves posing with the crystal skull. It's very cool. But his aim is to build a museum for the skull in Sedona, Arizona, so they can be studied and basically be available to the public all the time, which is pretty cool. Where he would sell tickets. I don't know. Sure he would. Who knows? There's not a free museum, actually. That's not true. Plenty of free museums. I'll take that back completely. Okay. But there's plenty that aren't as well. I agree with you. So that's what's going on with the Mitchell Hedges go right now. Bill Hollman has it here in the US. And there may be well, I don't know if it will be reunited. Surely people who own crystal skulls are going to take them to Mexico or something in December 2012 and see what happens. Right. Yeah. So Mitchell Hedge's skull is the most famous, but it's far from the only one. Right? Yeah. There's another famous one in the British Museum, and I believe they just call this the British Museum skull. Right? Yeah. It's kind of a letdown. They call the Paris skull. The Paris skull. Yeah. And it's also life size. It's not quite as detailed as the Mitchell Hedges. And the jaw does detach, as you say, and it's cloudy cords. It's not completely clear. And this was purchased we know a little bit about the real back story on this one. It was purchased by the museum from Tiffany and company in 1898, supposedly came from Mexico. And here is where we have a guy enter the picture named Eugene Boba. Yeah, he's kind of an important character as well. Yeah, he's a French art dealer, and a lot of these skulls seem to have passed through his ownership at one point or another, which isn't necessarily fishing in and of itself. Like a dealer can specialize in something. And Boban specialized in Mayan relics, artifacts in the pre Columbian stuff, so yeah, it's not like that makes it hinky. I'm just pointing that out. Then you've got the Paris skull, and it's a more crude still than the other two and has a hole cut in the top that they think is supposed to hold a cross. Yes. And that is in Paris. Are you going to pronounce that one for me? The Muse de Lom. Okay. The Museum of man. Is that what it is? Do you speak French? I'm Pequito I used to do that. I took German in high school and then learned just sort of rough Spanish by working in the Mexican restaurant. Yeah. And I would always mix German and Spanish up in my college days. Yeah, I was mixing up a lot back then, though. Anyway, and then in this one is a little weird. I like this one. And the Smithsonian received a crystal skull in the mail. Anonymous. Yeah. With an anonymous note that said, hey, this is Aztec. I bought it in 1960 in Mexico City. And do what you will with it. Brought me nothing but bad luck, maybe. Please don't ever try to track me down. And that one is hollow, which is slightly unique as well. Yeah. So there's a couple of points that you've just brought up. One. Eugene Boban. Remember him? Secondly, this anonymous skull is thought to be Aztec. It was mentioned as Aztec. The British Museum skull is possibly considered Aztec. Possibly. So that kind of knocks the Mayan legend out a little bit. It does. Let's do that some more. Okay, well, first let's talk about some more crystal skulls real quick. Again, there's a whole world of crystal skull collectors, and some people have a few, some people have one, but all of them are pretty. Like, if you have a crystal skull, like, you're a well known individual. Yeah. It's not like being a commemorative plate collector. Right. Like Joanne Parks, who owns Max the Texas crystal skull. She apparently got it in the it's supposed to be from Guatemala, which is my end. Yeah. Okay. We've been there. And Jake Van Deaten, who owns a few of them. What? I call him Jake. Yeah, this is she. Okay. Now she says that her skull, E T, healed her brain tumor. That's right. And that's a pretty cool name for a skull if you're a skull owner. I would say, and movie fan. And then what else is there? There's shana. RA. Not Shana, and it's a big one. It weighs about \u00a313, owned by Nick No Sereno, and he is a self described expert, which are our favorite kind of experts right. In crystal skulls. And he claims he found that one in Mexico. And then lastly, there's an amethyst goal called Amy AMI or me, if you're speaking French. And that supposedly has a squiggly white line around the circumference of the skull. No idea what that means. And supposedly mine. Yeah. And then there's a bunch of smaller skulls, like little ones that are about an inch in diameter. They have holes drilled through them and they think that they were ambulance or pendants or some sort of they were worn as neck closes. They were sold at the crystal Skull gift shop back in the day. Do all these people think they have one of the 13? Is that pretty much what's going on here? That's the impression I have. Okay. Yeah. Especially if you consider your crystal skull as the source of the healing of your brain tumor. Well, yeah, sure. And, Chuck, there's a certain rationale to the idea that a crystal skull can allow you to see visions. And there's just something more going on there besides it being just a lump of quartz. And that actually is found in one of the properties of quartz, which is piazzo electricity. You want to say it's kind of Italian Piezzo electric. Right. So that is the property of quartz in particular, but generally crystals and ceramics to be able to generate an electrical charge just from pressure from what's called mechanical energy stress. So basically, just rubbing like a piece of quartz in a crystal skull, you should be able to generate electricity. And the harder you rub, the more electricity you generate. So no one's ever been able to say, well, then that's why you would heal your brain tumor, or anything like that. But the fact that quartz is piazzo electric is one of these things that people who believe in the healing powers of these crystal skulls point to and crystals in general. Yeah. Little Five Points has had that crystal shop forever. Is it still around? Yeah, I think so. And people go in there and they buy their crystal and hanging around their neck and they believe it has healing properties or energy property. Or at the very least, it generates a mild electrical current. Yeah. Then there's also slightly wilder claims that the PSO electricity isn't necessarily for healing, it's to facilitate time travel or it serves as some sort of communication device between the aliens who brought it here or Atlantis. Sure. We just haven't figured out how to tap it or unlock it yet. Yeah. What is it they compare it to as, like, a computer chip, potentially, that has all this ancient wisdom and facts and knowledge just waiting. We just don't know how to access it's. Like the lunar doomsday arc, but in crystal skull form. Exactly. So, speaking of Mitchell Hedges, which we weren't speaking of, but I'm bringing up it anyway she has loaned it out for study a couple of times. Yeah. Some people who own schools are cool with them being studied, but more frequently, the ones that are in possession of a bio museum, those are the ones that have been studied the most. Right. In 1970, an art restorer named Frank Dorlan studied the Mitchell hedgehog for six years, and he said he heard ringing bells, the sound of choir singing. He saw auras around the skull, and he could see images when gazing into it. Yeah. And this is an art restore. He's not necessarily like a crystal skull devotee. Right. But he also claimed, on the other hand, that it showed signs of mechanical grinding and holes drilled that were obviously using modern techniques and metal drill. So he sort of said it was mystical in some ways and also said, well, but this thing is an ancient because it's clearly made with modern technology. Right. He also supposedly took it to Hewlett Packard's laboratories. Yeah. I thought this is interesting. He said there that they performed a test on it to find out if it was pure quartz, and they dropped it in benzel alcohol and it disappeared. Yes. It vanished because benzo alcohol and quartz have the same diffraction coefficient, which means they bend light at the same angle, which means that if you immerse one in the other, it's going to disappear and turn invisible. Right. Yeah. They also found a Hewlett Packard that was carved from a single piece of crystal, and it was carved against the grain, which is very unusual. Yeah. The problem is healer Packer has absolutely no record of these tests being performed. Suki is possible that Dorlin had a friend who said, come on by, we'll have some beers and test your skull. Yeah. And it wasn't like an official project or he didn't really take it there. It's such a weird claim. Yeah, true. On a TV show in 1980, arthur C. Clarke had a show called Mysterious World, and there was a gym expert named Alan Jobbins who also studied the crystal skull, the Mitchell Hedges one, and said that he thought that it was from Brazilian crystal 1700, which would not make it ancient. Right. That's not the orange skull that they think is possibly Brazilian. The Paris skull and the British Museum skull they think are probably Brazilian. No, Mayans in Brazil. And like you said, after the 1700, this is post Columbia, not just post contact. This is like there's revolution stirring in America by this time when these things were made. Right. And all signs start pointing further back to Eugene Boban. Yeah. And they also thought they were carved in Germany. Most of these, yes. Which kind of the Himler thing all of a sudden makes sense. Apparently, but I would venture to guess that Hitler would have never thought that it was made in Germany. I'm sure he thought it was, like, one of the 13 Mayans goals. They were very superstitious Nazis. All right, so back to Boban. So Boban had his hands on, like, several of these. You mentioned Germany. Apparently there's a lot of Brazilian crystal that was being worked in Germany in the 1700s, right? No, the 19th century. And apparently Boban got his hands on these things, sold them, but it's not clear whether he knew that they were frauds or not. There was a lot of money to be made during the museum period. There was a big boom in artifacts and museums and auctions like this. So obviously, if you're claiming it's one of the original things, you're going to get top dollar for it. Exactly. Which is how the British Museum came about its skull. It was purchased, like you said, in 1898 from Tiffany and Company. Probably the age of the museum when people would pay a pretty penny for these things. But I guess to its credit, the British Museum led the way in proving that these things were fakes. And I just made air quotes because they're still amazing works of art. They're made by master craftsmen in the 18 hundreds. Just call it that. That's what I say. What, works of art? Yes. So they can be admired and not kind of poked fun at by non believers. Well, that's why the school is still in the British Museum. They're like, this thing isn't mine, but still, check it out. Exactly. Star into the aura. Now, the Mitchell Hedges school doesn't fall into that because there's been no, I guess, acceptance that it was made recently. Yeah. And at one point, she kind of withdrew it from further investigation. Is that right? Yes. So the British Museum concluded that theirs was made using a jeweller's wheel after the European arrival in the Americas. It's high polish indicates it was carved using traditional European techniques. And then in 2005, Jane Walsh, who is an anthropologist with the Smithsonian, took the Smithsonian skull to the British Museum and said, hey, look at this one, too, through an electron microscope. And they did, and they're like, it's the same thing. They may have actually been made by the same craftsmen. Yeah, they said that there would have been pretty clear evidence that it was made with ancient tools by the fact that it wouldn't be nearly as smooth, there would be scratch marks, things like that. Yeah, but it bore none of those. Right. And they found the telltale signs of modern tool use. Right. Yeah. There were no signs of ancient tool use. Again, if you are a believer in crystal skulls, well, these things were made over 150 years. Of course, you're not going to find hacks marks or whatever you hack. Right. It's 150 years of sand rubbing right. Doing that kind of work. But. This is the thing that I like the most. There are out there very crude crystal skulls. There are some that don't look like they were made from a jeweller's wheel in Germany in the 19th century. So you're saying those are the ones who know. My favorite part is what danger of my ally? Yeah, it's pretty good stuff. So we have to mention a few pop culture references, starting with Stargate SG one, and then it's been in some video games. Nancy Drew, legend of the Crystal skull, pirates of the Caribbean, third greatest selling video game of 2006. And then obviously the biggest reference would have to be the abominable and forgettable I said it. Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the Crystal skull. And, man, I have never wanted to love a movie so much in my life. And I've never been as disappointed. And I'm on record. I'm saying this. I know. And I feel bad because I know that it hurts when we're criticized, we're like, we're doing our best. I know. I'm sure that they really wanted to put out a great movie. I know they worked on it for long. Supposedly they're going to do another one. And I heard I think if Steven Spielberg if you're listening, Mr. Lucas, get back to basics, brothers. That's what I say. I know. Harrison Ford can do his own stunts, though. Forget all the CGI monkeys and killer ants and all that silliness. Just get back to basics. Yeah, I agree. Go practical. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need, right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary. And you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the homepage and enter code stuff. And that's that for Chuck. That's it, right? Yes. If you want to learn more about crystal skulls and see some cool images of crystal skulls, type crystal skull into the handy search bar. HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said that, Chuck has got a letter in his hand. And that means it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. A few weeks ago, you asked for a call if you have any ways you're trying to better humanity. And we got quite a few of these, and so we're going to read some of them over the next few episodes. Okay. This one I'm partial to because I just think it's neat. This is from Rachel. She's written in before. I have a project which I'm attempting to improve humanity. Almost every day for the past three years, I've written a pep talk at my website. Either one. Website. Daily pep talk from a best friendcom. My goal is to improve the reader's self esteem by telling them what their best friend might say in a moment of crisis. Type your issue into the Handy Dandy search bar. Find yourself a pep talk. There's more than 800 of these, and I'm pretty sure I've covered whatever has you blue or befuddled. So if I haven't covered a particular topic, readers can write to me and request a pep talk. I also do shout outs for anything a reader wants to celebrate. And I have a podcast called Your Effing. Awesome. That's how I'm trying to improve humanity. If you were to mention this, I would be thrilled. I'm forever looking to share the pep, and traffic like self esteem can always use a boost. And then she gives an example of a pep talk, and it's kind of cool. I showed this demo. She liked it as well. It's very cool. It's almost like a daily horoscope or fortune cookie, but much better because it's fortune cookie. Well, you know how a fortune cookie is much less vague? Yeah. I mean, it gives you a pep talk so you can choose your own adventure. Fortune cookie. Yeah. So that's Rachel. The website is daily pep talk from a bestfriendcom and it's positive. It's neat. I'm glad she's doing it. That's great. 800 of these bad boys. That's a lot of work. I know. I wouldn't think it would be a need for more than, like, six different kinds of pep talks. Yeah. I wonder if it's one of those things where she thought that, too, and then started to really think about it and kept going and going, and she went mad along the way and ended up killing house cats and coming back from the brink and then had right. Pep talks about all those things. Exactly. Yeah. And now she's done. Okay. If you have something that you need a pep talk on, ask Chuck and me, and if we can't do it, maybe we'll just send you to what is it? Daily pep talk from a best friendcom. Yes. Send us an email. You can address it to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstaffworks.com. This episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by Lindacom. Linda.com offers thousands of engaging, easy to follow video tutorials taught by industry experts to help you learn software, creative, and business skills. Membership starts at $25 a month and provides unlimited 24/7 access. Try Linda.com free for seven days by visiting linda. Comsysk. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs all in the same week. 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c316e0ba-5460-11e8-b38c-db4862a4fcbc	SYSK Selects: Was Atlantis A Real Place?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-was-atlantis-a-real-place	While the search for Atlantis has been pushed to the fringes since the 19th century, archaeologists have quietly pursued cities that may have inspired Plato to fabricate the mythical city. It looks like a team in Greece has found it.	While the search for Atlantis has been pushed to the fringes since the 19th century, archaeologists have quietly pursued cities that may have inspired Plato to fabricate the mythical city. It looks like a team in Greece has found it.	Sat, 16 Mar 2019 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=16, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=75, tm_isdst=0)	31785887	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hello there. It's me, Josh. And for this week's SYSK Selects, I've chosen our episode, was There a real Atlantis? And it turns out there very well may have been. At the very least, there's a very exciting lost city that our archaeologists found that, well, it may have been the model for the Atlantis legend. I don't want to ruin anything. I don't want to spoil anything. So just kick back and enjoy this adventure episode. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark back in the saddle again with Charles W, chuck Bryant We share a horse. We do. I have a horse side car, actually. It's a small mule that's attached to your horse and I have to lean into the corners. It's more of a hay cart than a side car. Okay, back in the saddle, meaning we are back from Texas and back in the recording booth for the first time in two weeks. Yeah, it feels nice, dude, to be back in this smelly little dimly lit room. Yeah, it's strangely at least it's not, like, blood colored. Yeah, man, that would be weird. So, Chuck yes. I guess we should get started, huh? You don't have an intro? Well, I was going to use the intro. It's the intro. Go ahead, then. Have you ever heard of a place called Atlantis? I have. You read like the Triangle. The vacation getaway? No. Britney Spears stayed for free for, like, a month when they opened to try to generate a buzz. Wow. I'm sure they were packing them in after that. I think they have been. I don't know. I can't discuss the financial estate of Atlantis, the resort in the Bahamas, but what I can discuss is Atlantis, the possibly fictitious place. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and go on record as fictitious. Are you? Well, after reading this and by the way, this was awesome, I had no idea about the secret surprise that's coming. Which one? Well, the other place. The real place. Got you. Okay. Which I meant to ask you before, how we pronounce that, but we'll just get to that and I'll let you say it first. Okay. But yeah, I'm going to say it's fictitious and based on that. Okay. I think I kind of go with that, too. Mainly because one of the things about Plato is he was the only person to ever mention Atlantis. Plenty of people have mentioned it after him. But it was based on what he said. Right. Which kind of makes you think, like, oh, okay, this is an allegory, probably. It's about Wickedness. Yeah. What was his book in Tamaeus? Yeah, that was the book, right, where he first mentioned it. Yeah. And it was written in 360 BC. And Tommy is one of his dialogues, I believe. And Plato has a thing where he likes to take real places, real people, real events, and then just kind of use some literary license. Sure. He's a philosopher. Okay. Yeah. He was not a documentarian of real things. Right. But along the way somewhere, that idea got lost. Right? Right. So, for example, Sodom and Gomorrah, I would wager that a lot of people think that Sodom and Gomorrah, I love those guys. Something really happened and it was taken eventually. It was used as allegory that. These people were punished by God. Right. But really, something really bad happened to him and somebody decided, hey, this is a great chance to use this as a life lesson for everyone. So there's a really strong possibility that Plato did the same thing because as he describes Atlantis, they had gotten kind of hubristic, I guess. It does mimic other things in the Bible, that's for sure. It does. And the great god Poseidon, who is the god of the sea and of earthquakes, decided that he was kind of tired of the people of Atlantis, which was the seat of a cult that worshipped him. Right. So he using the techniques at hand, he created an earthquake that generated a tsunami that sunk Atlantis beneath the waves. Lost forever. Yeah. I think the quote from the book was it sank into the sea in a single day and night of misfortune. Yeah, that's putting it lightly. And he placed it, too, didn't he? Actually? Where? Off Spain. The Pillars of Hercules, which is now called the Strait of Gibraltar. And there's people looking in Spain now, right? Yeah. Legitimate bonafide archaeologists. They're fun. Yeah. So Plato, I guess part of the problem is he's saying, like, yes, this was at the Strait of Gibraltar. Right. In his parlance at the time. He's saying? Is that the Strait of Gibraltar? The problem is Atlantis was this magnificent ring city and it had, like, fantastic technology and architecture, and it was just an amazingly advanced place. But he also says that this has happened 9000 years ago. Right? Right. 9000 years before him. So they were aliens. Well, that is thanks to a guy named Ignatius Donnelly. Yeah. So this guy so Plato writes about Atlantis, goes about his business. Right. And apparently nobody back then took it seriously. That's like, modern man were the first people to say, maybe there was an Atlantis. Yeah. Back in the day, everyone's like, no, it's just Plato going off again. Right. It was this one guy, ignatius Donnelly. Oh, he's the one. He can lay it all at his feet because in 1882, he published a book called Atlantis the Anti deluvian World. And in it he's saying, okay, the Azores. Man, I wish I put that one up. I think that's right. The islands in the middle of the Atlantic, that's actually the highest peaks of the highest mountain tops of Atlantis. And wait, there's more. The incredibly advanced civilizations in Egypt and high up in the Andes of Peru, pre Inca, those were colonies set forth by Atlantis that survived because they weren't there for the sinking of Atlantis. So basically we have civilization to think we have Atlantis to thank for civilization. The problem is all this is totally unfounded, but it just kicked off the occultization of Atlantis. Yeah. It's been placed everywhere from South China Sea, the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Canary Islands, Antarctica, supposedly Switzerland. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't chase that one down, but I saw somewhere that somebody said Switzerland. Let's go ahead and say everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. Atlantis is everywhere. There's Edgar Casey, who is known as the sleeping prophet of Virginia Beach, who's a psychic. He said that Atlanta stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Spain and that the Bermuda Triangle. If there is mystery in the Bermuda Triangle, it's due to Atlantis energy crystals. I will say though, he said it would rise off Bimini. And then when they discovered the Bimini Road, everyone was like, See there? Yeah. And then it's too bad Cherry is not here because she's like, I dove the Bimini Road. Yeah. Guest producer Mattie is in the house. Hey, Matt. We didn't mention that. So once Donnelly comes along and kind of takes up the mantle of searching for Atlantis and making it as far out as possible, it just becomes more and more the domain of fringe dwellers. Right? Sure. But that is not to say that there aren't legitimate archaeologists searching for something like Atlantis. That doesn't mean that there isn't something that inspired Plato. Right. And we probably know what that is, actually. That's where my money is. Yes. And now you're going to make me say it, even though I asked you to say it. Heliki haleki. Yeah. Okay. Haleki spelled he like yes. I saw some weird pronunciation things that I didn't understand when I looked it up, so I just figured I'd hear it from you. That was Greek to you. It was indeed. So, yeah, the cats out of the bag. As far as I'm concerned. It is Haliki. Well done in the podcast. It was a super interesting story, though. This was well documented by lots of people. Not like a single source like Plato. Single made up source. Exactly. And it was a lost Greek city. It suffered a fate much like Atlantis supposedly did. Yeah. So Haleeki was this very powerful city in ancient Greece on the Gulf. Corinth. Very nice in that area. Yeah, I imagine. Have you been? No, I want to go. I just do. It was powerful enough to have its own colonies. So imagine if Atlanta had colonies in like, Germany. This is very much the case for Haleyki, and it was the seat of power for a twelve city league called the Akian League, which is kind of like the Confederacy in the south. Yeah. Would that be like having a bar in a different city? That's like your home bar. It's usually football based. There's like, a New York Jets bar in Atlanta. There's a Pittsburgh steelers bar in Atlanta, maybe. Is that the same thing? I thought it was more like the capital of, like, a number of states. Okay, I don't think it's the same thing, but I like that analogy. I'm just being coy. So the AC now I just realized that I missed something. That's a joke. Yeah. So the Haliki is the city or the center of the Akian League. It controlled like the shipping down there. By the time Plato came about, it was hundreds of years old already. Yeah. Very active port. They have their own coinage. Yeah, and it looked very cool too. I looked up the coins, like dolphins and Poseidon or not pitchforks, what do they call the trident? Tridents, yeah. And it had Poseidon on the coin because this was like the seat of a cult of Poseidon. Just like Atlantis. Exactly. And it had a very prominent, well known statue of Poseidon. Just like Atlantis, right? That's right. So the similarities are starting to mount up. They are. And they really mount in a big way in December of 373 BC. When the townspeople started noticing, wait a minute, all these small animals are scurrying for the hills? And that's never a good sign, because we did talk about in another podcast how animals can sense underground trimmers. I had to have been in how earthquakes work. Yeah, I think that's what it was. And sure enough, earthquake came in the middle of the night on the fifth day, and that was followed by an enormous wave. And just like that, overnight, just like Atlantis, it was submerged to the bottom of the sea. Well, not the bottom, but no, and not necessarily the sea either, as we'll see. This is getting more mysterious. So this really happened. It was a pretty well known event. One of the other, I guess we should say, there were no survivors. Like people from the surrounding cities got together like a search party, a rescue party that set out at dawn just a few hours after this happened. In a boat, I guess. Well, I think they walked as far as they could and we're like, oh, yeah, there's now like a sea where there used to be this city gone. There was no one there. Apparently the only thing visible were the tops of the trees in Poseidon sacred grove. That's creepy. I would guess all of trees. Yeah. And there were ten ships, and this will come up later, too, from Sparta that were docked there in the port. And they were gone as well. Just gone. And that will play an important part here coming up soon. Yeah. So imagine like, there's a city, it's a very powerful, rich city, and you live out in the boondocks and you just know something happened, there was an earthquake. So you go to check on the city and then the city's gone, and it's just silence, and there's ten ships that aren't there anymore. Everything is just gone creepy. What was even creepier, though, is you could look down into the city underwater and see it all there still. Yes. Including the statue of Poseidon, which apparently still stood erect and in place. Right. And local fishermen and ferryman reported having their nets get caught in Poseidon statue all the time, which is kind of ironic. So you could see Haleki for hundreds of years. Which is one of the reasons why it's so well documented. Yeah. Because it was kind of like have you heard of thana tourism? Dark tourism or death tourism? Yeah. So it was kind of like an early version of a dark tourism site. Like this mass cemetery. Yeah, exactly. And you could go check it out. And travelers and writers and scholars did, and they documented what they saw pretty specifically, too. Like in Stadia, they said, well, this is where the city is now. This is where it was in relation to this river or that river. Right. So the sources are pretty abundant and they're pretty specific. Speaking of abundant and rivers and sources. Okay, look at you. That area was unique in that it had these three rivers that met there bringing fresh water in. So you got some good fresh water. You got some good sea water with tons of good seafood. You got very rich land for crops. We got irrigation because we got the fresh water. The weather's gorgeous. So it's right here on the lovely seaside. And that's what made it an ideal spot for people to say, hey, maybe we should settle down here. Yeah, let's hang out here for a while and get fat on shrimp. Unfortunately, it's also a bad spot because there are two fault lines that run parallel to the area and they have been known to cause some major disruption over the years. Like the earthquake that destroyed Haleki. Exactly. And generated the tsunami. So it's kind of like this whole place is, like, made to produce a lost city. Right. Yeah. Because there's other places around the world where there's violent tectonic activity and it's coastal. So that means that it's in danger of a tsunami. Well, California not a tsunami. I don't think japan, the Malaysian tsunami in 2004. Yeah, there's a lot of places. But to produce that will ruin a coastal city. Right. Yes. But for it to become lost, it has to be covered up somehow. And Haleki is in a really unique situation for this because of those three rivers that form the Haleki Delta where Haleki was situated. Right. So you've got the earthquake, you've got the tsunami. So you have a ruined city now submerged, and then these three rivers bring a lot of silt to the area. And so eventually Haliki was covered up over the centuries. Yeah. You put it in the article about how if you bought a house or not bought a house, let's say built a house along the shore in 1890, it would be 1000ft inland, which I imagine is quite a rub for people that build that lovely house right on the water. Yeah. Because within a century or so, it's going to be a couple of streets back and there's like ten jerks in front of you that have built houses. Exactly. And it's kind of like what's that game where you like leapfrog? Oh, yeah, I thought you can say Monopoly, where you build bigger houses than the other guy. Yeah, that would have worked too. Sure. So you've got the tsunamis, you've got the river, you've got the silt. You also have the delta itself, because of this violent activity, is moving up. They're finding over time it's rising. So you have a rising delta, which is low, like right at sea level, but it's getting bigger and silt is piling it up and making dry ground even further, jut out into the coast. Well, what it made was a nice little surprise for Archeologists. Right. And I imagine archaeologists just went berserk with this place. Yeah, they had no idea. They just thought Haleki itself was there. They knew it was there and they suspected it would be kind of like a pompeii, but even more they considered it even more vital to Archeology or the archaeological record than pompey, even. Well, what they found, though, as you know, Josh, but we're going to spring it on you now, is six other distinct occupied horizons besides six other ones, or seven total. Six total, six total, five others besides Haleki underneath, one on top of the other, that had been settled and civilized and wiped out and covered up and just kind of captured in time. That is crazy. Yeah. What were they? So there was one from the Byzantine period, which was pretty long. I think it ran from like 200 Ad to the 15th century. And then beneath that there is a Roman ruin, which is from the second to the fourth Ad. And that one even features a Roman road, which is the road that travelers and writers use to come look at Haleki, the ruins. And that one also chuck, this is blows my mind. It's so captured in time that there's a human skeleton atop, like, a cattle skull that it was knocked on top of this beast and killed by rock and rubble and just kept there. So their skeletons are intertwined now. Isn't that nuts? So the Roman city is on top of Haleki. Then beneath Haleki, they found even more stuff. They found a settlement from the Bronze Age, 2600 to 2300 BC. And before that, they kept digging and found prehistoric Neolithic period civilization possibly as old as 12,000 years. Yeah. I wonder if there's something beneath that. Even. I don't know. This makes me think they should start digging in Los Angeles or other, like, seaside retreats to see what you could find. Well, there's this whole idea, especially among Atlantis hunters, that it's extremely intuitive because of rising sea levels that anything that was established around the last ice age, or even at about the end of it, the sea levels have risen, like more than 100ft since then. So any coastal cities now underwater? Right. That's like a big thing that they hunt for now that archeologists are kind of starting to try to get into, is looking for human habitation underwater. Wow. Like there's this whole area off of Wales, I think. Northern Wales. Northern Ireland, maybe. Or Scotland. Anyway, it's called Doggerland, and it's like just the submerged area that used to be above ground, and they're finding, like, Neolithic settlements there. Isn't that cool? Well, and the Earth has changed so much over the course of its existence that what didn't used to be here and what was there was something else. So yeah, I think there's no telling what's down there. But that idea and the fact that you can find Neolithic settlements underwater supports, ironically, the notion that there could be something like Atlantis that's lost somewhere, like Hilliki. Right. These guys, they found this area, and once they found Halliki, it was like, jackpot, jackpot, jackpot. But finding Haleki itself proved a little more difficult than they thought, especially considering all the documentation they had. Yeah. They supposedly knew where it was, quote unquote. Like, it's not like they were searching for a needle in a haystack. They were searching for a pool cue in a haystack. Sure. So in the late eighty s, a couple of Cornell professors started looking for it for real ZS. And they had a little bit of misinterpretation for the translation for body of water. And lucky enough that a Greek woman with them. Well, she's one of the corneli professors. Oh, she was? Yeah. Well, then lucky that she was Greek. Yeah. Because she translated. She was like, wait a minute. She's like, it may not be in the Gulf after all, it may be inland. And they were like, what? Yeah, everybody had been thinking that the Gulf had swallowed them up, swallowed up the city. Which would make sense. Right. It turns out it was an inland lagoon that did so I think it was very much akin to the Noah's Ark episode we just said. Yeah, what is it? The Dead Sea? I think where they think that the Dead Sea used to be freshwater, now it's saltwater, because that's evidence of the flood happening. And probably what they think is the Mediterranean overwhelmed the street. I can't remember what street it was. You're searching the reaches. Yeah. Anyway, I think it was much the same way. Like, the city used to be around a lagoon, and then the lagoon got a lot bigger, thus swallowing the city. Right. So they looked under land and all of a sudden they had to ditch their scuba gear for shovels and they found the first Roman city. The first ruins were like, wait a minute, 12ft. Just 12ft below the land, which doesn't seem like that far at all. No, it's not, because the Roman rooms are like four or 5ft. Yes. I would think that someone would have accidentally found it before that even. Well, that kicked it off. There was a German archeologist who was traveling in the area and found a Haleki coin with Poseidon on it and was like, holy cow, this is significant. Right, so I think that's kind of how it started. Got you. Yeah. So they found a lot of stuff since then. Buildings, industrial buildings, kilns looms, intersecting streets. Yeah. With buildings along these streets. Yes. Like a real city. Yeah. What else? The coins, of course. Jugs. Jugs with the original contents. And those are from the Bronze Age. They found a storehouse of jugs of different sizes and types from the Bronze Age. So we're talking like 5000 years old. Crazy. They don't have any idea about the civilizations, but this was contemporary to ancient Troy, which itself was considered a legendary city until Iring Schlieman found it. Right. So just finding this stuff is amazingly awesome. And there's more. There is supposedly, yes. So they think that they found the outskirts of Haleki and that there's a lot more left and that it's intact. Oh, they're not actually at Haleki yet. No, they're in Haleki, but they're not in the city center. They don't. Okay, I got you. So they're just out in the outskirts? That's what they think. Wow. Yeah. And when they were looking for Haleki out in the Gulf, they found something cool too, didn't they? I don't think I know this. You do know it. They found a sea wall. Sea wall of the city. Oh, really? And they also found what they think are the ten Spartan ship. Oh yeah, that's right. I thought you were going to say the statue Poseid, and that would be like well, they'll find it eventually. The mother load if they found that thing still standing upright under the earth. So they keep following they started by following the Roman road. Right. So basically they're unearthing. Like imagine this dude. They're unearthing like three lost cities at once. That's crazy. Isn't that insane? Do you know what like an archeological treasure trove that is? So they're unearthing them and as long as they don't intersect right, as long as the Roman town isn't built directly over the statue of Poseidon. Right, to where getting to Poseidon would undermine the Roman town. Yes. Then they should be able to get it all. And they're going to be doing it. They'll excavate this for decades. So this has been ongoing since the late eighty s? Well, no, they really started uncovering stuff in like 2000. Wow. But they started in 1988, so awesome. Yeah, very cool. So that's Haleki, so of course, Chuck, this doesn't mean that anybody has stopped searching for Atlantis. Like big Archeologists in Spain. Yeah, he's looking inland now, which comes from this theory. So maybe he's onto something that's possible. He's going to start digging up in Barcelona and people are going to say, what are you doing? Yes. Drink some wine. So you were saying that you think that Plato is inspired by Haliki? Sure. I think there's substantial evidence in what we said. But also keep in mind, Haleki happened in 373. Plato wrote his book in 360, 13 years later, and he lived in the area. This is a pretty well known catastrophe. I think you're probably right. But we would not have had the awesome TV show man from Atlantis had it not been for Plato. No, I guess that's true. Did you watch that? No, that was a little before your time. And there's an awesome HP. Lovecraft short story about a German UBoat that ends up in Atlanta. It's awesome. I tried to find YouTube stuff of man from Atlantis. There's plenty out there. You had the web hands. When I was a kid, I thought oh, really? Yeah, you had web hands and feet. It's not Prince Nymore, is it? The submariner Prince Nymore? Nemo no. Prince Nymore? No. He's a Marvel Comic guy. No, it was a schlocky. It ran for like one year. Was he like detective? Yeah, he was super car. He had superhuman strength and could breathe underwater, had gills and he had webbed feet in hands. And I think some government agencies snapped him up to do investigative undersea work for them. Oh, I know you're talking about welcome back, Cotter. This is a dude from Dallas, patrick what's his face. Patrick Ewing. Patrick Duffy. Patrick Ewing is the basketball player, right? Patrick Duffy. Yeah, that's it. It was good stuff. I've never heard of that show. Yeah, it was only around for one year, I think. Boy, I was into it when I was like, seven. Good stuff. You had web hands? Yeah, it got me into Plato. You hadn't been eating it for years now. Funny guy. All right, so that's it. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Thank you for doing this one with me. It was awesome. Thank you for opening my eyes to coolness. Anytime. If you want to know more about Haleki, you should search for was there a real Atlantis? By typing that into the search bar@housetofworks.com. And I said that, which means it's time for the listener mail. That's right. Josh, remember when we did a little TV pilot recently? We tried to get these bookings onto the show. They arrived a little late. We weren't able to. But I want to tell everyone about this project, okay? Because that sounds very cryptic. This is from Mike. Hey, guys. I've been a big fan for a couple of years and I especially like that some of your causes you have taken on and considered and done podcast about them. Kiva and the Cooperative for Education in particular. So our Guatemala podcast gave him an idea for a Facebook fundraising idea to raise awareness for Coop our buddies, cooperative for education, Coop Cincinnati, who do the awesome textbook programs and computer center labs in Guatemala. And he proposed to them and they said, hey, Kayla, let's do this. So his idea was to create, quote unquote, celebrity bookends with just this basic idea. Take an ordinary set of bookends, although they are pretty fancy looking, I got to admit, and make them super famous pop culture icons through social media, and then sell them for a million bucks and give it all to coed. So that's the plan. That's a good plan. I don't know if we added anything to that. We added at least seventy cents. Okay, good. He says, I know it sounds crazy, but crazy is usually what it takes to get people to notice things. The rational thinking behind this is that to get famous, all you need to have are a ton of people believing that you're famous. Yeah, I mean, what else is celebrity? Yeah, exactly. So they're trying to drum up celebrity for these bookends to raise awareness. They have sent them around the world to meet people and to be on TV shows and in movies. They're documenting this on Facebook, the travels of these bookends and twitter and blogs for people to follow. And our big audacious goal is to get as many Facebook fans as Kim Kardashian. She has 9 million fans. Can you please that sandler? Yes. Wow. So what we're hoping for your listeners is that they will like the idea enough to want to help. All you have to do it can be as simple as going to the Facebook page, follow you on Twitter, the celebrity bookings that is tweet about us, blog about us, tell your friends to like us, and hook us up with any celebrity friends that you might have. They have been in the hands of Danny DeVito, matt Berninger of the national. Right. I didn't know how to pronounce that, but I do love the national, and I believe I saw Jeff Bridges holding these things. Did you really? Yeah. Wow. And then before us. Yeah. Sweet. So we actually got a little Davido Bridges stank on her hand, unless they clean these things. And they sent it to us originally to get it in our cubicles on the TV pilot. But they arrived a little late. We weren't able to. So we just did some pictures and maybe on down the road, if we do any more TV stuff, we can get them on television and do our part to help raise awareness. Nice, man. So Facebook.com, celebrity bookends or Twitter at celebrity bookings, or send an email to celebrity bookings at gmail and that raises awareness to eventually sell these things to Danny DeVito to raise money for co ed for a million bucks. Well, I certainly don't have a million bucks. Well, we also have our own Twitter handle. And you can get in touch with us too while you're talking to celebrity bookends. You can tweet to us whatever you want. There's no rules, except that it has to be 140 characters or less. Just that rule that's s y skpodcast. We're also on Facebook at facebook. Comstuffyshenknow and you can send us an email as well@stuffpodcast.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-psych-final.mp3	How Reverse Psychology Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-reverse-psychology-works	You have very likely used reverse psychology before, trying to persuade someone to do something you want by suggesting they do the opposite. What's behind the bizarre reaction this elicits?	You have very likely used reverse psychology before, trying to persuade someone to do something you want by suggesting they do the opposite. What's behind the bizarre reaction this elicits?	Thu, 10 Dec 2015 15:33:46 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=10, tm_hour=15, tm_min=33, tm_sec=46, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=344, tm_isdst=0)	31467390	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. This is stuff you should know. A little grumpy about this topic. I'm just going to go ahead and throw that out there because it's pretty thin. Well, not only is it thin, but the older I've gotten, man, this just all we're talking about, reverse psychology. And I see it's used with, like, kids sometimes and stuff, but then when it gets to, like, relationships and professional relationships and business, it's a little disgusting. It all feels like manipulative games. And the older I've gotten, the more I just have no time for that garbage. And I'm just being honest, even if things don't turn out well. Yeah, at least you were honest and you weren't being some manipulative puppet master, right? It's just gross, dude. I ran across advice on how to use reverse psychology to get your boyfriend back. There's a site called Exboyfriendrecovery.com, and it gives tips on it and healthy. It really insists on asking the question, do you want the person right, who you can use reverse psychology to get back? And if you're using that kind of stuff, it's like, this is the tactic you're taking to get your boyfriend back, then is this the kind of relationship you really want in life? Agreed. So I'm right there with you. I think people are so afraid to walk away from a relationship, even if it's toxic. We don't touch on that kind of stuff much. We should do more stuff on relationships like, that okay. Because it is tough, and I get it. But I don't know, man. You get a little age under your belt, and it's very easy to just say, no, get out of that. Go treat yourself with kindness and respect. Even if you take that out of the equation, you shouldn't manipulate other people into being in a relationship with you. No, not at all. That's a pretty good rule of thumb that applies to just about everybody. It will lead to badness. You also should not be such a desperate human being that you buy something you can't afford to impress the salesman who's selling it for you. Another good rule of thumb that might work on me, actually. Maybe that's why it bugged me, too. Oh, yeah. I can't afford that. I'll take two. I'll show you. All right. That was all preamble. Yeah. But we sadly covered a lot of this topic and just that preamble. So we're talking reverse psychology, and it turns out psychology itself doesn't even really recognize reverse psychology. Yeah. Although it is definitely a thing, like, you can point to certain instances of reverse psychology, and the basis of it is that you are telling somebody to do the opposite of what you want them to do and what you're doing when you get them to react and do the opposite of what you're saying, which is what you really want them to do. What they're displaying is recognized by psychology. It's something called reactants. And with Reactants, people oppose what they're being told out of a sense of independence or protecting their sense of autonomy. Sure. But for whatever reason, even if it's not in their own best interests, they'll do something that's the opposite of what they're being told. That's reactance. Reverse psychology is priming that pump in order to manipulate somebody into doing what you want. Yeah. And a lot of the examples given this article is very ham fisted, but I'm going to use them anyway. Okay? Like, this first one is just a pure definition of what it could be is a wife wants her bedroom painted, so she asked her husband, can you please paint the bedroom? And he's like, no, I want to paint the bedroom, until she finally goes, you know what? You're not such a great painter anyway. I'm going to paint the bedroom because I'll do a better job. And then in this article, springs off the couch. I'm going to the Sherwin Williams right now. Miller like Kansas go everywhere. He pauses the football game. So that's just a very bare bones example of how someone might try and manipulate their husband or wife into doing a chore instead of having just a grown up relationship where you tell your husband, maybe we should talk about painting the bedroom, and he goes, I'll entertain that because you're a valid human. Right. And you have opinions and needs and wants. Right. And if you don't do this, you're in big, big trouble. Yeah. It's not just adults, though, is it, Josh? What that reverse psychology is used on? No, typically it's used on children. Something as simple as saying, like, I'll bet you can't finish washing the dishes before your TV show comes on. That's a good positive use. Sure, yes. And psychologists who do recognize and talk about this kind of stuff because it is worth talking about, and there is a certain amount of service among psychologists to, I guess, talk to parents about the use of reverse psychology because it isn't necessarily something you want to use a lot. You want to use it sparingly. And there are certain qualifiers that you need to use. Like, for example, you shouldn't use negative reinforcement or negative reverse psychology. Right. And this is actually a pretty good example, I think. Like, you want your kid to hang their bike up in the bike rack above the cars in the garage. So negative reverse psychology would be, if you really want them to do that, for you to say, you know what, let me do it because you're so dumb, you'll drop the bike on the car. Right? What kind of monster would do that? Apparently they're out there. But that is a great example of negative reverse psychology. You really want your son to hang that bike up, but you end up insulting him in the process. Of trying to do, get him to do something right. And then the kid's self esteem is in the toilet, and it swirls around counterclockwise if it's a kid from the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, which is not true, by the way. And I also don't think I didn't even find this in there. This is just me. I don't think you should put your children against one another either. Like, you know, I bet you can't finish your green beans like your big brother can, right? I grew up in a family with a big brother that was way better than me, way smarter and better looking and thinner. The green beans really took effect on that one. No, but I have to say, my parents never compared us or never expected me to be him, which was great. Yeah, they probably did it accidentally, but they did it behind your back. Maybe so. But at any rate, they go to bed and be like, I really like that Scott. I'll tell you what he did today. Oh, I'm a big Scott fan myself. That was all the buzz behind the scenes Scott. So some more recommendations if you're a parent using reverse psychology is that, again, you don't want to use it too often because even a dumb kid can see through what you're doing eventually. Yeah. And they're going to think you're a manipulator. Yes. You don't want your child to think of you as manipulative. Even if you are, you want, at the very least, manipulate them into not thinking that. So you want to be smart about using reverse psychology. And then there's a whole school of thought among some parental advice columnist that says you shouldn't use reverse psychology at all. It's a really bad idea across the board. It's a form of dishonesty, I think. Yeah. And once your kids do pick up on this, they will be like, well, my parent doesn't really mean anything. They say you're teaching your kid not to listen to you. And there's a good example of that in this article where if you really wish that your son would cut his long hippy hair, a type of reverse psychology would be to come up to him and stroke it and be like, I hope you never cut this hair. It looks so good, it's creepy. And then the kid sure, and then maybe because he's creeped out, the kid goes to the barber the next day, has his hair cut and joins the army. So you got what you wanted, your kids out of the house, you joined the army, but you also have taught him to not listen to you, especially if you praise how good his hair looks after he cut it. So not only do you not mean what you say, you're also kind of wishy washy because you like the long hair, but now you like the short hair, and you're praising the kid for having done the opposite of what you told them to. That's right. So this is all this combined, basically. It sounds like lazy parenting. Yeah, I agree. Or cold, calculated, terrible parenting. Yeah. Psychopathy. Yeah, that let's take a break here and we'll come back and finish up no, I'm just kidding. We'll come back and talk a little bit more about who might be affected by reverse psychology. All right. Experts say if you're a narcissist man, I really hate that I saw that in this article. Yeah, experts say but they do say, Josh, if you're a narcissist or if you're a control freak right. Check. Or if you're type A, that you might be more susceptible to being manipulated by a reverse psychologist. Why is that? Well, because you want that control. Yeah. And that's ultimately what it comes down to. So none of this will possibly work if the person doesn't feel that they're autonomy and sense of freedom and sense of self destiny is not at stake here. Yeah, true. That's. What you're doing is you're assaulting that person's ability to choose, and so they're going to choose the opposite to reassert themselves. And apparently people who are type A are more likely to sense that their autonomy is being tread upon a more passive person. That type B, which we should do an episode on. That where that came from. Type A. Type B. And definitely we should do one on personality inventories. Totally. But with type B people, you really shouldn't use reverse psychology on them because they'll end up doing what you ask. Yeah, sure. So you're asking them to do the opposite of what you want and then they'll just go do that. Yeah, just ask them what you want them to do and they might go, yeah, great, I'll do that. Right. The problem is people who use for psychology are the same people who worry that the person they're talking to is not going to do what they want. You know what I mean? I guess so. It's not true. There's a doctor, a psychologist named Jeanette Raymond in Los Angeles, of course, who says that it's not so much what does that mean? I don't know. Okay. It's not so much the personality type, though, but the dynamics of the relationship, which makes a lot of sense. It does. I also read an article in Psychology Today on this about that context has a lot to do with it, too, whether it works or not. And this was a 2011 post, so it's kind of charming that the guy uses Charlie Sheen and rehab as an example. Oh, yeah. He's saying that. Saying something like, if one of Charlie Sheen's friends had said to him, like, don't go to rehab, you totally don't need rehab. Don't go. Charlie Sheen very likely would have been, like, awesome. Yeah, you're right. I totally agree with you. Because, number one, his desire to not be in rehab and to do tons of cocaine and his desire to be proven, to prove that he doesn't need help would definitely trump any petty, fleeting desire to prove that person wrong and regain a sense of autonomy. What a weird time that was. It really was. He was the most famous person in the world for about a month. Yeah. Didn't you go see his tour? No. Okay. I read about it. I didn't see it. Mike Tyson. Yes. Okay. I saw Tyson. Two very different things. I'm not equating those two. Someone I knew went to that stupid Charlie Sheen tour, and apparently the people who went were really unhappy because he tried to make it to some normal thing. No. Tell us how your drug was like a legitimate stage show. Yeah. Which it was not. Right? Yeah. And he wouldn't talk about any of his drug stories or sex stories or anything like that. He was just basically just talking. And he got booed a lot. Yeah. And I think even now, Charlie Sheen is like, that was weird. Well, why did they do all that stuff? He just came, too. Yeah. Just now. I think Eva admits what a dumb period of my life. Yeah. I could talk about that guy all day. I don't think we should do a Charlie Machine episode. Okay. I like him. Platoon, I think is one of the best movies ever made. And he did really well in it. Yeah. Good movie. Men at Work. I never saw it. You have to see men at work. Do I? Yeah. Cast a blanket first, though. Sure. Okay. Just to appease the people in podcast land, if you ask me personally, you could watch them at the same time. They give a really bad example to me in here about Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. This almost made me just throw my laptop away while I was reading this. Yeah. It said basically an example is if Julian Assange had been not been told to stop, basically the US government had said, Fine, just go do it, he would have lost interest and never would have published all those diplomatic cables in this article. Terrible example. Yeah. I actually just scratched it out a night with a pen. Looked like a knife. You just went back and forth, like, carving it up. Yeah. Man, I really can't believe it made it in there. So, children, though, one of the big reasons kids it works on kids is because if you're a parent and I'll find this out at some point not yet, obviously. Sure. But kids, it seems like they're innately interested in doing the opposite of whatever you say. Yeah. And plus, their little brains are developing what you call naive in a lot of ways. So it does tend to work on children. Again, like we said, you want to use this sparingly, if at all. But there have been studies. There have been real studies on this kind of stuff. We finally get to the studies. Yes. So the study of reverse psychology is phenomenon of reactants being primed. Right. Really kind of starts in the 70s, but there's a very famous study from 1982 that was in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. I think Bulletin may be in there. Sure. Anyway, pickyune right. This 1082 study found that children who were given free rein to play with a bunch of toys, except one, that toy, became super popular. It's just obvious to me. Sure. But they're studying things. They had to put it down on paper. Eventually they had another study or a very similar one, had kids rate up a handful of toys that were in this room. And then the researchers went back and picked the one that fell right in the middle. I think it was a toy motorcycle or something, and with a new group said, you can play with all these toys except for the motorcycle. Yeah. And then later on, they formed yet another new group with new people running the show. And some of the same kids that had been told no to the motorcycle were suddenly very interested in the motorcycle. So this has been documented, this has been looked at over and over again, but they don't exactly know what the mechanisms are behind it. And we will dive into that right after this. So before we move on, I want to point out to adults out there, it's very normal and even kind of cute when there's two kids playing with two different things and one kid says at some point, well, no, I want that one, because they're playing with that toy. Right. So I want that toy. It looks like way more fun. It's not cute when you're an adult. No. And I see it happen where I want what that person has. Sure. Why don't I have Joneses? Why don't I have that? And people there are plenty of advertisers out there that use that, that manipulate that. Some of them go to hysterical links. Like, there's a Patagonia ad that had a picture of a Patagonia jacket, and it just said, do not buy this jacket. I think it was a little tongue in cheek. Well, you know what I actually did. I hope it was tongue in cheek. I posted this article well, it was yesterday, but it's been a couple of weeks ago on Facebook, on our Facebook page. This one okay before you sent it as a what a coincidence. And I said, I would advise you to not read this article. And it did pretty well. It got a lot of shares, and a lot of people seem to read it. And most people were like, oh, very funny. But I don't know. Did it work? Probably. I'm almost sorry they read the article now, but I think it probably got a lot of reads because it is something that's so ingrained in popular culture, reverse psychology. It's used all over the place, either expressly like there's a very famous Simpsons episode where Homer is reading a parenting book, and his brain says, don't you get it? You got to use reverse psychology. Homers like, that sounds really hard. I'm not doing that. And his brain goes, well, fine, don't use reverse psychology. He goes. Okay, I will. And I saw another example, tom and Jerry, when Jerry has a bomb and they're passing it back and forth, and then all of a sudden, Jerry changes and suddenly grabs the bomb back like he wants it, and that makes Tom want the bomb. And Tom, of course, ends up holding the bomb while it explodes. Reverse psychology. And actually the same lady that made the terrible example of Julian Assange does point out that it almost enters the realm of folklore. Sure, reverse psychology does, but there is something going on there. And again, it is based on reactants, which is somebody doing the opposite of what's presented to them, breaking a rule, something like that. But we don't really know what's behind it. Right? Well, another quick example is and this wasn't even us trying to use reverse psychology, but during some of our necrotizing fasciitis or maggot therapy, when we're like, don't go to Google Images and look this up, invariably we have people emails, like, why did you have to say that? Because that's the first thing I did, and it was disgusting. That's why I spell it correctly, because I know people are not going to listen to it, but it's not us saying, like, oh, I really want them to go look at this. We're going to tell them not to. Like, we really mean it. Don't go look it up. It's disgusting. Yeah, you sort of do a little. Okay, there's been research into trying to figure out what's going on here. Why do people do this? And Esther English Ascoll, who writes over IO Nine, great site, she wrote a little post on this and is talking about how is it that people are rebelling against authority to establish their own autonomy again, or their sense of autonomy, or is it that they're curious? Their curiosity is piqued. And she makes a really good case for curiosity being piqued by saying, if you put forbidden on the door, a lot of people are going to go right through that door to see what is on the other side of this forbidden door. I'd be one of them. But if you put on that same door assigned to forbidden colon toilet overflow, people are going to be like, I'm not going in there. No. I'd be like, no, there's probably donuts in there. Okay, so you're the suspicious type, but if you take it on his face she makes a good point. Yeah. Some people would be repelled by the idea of a disgusting overflowing toilet in there, but other people might have their curiosity is slashed, and so they wouldn't need to transgress. So it's a lack of information and a curiosity. Right. That makes sense. And apparently other studies kind of bolster this idea because they show that the Reactants is more intense, the more arbitrary a rule seems. So people are saying, like, Wait, why? I don't understand this. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, it seems to be one component of it, and another component of it, however, seems to be just disobeying. There was another study that was, I think, in conjunction in that 1982 study of teenagers, and it found that a group of teens were told, do not cheat on this test. It's really important you don't cheat on this test. Yeah. Not like all the other tests. Yeah. I guess what you can cheat on and this group was induced to cheat more often. More frequently than the control group who weren't told not to cheat on this. What's the point of that? I guess it's just I don't know. That's just finding boundaries. Or you could also make the case that they're trying to see what happens if they do cheat. Right. Because they're curious. So the jury is definitely still out on what's behind Reactants. Yeah. We talked a little bit about how business I think they said in the article that sales is a common way in business, that you can use reverse psychology. Like the car salesman who shows all the cars except for the most expensive one. And they're like, well, why didn't you show us that? And he's like, Well, I think that's probably out of your price range. And then if you're an adult living in a child's body or a child living in an adult's body, like, big. Yeah. You go, oh, well, no, let me see that car. I can afford that. Yeah. What do you mean? And the Goofus family who's always broke drives off in their brand new car or the relationship example they gave, like, if a boyfriend is like, you're becoming kind of clingy to the girlfriend. And the girl immediately was like, yeah, I think we should spend some time apart, actually, we should even date other people. Boom. The guy all of a sudden says, Wait a minute. I love you. What do you mean, date other people? Yeah. So some of that harmless stuff in a relationship happens, I'm sure, but that's not what we were talking about earlier with, like, truly toxic relationship manipulation. And manipulation, that's a different thing. There are different levels of this. Okay? It's on the same spectrum, for sure, but it also levels all the way up to real therapy called paradoxical intervention. And psychologists actually say reverse psychology is the media invented that's not what we call it. It's an actual therapy that some people say it's not ethical to use. Other doctors say, no, it's just fine to use. Yeah, I actually came across, I think, a paper from the 90s or something about the ethics of using paradoxical intervention, saying, French music, this does help, or it can help. And the whole idea of it, it's not really reverse psychology. It's just about the closest thing psychology has to reverse psychology where you are telling a patient to go and purposefully do a symptom, something they're complaining about. So if somebody is saying that they're a big procrastinator and they don't have any control over this is who they are. Right. The doctor prescribes them 1 hour of procrastination every day. Set aside an hour to just procrastinate. And it does a bunch of different things. One is silly. The whole point of it is meant to be silly. It also takes something that was formerly thought of as involuntary. Voluntary. And since it's voluntary, you can also voluntarily not do it. Yeah. It means you can actually control something you didn't think you could control. Right. And then also by making it silly, it disempowers this thing that's like just such a big problem now. It's a silly thing. I'm purposefully procrastinating an hour out of every day. The thing is, if the patient is not privy to what technique you're using it's very manipulative. Yeah. It's almost like a light hearted aversion therapy. Kind of. Yeah, sort of. Or exposure therapy. Exposure, yeah. Is that the same thing? Yeah, not a version, but yeah. Like if you're afraid of snakes, let me dump a bunch of snakes on your head. Right. Yeah. That's pretty unethical. I would say so. But like you said, some psychologists say no, you can use it as a tool in your toolbox. Yeah. Just don't be a tool when you use it. Terrible. So the whole point of all of this is these are all persuasive techniques or what are called compliance techniques, right? Yeah. It's what you're trying to get people to do what you want. And there's another thing I ran across called the door in the face. It's a compliance technique which people use all the time. You'll find it very familiar. It's when you ask for something really huge that you know the other person is going to turn down. And they do. And then you ask for something what you originally wanted, which is smaller by comparison, but they may have turned down if you'd asked for it just on itself. Yeah, I think we talked about a version of that in the MPAA. Like filmmakers, they'll say, I really want to get this violent scene in there, so let me do something really outrageous that the NPA is going to pull that and not pay as much attention to the thing I really wanted to keep. Right. So that's door in the Face. There's also foot in the door where you ask for incrementally larger stuff to where you finally build up to the thing you want. Smaller. Smaller to larger. But then lastly check. The other thing I ran across was probably the healthiest way of using reverse psychology. So if reverse psychology works because the person feels like their sense of autonomy is being threatened. Yeah. You take their autonomy and you put it front and center. You say, I can't make you do anything. Only you can decide whether this is good or bad for you. Right. So do what you want. And technically it's a form of reverse psychology, but what you're doing is you're taking this obstacle that really doesn't have anything to do with anything. This person's sense of autonomy, putting it right there in the middle and saying, this is a non issue. Like. I respect your autonomy. I can't tell you what to do. You decide it. Yeah. It doesn't even strike me as manipulative, necessarily. It strikes me as healthy. Yeah. Or you can just be honest with people, see where that gets you. But I think that's honest. Yeah. No, true. But yeah. You can also just say, like, I want you to do this. I know I can't make you, but this is the direction I want you to go. There's also the door in the floor. Did you see that movie? No. Do you mean? Flowers in the attic? No. Door on the floor was the Jeff Bridges movie based on the John Irving book, a Widow for one Year. Great book. Yeah, pretty good movie. John Irving knows what he's doing. I thought a widow for one year is a much better title than the door on the floor, though. Yes. The door on the floor rhymes. Hollywood loves rhymes. They sure do. Yeah. You got anything else? Surprisingly, no. If you want to know more about reverse psychology, good luck finding it, because we covered everything. Sadly, you can start by looking at how stuff works in the search bar by typing reverse psychology. Since I said search bar time for listener mail, this is from Robbie. Hey, guys. Thanks for your enlightening coverage of vast assortment of topics. Help me find common ground with children and adults in all types of social situations that could have otherwise have been excruciatingly awkward. I'm an artist, so I listen to you while I paint. Music is great, but sometimes spoken word allows me to work longer. It's a steady feed of stimulation instead of emotional ups and downs that can come from music. In other music related news, I recently conducted a social science experiment where I went around New York City and asked strangers what their three favorite things are. The most common answers were family, music and food. What would yours be? So, what are your three favorite things? Okay. Yummy. Can I lump food into just one category? Yes. Food. What's your guess? Travel. Yeah, I guess. Okay. Or booze. No. I'm not so sad that I'm going to say that. Although it's definitely up there. Top five. I will say my lemon tree is probably number three. Wow. Love that lemon tree. It's a producer. Not like that lousy lime tree. And my friends. I got to put them there. We'll say food and friends. Okay. After. You give me my favorite three things are food. I'm going to say friends and family, which includes Emily. Sure. It's a bit of a cheap food. Friends and family. Folks. Food. Folks are fun. Friends and family is cheap. That includes everybody. Yeah, you can just say folks and family. People. People's. Number two for you. I'm going to go with music. Oh, that's a good one. Boom. What about movies, though? Do you like music more than movies? I like oh, man, that is a tough question. You know who asks people questions like this? Jerks. No, because it's so impossible to come up with three things. What's this guy's name? Robbie. Robbie, you're not really a jerk. But man, actually, what the email should have said is, if I were you guys I don't know. I don't think you could answer it. He should have said psychology. I want to hear you guys waffle on your top five or six things that you like the most in the world. So he finishes by saying, what would yours be? There are three of you. I'm sorry, but there's only two of us here. Now. Frank the chairs over there, but he can't talk. Could you possibly answer the question we just did? I would record the podcast app on my Apple TV as you spoke and then include this footage in his experiment. We're being experimented on right now? Yeah. Let's go ahead and give him permission to use that clip if he wants. I do not give you permission. You can use my side. You can use it. Thank you for your incredible work with three exclamation points. Is there a site that people can go to to check out Robbie's progress or Kickstarter or anything? Well, he directed us to a YouTube link. So if I just go to YouTube and type in three favorite things and you'll probably come across it. Cool. Well, thanks a lot, Robbie. I mean, that ambivalently. It was like, six months ago that he asked us, so he probably gave up on it anyway. Is there even a YouTube anymore? No. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyshow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstephos.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid favorite Murder and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with amazon music. You can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
8a52af0a-4a58-11e8-a49f-078ac920f7c1	SYSK Selects: How Traffic Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-traffic-works	Whether you've been stuck in a traffic jam or forced to merge and avoid road construction, everyone's had a few bad experiences with traffic.	Whether you've been stuck in a traffic jam or forced to merge and avoid road construction, everyone's had a few bad experiences with traffic.	Sat, 11 Aug 2018 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=223, tm_isdst=0)	32967449	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hi, everybody. Chuck Bryant. Here of stuff you should know. And welcome to the weekend. It's Saturday, and you know what that means. It's time for another Stuff You Should Know select episode where Josh and I picked our favorites from the past 10 plus episode episodes and repost them in hopes that you might discover something old. Here we go. Something old. Is that a good way to sell something? That's why we call them classics. And select. July 29, 2010, was a very special day, because that is the day we released the episode how Traffic Works. Yes, traffic. Not drug trafficking, but traffic. Car traffic. We all hate it. But you know what? Maybe you should understand it a little better. Really interesting. And I believe Josh even coined his own term, if I'm not mistaken, for this one, a break bubble, dare I say? Does my memory serve me? Well? Find out by listening right now to how traffic works. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me. It's Charles. Precious Bryant. How you doing, Precious? This is the podcast based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Yeah, that is absolutely right. Word for word. Right. Jerry just got back because you did a spoiler. Yeah, for Precious. I'm known for spoilers, aren't I? Yes. At least two. It was home. No, there was 6ft under. And there was another one I spoiled, too, wasn't there? Yeah, there was one you spoiled. That was a really old movie, and I was like, come on. That movie is, like, 15 years old. Yeah. There's a statue of material. Was it Buckre Bonsai? Yes, I think that was it. Yeah, me, too. Chuck? Yes. Have you ever been in traffic? That's the best I got. How do you set this up, Chuck? Do you like Steve Winwood? Yeah, I was going to make a traffic the band comment. Have you ever seen the low spark of High Heel boys? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Seriously, I'm, like, trying to you know, he was, like 16 or 15 when he first joined traffic. Is that right? Steve Winwood? Yeah, he's a Lotario. And by that I mean a prodigy. Yes. Traffic. I've been in traffic, buddy. You yes, I have actually been in traffic. Happens a lot because I don't ride Marta. You ride our fine, crippled public transit system here in Atlanta. I'm never in traffic anymore. It's really been a huge difference in my life. Yeah, well, I don't ride Marta because usually I tend to avoid the smell of urine, and reading while moving makes me sick. Plus, I used to value being able to smoke. Yeah, dude, I was just about to say that's why I used to drive. Yes. And now I'm just like I just do it out of habit. But I get caught in traffic a lot, and it stinks. I don't see you on a public transport. You're not that kind of social. No, that's the other thing, too. It's like, oh, hey, we work together. Let's talk the whole time. No, I wear my sunglasses. It can be dark and raining. And I've told everyone here that if I have my shades on, that means the office is closed. Nice. The store is shut down. That's very nice, chuck stores. You look super cool. Yeah. All right, so I'm a jerk that doesn't talk to coworkers now. Moving on, buddy. It's okay. Chuck, do you remember when we recorded Quicksand? Yes. Do you remember how we said that there's, like, a finite amount of stuff out there about Quicksand because there's a finite amount to know? Yeah, there's a finite amount to know about traffic, but there is tons of information out there. Yeah. Lots of little side things to know for sure. Yeah. Because ultimately, traffic happens in two ways. One is there is simply congestion. There's just too many cars on the road to carry the flow of traffic quickly. Right. The other way is there is some unpredictable event somebody's pulled over, somebody's broken down. There's a wreck with maybe an event that falls under congestion. Police have pulled over a traffic speeder. People always slow down for that. And that's it. That's it. Those are pretty much the two broad categories that traffic can be created, right? Yeah. And what happens in each of those events is somebody up front puts on their brakes, and that one press of the brakes travels backward all the way through. Right. When you have a bunch of different cars and different lanes doing that at the same time, you have traffic. You know what that's called? Traffic wave. Yes, that's true. It's a domino effect. It's very easy. It is. And I came up with my own idea of describing this. You're ready? No. Boy. Okay, so what I came up with is called a traffic bubble by Josh Clark. So the traffic bubble happens when somebody is driving along and presses their brakes for whatever reason, okay? And just imagine that when they press that brake, this big bubble grows over the car, okay? And it starts very slowly traveling backward, and each car behind that car that created the traffic bubble isn't allowed to accelerate again until the traffic bubble is passed through them. Right, but then the further back the traffic bubble goes, the more it dissipates until eventually the people far enough back don't have to go through the traffic bubble and they're not affected by it. And does the bubble pass through the front cars to where they can then again accelerate? Is that how you see it? Is it a moving bubble? Yeah. Over the bubble travels backwards over the traffic, and then once it passes over, you're allowed to accelerate again. I believe you just coined the term, my friend. Traffic bubble. Like that jerk science. No, breaking bubble. That's what I called it. Okay. Breaking bubble. Yeah, like a piping effect. Yes. I hate that guy. And he hates you. I don't care. So, traffic. Josh, we can as well throw in a few stats here. Yeah. This one's stat. Heavy. It is. This article by our colleague Jonathan Strickland at Tech Stuff. Yeah. The baldest podcaster on staff here. What's a good stat? Here the estimated traffic cost to go and talk about cost of traffic. And about five years ago, they estimated about $78 billion, and that's only fuel and wasted time they don't take into account, like pollution, environmental damage, health costs due to pollution. It would really add up if you got to include those things. Yeah. And with extra gas that was bought in 2007. Right. Is that the year that connected or covered? We in the US. Bought 2.9 billion billion extra gallons of oil because of traffic, and the annual cost for each individual motorist in America was, like $710. Just sitting there just from traffic. Not from the gas that you need to actually get from point A to point B, but the extra gas used from Idling. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. And I believe La. Tops it out, obviously, at about two weeks a year you could potentially spend sitting in your car in traffic. Yeah. La. There's this group called the Texas Transportation Institute, and I think they're out of an M, maybe. Yeah. Texas UTEP. No, it's an M. Okay. They're awesome. They are, like, the leaders in studying and understanding and trying to mitigate traffic. Right. And they came up with this thing called the travel time index. Right? Yeah. So basically, you take the amount of time it takes, and it's specific to each city, and it's for each city. It's not compared from city to city. It's compared to a certain time in one city to another time in the same city. So in an off peak time, say you can travel the speed limit, it takes you 1 hour to get from point A to point B. Right. In Los Angeles, it would take 1.92 hours. Doubles your time, basically, during rush hour. So it takes twice as long to get from point A to point B during rush hours compared to off peak. That's the travel time index. Yeah. You have to do this anywhere you live where there's heavy traffic. But when I lived in La. I used to have to always think, all right, well, this would take me 45 minutes normally. And when you work in the movie business, you can't be late. That's just not one of the things you do. Yeah, I would think so. You've got to be there on time or early. So you're like, well, it's supposed to take me 45 minutes, so I'm going to give myself, like, 2 hours. I gave myself more than double to get anywhere I needed to go. That's very smart. It's awful, is what it is. Yeah. La. Is kind of bad, but Chuck, we have it pretty bad, too. Yeah. Atlanta is really bad. We're among, like, probably, I think, the top three or four. I heard a year or so ago that Atlanta had toppled La. But I never saw any citation for it. Well, it depends on how they are rating it. They rate them differently, like the amount of time you spend in your car commuting or the amount of time you sit idling. So it kind of depends. But Atlanta's way up there. Boston, Seattle, San Francisco. Yeah, actually, I think Boston is absent from that. Oh, really? I think that they have made some moves that have kind of mitigated traffic and gotten them off some of the I know the big dig was messing everything up. The big dig was just killing people. Yeah. And DC is awful. Have you ever driven around there? No, I haven't. You mean talking about how especially during the summer, during the travel or the tourist season, it's just mind numbing. It is. Yeah. I mean, way out into the suburbs in Virginia and Maryland sitting there. Yeah. You know what they did in La. That I saw one time that I'd never seen was I was going down the highway one day and I noticed everyone was slowing down, and I looked up ahead on the expressway, and there were two California highway patrol cars doing huge slow SS back and forth on the six lanes of expressway, not keeping everyone back. Like a pace car. Yeah, like a pace car. But they weren't driving straight. They were driving these big S like, don't go by me. I've never seen that before in my life. What would have made it even funnier is if they've been driving those S's with their hands out the window and their guns just shooting into the air while they're doing it. That would really say, don't drive past me. Yeah, that would have been great. And apparently they do that I don't know what they call it, but that's to slow everyone down. It's called being a and on that note, my friend Derek has a joke about Atlanta traffic. And he's right, because Atlanta, before there's traffic, everyone's driving really? What, fast? Yeah, that's one of the great characteristics about Atlanta, as far as I'm concerned. You go as fast as you can. The average flow of traffic, I would say, is about 70 miles an hour around here. And that's with a lot of people all around you. Yeah. Everybody's bumper to bumper going at least 70. And the cops don't pull you over unless you're going over 70. Yeah. And even then, it's usually like you're going 80 or 90 when you get pulled over because everybody else is going 70. Right. And that's my buddy Derek's joke, is in Atlanta. And it's really true. It's not a joke. Everyone drives as fast as they can every day. Until then, someone wrecks. Right. And then traffic backs up. Right. Every single day. That's Atlanta traffic. Are we done? So let's just sit here and do traffic stories. You just talk about what angers us. So, Chuck, there's a lot of smart people who study traffic because like you said, there's, what was it? How much money in 2000 and 578 billion just from fuel and wasted time? Because think about it, a person's time is money, right. And if you're sitting in traffic, unless you're one of those jerks like me who has an iPhone that emails while he's driving, then you're wasting money. Right. And actually there's a group called Commute Solutions that are out of Santa Cruz and they calculated the actual cost per mile of driving, not just traffic, but driving to each person is $1.19 per mile. Really? Yeah. Wow. And that includes everything. I don't know how they came up with that number, but check it out. Well, if we're talking about highways and stats, we might as well talk about the same. Texas group did a study and they found that traffic over the past 25 years has increased 131%, and by 2015, they predict it will go up another 40%. And here's what's remarkable. Only 1.2% of all our roads are highways, yet they shoulder half the traffic, half the car travel. Yeah. Crazy. It is crazy. And you don't usually think about when you think about traffic. I usually think about the highway myself, although I rarely get on the highway anymore. It's all surface streets that I take to and from work. Oh, really? Yeah. What do you go, Drew? Hills? No, Piemont. Okay. I go basically up Piemont Road, but it's traffic every day. But I don't think of it as traffic. When I think of traffic, I think of 75 at rush hour. Right. And just like exit ramps backed up. The thing is, our surface streets are also intended to handle overflow of highway traffic. Right. Not just people who are backed up from the exit ramp back onto the street, but I mean, people who are making a conscious decision, like me, to find a different way that doesn't have anything to do with the highway. Sure. Right. And they found that if you want to widen a highway I think we talked about this in like, the urban planning one. When you widen the highway, there's something called a latent demand. It's a theory that if you widen the highway, people like me are going to be like, oh, well, now there's eleven lanes instead of five, so I'll just hop on the highway. Right. And so the demand increases in step with the widening of the lanes. So it actually doesn't mitigate anything by adding more lanes to a highway. Right. I think they said the only way that will work is if they outpace demand with lanes. And that just doesn't happen. There's too many cars, too expensive. But that kind of makes sense to throw that money then instead of upfront costs for a light rail system. You hippy. Actually, I'm still holding out for personal rapid transit. All right. That was a polite In Me podcast, but it was interesting. It's a good one, you think? Ramp metering, if you're talking about solutions, that's another one. And they had these in La. And they have them here in Atlanta. Now it's where when you go to get on the highway now they have stoplights that just allow one car through every few seconds. So when you get on at Freedom Parkway, I used to fly around that curve. Yeah, it was a fun curve. And jump into traffic and squeeze in however I could. And I was one of those jerks causing traffic. Well, I think anybody entering it because, again, with traffic, especially with just straight up congestion, there's just too many cars in one place, especially when you have a line of traffic and then more people directly adding to that lane. Yeah, right. But ramp metering really works. They did a study in Minnesota. They have 430 ramp meters, and in 2000, they shut them all down for seven weeks. And during that time, traffic accidents increased 26%. And then afterward they reinstituted it and they saw the capacity increase by 14%, and they walked away from that project going, like, with their hands in their pocket. We should probably not tell anybody about that. I was trying to do a Minnesota accent, but it was pretty good. I couldn't do it. All I said was old. I know. It wasn't bad, though. That's how they say it. HOV lanes is another thing that they've done, pretty much. Countrywide carpool lanes. Those help. Yeah. I always forget when I have another person in the car, though. Yeah. I'll get like halfway where I'm going and say, oh, man, let's get in the carpool lane. Yeah. I have to say, though, the HOV lane, to me, it's an extension of the fast lane. So you got the fast lane and then you have the HOV lane. And I hate it when the fast lane is just the fast lane. The HOV lane is like, I drive as slow as I want, but I have four people in my car. Agreed. It makes it difficult. It's kind of like the HOV lane to me is you have two or more people and you're willing to drive 10 mph faster than anybody else on the highway. Agreed. And since we talked about pet peeves, and in our last podcast, one of my largest pet peeves is when I'm sitting in traffic and I'll see people speeding by me in the HOV lane by themselves. Nothing bothers me more than people who think the rules don't apply to them. I hate that, too. I hate those people or people who use the shoulder and just drive along in traffic as far as they can to get like 50 cars ahead. Yeah, I almost got plowed over in La. One time. I was getting out to get in the regular exit lane and almost got creamed by a truck that was on the shoulder. And I screamed at him that he almost killed me. And he says, what are you, a cop? That's la for you. I was like, he literally almost killed me. Yes. What are you? A cop. If you were a cop, you'd be making Lazy S's in front of transpiring my gun into the air. Exactly. What else? Josh adding lane. We already talked about that. Yeah, there's that one. Then there's probably the most contentious idea, congestion pricing, which is basically taxing people to drive. And there's a guy named Alistair. Darling. I don't know if he's still the Transportation Secretary, but he's something of a rock star in the transportation world because he was a huge proponent of this. And he said, in England In England, yeah. He was the British Transportation Secretary. He basically said cars. Exactly. A toll on the environment and on the road just by driving on them. So we should charge people to drive on the roads? What he failed to mention is that we already do. There are things called taxes and those are meant to pay for the roads. Right. He's forgetting about all the other misused money. But they did actually have one in Great Britain. Do they still? Chuck no, I don't think they ever instituted they had a pilot program from 2003 to seven in London for sure. And it worked like a champ for him in London, at least. Yeah. There was a 30% drop in congestion, 20% decrease in fossil fuel consumption. Wow. 20% decrease in CO2 emissions. So, like in London, Singapore, Stockholm, San Francisco. San Francisco. Do they institute one? No, san Francisco is studying it. New York, bloomberg has proposed it and they've studied it. And I just pulled this from this week, actually. Lord Adonis is actually, he's the Transport Secretary. Unless it's a new guy. What was your guy? His name is Lord Adonis. Yeah. Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary. I just came up with a new hotel suit and thank you, Chuck. Yeah. That's where Josh will be staying in New York under Lord lord Adona. It says it's ruled out the introduction of a national road pricing for the next Parliament, but they uncovered that civil servants are still involved with the project and spending money on research, even though they supposedly took it off the table. It was kind of a secret that they were still tinkering with us. I thought you were saying these people were paying for this research on their own paychecks. No, but they've sunk \u00a37.2 million that I guess the public didn't know they thought it was off the table. So they're kind of under some hot water. In some hot water there. They're in some deep quicksand. Yes. They said Golden Brown and Alistair Darling have been caught red handed planning a Spy in the sky system. Spy in the sky. Nice. Yeah. Because I guess we should probably explain congestion pricing. Basically every car on the road. I guess when you would go get your vehicle tag or something, you also get a radio frequency Identifier. Right? Right. And as you're driving, some satellite is tracking you or you pass through some sector or something like that, and all of a sudden you're in a toll area. And much like, say, one of those toll passes, you are sent a bill, or you have to set up like a credit card or a bank account, attach that to your tag, and it just draws money from it based on however much you drive in there. In Singapore, when they first instituted theirs, and actually in 1995, they had a flat rate for downtown, which is the most congested during peak hours. You had to pay $3 to just drive around downtown. You could drive around all you wanted. And as they've gotten better at it, they're getting a little fancy schmancy with it. Well, if you want to drive here, it's a dollar 75 for 20 minutes, but you can back two blocks over and it's just fifty cents and so on. Well, that's one of the rubs. That one of the big things in England, at least. In other places, too. I think they've suggested paying more for peak hour. Right. So be flexible in your work schedule. But then, of course, people that are a friend of the poor say that's regressive taxation, because white collar dudes can be all flexible and work from home, but the poor have to get up and go to work during peak hours. Right. So they're basically paying for the road that the rich man drives on. Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's the big problem. Aside from having to pay to drive with a congestion tax. Yeah. What else can you do, Chuck? And also, remember we were talking, this isn't just highway. Surface streets, too. Everybody don't get all anxious. We're talking about surface streets as well. Yes, surface streets. You get a lot of suburban sprawl. Like here in Atlanta, you've got like out in Roswell, 20 years ago, it was desolate cow patties. And now it's all young families moving out there who don't want to be around urban types. Yeah. And you have a lot more cars. Again, that one of two ways that you can cause traffic. Just put more cars on a road than it's designed to handle. And out in the boonies like that, they weren't built for they were built for farmland. All of a sudden, they got these suburban people moving out there. Traffic lights is something they can do. Yeah, this one disturbed me. So you have a traffic light that is on a timer, right? Yes, which is so much especially when they're poorly timed. Decatur is awful. Yes, Decatur is awful. There's another one for the Piedmont Park parking deck. Oh, really? And it just does whatever it wants, no matter what time of day. And if there's a car there or not. People are just stopped in either direction. Right. And that's a timeline. And timelines are awful. They're awful. Right. Then you have sensored lights, which are awesome. Right. Because you just come up and the way to your car triggers it. Yeah, those are good. Yeah. Or you have a mixed system that uses timing and sensors and it changes depending on the kind of day where it is. You can set up a citywide comprehensive traffic light plan. Some cities have this. Even the best mixed city wide comprehensive traffic light plan reduces congestion by 1%. Really? Yeah. Atlanta is bad about that, at least in my area. And Jerry can confirm this. She kind of lives over near me. But there's all these scenarios where you'll stop at a light that's timed to not part of the smart light system is that they're all timed to work together. So, like, if you sit here at this corner and you take a ride on red, there's not another red light waiting on you. And then that turns green and then 30 more feet, there's another red light. They should be timed out to where they're green in La. That's the one thing I will say. There's a lot of traffic. It's just because the people, they do the best they can. You look down, they have these long straight streets in Hollywood, and late at night you'll be sitting on Hollywood Boulevard at a red light and you'll see you'll see like eight lights turn green all on the right. That New Balance commercial. Yeah. With that woman running and she pushes herself to make all the lights. Yeah. Doomed to failure. But still, it was a nice effort. I would go longer in La just to get off the highway, even if it took me longer just to feel like I was moving. Yeah. And Chuck, I'm about to spoil it for all of our British, UK, English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish friends who are typing an angry corrective email about Alistair Darling. He is not a Transportation secretary. He was the British Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Lord Adonis is the Transport Secretary. That is. And me and your hotel name, we were talking about people studying this kind of thing. There's all sorts of really cool quantifications for traffic. My favorite is the passenger car equivalent. Let's hear it. Okay, so you have a passenger car is, say, a sedan, an average sedan, toyota Camry. Okay. All right. Or to be fair, a Honda Accord. Right. That is like just an average car that you can fit four people into and it drives down the road. It's pretty responsive. Sure. An SUV or a bus or a van is not as responsive because they're larger and because they take up more space, they are slower to accelerate and so they exact a heavier burden on a highway during congestion. Okay, right. So what they've come up with are passenger car equivalents. So an SUV is 14 PCE. Sure. Right. And then a city bus is like 4.4 PCE. That means it's like four cars, right? Yeah. It has the same as far as, like, accelerating after breaking and just the space that's taking up, that's the equivalent of a passenger car. So one good solution to traffic is everybody driving smaller cars. Yeah, no kidding. And virtual slots, right? Yeah. What's the deal there? Each car has a certain amount of space it takes up and don't try and fit into a slot that's smaller than your car. Is that how it works? Yeah, it's pretty much virtual slots, like Tetris. Yeah. If you just imagine that there is basically a rectangle around your car. Like your bubble? A bubble, but not a brake bubble. Okay. You want to avoid the brake bubble, but this is more of a rectangle, and it kind of hugs the sides of your cars, but it's longer on the front and back. And if everybody's car stays in these slots that are on the highway, you just kind of pull into them as you're driving and the slots are going like all the same rate. Then as long as there's not too many cars on the road or more cars than there are slots, there should be no traffic. Yeah, but that never happens because all this is pie in the sky stuff. Well, yeah, because invariably you're sitting in the lane and you're like, oh, that lane is moving now. And then you get over that lane, you're like, well, now that lane is moving. And you keep going back and forth where if you stayed where you are, if everyone stayed where they were, you would all get there quicker. Or if everybody just stayed at home. Yes, good point. Your jobs stay at home. Right. So that's our two cent. And if you want to learn more about traffic, we've been killing the articles with cool flash animations, haven't we? Oh, does this have one? It has a flash animation about a traffic wave. Cool. No brake bubble, though. I'm going to see about having somebody add one of the coin. The term, my friend. You can type in traffic. I think it'll bring up a bunch of stuff in the handysearchbarhoustofworks.com, which means it's time for listener questions. It's time for Facebook questions. Yes, as we said in that other podcast on Quicksand, we post on Facebook. Hey, give us some questions. We'll answer like ten of them really quickly. We got 180 of them in an hour. This comes from Chelsea. What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten? Tripe for me, which is intestines. Go ahead. What's yours? I've had fried chicken hearts. I've had beef tongue. Tongue. My favorite is Bomber. Really highly recommend. Anywhere you can find bomera, just eat it. The only place down here is Rath buns and it's okay. Yeah, if you go to Rathburns, you got to get one of those steaks. No, not rathbun steaks. Regular rath buns. Yeah. Strangely, he doesn't have bone marrow there, but yes, those weird stuff. All right, I got your questions right there. You want to read one? Yeah, I guess. This one's from Jacob. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around here, and Jacob hyphenates no one, which, frankly, I find like Flourish. Nice. Yes. Except for a tape recorder, which absorbs the radiant vibrations and can later play them back as audible waves, did the tree really make a sound? The answer is yes. Kristen says, where are Chris and Candice now? And who does the intro for the podcast? Chris Paulette is co host of Tech Stuff Now and has been for quite a while. He's made it. Hometown boy made good. Candice Gibson Keener has gotten married and she stepped out of the limelight to concentrate on just being an editor. But she's still here. Sits right next to Josh and Roxanne does the intros for the podcast. She's our head of video. There you go. That is not Jerry. A lot of people think it's Jerry. There's some comprehensive answers right there. Rachel says she currently lives in Athens. G a god. I'd love to hear more about your experience living here where you hung out your favorite bands and see what other fond or not so fond memories you might have of Athens. She says, we have quite a following there. Did you know that? No. I didn't either. My bar was Roadhouse. I hung out at Roadhouse all the time. I was a Georgia bar guy. Did you? Yes. And we should point out, though, that the Georgia Bar, the Globe and the Roadhouse made up the Bar Mutationgle and you could access them all through the alley to get to the next. So most decidedly could. Quite often you would hop around depending I just stayed at Roadhouse. I hope Roadhouse is still there. It's got to be. Yeah, it is. And then, of course, I always liked Wilson Soul Food and Guthrie's, which in my opinion, is superior to Zaksby's, even though it's the same thing. Yeah. I was automatic for the people. Were you? Yeah. I lived right around the corner from there. I can't remember. What was the name of that restaurant I went to? Weaver DS. Automatic for the People. Yes. That was good, too. I liked Wilson's because the owner walked around and he's like, 4ft tall and he shook hands with everybody. Right. Nice guy. And, of course, Harry Bassett. I never went there. Oh, my God. That was a frat bar. You went there? I could go. It's not just the bar. Like, the food was amazing. I put the food up against any in Atlanta. Euro rap, man. I ate a lot of Euros in college. Yeah. Good. All right, Kristen. Now, Randy, who's the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about? I think we both know. Shaft. Nice. Who's the cat that won't cop out. That's one of the lesser quoted lines from that song. Yeah, I've got one from Chevon. How do your significant others feel about your legion of man crushes and equally strong lady crushes? Chuck, I wasn't aware that anyone had a crush on us. Were you? I didn't know that. No. I've seen them before, but Emily thinks it's funny. Does she? Sure. Yeah, it is funny. She's no, I'm not going to it is. I mean, if only people could see our stomachs. So much hair and lint. Laura, how many emails do you get for podcasts? We get about 300 a week. Laura Allen, who put the bomb in the bomb? Shabomp. Shabomp. The only reason I read that is because he stressed his mill house in this picture. Nice. And who was your most surprising celebrity fan? We've only got a few that we know of and they're all surprised. Each one is more surprising than I've got one. I can't remember her name. There's a girl who stars in Secret Life of the American Teenager. She's a fan of the show. She tweeted that she was on set, like, in between shooting and listening to stuff You Should know. Yeah. John Hodgman. I was pretty knocked out by that. That's pretty cool. Bradley Cooper. Yeah. Will Wheaton. Yeah. Renee Zellweger. Aisha Tyler. Yes. And a couple of The Daily Show guys. Wyatt Cinect. Yeah. Joe Randazzo, the editor in chief of The Onion. If you are a celebrity that we did not mention, we would love to know that you listen to us. We're just kind of thrilling. We're like we're nobody. So when we hear that, I think it's cool. Yeah. I got one more. Pirates out. Shelley says pirates are ninjas. Ninjas. Clearly. Definitely. That's it. Okay. Chuck's, given the he's out, why did they call in Vegas? Yeah, it's like when the dealer finishes their round or whatever. There's got to be a name for it. If you know the name for that, we want to know. Send it in an email to stuffpodcast@housetofworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstoughfworks.com. Want morehousedofworks? Check out our blog on the houseofworks.com. Homepage. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the Freedom Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ous-traitors.mp3	History's Greatest Traitors	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/historys-greatest-traitors	The annals of history hold a special place for people who have carried out treachery and betrayed their own. Thousands of years later, their names are still synonymous with being a scoundrel around the world. From Marcus Brutus to Vidkun Quisling and more	The annals of history hold a special place for people who have carried out treachery and betrayed their own. Thousands of years later, their names are still synonymous with being a scoundrel around the world. From Marcus Brutus to Vidkun Quisling and more	Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:09:13 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=22, tm_hour=13, tm_min=9, tm_sec=13, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=234, tm_isdst=0)	41852003	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the allnew 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. So, Chuck yeah. I have a story for you. All right, let's hear it. Come back with me. Payback machine. Sure. Okay. A couple of hours ago. Yeah. So here we are. It's December 2272. Oh, yeah. Something really bad is about to happen. Sit down in front of this TV. Okay. Our good friend and hero Peter Brady is trying out for the school play. Yes, it's the story of the American Revolution. I remember that. He tries out for George Washington, but he doesn't get it. And in fact, the name of this episode that we're sitting here watching on this nice brown and orange shag carpeting is called Everybody Can't Be George Washington. Peter doesn't get the part of George Washington, but he does get another very important part, the part of Benedict Arnold. Well, at first, he's like, hey, it's a part. It's a speaking part. I'm pretty happy. I'm going to do my best. I was a tree in my last six plays. Right. This is a huge step up for him until his classmates point out that Benedict Arnold was a trader. And since Peter is playing a trader, he must be some sort of trader, too. So basically, the whole school turns on him because he's playing Benedict Arnold. It's really kind of silly. It is very silly. And, of course, Peter tries to get out of the play again and again, affecting Laryngitis, pretending he has a lymph him, all of his stuff, saying he forgets his lines. Yeah, I think I remember that. And finally successful. And then his dad points out that he has turned into a traitor. Now Peter against the whole cast. Don't tell me. He had a lesson for him and he sat him down and had a talking to him. It was a good one. Yeah, it was a good one. And so Peter goes in and plays Benedict Arnold and knocks it out of the park and learned a lesson in the process. But the whole premise of this episode of Brady Bunch is that Peter was suffering from a smear campaign started 200 years before by George Washington, and it was so successful that even today, you can get a rise out of somebody by calling them Benedict Arnold if they've done something traitorous. Yeah. And we've learned there are quite a few synonyms with trader that were, in fact, notorious traders. Like if you call someone a Judas right. Or a Benedict Arnold or what a quizzling. Yeah. That might be popular in some parts of the world. Right. This is the USA. Sure. So we call people Benedict Arnold. That's right. Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about Ben and Dicdonald to start. Okay, well, first of all, we should point out that this is a curated show from our buddy. Sam Tea Garden. This is the Summer of Sam, then? Yeah. We're continuing into our second Summer of Sam. And for those of you that don't know, sam is a local fan of ours. Yes. And a good kid. And he's actually on our TV show. He was in an episode. The Make It Rain episode. Yeah. He's one of our softball teammates. And Sam is a good guy and he sends in great ideas. So we like to highlight them when we do them. Yeah. All right. So Summer Sam. Hey, Sam. Hope you're doing well, buddy. Bennett Donald, and why there was such a smear campaign against them. And it turns out rightfully so, although possibly I think a lot of Arnold's side of the story has been lost to history. Well, yeah. And coincidentally, or not coincidentally, some of these traders that we're going to mentioned today, history is born out that they may not have been traders, but Benin Eternal definitely was. He was a documented trader. Yeah. As traitorous and treasonous as you can get as far as in the context of war. Yeah. So early on in life, things started out pretty well. He was born into some wealth, but his family, specifically his father, squandered their fortune with some bad business dealings. Apparently he's quite a drinker. You turned into the town drunk. Yeah. Well, that'll do it. They lost their family estate. Yeah, they lost their dough. Three of his sisters, or sorry, siblings, died from yellow fever. He had to drop out of school. He became an apothecary. Yeah. So things weren't like, rosy for the guy. Although he did quite well later on in the military. Well, he did quite well even before that as a merchant and actually by the age of 22 was able to buy back his family's estate. Oh, really? Which he then turned around and sold at a profit. Well, good for him. So I guess it wasn't the sentimental type flip, this estate. Yes, I think it wasn't that he wanted his family to stay back. He just didn't want to lose out on the potential profit from it, I guess. Yeah. And he seemed like he may have been like Add before there was Add. Yeah, yeah. From the sounds of reading his saying, I was just like, man, this kid had Add. He was like always in trouble. He's getting kicked out of school, but it was just because he was busy. He wasn't like a bad kid, it seemed like, but he just always had something going on. He finally, I guess, found his niche and he did become quite a businessman and fabulously wealthy, but he wasn't wealthy enough in his opinion. And in fact joined the Sons of Liberty, a revolutionary group in New England because he was mad that his riches were being taxed by England. Yeah, he liked the dough. He did. And he did have a pretty remarkable military career in Jefferson and Washington. Were big supporters of him for a while. Yeah. But he also suffered. Apparently. There are a lot of petty jealousies that they don't talk about among the Founding Fathers and the second and third echelons of all these guys. And apparently, Benedict Arnold frequently suffered. Yeah. He slept a lot. A lot, yeah. He missed out on honors and stuff like that. And he doesn't seem like the type to let things go, nor was he the type to air his feelings. So he just kind of sat there and stewed. Right? Yeah. I saw most of the times he was slighted, he fought really hard to get either reassigned or reappointed to the position he was going for. And so you're right, he couldn't let it go. He needed therapy. But instead he was appointed to run West Point. Not the military academy, the fort. Right. Yeah. I guess they probably named it for that, though, didn't they? I think it turned into the Military Academy. Okay. But I think this is before it was an academy. Yeah, it was definitely, yeah. And so he went Benedict Arnold on everyone, and little did he know he was being a Benedict Arnold, but he sold secrets to the British, like plans, war secrets, armament, locations, for about $3 million. I think it was \u00a310,000 at the time. Yeah. So the reason he did this, ostensibly, was A, because he'd been slighted, but also and this is what it's been lost in history is that he came to believe that the revolution had lost steam. People running the show didn't really know what they were doing and probably wouldn't form a very good post revolutionary government if successful. So did he genuinely think the Brits were going to do a better job? Supposedly, that's what historians say. But again, he may have been the type to just kind of say that's what he was thinking, too, and that was what somebody wrote down at some point. But he ultimately said, the colonies are better. Back in the hands of England again. Got you. So not only am I going to try to sell the map to West Point, I'm going to join the British Army, which he did, and led at least two raids against American revolutionary forces. So he really switched sides. Oh, yeah. In 1780 I can't believe whoever wrote this article put that when the plot was intercepted, he went from hero to zero. I know. All of a sudden, US magazine or something like a Springer Show. Yeah, absolutely. But that's what happened. He was convicted of treason, and his name was erased from the record books. And England promised them, they're like, hey, if you defect over here, we're going to give you land in Canada. We're not going to give you land here. We'll give you land in Canada, some money, and we'll promise your family pensions, and you're going to be a British Provincial Brigadier general. And he's like, that sounds pretty great, but as it turned out, he didn't get that many great assignments in the military in England. He was even sort of I don't think anyone likes a trader. No. Even in England, that comes up again and again, like, even the side that you're trying to or whatever. Yes. They're like you're a trader. Well, I think it's because basically, you're just a big liar. You're a treacherous yeah. So people are like, how can I trust you? Thanks for doing that, but can you go live in Canada? But it does pop up again and again. Anybody who's ever turned trader and expected some sort of glory has been sorely disappointed. Yeah. So in England, he was sort of poopooed. Then he moved to Canada. They didn't like him. And then he moved back to England and died there without ever, like, making a whole lot of money or getting any important military action. Right. Sort of a sad ending. It really is. And today, if you go to West Point, there's, I guess, twelve plaques of some of the head revolutionary generals, and his name is literally wiped from the record. It has the year of his birth and I think the town of his birth, but his name is not on the plaque any longer. Just says Business sharpie through it. Right. All right. So that's been a dead Arnold. Let's go a little further back. Okay. Let's go way back. Okay. I'm talking, like, maybe 44 BCE. Cassius and Brutus. Yeah. Marcus junius Brutus, the younger. I'm glad you looked that up. Yeah. I'm sure you had a fuller name. Yeah. Brutus. It's like a whole country of share or something. And here's the thing with these guys. They were definitely traders as well, but they're also singled out clearly, they killed Caesar, we all know, in the eyes of March, which is Caesar, the senator and DFL dictator for life, which self declared. But there are, like, 60 dudes that took part in this. Yeah. And Caesar was self declared. Caesar fought a civil war. One informed a triumvirate with the people that he vanquished. So he wasn't entirely dictatorial, although his popular opinion started to swell around him. He's like, Maybe I will just be leader for life, let's say, all those voting days, and I'll just be leader for the rest of the time I'm alive. And Cassius and Brutus have both fought against Caesar in the civil war. Yeah. And despite that, Caesar pardoned both of them and gave them positions of power in his new government and brand new knives. Right. And they said, still not enough. Well, Cassius especially, apparently, he was very envious of Caesar and his power. Yeah. He was the rebel rouser, and that was ultimately his motive. Although he used the concept of the Republic of Rome turning into a dictatorship to lead the assassination against Caesar. Yeah. And even cooked up evidence and letters of support to show Brutus, because Brutus was much friendlier with caesar. They were buds. Right. But he was swayed by Cassius and said, you know what? This is going to be good for our country or our kingdom, or whatever they were calling it at the time and took part. But they weren't like that the lead. I mean, maybe they cooked it up, but they weren't the initial aggressors. I thought Brutus was the first one to stab Caesar. No, this dude TillyA Simber came out and pulled down his tunic, first of all. Did he really? Yeah, I guess he said pulled it down, but I don't know what that means. I imagined he was pulling it. Hockey jersey. Either pants him or no tunic is like a shirt thing. So I thought he pulled it over his head like a hockey player might in the fight. It's like reverse pants, reverse pants him. And Caesar was like, what is this violence going on? And then another dude, Casca, he came at him with a knife, and Caesar blocked them away and defended himself and was like, basically, what's going on here? And then that's when everyone 60 guys descended upon him. Well, among Brutus might have been the lead of that pack, though. Yeah, okay. They stabbed the crap out of them. So I thought Brutus was the first one to stab him. I knew that some other guy was the first one to strike him, and it may have been the guy who reversed pants in. Yeah. You mean I were at Pompeii. We actually walked around Pompeii, and there's a table there, and it belonged to that guy. Oh, really? And I guess somebody in Pompeii bought the table of the first guy to strike Caesar and had it in their Via, and it's still there today. And did you eat at it? No, we stared at it. Okay. We looked at it from, like, 3 meters away. Got you. You have to say meters because it's in Italy. That's obnoxious. And apparently only one of the stabbed you stabbed 23 times and might continue to be stabbed even after he was on the floor dead. But only one of them was a fatal blow. The second stab, I think, went through his heart, and the rest were just but before they felt the injury, when Brutus stabbed him, caesar very famously said, a two Brite, which literally means, and you Brutus, or what the hell, Brutus? Yeah, you too. And supposedly he kind of gave up at that point. Like it killed his spirit when he saw Brutus was involved. Yeah, supposedly he didn't want to live in a brutalist world, in a world where even Brutus could assassinate him. So he resigned himself to dying and hence became a hero. That's very sad. It was on my birthday, 15th, too. But not of March. That's right. Also, too. Apparently that was the first autopsy report. Oh, really? The first post mortem death report was made on Caesar. God, the Greeks, man, if that's true. I've heard the Romans whoops whatever. I'm really glad I caught that one. Yeah. Is there anything else on these two traders? No. Oh, yes. Dante had a special hatred for Brutus and Cassius, and in his Inferno, he says that they are being perpetually eaten by two of Lucifer's three mouths. Wow. And the third mouth is reserved for the next guy we'll talk about, the little guy named Judas Iscariot. Oh, really? Yeah. Satan's third mouth. So Lucifer's three mouths are eating cassius, brutus and Judas. Wow. All right. Judith is one of these that recent evidence has emerged where he may not have been such a traitor, but we'll get into that. But then that was refuted as well. Everyone obviously knows the Judas kiss. Very famously, Judas betrayed Jesus. He was one of the disciples. He betrayed Jesus with a kiss, and it was actually a signal to the guards to come and grab him. I guess he was identifying him. Yeah. Apparently the Romans didn't know who this Jesus was, at least by sight. And Judith went and said, hey, you guys want this Jesus? What do you give me? And the signal was like, well, you kiss the guy, that's Jesus, and we'll come get them, and we'll give you 30 pieces of silver. 30 pieces of silver? I mean, the West Egg inflation calculator doesn't go back to that date, but I can imagine it's still probably wasn't that much. 30 pieces of silver? I have no idea. Well, apparently it was used later on to buy a field to turn into a potter's field to bury unclaimed dead. Oh, really? But I mean, it's field. It couldn't have been that much. How much was land going for back then? In the Middle East, they had tons of land. Okay, so Judas betraysed. Jesus. We didn't know much about his life at the time, but recently there has been. I think in 2000, a new gospel was revealed, the Gospel of Judas. Supposedly my story, my side of things. Yeah. And it was, of course, a papyrus document dating to the second century Ad. And it was written about in a book called The Lost Gospel, and it portrays this Judas Is more of a facilitator of what Jesus wanted. Basically, Jesus was like, hey, turn me in, because this is my destiny. Like, sacrifice yourself, I sacrifice myself, and we all go on to live in Heaven and fulfill our destinies. Yeah. Which a lot of people were like, okay, I kind of like this different view of Judas, and it makes Jesus even more prescient than he appears in the Bible because he's betrayed by someone he thought was his friend. And this he is commanding Judas. He's asking him to do this. So it's just an all round, like, great view of the story when but unfortunately, apparently there's some problems that a lot of Gnostic scholars have with the translation, and that if you just tweak a few things to the way that the Gnostic scholars think it should be translated. That all just goes right out the window. And actually, Judas is not only a horrible, treacherous traitor, he's actually a demon from the 13th level of being. Yeah. So quite two different stories, all by changing a few words in this Coptic text, which isn't the easy stuff to translate. Like, it's tough, you know, it's not like and even the person that poopooed the original translation was like, this is a very hard job. I'm not saying they necessarily did it on purpose, but that's not what I think it says. Right. And that was April Deconic, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University. And I don't know, did other people come out and support that? I couldn't really find much. I don't know. And apparently, actually in the Bible, it's hinted at that Jesus could have known about it. Well, doesn't he say, one of you will betray me? Yeah, he definitely said that. The Last Temptation of Christ. Harvey. Caitlin is a pretty good Jesus. Or Judas. Yeah. Willing to Foe. Yeah, that's a good movie, but yeah, that was how anything I'd ever heard, I thought, like, Jesus knew. It was just never as explicit as this Gospel of Judas put it. Right. And the Gospel of Judas, they even claim that Jesus even asked Judas, like, hey, will you do this for me? Do me a solid. Kiss me. Put one right here. Right. So Judas realizes what he's done, feels horribly guilty, tries to give the silver back. The high priests that he sold Jesus out to won't take the money, and so he throws it on the temple floor. They end up figuring out that it can be used for a potter's field, and they use that 30 pieces over for that. And then Judas goes off and hangs himself. Yeah. And I don't think we said Jesus was crucified. I thought that went without saying. Yeah, but in case there's, like, one person out there was like, what happened to Jesus? Whatever became a Jesus, that's what happened. And then Judith supposedly fell headlong, and his body opened up. And if you go back and read some scholarly translations, they think that his body opened up means that his body was left hanging for a while out in the heat. And when it finally fell, like a branch broker or whatever, and it fell, it kind of ruptured. Correct. Where did you find that out? I don't remember. Somewhere online. Wow. Yeah. They were talking about how he went headlong, he became headlong. And they were saying that if you just switch out, like, a couple of letters, headlong becomes swollen, and then that would explain why his body opened up. Wow. Yeah. And now Judith and Judas kiss are both part of the lexicon in terms of betrayal, treacherous, treachery. I know. Thanks, Sam. How about Chuck? I know you've seen this movie. I love this movie. The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford. Yeah, we've talked about it. It's a good movie. Very good movie. Written and directed by Andrew Dominic And has. Paul Schneider. My buddy, Paul Schneider. Yeah. Schneider, right. He listens oh, hey, he's in it. Yeah, he's one of the gang. And he's a great actor. We've since become, like, email pals. That's neat. Yeah. So that was an excellent movie. I'm sure Schneider did fantastic in it. He did great. Schneider. Schneiders. And it seems to me I don't know a lot about the whole saga of Jesse James, especially his demise, but it seemed to be pretty true to everything I've ever heard about it. Yeah, I think the movie was pretty accurate. And it was great. Gorgeous to look at, beautifully filmed. And not just because Brad Pitt was in it. But Casey Fleck, as Robert Ford, was amazing. He really so anyway, if you haven't seen that movie, go out and see it. In the meantime, we'll spoil it for you. I think he was nominated for an Academy Award. I can't imagine how he wasn't. He was so creepy. So what's the deal with Jesse James? Well, Jesse James was a member of the James gang, the leader, a full partner. Well, I think he and his brother Frank were kind of co leaders. Oh, really? That's the impression I have. Like Frank Stallone. Yeah. And they were very successful at robbing trains, robbing people, robbing banks, robbing everything. And they became outlaw folk heroes. Everybody loved to hate, but they also still loved well, they didn't kill people. No, not until the second to last robbery by Jesse James. They botched it, and a couple of people died. Most of the James gang was caught, and Jesse and Frank went off and assembled a new gang that included Robert Ford. Yeah, he was pretty new. He had long tried to get into James gang and was sort of shunned as weirdo. A little weird. And not the most skilled robber and gunman. And it wasn't taken very seriously, which always bothered him. Right. So Jesse James pulls off one last train robbery in 1870 and decides to retire. Frank James retires. And Robert Ford kind of tangs along with Jesse James the rest of his life. And the governor of Missouri put a bounty on Jesse James, head of, I believe, $10,000, which is pretty substantial for 1870. Sure. And in 1882, Robert Ford took the governor of Missouri up on this, apparently met with him and not only said, I'm going to do this. I want this reward. I'm going to split it with my brother here. Yeah, but I want immunity from my crimes. Yeah, well, he was supposedly just supposed to capture him. Oh, okay. And did the shooting on his own volition. And there's a wood cutting in this article of Jesse James dropping a feather duster just like he does in the movie. Oh, yeah. He stands on a chair in his own home to dust a picture and Robert Ford shoots him in the back of the head. Yes. And kills them just right there. Very low key and anticlimactic with his wife home and everything. Yeah. And then they leave. And so Robert Ford kind of like I think Benedict Arnold expected to be considered something of a hero. And he was considered a coward. A zero. Oh, yeah. Actually, he and his brother were both indicted, found guilty, sentenced to hang and pardoned in a single day. That's a heck of a day. Yeah. Pretty like emotional roller coaster going on there. And they became ostracized socially. Robert Ford just became the butt of many jokes. And then finally, one day, he was confronted by a man who sought him out because he wanted to kill Robert Ford to gain his own acclaim. Yeah. Edward O'Kelly brought a shotgun into a bar owner. I think at the time, Robert Ford was and after, by the way, they toured in a touring production. Oh, yeah. Like recreating the murders. Yeah. Sam Rockwell. Yeah. So Edward O'Kelly goes in the bar with a shotgun, says, Hello, Bob. He turns around, shoots him in the throat, and he gets a sentence commuted after a petition and is pardoned for killing Robert Ford. Yeah. Back then, the prairie mob rule definitely had, like, a ground hold. Yeah. I don't know what that is, but I think I got my point across. Yeah. They were like, he was a coward and you shot him, so that makes you a good guy. Exactly. So that's Robert Ford. You got anything else? No. Should we move on to Matahari? Yeah. I knew next to nothing about Matahari. Yeah, same here. She turned out to be a pretty fascinating woman. Yeah. Possibly not a traitor at all. Yeah, actually, probably not a traitor at all. Yeah. Let's talk about her. Well, she was a very sexual being. She was very close to her father, apparently, who doted on her. And she has been described as sex, as being her driving force. And she was said to have an insatiable longing for male attention her entire life. And for the time period early 1019 hundreds. She really slept around. Yeah. And she didn't just like you, the sex with the men. She liked them to buy her stuff. Oh, yeah. Well, she used it as a means, for sure. Yeah. She blew through a lot of guys money. Right. And just loved to live lavishly, racked up tons of debt and became something of a toast among presence society. European society, actually. Yes. She was Dutch, we should point out. Yeah. Her real name was Margaretta Zelli. Yeah. But she looked like Indian, and she tried to remake herself as this Indian exotic Indian dancer. I read Indonesian. Oh, Indonesian, yeah. Because Madahari is Malaysian or Eye of the dawn, which means sunrise. Got you. So her name was Sunrise, the stripping dancer. Well, and she didn't just dance. Like, this was at a time when the Mulan Rouge was like they were, like, pulling their skirts up a little bit and showing some ankle and some knickers, and she was, like, taking it to another level, apparently on stage in people's living rooms, private dances, like traveling, dancing, like really erotic and exotic stuff for the time. So from what I understand, she was also a sometime prostitute when things were really bad. Sure. But ultimately, she just kind of went through a succession of lovers around Europe, and at one point she found herself in Amsterdam and was approached by a German officer and said, hey, we want you to spy for us. Here's 20,000 francs and some invisible ink, and you're now a German spy. And she's like, Whatever, mine heir. Thanks for the money, sucker. And threw away the invisible ink, supposedly. And never spied for Germany, but she still had a code name, H 21. And as far as Germany was concerned, she was a spy for them, even though she didn't take it seriously. Apparently never carried out any spying activities. Right. So she had a reputation as a German spy. Yeah. Without actually spying yet. Right. And this one writer puts it she was traveling alone, she was wealthy, she was an excellent linguist and very foreign and very educated and admitted to having lovers and all of this stuff for the time just meant, we don't trust you even if we don't have evidence. This makes you untrustworthy. Right. So at some point, the French decided that they were going to recruit her to become a French spy. This is during World War I. Even though they already suspected she was a German spy, she was sent around to try to get to I don't remember what country they were trying to get her into. Vital. The town of Vital when she was trying to go there. Yes. She went to Russia. She ended up going there for a little while in exchange for becoming a French spy. Agreeing to spy for the French. Exactly. She ended up in Spain and came across this German officer, and apparently he suspected her of being a spy. So when she started asking him questions, he gave her old information. Yeah. Well, they went to bed together as well. Sure. We should mention this thing is just rife with sex. Right. And he gave her some old information. The French intelligence officer who recruited her as a spy, but still suspected as a German spy, finally said, you know what? I think that what you are really doing is giving French secrets to the German. You're a double agent and we're going to arrest you. And she was arrested in France. Again, no evidence. No evidence whatsoever. And tried for treason and convicted. Yeah. And basically, Thunder knows that the whole experience and was like, I'm going to hold my head high. I'm going to blow you a. Kiss right before you shoot me in the firing squad? Well, supposedly it wasn't the firing squad. It was two nuns that she became friends with and her lawyer, who also she had slept with. That's who she blew kisses to. But she refused to blue. Okay. That's what it said in this article I saw elsewhere. It's like to the nuns. She also slept with her headmaster when she was 16. Yes. And got kicked out of school for it. So she refuses to blindfold in the end. She's all dressed up and everything for her execution. She's standing ankle deep in mud on a cold October day in 1917. She refuses to be tied to the pole behind her. She refuses to blindfold and is executed by firing squad. So the weird thing is, about 30 years later, one of the prosecutors in France admitted, quote, they didn't have sorry, here's the quote. There was, quote, not enough evidence to flog a cat that she very likely did not ever spy for Germany, made that one half hearted attempt in France for France to make some money, and was executed and still didn't protest. I wonder if there's been a good movie on her. Surely there I don't know if there's been a recent one. She was tall, too. She was, like, almost 6ft tall. Yeah. She looks very long. Yeah. Look at her. It's hard to like sometimes it's tough to look at pictures from back then and see the attraction. Yeah. It was just a different time period. Yeah. I think it was the fact that she took off her clothes and was really sexy and tall. Right. Matahari probably was not a trader, and they really had a lot of trouble trying to prove that another famous trader was actually a trader, and that woman was Iva Toguri. Tokino, yeah. Toguros, yeah. In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and say it. She was not a spy, and she was not a treasonous trader because it was proven so and she was pardoned by Gerald Ford. Right. So she was born so I'm just going to take her off the list. Okay. We'll finish the story, though. Yeah. It's a worthwhile story. Yeah. I have a tow guru. She was born in America, in Los Angeles, and had a degree in zoology from UCLA. And in 1941, she traveled to Tokyo to take care of an ailing aunt, her family center over there. Despite the fact that she didn't really speak Japanese, she hadn't been raised in Japanese culture, apparently, and there was a lot of culture shock, but she still went over to take care of her aunt nonetheless. And while she was there, she got two jobs. One, she was typing for one new service, and she got a second job as a typist for one of the radio stations. Yes. And they're like, hey, you're Japanese American and you have a great voice, and you're perfect for this new thing that we're going to do it's American rock and roll music, and we're going to play it for the morale of the troops to deteriorate the morale. Well, but they told her a different story at first, though. Okay. They told her it was to boost the morale. Really? Yeah. I don't think she knew what she was getting into. That's crazy. Why would the Japanese boost the morale of the American troops in the Pacific? Well, it was later said that it did, in fact, boost the morale. They said Americans love the music and thought the Tokyo Rose banter was funny and it lifted their spirits. That's funny. Yeah. Okay. So if they were really trying to do that, it did a pretty poor job of it. Okay. But nonetheless, she was reporting on things like ships being sunk, is that correct? Yes. She called up well, that's what she was eventually the one thing that they pinned on her. Okay, well, then that didn't actually happen. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, so let's get back to the story. World War II goes along, right? It ends, and she tries to get back to America, and as she's doing that, apparently the Japanese government identified her as Tokyo Rose. Yes. She was Orphan Anne was her radio name, and Tokyo Rose was just sort of the name of the operation as a whole, and not a single person, even though they tied her to that name, which led to some great confusion, apparently, because they were trying to get her as Tokyo Rose, even though she called herself Orphan Anne. And there were, like, twelve women, including her, that were all Tokyo Rose collectively. Yeah. Okay. So the Japanese government says that's Tokyo Rose she said, I'm working on it. The American intelligence services of the army investigated her and could find no evidence that she had committed any form of treason. And they were going to let her in the country, back in their place of birth because she traveled without a passport. And now that she's trying to get back in, she needed a passport. Apparently a lot of veterans groups are like, you can't let Tokyo Rose into the US. Yes. One guy kind of started the charge and was successful. The reporter had bundled it. Yeah. Well, apparently he got a couple of Japanese guys just to commit perjury and present false evidence against Tokyo Rose. Yeah. The two most damaging witnesses actually just completely lied. Right. The FBI put him up to it, coached them, and said, you're going to get tried for treason if you don't do this. So she ended up being tried and convicted for treason and sentenced to ten years, and she got out in 1956, and they tried to deport her, and she successfully battled deportation and moved to Chicago in 2006 as she worked at a retail store until 2006, her father's store. 2006. She was working in a retail store? Yeah. At 90 years old, and nobody even people didn't like coming in there to see Tokyo Rose, like she was just a worker. Yes. Isn't that weird? It is, like, such a prominent figure in history just ringing people up. Like you said, Ford. Pardoned? Yes, gerald Ford. Then he fell down. Let's talk about the quizzling, just briefly. Yeah. The Quisling, as we mentioned earlier, is another name. If you live in perhaps Norway or maybe other parts of Europe, you might be called a quizzling if you're a trader because of VidCon quizzling. He basically tried to seize power after buddying up with Hitler in 1940 and said, you know what? I'm going to use this as an opportunity to make Norway my own. Yeah. And he did so for a very short time. Yeah. He invited the Nazis to come invade Norway. They did. He made a power grab and said, I'm now the ruler of Norway. And the Nazis let that slide for about a week. They're like, sure, he's a ruler. Then they installed their own guy as the head of Norway and demoted Quizzling to minister president. And apparently he went to work sentencing Norwegian Jews to concentration camps. He was really bad guy. Yeah. He was very much anti union. He was the fastest, and he was trying to make Norway fastest, and he did. So he became the first person to ever announce a coup d'ETA on television. That's how he made his power grab. Oh, really? Yes. I think it was television. It seems early, so maybe it was radio, but I guess he became the first one to announce it over a broadcast. So after the Nazis were defeated, he's like, oh, no. Yeah. I have a feeling this is going to end up bad for me. Yeah. And he was convicted of treason, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad. And you are a quizzler. I'm sorry? Quisling if you collude yeah. If you're in Norway and you're a trader, you're aquisling yes. It's like the Benedict Arnold of Norway. So, Chuck, you got anything else? No. And as per usual, this is a top ten that we do about six of and encourage people to go read the rest, including Robert Hanson, who we've talked about. Yeah. Ezra Pound, as we talked about in the insanity defense. Yeah. And the Cambridge Five. Not the Seattle Seven or the Jackson Five. Or the Jackson Five. And did we skip another one, or is that it? I don't remember. Oh, the intro. We didn't mention the Cleveland Cavaliers ire LeBron against LeBron, which I think that's weird. Well, I think Cleveland went berserk. That sort of has passed, and there's rumors of him going back to Cleveland anyway. No way. Really? Maybe his contract is up and they think that he might love nothing more than to go back there and win a championship. Well, we'll see. Yeah, we'll see what happens. If you want to learn more about traders, you can type that word into the search bar athousofworks.com and it'll bring up this article. And since I said search bar, it means it's time for message break now, Chuck. It's time for listener mail. This is Capgrass. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for doing the Capgras Syndrome episode. It was amazing. Timing came out right around Father's Day. And my father suffers from this syndrome. It's been very painful to watch. Oh, yeah. Wow. During my marriage, we have never lived very close to my parents. But just under three years ago, we moved close enough for day trips. About the same time, my dad had a fairly significant stroke, and it made the slow progress of vascular dementia Alzheimer's that he also suffers from significantly worse. I started visiting my dad on a weekly basis. I would spend the day with him while my mom and brother would get the Monday rush orders out. Apparently, dad ran a mail order business. When I first started these visits, dad knew who I was. We talked and I shared photos and stories of my kids. But within just six months, the Cap grass really took effect. We had to work our way through who this strange lady was who lived there now my mom. And why did Linda, my mom, leave him and watch this absolute fear when she would walk into the room? He eventually forgot who my brother and I were, as well as well as our spouses and kids. Although I had to giggle a little bit during the small amount of time when my husband was the only one of us he knew, because Capgrass affects those closest to you and then worked his way out so the husband wasn't around him as much. So he was the only person that he recognized. Wow. The wife thought that was kind of funny. Now the dementia and Alzheimer's have progressed to a point of living in the past and not even remembering moment to moment, let alone day to day. He still doesn't know why his family has abandoned him, even though we're all around him all the time. Man tough. I know. He lives a very fear filled and lonely life among strangers. I liken it to living in a nightmare every moment of the day, and it sounds really sad. But she was fairly upbeat in the email that we corresponded with, just so people are there crying and stuff. Thanks for doing the podcast. When I talk about how dad is doing, it's tough to explain what he's going through, and now I can just send people to the podcast to learn more about it, which really helped. Yeah, that's cool. That is jill over turf and Republic Missouri. Well, thanks a lot, Jill. We appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, and I hope things improve for your father. Yeah, for sure. If you have a story about something we've talked about ever, we want to hear it, especially if we've helped you explain it to other people. We like that kind of thing, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstepychildo, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com, and you can always check out our website, stuffyouinnow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstaffworks.com summer school's out? The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listened new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-02-23-sysk-famine-final.mp3	How Famines Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-famines-work	It’s common knowledge that famines are usually caused by major droughts: Rain doesn’t fall, crops don’t grow, and people go hungry. But recent research suggests that while weather may trigger famines, they may actually be more of a human-made catastrophe.	It’s common knowledge that famines are usually caused by major droughts: Rain doesn’t fall, crops don’t grow, and people go hungry. But recent research suggests that while weather may trigger famines, they may actually be more of a human-made catastrophe.	Thu, 23 Feb 2017 08:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=23, tm_hour=8, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=54, tm_isdst=0)	48571940	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"So, hey, let's talk about this cool new podcasting push called Tripod. Hashtag Tripod. There's this really cool thing going on right now. The podcasting industry, which is one thing I love about the podcasting industry, is that we all like to try to support one another. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, what's good for us is good for other shows. It's like, all boats rise with the tide or something. That's right. So there's this new push going on. It's a cool program called Tripod. T-R-Y Pod. As in try a pod. Right. Get it? Yeah. And the whole basis of this is that we podcasters are asking you podcast listeners to go tell a friend to go try podcasts. Not necessarily ours. I mean, if you want to recommend stuff, you should know we're always fine with that. Sure. But even if it's some other one that you like or love even more, just turn a friend on the podcasting is basically the whole point. Yeah. I mean, you're probably going to hear this on a lot of podcasts, and the whole deal is even though podcasting has come a long way since we've started, it's still sort of a baby of a medium. Yeah, half of a half of a percent is what we always say in the podcasting industry. But a lot of people still don't even know what podcasts are. So get out there, tell a family member, tell a friend what podcasts are. Recommend one you like. Tell them how to get it. Just go out in your backyard and put your ear to the sky until you hear a podcast. Right? Yeah, that's a big one, too, because a lot of people are like, okay, sure, I've heard a podcast. I have no idea where to start. Yeah, so recommend a good way to listen, maybe how you listen. And we really appreciate it. The whole industry appreciates you spreading the word. Yeah. That's how we grow and that's how we've grown. On behalf of the entire podcasting industry, thank you. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry the jersey. Should we say what just happened? It's weird. Like, oh, what is this? 900 and probably 20 something, 30 something episodes. Let's get up there. And for the first time ever, right before we went go, gerry said, OK, what does that mean? Usually she goes, what? I don't get it. Is this me so bothering you guys? Right? Exactly. Is it smell? So Jerry, focus. Alright. I feel pressure now. I do. I'm a little off now, Jerry. Thank you. So yeah, that worked. All right, let's concentrate. All right, so we're talking, Chuck, about is your eye okay? Yeah, I got something large in it. We're talking about famine today. Yes. Which goes with our super sad, horrific geopolitical catastrophe suites. Yeah, this probably will not be chock full of humor. No, I tried to think of a way to insert some jokes there's. Not unless we go on a tangent. Do you remember those 80s stand up comedians? Like, they would make just the worst jokes that just would not fly. They get chased off stage by people with, like, just the jokes they would make AIDS jokes and famine jokes. Oh, yeah, sure. Just, like, the material they would make jokes about, and they weren't even remotely funny. It was not nuance or smarts or anything. Yeah. I think Sam Kenneson made like starving Ethiopian kid jokes. Right. I give him a sandwich cameraman. Wouldn't that him? Was that him? I think so. People can't do that today. It's a different world. Yeah. There probably won't be any jokes in this one. What there will be is tons of information, and hopefully everybody who will understand famines after this can come together and prevent them for the rest of eternity. Unless climate change gets us, as we'll see at the end. Yes. I just spoiled it, though, didn't I? Yeah. I'm glad you sent that, though. That was relevant. Yeah. So everybody has a pretty good idea of what famine is. It's when you run out of food and a bunch of people start dying. That's actually pretty close to the real definition. But there's this guy who's a scholar of famine. His name is Cormacograda, and he has written several books on famines and studied famines, and he's a pretty sharp tack. So people kind of look at him to say, what's the actual definition of a famine? And he says in his best Irish accent, it's a lot like malnutrition, but it's a lot worse. There's a lot more crisis, there's a lot more death. Yes. Specifically, he says it's a shortage of food or purchasing power that leads directly to excess mortality from starvation or hunger induced diseases. And that's an important addition because it's not just hunger, starvation related, but all the disease that comes along with that can kill people very much more easily because you are so undernourished. Right. And we'll find out, too, it forms a bit of a vicious cycle. Like as people start to get hungry and start to starve and start to suffer from disease, they have an even harder time, say, working in a field to produce crops. And so the whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Once it passes breaking point, it really starts to spiral out of control. Yeah. It's a three pronged terror of poverty, hunger, and disease right. All contributing to one another. Right. So Cormaco Grad's definition of a famine is a daily death rate of above one per 10,000 people. Is that 10,000? Yeah. All right. I had a period and not a comma. That's European, and it's got to be because that's like .1% of the population per day. Is that right? Yeah, I think that is $10,000. Okay. Because just off the top of my head, like, the normal American death rate is like 823 per 100,000 people. So that is significantly more that's the daily death rate. That's the first characteristic. Yeah. Number two is the proportion of wasted children is above 20%. And wasted means their muscle mass is withering away due to starvation. Yeah. Technically, it means they weigh two standard deviations or more below average. And just that term itself is like the most heartbreaking thing you can imagine. Wasted children. Yeah. In any sense, it's not a good thing, especially when it has to do with famine. And then finally the prevalence of what's called quashocor, which is basically an extreme malnutrition due to protein deficiency. Yeah. And those pictures, everybody who grew up in the eighties and saw the pictures of the starving children in Africa that were just little skin and bone kids, but they had these huge, bloated pot bellies. That's a classic hallmark of quashcore. Yeah. Very sad. And then he went on to qualify further with severe famine. That means a daily death rate above five out of 10,000, proportion of wasted children above 40%, and then that same quasher core prevalence. Right. So if quasher core is around, you got a famine on your hands. That's not a normal thing that happens in a normal food secure population. Yeah. And that's the main distinguishing factor between famine and just what you would consider malnutrition. This is all tied into what we call food security. Right. And we talked about food security before, I think maybe in desertification or something like that. Yeah, I know we have at some point, but we've talked a lot about the Green revolution, too, which factors in but food security means you have food available. You can get to that food, or that food can get to you readily, and you can use that food to meet your health needs. You can leverage it to make your population healthy. Yeah, like if your entire country's food supply is Twinkies, you do not have food security. There's an abundance of it. People can get to it very easily. It's probably affordable for everybody, but it's not nutritious. Or if your country has nothing but like the finest fruits and vegetables and proteins, but only the very wealthy have access to it because it's too expensive, well, you don't have food security. So according to the UN, if you have food security in a nation, all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and get this food preferences for an active and healthy life. Yeah, which, I mean, we'll talk about Ethiopia some later, but at one point, the goal was, which they never met, was that not only would they have food one day readily available, but be able to choose what they wanted to eat. Right. That's something you don't think about. You really take that for granted here in the United States and elsewhere. It's not just having food, but like, oh, I might like to eat this or that. Right. You know. Alright, so a lot of things can affect this food security and we're going to talk about all these throughout the show as they relate to famine. But obviously you think of natural disasters first and probably drought first. Yeah, that's a big one. It is a big one. Undeniably. If you don't have water and rain, you can't grow crops. Usually no crop blight, which will talk a little bit about the potato famine in Ireland later on. But any kind of disease, pest, even like overabundance of weeds could conceivably ruin a crop. Flooding, extraordinarily cold weather, extraordinarily hot weather. We'll just say weather patterns in general. Yes, severe weather and then a big one, which a lot of people, I think, mainly think of natural disasters or natural factors and political conflict is one of the big, big contributors. This is what we're coming to, though, eventually, is there is a big debate on what causes famine. And for many, many years everyone said, well, they'll be dumped, droughts cause famine. Right. But studies, much more recent studies have found that actually, if you kind of peek behind the curtain a little bit, yeah, there was a drought and it started the famine. But what actually caused the famine or caused it to be horrible is usually government. Either government that has bungled something or just isn't moved to actually care to do anything to alleviate the famine, as we'll see. Yeah. What I gathered from reading this was most famine throughout all of history has been caused by natural factors. But modern famine, like from the 19th century on has largely been that plus government factors. Yeah. Does that sound about right? Yeah, I think the very presence of famine in the globalized era is just because of governments screwing things up. Yes. Because there is enough food to feed everyone at this point. Right. And enough of a trade supply lines and government aid agencies and NGOs who are working to get that food to those people in crises that a lot of times there's people standing in their way. Yes. Another big can be sort of a domino effect too. So when you have food security in one place start to crumble or wayne, then you have another country nearby, maybe it may start stockpiling for themselves fewer exports and protecting their own population. And then that drives up prices for people that were depending on importing that food and it just starts this big vicious cycle. Right, exactly. Back in 2008, there were food riots in Bangladesh, in Haiti and Egypt. Do you remember that? Because of rice. Right, it was because of rice. But the global food price, when they look at food prices, they look at baskets of foods around the world putting them together and say, this is how much food costs these days. It rose between 2002 and 2008. Food prices rose 140% globally, and a lot of people got priced out of the market. And when they looked at what happened, apparently 75% of that price increase was due to using food for biofuels, like using crops that normally would have gone to food, were being used to create energy, like biofuels. Right. Yeah. And so that drove grain prices up through the roof because speculators got involved and food was being diverted from the food supply into the energy supply, and then cropland was being increasingly diverted to produce the stuff for the energy supply as well. And it had a huge effect that just drove food prices up around the world. One of the big problems that can contribute to famine, as we'll see in a lot of famines, there are people still producing food for export because they can't afford it, that are starving, but their country is starving to death, but they can't afford it because they don't have the money. So TS. But the rest of us do have the money. So keep growing that food. Yeah. It's a pretty devastating effect. Yeah. And it's obviously most devastating. And you always hear about this, the two groups, the elderly and the young. I don't know about the total number of children, but the stat that I have from the UN, the most recent stat I have is that 21,000 children die of hunger every day. Yes. Every 4 seconds. Oh, that's awful. Yeah, it's sobering, to say the least. What happens is, especially if you're young or you're old, that disease sets in, and little kids and old people can't fight it like the parents can. And the parents are in bad shape, too. Well, yeah, everyone's doing great. When you're malnourished, your immune system starts to decline. And when your immune system starts to decline, disease comes in, especially if a group starts to migrate in search of food, because then you could be living in unsanitary conditions, and everybody has lower immune systems, and you're basically in a herd now, like moving to a different place to get food. And so a disease can just rip through a population. Oh, yeah. And the article points out that refugees are not often resettled in the most hospitable areas either, so moving doesn't necessarily help the cause in a lot of cases. All right, let's take a break, and we're going to come back and talk a little bit about some of the more noteworthy famines throughout history. All right, so I said, we're going to talk about historical famines. I lied. That's coming later. Is that all right? Yeah, that's fine. All right, so we're going to talk you sent this great article. What was the name of it? The history of humanity is a history of hunger. It was written by a guy named Mark Joseph Stern on Slate. This is a good one. Yeah. He's basically ringing the bell. He's saying, hey, guys, there seems to be this movement toward looking at famines as the result of dictatorships, which we'll get into. Super interesting. But let's not forget something else, and it's a little something called global climate change. Yeah. Because I think from Stern's perspective, he doesn't put this explicitly, but he basically says, yes, dictatorships can have this effect and have had this effect. It's proven. But really, honestly, that's fairly localized from a globalized perspective. Right. Even if it just happens in China, that's still technically local as far as the globe is concerned. And that means that there's other people around the globe that can help the people in China or Ethiopia or Ireland or wherever famine happens again. So we've got stuff in place, but if the entire global food supply starts to become threatened by climate change, then we're all toast, I think is ultimately the message of what he's saying. Yes. And he was kind of saying, like, he kind of set it up really well throughout history and then said, but nowadays, things have never been better. There's more food than ever, supply chain is more robust. Right. So we shouldn't have anything to worry about right. On a global scale. And that's when he said. You might want to look at some of these studies. And one of them. There was a report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And they said that rising temperatures around the globe are cutting into global food supply. I think to the point now where if it continues at current levels. There could be a 2% cut in crop harvest each decade moving forward. Yeah. And it might not sound like a lot 2% a decade, though, but when you couple that with a rising population, that's a problem. Especially, like in the short term, you might think, oh, well, you can grow more food, more places, if it's warmer, if things are melting. It's true in a lot of cases. Yeah. And certainly more CO2 will increase yields in the short term, but in the long term, warming trends will make crops wilt, especially near the tropics. I saw one stat that said three degree Celsius increase in temperature at the tropics could cut corn crops by 20%. Wow. So it's a real threat. Yeah. Well, even without a massive temperature change like that, or an increase in CO2, one of the trademarks of climate change is severe weather, which we're seeing more and more, it seems. Yes. Too much rain. Severe weather is not enough rain for crops. Yeah. Or either one. Over, like, a couple of year period, you're not going to be able to grow crops or your growing season is going to be shortened, or the whole crop will just be wiped out right there at the end. Who knows? Well, and then the other thing you need to think about, which he points out is, well, we can invent our way out of this. Right. Like technology will take care of it always. Yeah. And the study from NASA there's a more dire one from NASA than even the UN one that basically says we're screwed. And the NASA one says, technological change tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction. Basically. Meaning it just sort of a net. Net. Like we can't invent our way out of it. Right. It's net up until the point where we run out of resources. Yes. Then we're toast. Yes. So there is a big threat from climate change, but what Stern is saying is actually kind of retro, to tell you the truth, because up until the last couple of decades, everybody looked at famine as strictly a natural disaster. And it started to become increasingly apparent of what kind of a man made disaster famine can be, especially when people started to look at China's great famine back as part of Mao's Cultural revolution. So, Chuck, China I didn't really realize this, I don't think. I didn't know a lot about it either. There's something called when Mao took over and the Communist took over China in One of the things that Mao set his sites on, chairman Mao Zung, was that he wanted to show the west just how great Communism was, the same dream of Stalin, but he also wanted to be the top guy in the Communist world, too. So he was very ambitious. And one of the ways to do that was the same path that Stalin had followed. Which was what? We've got a lot of agriculture here. Let's use our agriculture to fund and finance industrialization. We're going to shock the system. We're going to take these old agrarian backwards ways. We're going to put them together in this great Communist way, and we're going to squeeze as much productivity out of them as we can. We're going to funnel that money into the workers in the cities. We're going to make China the glorious leader of the world, and we're going to catch up to productivity, the productivity of the UK or the US. Within ten years. Five years, which is insane. Yeah. It was called the Great Leap Forward, and it was a five year plan, which you're right. I mean, they call it ambitious. It was what it was was a disaster in the making. Right. Because what happened was, especially when you live under someone like Mao SEI tongue, you're going to have people that are afraid to tell the truth about what's going on. Yeah. So what happened from the very beginning is officials, either driven by fear or just because they were so caught up in the movement, started exaggerating reports of crop success. They were literally reporting, like, three to five times what they were really bringing in with their crops. And then the authorities came along and basically took those crops to the urban centers, killed off anyone who had any opposition to this. Well, I think they were also killed off locally, too. Like, if you were going to say, no, this guy's lying about crop yields by the local people would take care of you. Yeah. You just disappear. And so what happened in 1958 this is an actual quote, mouse tongue, said to distribute resources evenly will only ruin the great leap forward. When there's not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half the people die so that the others can eat their fill. There you have it. Right. It was very clearly a manmade famine. Like, they were aware of it, and you wonder, like, why were they coming to grab the grain? Well, grain had turned from something that people produced locally for basically local consumption into a national commodity that was used to feed these workers and then to sell on the global market to finance the glorious revolution. Right. So when grain was turned into a commodity and people were given quotes to meet, if you wanted to get ahead, you could just say, oh, we had this great yield this year, so we've got all this grain, and there were cases where the Chinese government would come and requisition more grain than they had. Then they'd even grown that based on these false reports. Right. So people started to starve. Clearly, Mao had no problem with it because it was the people out in the it was the farmers, not the workers, who are starving. And in three years, the lowest number, anyone's willing to say of the total number of people who died in three years from this famine is 15 million people. Yeah. That's the lowest. That's what the Chinese government itself officially says. Yeah. I've seen the total population loss, and that means 35 million deaths and 40 million people that weren't born because of all this. Oh, yeah. So total population loss of 75 million. And it's still apparently, like I looked into it today, it's very taboo to even talk about it today in China. Right. And they don't even call it a famine. They call it three years of natural disaster or three years of difficulties. Right. That's what they call it. Capitalized. Yeah. Like, that's the official name. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. And apparently they don't talk about it. It's not obviously not taught in schools. It's certainly not taught as the result of a calamitous government policy, because that same government, the Communist Party, is still in charge there. But, yeah, that was a huge, enormous famine. And I guess scholarship on that started to open people's eyes about how human intervention could make a famine much, much worse. Same thing with Ethiopia as well. Ethiopia is almost famous in a weird way, for famine. Yeah. Especially like you said, if you grew up in the 80s, it was sort of the face of famine and drought. It was Ethiopia. And if you go back in time, prime Minister Melissa Nawi, this was more than 20 years ago at this point, when I mentioned earlier what his vision for the country. He said, I hope in ten years that Ethiopians will eat three times a day. And after 20 years, not only are we going to have enough food, but they're going to have the luxury of choosing what they eat. He was in office for 21 years before he died in power. And things these days aren't a whole lot better. No. I remember learning about Ethiopia and their famines and I just was thinking, like, wow, they must have just the worst weather. They've got the worst luck with weather. Yeah. Turns out, no, they had the worst luck with governments. So they had a famine in 1973 that the government basically just covered up. Yeah, the Wallow famine. Yeah. And in that, 3000 people died. And even though there was actually plenty of food, the reason the family had come along was because food prices had increased just a little bit. But the people in the Wallow region were so poor they couldn't afford the food that was even available to them. Yes. And this is the same year that Emperor Hailey Selassie spent $35 million on his 80th birthday celebration. Right. Yeah. It's starting to kind of become clear what's going on. And then the very famous, famous here in the west, the 1983 to 85 famine. Everyone who is funding that, that was when Bandaid came out. Do they know it's Christmas? Song. They had the live Aid concert. Phil Collins flew in the Concorde from London to Philadelphia to play two shows at the same night. Do you remember a lot? Eight. How old were you? You played four? Yeah, I was eight. Do you remember it happening? Like, did you watch it? I remember the Phil Collins thing. Of course you do. Yeah. Because he loved Phil Collins. No, I totally remember. I was babysitting at a summer gig, a regular summer gig, where I would babysit these kids for half days, like Monday through Friday. Right. And I was babysitting these kids and we watched Live Aid and I remember seeing, of course, Phil Collins. Sure. And I remember seeing the amazing performance by Queen. It's still like one of their hallmark performances was their Live Aid, but yeah, it was all over the place. USA for Africa. It was one of the big causes because of this famine. Right. And it was great. There was all these great pictures. Not great pictures, but there were pictures spread far and wide that were waking up the west. Like, Guys, there's a huge problem. You've got to give and Band Aid and Live Aid raised $150,000,000 in 1084 for famine relief in Ethiopia. They had a significant impact. Yeah. But what no one realized, because the reporters were too lazy to report and the government was doing a good job covering up this famine was not the direct result of a drought or a crop failure. The government was actually fighting a civil war secretly against the group that now makes up eritrea, the Eritrean ethnic group. And the government was like nay, palming the croplands there, blowing up cargo transport, blowing up farmers markets to affect the food supply and to create a famine. It was a manmade famine. Yeah. And not only that, I talked about frivolous spending by the government. They spent that year, and I think they spent between 100 million and $200 million to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the revolution, almost up to $200 million. So here's the thing. I'm reading this article from Spin. I think it was written in 1986 called The Terrible Truth About Bandaid. And so at the time, there are a lot of aid groups working in Ethiopia. And if you said anything about how the government was taking this aid money and using it for themselves and not distributing it correctly, they were trying to put tariffs and taxes on age shipments into the country just to make money off of it. If you said anything, your group would get kicked out. Right. And apparently, medicine, songs, frontiers, Doctors Without Borders had raised the alarms, and they got kicked out of Ethiopia, and they went to Bob Geldof and said, hey, we know you have a $150,000,000 that you're about to give to Ethiopia. Let us tell you what's really going on there. And then you just wait until there's a stable government to give it to. And he was like, no, it's fine. It'll be fine. I'd rather work with these devils and help these people out a little bit than just not right. And a lot of people say that he was extremely reckless and basically gave $150,000,000 to an autocratic government that was creating a famine in its own country. Is that a new article? No, it's from wow. All right, I need to check that out. Yeah. It's called The Terrible Truth About Bandaid. About Bandaid? Well, there's a great book in the same article that's referenced that you send. A Nobel Prize winning economist name Amartya Sen wrote a book called Development is Freedom and basically kind of backs up what we're talking about. Authoritarian systems are the ones who have famines, and they went back and did a historical investigation. And these are 20 century famine, 30 major famines that happen. We're all in countries led by autocratic rule or that were under armed conflict at the time. Yeah. And this article from I wish I knew who wrote it. I feel terrible. But it was in HuffPo, so there you go. The author said there's a country right next to Ethiopia that has a lot of the same weather, a lot of the same soil conditions, growing conditions, cropland. Botswana. They said Botswana is a democracy. Yes. And it has been 60s. Yeah, it has been since the since it's been a democracy. It's never had a famine, and it's right next door to Ethiopia. Well, yeah. And the whole idea there is that if resources were not being allocated properly, the people. Would have a voice and change the people in power. But when you're under autocratic rule, you're either completely squashed or so disregarded that. They don't care if you are dying. Basically, they're in power and they can't do anything to change it. Right. They don't need your vote or your support because they got a barrel of a gun at you. That's how they stay in power. Yeah. A group called Human Rights Watch, which is great. I know we've talked about them before. In 2010 they did a report called Development Without Freedom how Aid Underwrites Repression. Ethiopia. And it just completely confirms all of this. It's suppression of the people and watching them die and not caring, and it's still going on. So let's take another break and then we'll talk about Ireland and then we'll talk about how to combat famines. So, Chuck, I think when most people think of famine, they think, if not of Ethiopia's, of Ireland, because Ireland had one heck of a famous famine back in the 19th century that actually created Ireland and the Irish as we know them today. Yeah. The Irish Potato Famine. Our cohorts, our colleagues Tracy and Holly at stuff you Miss in history class. Did he do one on it? Yeah. Did a great episode just on this, so I recommend listening to that. But here's our knuckleheaded overview. This was also called the Great Irish Famine, other famine of 1845 to 49, because that's when it happened. This was one of the ones that initially was caused by disease. It's called Late Blight, and it basically destroyed kind of every part of the potato. Yeah. The leaves, the roots, which, I mean, if you're eating a potato, the root is what you're after. Sure. They had, I guess, a cold, rainy spring. Yeah. It's kind of a perfect storm of bad luck. Right. And this microbe showed up from North America accidentally, from what we understand. Yeah. And so there were three successive years of dead crops. And one of the reasons why this had such an impact is that by this time, by the middle of the 19th century in Ireland, there are a lot of Irish farmers who are basically subsistence farmers. A lot of farmers in Ireland were small land farmers who were tenant farmers, which means they work the land and they had to give up a substantial amount of their crop yield, in this case to Great Britain, which held Ireland under colonial rule at the time. Yes. And then they could keep a little bit for themselves to keep their family alive, so they could come out and work the fields for another day. Right. Yeah. Most of those people depended almost exclusively on potatoes. Yeah. Not only for income, but, like, what they ate on a daily basis. Exactly. So for their nutrition. And not only that, but they had whittled it down to just a couple of varieties of potato. It's like the problem with quinoa. Yeah. That's bad news. If disease strikes or blight or something like that, if you've got just a couple of varieties and you're dependent on that as a nation and they're both susceptible to that blight yes. Then you're screwed. Right. And that's exactly what happened. It said in the early 1840s, almost half the Irish population depended almost exclusively on the potato for diet, and especially the rural poor farmers. And in 1845, that strain, it was called Phytophora, I think. So. I think there's got to be some silent letters in there. There's a lot of consonants strung together. Phytophora. And like you said, that came from North America and everything just rotted and this was the natural part of it. So then you have England. The controlling body needs to step in and do something. And they kind of did, but not as a chin up. Keep that green coming our way. Yeah. There was a Prime Minister named Sir Robert Peele and he provided a little bit of relief. He authorized import of corn from the United States, helped avoid a little bit of starvation, but it was certainly not a problem solver. Now and again, they really did say, we're sorry you're having these troubles, we'll see what we can do. But keep those green imports coming. Yeah, because just like in the wallow famine in Ethiopia, there were plenty of places in Ireland where there was grain in abundance, but the people growing the green couldn't afford it. Yes. Because the people elsewhere were having problems with the potato crop. The price of food was going through the roof because there was less food overall. And the people back in Great Britain still typically had money to pay for this food. So they were exporting the stuff out of Ireland during a famine for their own consumption, including livestock, which must be fed that grain. So to add insult to injury, they were saying, you guys are starving over there, keep exporting that grain, but feed some of it to your livestock and then export the livestock to us to eat. Yes, and not only that, it was just so compounded. It's so frustrating to look at through a modern lens of things that they could have done differently. But these poor farmers, like you said, that they were farming a lot of time on farms owned by British absentee landowners. They couldn't farm all of a sudden, so they weren't getting paid. So then they, in turn couldn't pay rent back to the landowners. Right. And so they were basically evicted. Hundreds of thousands of tenant farmers were evicted under these years. And there was an 1834 there was something called the British Poor Law, enacted in 1838 in Ireland that said able bodied indigenous were sent to a workhouse rather than given relief. So now you're sent to a workhouse, you're not even, like farming the land that you lived on to provide for your family. Right. Which is a terrible, terrible move. In any famine. Part of the spiral that spiral out of control of famine is something called livelihood shock. When farmers who can still conceivably grow food get priced out of their own cropland and they can't afford to work any longer, your food supply is taking a further hit, which you should not allow to happen. But the British government definitely did allow it to happen. The guy who came after John Peel or Robert Peele. Not John Peele. The guy who came after Robert Peele. Lord John Russell. He did even less than Peele did and basically kicked it back to Ireland to deal with. But still, give us your export that grain to us and we'll just leave it to the free markets. If you ever leave dealing with the famine to the markets to hammer out, you have abdicated all responsibility for dealing with that famine. Yeah. That's not okay. The markets aren't equipped to deal with a famine. Right. The famine happens when the markets break down. Right. And you need assistance to correct that. Right. It doesn't just work itself out. So Ireland already is not so happy to be under the thumb of the British. This got even worse when there was this sort of attitude among the elite of England that, you know what, this is really just a sort of a correction, because those Irish, all they do is have children, and there are far too many of them anyway. These poor Irish people have ten kids, so this is sort of a necessary correction in the long run. Yeah. Apparently at the time, that was a bit of the mentality of the intellectuals of England. Yeah. So that's not going to do yourself any favors as far as getting along. No. One of the other things that happened was a consolidation of wealth, like all of those small farms that people were getting kicked off of because they couldn't pay their rent. Their landlords couldn't afford the farms any longer either, because they weren't able to collect rent. Right. And so wealthier landowners said, I'll buy your farming. You're farming, your farming here, go buy some corn. You can get it from the soup kitchen over here. And then they put it together. So these small farms that form these communities now, we're single large farms owned by single wealthy landowners as a result. It's kind of like that saying, if there's blood in the streets by real estate. Right. That's what those guys were doing. Yeah. Not cool. So in the end, this had a huge effect on the way they put it in this article. The demographic history of Ireland directly caused from the famine. Their population of about 8.4 million in 44 fell to 6.6 million just seven years later. And about a million people died, literally just died from starvation. And by the time Ireland achieved independence in 1021 in 1921, the population was barely half of what it was in the early 1840s. Yeah. Because that's not supposed to happen. Death and emigration. Yeah. How many people? I think a million died and another 2 million emigrated as a result. Yeah. New York City, baby. Yes. That's how New York got to be in New York. So we've got a pretty good idea of what famines are, how they happen. There is still that struggle between how much of it is man made, how much of it is natural. I think it's a combination of the two at this time. Sure. But how do you prevent something like a famine? Chuck well, there's a lot of controversy, and there's a lot of controversy surrounding it. And a lot of people rightfully, are saying that even aid groups like what we're doing is putting a Band Aid on something, and they're not, like, getting to the root of some of these problems. Aid is great. It's keeping people alive. Right. You're not saying, don't do that. No, but it's not addressing the real problems. Right. And apparently the real problems are autocratic rule. One of them, for sure. Yeah. Another one is just food education. There are food for work programs, which apparently are working out pretty good. I think they will deliver some food aid to get people able bodied enough to work and then try and get people working on infrastructure jobs in the country. In exchange for food? Yeah, in exchange for food. And I would imagine money. I don't know that for sure, but I don't think it's straight up food. Yeah. I wonder maybe it seems like it'd be a combination of the two. Sure. Or maybe not. I don't know. Another one is hashing out early warning signs. They have different scales now of food security to kind of gauge where country is as far as its spiral towards famine. Yeah. Don't wait until you're seeing the UNICEF commercial right before you act. But not only that, you government of the people that are about to enter into a famine, you need to do certain things. Like, there's a famine that is I believe Ethiopia is on the verge of another one again right now. And part of the problem is the government denied that this was happening, that there was going to be a family. They said, we have food security. And the author of that HuffPo article pointed out, no, there's plenty of food, but it's too expensive in a lot of places, so that's not food security. And they didn't do enough. Like, they didn't tell cattle herders to move their herds closer to reliable water sources. There are steps and actions that governments that care about their people or care at least about the food supply can take. And there are early warning signs, and apparently they are born out of famine codes from 19th century India. Oh, really? India had a string of famine in the 19th century that killed, like, 17 million people. So they really started to pay attention to what made up the warning signs of famine? Well, there is something that was created in 1985, and it may have been based on what you're talking about, called the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. And they monitor these trends in food prices, food security, and basically you can compare it to other years, other areas. And right now, because I want to see like kind of what the current state of the world was, there is a global alert. Emergency food assistance needs are unprecedented in these four areas right now. Nigeria, Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia are the most of the areas of the highest concern. And it has the reasons of concern right here. Nigeria. The Boko Harem conflict. So there you have it, right? Yeah. It doesn't have to be a dictatorship being lazy. You can be in the middle of a war torn country and people aren't growing crops like they normally do when a war is not on. So there's one in Yemen, extensive conflict has reduced incomes and food prices remain elevated. South Sudan conflict severely disrupted trade, humanitarian access and livelihoods. Then finally, Somalia was the only one of the four that seemed like it was weather related. And it said that the December, I don't know how it's pronounced, D-E-Y-R season. There are two rainy seasons, the goose season and the dirt season. And apparently they've both been below average. So it looks like in Somalia it's due to rainfall, but elsewhere it's conflict, conflict, conflict. So if you care, if you want to help, if you want to make a difference, look around, do your research, find an A group that you feel good about and give money, give time, do something. Don't just sit back and eat your Big Mac and forget about the whole thing. Agreed. If you want to know more about famine, you can type that word in the search bar@howstuckworks.com. Since I said search bar is time for listener mail, I think this one trumps homelessness. Surely we won't get an email saying that people deserve children deserve to die every 4 seconds. I don't know if we do. They'll all start with I believe in a vegetable God. Alright, I'm going to call this one. Whatever Happened to Superfan Sarah? Remember that Sarah Sparrow, the amazing twelve year old fan, right? Yeah. So I listened to several podcasts per day, guys, she learned something. And to drown out the buzz of the office I work in, I was going through so many that I had caught up to the present, forcing me to dig away back to the archive instead of waiting for the newest one. So he's sandwiching, right? That's fine. That's the way to do it at the end of the podcast in 2010 about grandfather's diets shortening our lives. Fascinating. By the way, this is June 2010. You got the email from Sarah, who had been listening to the show since she was eleven. At the time, she was 13. You mentioned you should go to her high school graduation and be the keynote speaker. You are still doing this? Well, 2017. My math is right, then. Sarah is 20 years old. That's crazy. And halfway through college. It's so crazy. So I hope you guys don't feel too old, but I think it's an exceptional accomplishment. You're still doing the show and more popular than ever. Keep up the good work. Josh Taylor. And Josh. He asked about Sarah. Sadly, we haven't heard from Sarah in years. We're like the giving tree. We got ditched. She ditched us. Or she just still listens and doesn't write in right. It's plainly cool. Maybe so. Well, she is 20 years old, right? It's not super cool to still be Sarah, the amazing seven year old or eleven year old fan, your smelly old puddle uncles. But Sarah, if you are out there, hit us up. Yeah. Say hi. Send us an email. We would love to hear from you. Yeah, we'll even guaranteed to read it on the air. And you know what? That goes for you. To Sam, who is in college. Summer of Sam. Sam. So all of our younger listeners, like, they grow up and they forget about it. This is true. So sad. But then they turn like 40, 50 and they'll come back. They'll be back. Well, if you want to get in touch with us for a while, make us feel pretty good and then forget about us, you can start by tweeting to us at sisk podcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffyshno. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housetopworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the Web stuffyshto.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out. The sun shining, the daylight is longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, my Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kild Gareth and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. 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http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-02-07-sysk-quinoa-final.mp3	The Quinoa Revolution!	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-quinoa-revolution	Quinoa is a trendy food, right alongside kale and anything else farm to table. But it's really an ancient grain. Although it's not exactly a grain at all. Technically it's a pseudo-cereal. But it is tasty and nutritious, a true superfood. Learn all about	Quinoa is a trendy food, right alongside kale and anything else farm to table. But it's really an ancient grain. Although it's not exactly a grain at all. Technically it's a pseudo-cereal. But it is tasty and nutritious, a true superfood. Learn all about	Tue, 07 Feb 2017 08:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=7, tm_hour=8, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=38, tm_isdst=0)	42113641	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Charles W. Chuck Bryant's. Right there. Jerry's, right there. It's a little chilly in here, so it's Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. Because it's chili. That's the cherry on top. That's right. Spoiler or not spoiler teaser. At the end of this episode, let's say between the end and before listener mail that's agreeable to you, it's a 43 minutes mark. We are going to taste soylent for the first time live on the air. Yeah, I guess I should have thought this through. I took them out of the fridge already, so 43 minutes for it to warm up. Should we put them back? Well, I wasn't going to say anything then I was going to say something. Should I put them back? Well, it's probably best cold on it. Okay. Well, hang on, everybody. So, yes, we're going to try soil eventually in this episode. That's right. I'm excited. To try soil it or to talk about quinoa? Both. Okay. So, Chuck, you just kind of gave it away alongside the title. Sure. We're talking about quinoa today. Not quinoa. No. Quinoa. That's right. But superfood. Yes. Some say. Yeah. I mean, you can make a pretty good claim that it is a superfood. And what is a superfood, if not a type of food that has a lot going on just in and of itself? Yeah. It's super. Yeah. Like blueberries are super fruit. Or saiya berries. Super fruit. Yeah. Or saiya berries. Yeah. Algae. I didn't know algae was I buy that. Hemp seeds. Sure. Chia seeds. Yeah. A lot of nuts. Rich crackers. I don't know. No, those are just super delicious. And buttery. Yeah. With my crab dip especially. One day maybe I'll find out. What, you just want me to bring you crabbed up? Yeah, give me a cooking lesson. So, quinoa. There are at least 120 varieties, and it is nothing new. It's been around. In fact, we might as well delve into a little history here. Yes. What? It's been cultivated for more than 5000 years, I saw up to 8000 years. Yeah. That's more than 5000. Sure. Well, I guess we could say more than five years. Right. More than the last six months. Quinoa has been around on this planet. Yeah. And it's andean plant and specifically originated around Lake City, Caca. In Peru. Yeah. In Bolivia. In the altiplano. Yeah. It's wonderful. Wonderful area. Have you been? Oh, no. But just look at photos. Sure. Machu Picchu. Yeah. We'll look at that place exactly one day, maybe. I'd like to go. For sure. But there is historical evidence of it being domesticated, like we said, maybe as long as 80 years ago. And they even saw in ancient tombs, they saw little archaeological drawings and things at what they think is quinoa. Right. So people were ingesting it and using it as a superfood way back when. Yeah. The fact that it grew up there or grows up there, and not only grows, but thrives up in this high, rocky, I think, pretty much arid plateau that's also very cold. It doesn't make any sense that you'd have anything but, like alpacas and llamas up there. But in fact, there's a plant that's one of the most nutritious foods on the planet that just so happens to thrive up there in Bolivia and Peru, in the highlands. That's pretty awesome. It is. And so, of course, they have used this for thousands and thousands of years. And it wasn't until, I think, the early 20th century that it really started to make its way for the first time out to the United States. I think the USDA got their hands on it and tried to get farmers to grow it here in the States, and they said, let's give it another 100 years, maybe a little less. Yeah. I mean, the 21st century is when it really kind of became popular. Right. And even in the last mid two thousand s, you can even talk about it being trendy. Well, supposedly the whole trend for quinoa, which, by the way, in typical stuff, you should know, fashion has already come and gone, and now we're doing an episode on it. Oh, it's not gone. Are you sure? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, do you know how quinoa hit the map, hit the scene? Well, in a lot of different ways, I assume you think it's one thing only, right. Oprah, yes. She had something to do with it, for sure. She was on some sort of cleanse diet in 2008, and she ate quinoa and mushrooms, I guess. And everybody's like, what is that? She's like, oh, you've been calling it quinoa. It's quinoa. And he said, well, we have to try this now. Yeah, definitely. It was a factor. Opera a. Her reach is wide. It is, but it doesn't reach me. You're not an Oprah fan. No, I think she's fine. But I didn't learn about quinoa from her or anything else. Where did you learn about quinoa, then? Just, you know, I think the first time I had it was in a restaurant. So to me it spread because chefs started using it. Because they watch Oprah. Yeah, exactly. Chefs don't serve anything unless here in the United States. I talked about at least 120 varieties. You're more than likely going to be eating the red, white and blue no red, white or black varieties of quinoa. And do you eat it in your home? I guess we'll get to this stuff, but I'm curious if you've cooked with it a lot. Not a lot now. Had it here or there. Had it in a couple of restaurants. So this stuff is known as an ancient grain, but it's not exactly a grain and it's not exactly a cereal. It's classified technically as a pseudo cereal. Right. Like Fruity Pebbles. That's 100% cereal, baby. They just came out with cinnamon pebbles. Oh, but those are good. Yeah. If they click cinnamon old shoes and put them in cereal box, and it'd be good. But quinoa, technically, is a pseudo cereal. It comes from the goosefoot plant. Right. That's why it's not a cereal. Cereal is a grain that comes from a grass. Yeah. And goosefoot's not a grass. It's a plant. No. And it looks kind of weedy. And as we'll see later, when you're cultivating, it looks alarmingly like some other weeds. Weed weeds can be tricky with a capital W. It looks like marijuana a little bit from afar. That brilliant red and brilliant yellow. Is that what marijuana looks like when it's growing? I'm not sure you know what marijuana is. Huh. I'll show you a picture sometimes. Okay. Okay. It is labeled a whole grain, though, because it fits the whole grain definition. Because it is the whole grain seed which you're eating. Yeah. Like when you talk about grains, usually, again, you're talking about these things from grasses, like wheat. Right? Yeah. And there's such a thing as whole grain wheat, but once we process something, once we mill it or shell it, smack it on the bottom, whatever you do to them, you're actually removing certain parts of the grain. Right. So with, like, enriched white flour, you've taken a whole wheat grain and you've removed the bran and the germ, and you've just got yourself the endosperm still. And the endosperm is what's used mostly to produce white flour. Yeah. And that's great. It's full of quick, easily digestible carbs. But a lot of the nutrients are lost. Actually not easily digestible for many people. That's true, too. Yes. But a lot of the nutrients are lost in the process. So even if you can digest, it no problem, you're not getting most of the nutrients that were there in the first place with a whole grain. It's got the brand, the germ, and the endosperm, and they're all working together to make you vastly healthier than you would be if you're just eating the endosperm, like you do in white flour. Yeah. And quinoa in particular is really weird. When you look at it, it's closer you wouldn't think so, but it's closer to shard and beets and spinach. Right. The plant. It is. Anything else? Yeah, it's crazy. So imagine if, like, from spinach plants, we got not only the leaves, but also the seeds turned out to be whole grains. That's what's going on. It's a weird plant. It is. It shouldn't grow where it grows. It shouldn't be a cereal, it shouldn't be a grain. It shouldn't be related to beets. It shouldn't be delicious. But it is. That's right. And it's super good for you. Like we're saying, it's a superfood. And one of the reasons and another thing that makes it very strange is that it has a ton of protein, which is pretty unusual for a plant to have this much protein. Yeah. This article made that point, but I went and looked. There's a lot of other plants that have pretty good amounts of protein in them. What rivals quinoa in amounts? Edamame black beans, lima beans, chickpeas, all beat it by a mile. Yeah. I just thought it was weird because not only did this article say it, I ran across it elsewhere, too, that they were like, it's amazing how much protein it has. Has it in, like, a decent amount, especially for a plant, but just not like eye popping or anything like that. You think it's hyperbole? I kind of poo pooed that one. Okay. Yeah. What it does have, unless you think, is not true as well. Well, I'll be the judge of that. At least ten amino acids. And that's good, right? Or is it bad, too? I guess it's okay. No, it's chock full of amino acids, which are great for your body, because our body cannot make amino acids, so we have to get them from food sources. Well, it can't make essential amino acids. It can make essential non essential amino acids, but the essential ones we have to get from food. And quinoa is in a very small group of plants that are complete sources of protein. Meaning that they have all of the essential amino acids that we need in them. Yes. You don't find that in plants very frequently. No, that's what helps make it a superfood. Exactly. It's not very high in calorie. No sugar, no. Cholesterol, no. Sodium. What else? Zinc. Skyline zinc has a lot of potassium to apparently, it has the most potassium of any food plant that is around. Potassium is really good at regulating blood pressure because potassium is in charge of things like fluid retention and electrical conduction throughout cells. I think just compared to grains, there are plenty of other fruits with potassium. Okay. Is that what it was? Yeah. Like, bananas are loaded with potassium. Are they? Yeah. Or is that the work of Edward Bernays? No, bananas are really good for you. What else? Fiber, magnesium, folate. Yeah, that's gluten free. Well, that's a big one, man. So it's very commonly touted as a gluten free food grain, which is good for people who have celiac disease, but apparently they've tested there's at least, what did you say, 100 and 2150 varieties. 120 that are in agricultural production right now. And somebody tested a bunch of them, and they came up with at least four that created a celiac response. Oh, really? Yeah. So you got to be careful. For the most part, they are gluten free, but there are a few varieties out there that can touch off the old celiac response. Well, I think one of the deals, though, is we're not seeing those in the marketplace, though, which is one of the we'll get to it, but it's one of the potential problems is we're only eating, like, three or four of the 120 varieties, and I think those are for sure gluten free. Okay. Like, if you go to your grocery store, right, you're not going to see 120 varieties of this stuff. Oh, man. You're probably right. All right, well, let's take a break and we're going to get back and talk a little bit about cooking this delicious stuff. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary. And you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No longterm commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com. Click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. So, Chuck, you're going to lay it on everybody. How to cook quinoa? It's easy. If you can cook rice, you can cook quinoa. Yeah. It may be easier than rice. I would say it's easier than rice. It doesn't stick like rice does. Yes, exactly. That's probably rice's biggest downfall. The sticky. Yeah. It's also what makes it great, though, too. Sure. Depending on what kind of rice you're getting. I eat quinoa, the house. I wouldn't say a lot, but enough. Like every couple of weeks. Oh, yeah, that's a lot. It's to me. So what you do is you want to rent it like you will some kinds of rice. The bag you're buying is probably going to say pre rinsed or pre washed or something like that. You want to rent it anyway, right? Yeah. It's actually really good for you. This coating called saponin. And despite its great health effects, when you add water to it, it lathers up like a soap. Right. And bitter. Yeah. In fact, it means it's from the Latin SAPO, which is soap. So you don't want to eat it even though it's good for you? No, the plant produces it to keep pests away from it. From eating it. Yeah. So you rinse that stuff off, get quinoa. Once you see it, it's really tiny. So you want to get a really fine strainer. Not like a calendar. Right. You get a calendar, then all that quinoa is going to be where's quinoa go? Get down the drain, man. I hate Monday. So get like a sifter. Really fine. Sifter. Rinse it real good until the water is running clear. And basically cook it like rice. It's one part quinoa, two parts water or broth. Well, that's what I do. I use chicken broth. Sure. You'd be a madman just to use, like, water, quinoa, or veggie broth if you're weird or off the meat. I'm just kidding. Beef broth. If you're gross. That doesn't pair well with quinoa. I could see it not I'm just not a big beef broth guy. I love it. I might have said beef. You did? With a th? Yeah, it was kind of cute. Beef broth. Beef broth. But I use chicken. I use, like, half. So if I do the two cups of water, I'll do one cup water, one cup chicken broth. Oh, you cut your chicken broth? Yeah, just kind of do half and half. I got you. You stomp on it. Yeah. So then you cook it like rice, like I said, you're going to boil it, and then once it gets to a boil, cover it up, turn it down low, and wait and let it simmer until it's all soaked up. Yeah. And then this article I'm not as acquainted with cooking quinoa as you are, but this article says that you want to look for the spirals, the seed spirals to be prominent. What's the deal with that? You'll see, when you look at it, like, before you cook it, it looks different than afterward. And that's the easiest way to say it. Once you look it's almost like they pop open or something, and it's just quite obvious. It's just big and light and fluffy. You see the little seed spiral? What's needed is we kind of walked past it. But you said it a couple of times that that sepanin is good for you. Really good for you. Yeah, it has some amazing properties. Like, it's anti tumor, anti ulcer, anti inflammatory. And so you have to imagine again, that this plant is growing in this random place where plants aren't really supposed to grow, and it thrives there, and it's full of all these nutrients, and the outer coating is an anti inflammatory, anti tumor agent that you wash away. Yeah, it's kind of sad. Well, you could save it, sip on it later. I wonder what would happen. How would you have to ingest it, you think? Would it have any anti inflammatory properties? If you, like, drank saponin, do you think? Or do you need to inject it into your eye? I don't know. Or mix it into a sav, maybe rub on your skin? Yeah, I'm not sure it's a good question. I bet people know. We'll hear about that up in Bolivia. They know. So you can eat it in a variety of ways. You can just eat it as a side dish like you would with rice or couscous or whatever. Mashed potatoes? Yes. Although I would eat the mashed potatoes. You can mix it with mashed potatoes, right? No, I wouldn't do that. One thing that the author of this article, I think it's Leah White she said that she likes to mix it in instead of breadcrumbs into, like, meatballs or burgers. Sure, why not? Yeah. Quinoa burger. Yeah. So is there such a thing as a quinoa burger that's just quinoa? Could you make that, or do you need something to bind it? I think you probably need binding agents for beef. Yes. Beeth broth. I don't know. I've never made a quinoa burger, and I don't make any kind of veggie burger in my home. Oh, really? So I wouldn't really know how to go about that. What do you do? Turkey burgers or I do turkey. Turkey burgers are pretty good, depending on the brand. Some are just like, what is this texture? Yeah, I mean, I make them myself with my own little recipe, but that's just because we don't need beef. So I've gotten so into the turkey burger that I don't even really I'll have a beef burger out. Right. Never at home. You and I are sympathetico on the home burger cooking tip. Do you grill or do you skill it? Foreman grill. Oh, yeah. It's pretty great. You watch that grease strip out of the front, and I've noticed many times, like, I will zone out drawing grease out of my mouth. So here's my favorite quinoa dish, and I got it from a restaurant in New York that I can't remember, but there are all kinds of variations. But I cook it and then put it in the fridge and chill it, like, overnight. Okay. So in the summer, I will get that cold quinoa and then dice up, like, some cucumber and some red onion. Okay. And I mean, kind of anything you want that fits a summer salad. Okay. Like orange pepper, like crunchy green pepper or roasted red pepper. That's good. Garlic. Throw some pine nuts in there. I wish it was summer right now. Like, you get some basil, some fresh herbs. That's the way to go, man. Yeah. Like, anything that strikes your fancy. Maybe a little lemon juice, little apple cider vinegar. But the base of it is quinoa. Yeah. And you just mix up anything that you kind of might add some texture, like that crunch, and serve it alongside, like, a burger instead of fries. Oh, yeah. It's really good. And you know me. I'm not into healthy foods. Like that a lot. Right. Which means it's good. Which means it's really good. Yeah. And packed with protein. Don't forget that's. Right. It's a complete source of protein. Or maybe some dried cranberry or golden raisins. We're not big on that kind of stuff in the salad. Oh, yeah. I know a lot of people like it. Not me. Yeah. I don't love the golden raisins, but I do like the cranberry. Do you? Yeah, I think it's nice. All right, so that's Chuck's recipe of the week. That's pretty good. We'll do that every week, no matter what the topic is. What are you going to come up with for the tardigrade? Oh, just you wait. So here's the deal with quinoa. It's gotten really trendy. So in 2007, the United States was importing \u00a37.3 million of quinoa. 2012, they were imported \u00a357 million. And God knows what it is this year. You know, a lot of that was the direct result of a single person of Oprah. Yeah. It all comes down to Oprah. No, there is this dude, he was a UN development worker from Bolivia who'd moved to California, and he has obviously grown up at least familiar with quinoa, if not eating quinoa. His name is Sergio Nunez Dirk, and he saw that quinoa was starting to catch on a little bit. I guess he saw that episode of Oprah. So he went back to Bolivia and he found that there are only a few indigenous producers who were putting out, like, retail sized bags of quinoa. So he went around and he basically created a coop out of all the indigenous farmers who create quinoa and Bolivia and made the supply from them reliable enough and big enough to supply industry abroad around the world. This guy basically was the flashpoint for the quinoa explosion. He helped it happen, and he made sure that it was based on the work of the people who were originally cultivating quinoa. Right? Yes. Which is a big one. Yeah. He went from in 2005, he sold $25,000 worth through his company, and these days, he's selling about $26 million worth annually from his own facility and about 40 million from other facilities. So he basically went around to them and said, hey, these weekend farmers markets are cute, but how would you like to be a part of the industrial food supply? Yeah, you put down that pam flute. We're talking business here. They play the pamphlet. Yeah. Those Andy and highlanders, they love that. They love that junk. Is that where Zamfir is from? No, I think Sam fear is I think he's Mediterranean. I want to say Greek. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Okay. I don't know if I'm getting he and Yani confused, though. Oh, yeah, maybe we are. They seem like they probably at least go bowling together. Yanni didn't play the pan fleet, though, did he? No. Okay. Sam Fear is definitely master of the pamphlets. Of course, you can't call yourself that on a CD unless Oprah has said so. Right. Has the stamp of approval. So the price has really gone up, too, as a result. And it was not small for a lot of years. One metric ton was about $500, and in 2010, that was $1,300. So that's almost three fold. And again, that was six years. Almost seven years ago. Yes. It kept going up, too. I think it peaked in 2012. Really? Yeah, the price went up quite a bit. So you would think that's great. These farmers are making a ton of money now, right? Yes. Apparently. I don't know where it started, but somebody created I guess somebody wrote an article or started digging around, and they said, hey, everybody, you guys are eating all this quinoa. Guess what you did. You drove up prices so much that the very indigenous people who have been cultivating this for thousands of years can't afford it anymore. So stuck on that hipster, right? Like, the people of Fiji are exporting Fiji water, but they all don't have clean drinking water themselves. That kind of same thing, right? It's basically an American pastime to take hipsters down a peg, isn't it? Is it? Seems like anything hipsters, like everybody goes to a lot of trouble to dig around and find what's wrong with it. Yes. Like the one thing that you trace back, it's got to be blood on the hands somewhere. All right, well, let's take a break. We'll talk a little bit about what this all means and whether or not that's even true right after this. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. 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All right, so if it's being produced in the Andes and prices are going up, you would think that at some point, people in the United States might try and take a stab at it. And that's exactly what happened and is happening. And you sent this great article is quinoa California farmers new kale, because kale had a similar explosion in popularity over the past few years. Kale is so hot right now. Yeah, I think kale is out now. Yeah. Or at least made fun of for being too hipstery and hot. Yes. I think the hipsters kind of chewed that up and spit it out, but still great. I know people just hate all that stuff. Yeah, really? Just, like, what's trending and what's not and what we think is cool. Let's write about it. Right. And I read this really interesting article. I think it was a Mother Jones writer, like a Mother Jones AG writer, who basically said, like, hey, dude, all of this stuff that is suddenly, like, the hot new superfood, it's niche food marketing. It's the same thing as, like, Oreos coming out with a new flavor every couple of months that you got to go try or something like that. Yeah. Like, you're just a sheep for kale, but yeah, but geared towards people who don't eat junk food. But it's the same exact thing. It will be a chump. Yeah. Or at least don't get on your high horse about the other stuff being mass marketed or being eaten by idiots and SAPS and simpletons. Right. So the thing is, the thing that made it even worse, though, was the idea that the huge demand in the expanded market for quinoa that was largely found in the United States was directly responsible for pricing indigenous farmers who were growing that quinoa out of it. So they weren't even eating it was the problem. Well, supposedly. Right. And what they found was that, one, they couldn't afford it. They've been priced out, or they were making the decision to where, yeah, they're making more money now, but they would rather sell all their quinoa and buy less expensive, less nutrient dense food for their families. So the very people producing quinoa were not only couldn't afford it, they also were being malnourished as a result of this quinoa explosion. Right. It was a big deal. It made a lot of people second guess it feel pretty bad about themselves. And I also guarantee it had a negative impact on the quinoa market as well. Sure. Which would directly affect the farmers. But what you dug up, though, on this NPR's default, I guess, blog, their food blog yeah. There was a story about it attached to it as well. It was pretty eye opening. Yeah. These dudes got together, and we're trying to get to kind of the root of all this. And so they got a data source en a Ho. It's the National Survey of Peru that they carry out every year about just Peruvian households and all kinds of stuff, data that they're collecting. But one of them is food, and there are 22,000 randomly selected households. So they got ten years worth of this data, covering from before the quinoa boom, a few years before through the quinoa boom. So they could kind of do a good comparison. Right. And they split the households into three groups those who grow and eat quinoa, those who eat it but don't grow it, and those who neither grow it nor eat it. Yeah, yeah. I guess the final household is people that pronounce it quinoa. It's like one household in Peru. What is this stuff? And they all three showed a clear rise in their welfare, which they measured is the. Total value of goods consumed as that price of quinoa rose. And apparently that reflected in the increased living standards in Peru as a whole, too. Right. So the height of that boom, the welfare of the growers increase more rapidly than the other two groups though. Right? That makes sense. Yeah. And so they basically tracked a direct correlation between the quinoa boom around the world and a rise in the household welfare of quinoa farmers, beck and crew. So they conclusively prove pretty much that these farmers weren't too poor to afford quinoa, but the other one was still left standing. Right. The idea that they were selling all their quinoa, but then they were still malnourished because they were buying less nutritionally dense food. Yeah. And that apparently they managed to disprove as well. Yeah. At least that's what they're saying in this paper. I mean, we're not saying this is 100% evidence, but at least this is what they dug out after pouring over these ten years worth of studies. Right. They said this guy, Andrew Stevens, a doctorial candidate, focused on specifically the Puno region in the Andes, which grows about 80% of all the quinoa Peru. And he said this is a cultural and nutritionally important food. But it's not. I think the gist was people are trying to make it out to be like, this is what they subsist on every day and they can't afford to eat it. Right. And he said this is actually a pretty small part of their diet overall, and they're actually eating more quinoa than ever before in that region that grows the most. That was pretty surprising. So it said they did not cut back their consumption between 2004 and 2012, despite a four fold price increase. They see no signs of changing calories, proteins or carbohydrates in the diet across Peru as a whole. Right. So they kind of debunked. It pretty cool. Hipsters rejoice. They shall rejoice. But there are still some outstanding problems. Right, sure. So, like you said that you mentioned it was a culturally important food. So much so that Bolivia and it's drafted 2009 constitution and shrine quinoa as part of their food sovereignty, which is their right to protect culturally important food. Yeah. Like, hey, you're coming in here and you're basically taking this and now you're going to grow it all over the world. Right. And they recognize the importance of chemo for a very long time. There was apparently a Colorado researcher who went to Bolivia in 1986 and was shot dead trying to smuggle quinoa seeds out of the country. Yeah. And I guess somebody from Colorado eventually got them out because Colorado State University patented a hybrid quinoa based on Bolivian seeds, and the government of Bolivia called them biopirac. Yes. That's not something you want leveled at you. No, not by Bolivia. The other thing, too, and I think you sent me this was that because basically there's sort of a land grab going on. Yeah. This is where it's going in Peru where all of a sudden they realize that before, when it wasn't worth that much money I mean, sure, they were producing it, but it wasn't like it is now. So all these people are saying, Wait, this land that was once unused, like, is anyone claiming it? And there's sort of a rush to claim these lands. Well, there was fighting going on. Yeah. There was violence that broke out in February of I think sorry, 2014, where one guy got his arm blown off by dynamite during this battle among hundreds of farmers for some land that had been sitting there abandoned for decades. And part of the problem is, when you're doing good agricultural practices, what do we talk about? No Till farming in. I was thinking that, too. I can't remember. We've definitely talked a lot about that. And when you're using good agricultural practice, one of the main things you want to do is let fields, like fallow for a year or season at a time. And they're not doing that anymore in the Andes. And again, this is really fragile cropland that they're growing this stuff in. So they're not letting it lay fallow any longer. And they're also using llamas less. Yeah. And llamas and quinoa go together like rice and beans, which, by the way, is another complete protein food. But it's not just a single food secret. Yeah. Yeah. Man. What was that episode? It's totally on the tip of my tongue. We talked a lot about no till farming. I can't remember. I want to say it's something to do with the Dust Bowl, but we didn't do one on the Dust Bowl. We did. We did one on the Dust Bowl and desertification. Maybe it was the dustball. Yeah. Good one. Yeah. So the llamas, that's one of the big issues, right, is that they're not letting them poop everywhere. Well, they're not llama farming like they used to. Llamas use a lot of grazing land, and they're like, we can use that instead to grow quinoa because quinoa is more valuable than llamas. Right. But llamas, again, and quinoa go together like rice and beans. And llama poop is almost like it's designed or tailored to fertilize quinoa. They started to use sheep poop instead, I guess imported sheep poop. And it allows a lot more pests and invasive weeds than llama poop does when llama poop is fertilizing. So the whole ecosystem is definitely being altered. Yeah. Not necessarily in good ways because of this huge demand and this huge influx of cash. It's basically more money, more problems. The Alto plans. People are finding out it's so weird, or not weird, but kind of sad that it can't just be a success story. Got to have the good with the bad, I guess, in the long run. They're also worried that I was talking about all those different varieties. I saw the 120, but it says here there could be up to thousands of different varieties. Yeah. And farmers are abandoning most of these to concentrate on the ones that they can sell, to ship out, to export to American markets. Or I guess just not just America. I think Europe is eating the stuff like crazy, too. Are they? Yeah, but it says that those varieties are this guy says that they're the future of quinoa because they can adapt to things like climate change. And if you narrow the varieties down to a certain few and they don't adapt, then you're kind of screwed. Yeah, you're so if you have 3000 to choose from to try to adapt to changing climate, then yeah, you're way better off. So crop diversity is pretty important. But yeah, that's getting erased as well. Yeah. Well, they're trying to encourage it with these. Andean farmers at least they are working with Bolivia and Peru to develop internal markets for these threatened varieties, like with school food programs and stuff, not necessarily to sell, but to use within the country at hospitals and schools. They said they've been fairly successful with some of that stuff, so hopefully that continues. So that to me, that's what government subsidies are for, stuff like that. For small indigenous farmers who are protecting thousand year old varieties of crops that are part of the cultural fabric of a country. Yeah. For the future, for all. They are growing in California, though, that article you sent, this dude is growing it in the Sonoran Desert crazy. In the Imperial Valley, below sea level, in one of the hottest places in North America. They're growing quinoa. Yeah. Well, part of the problem is quinoa is very closely related. I think it's in the same genus as something called lambs quarters. Yeah, that's the weed, which doesn't really matter up in the Alto plano. But in California, Lamb's Quarters is a toxic plant to livestock which might accidentally graze on it because they're not thinking about that kind of stuff. And it also carries a virus that kills alfalfa, which is very much grown in California to feed that livestock. It's weird. It's a complex, amazing plant that shouldn't exist. Quinoa. Yeah. Maybe that'll be the title. Quinoa Colon Complex. More complex than you think. That's a good one. Or maybe it should say, well, never mind, I'll figure that out. Or should we just brainstorm some more and let's show titles. Let's do it. Are we going to try the Soil? Yes. And then do you listen to mail? Yeah, let's do that. All right, so here we are. We're going to try this? Yeah. Soylent. It's in a white bottle. We caught a lot of flack about not having tried it and still done something I'm like, well, here we go then. I'm not iridescent, but I've done an episode on iridescent. Give me a break, people. I think you should probably shake well, right? I think so. I don't know. We got to go back and listen to the episode again. It's been a while. People also thought that was a sponsored episode by Soilant, and I was like, I think we said enough bad things about the taste that he should have figured out that it was not. All right, here we go. So this is us trying. We also want to say thanks again to Don Kent for sending this in. It smells like it's a nice kind of a nice smell. What does that smell like? It smells like cereal milk. We got that a lot. A lot of people said it smelled like or it tastes like Cheerios milk. That's totally what it smells like. Can we say Cheerios, or is this an episode of Cheerios now? All right, should we do it the same time? Two, one. I thought we were chugging the whole thing. No, that's not bad. It's not bad at all. 100% Cheerio cereal milk. I think I would have come up with that even if somebody hadn't said it. This is good. Yeah. I mean, it's sort of bland. Definitely. It's not nearly as sweet. It's not like a honey nut Cheerio milk. No, that's true. For Cinnamon Toast Crunch milk. It's not bad. I was dreading this. I thought it was going to be awful from all the comments, but it's not bad at all. I like it. I can see how you would kind of start to crave it because it's got that almost a fatty mouth feel to it. You know what I mean? Yeah, it really gets on the tongue. All right, well, there it is. I should probably stop and sell out calories in it. Yeah, I mean, that's 20% of your daily nutrition. Well, thanks again to Don Kent. Thanks again to everybody who wrongly called us out for doing an ad for soylent. The aftertaste is a little bit like milk of magnesia. I'm not getting that. Like Mylana yeah, I know what you mean. Kind of chalky. I don't have that. If you want to know more about soil, go listen to the soil lampsub. In the meantime, if you want to know more about quinoa, type that word Q-U-I-N-O-A into the search barhouseuffworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for more soil. I mean, it's time for listener mail. All right, I'm going to call. Yeah, I definitely don't like the aftertaste. It sounds sort of chalking up on my throat and tongue. I kind of like this stuff. I like food more, but that's not bad. Sure, if somebody said, Should I drink soil it, I'd say, why not? All right, I'm going to call. This just a nice email from this lovely Australian woman. Hey, guys, it's been a long time listener, first time writer, currently living in Sydney, Australia, though I grew up in Tennessee, and now I'm a Florida resident all over the place. Wow. So maybe she's not Australian. I've been listening to you all since I was in college at UTK Govalve, and I even brought you along with me while spending a year living in France. If you do end up reading this on the air, which I don't expect, I would be so thrilled if you gave a shout out to my little sister LB. Currently in Portland. All right. What's up, LB. She's a little reverse psychology on you there. Yes, she did. Anytime we make a road trip, we put on stuff you should know which insights a groan from her every time. It's the chitchat that bugs her. We just gave her a shout out. Yeah, well, she's not the only person to feel that way. All right, to get to the point, I was listening to the Dictator's episode and was so excited to hear you talking about Lucius Cornelius Salah. In fact, that's my grandmother's maiden name. We pronounce it Suella, but whoever knows if that's the true pronunciation? Her family is from southern Italy and immigrated from Naples about 100 years ago. She recently went on a trip to Italy and studied up on her ancestors, Sullivan, and even visited a lot of the sites inscribed with his name. That's pretty cool. It's amazing to see a piece of your family history show up on your favorite podcast, even if it is about dictators. Gave me a chuckle. Thanks for keeping me entertained. This recently caught up to all the episodes on itunes. I know there are much more, many more on your website. Wow, she is a listener. She is. And that's Sarah right now in Sydney. Thanks a lot, Sarah. Appreciate that. So, wait, is she from Australia or she's just living in Australia now? I think she's just living there. Okay, got it. If you want to let us know about your world travels and all that jazz like Sarah did, you can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. Or Josh Clark. You can hang out with Chuck at Charlesw Chuck Bryant on Facebook or at Stuff You Should Know on Facebook. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastsufforts.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushineknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstoffworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out. The sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1215463405219sysk-death-proof-car.mp3	How Death-Proof Cars Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-death-proof-cars-work	Could high-end digital auto systems such as blind-spot detection and collision prevention overcome the errors of human drivers? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the death-proof cars of the future.	Could high-end digital auto systems such as blind-spot detection and collision prevention overcome the errors of human drivers? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the death-proof cars of the future.	Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:21:06 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=18, tm_min=21, tm_sec=6, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=178, tm_isdst=0)	5632646	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer. Here@howard.com with me is my trusty and double jointed editrix, Candice Gibson. How are you, Candice? Fabulous, Josh. So, Candace, you want to join me in giving a shout out to our favorite listeners? You know I do. Okay. So hey, Billy, thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this podcast as much as the others. What we're talking about this week is death proof cars, which is just super cool. Candice, have you ever seen the movie Death Proof? No. Candice, have you ever seen the movie Ghostbusters? You're asking me a bad but no. Okay, well, you need to see both. We'll just talk about death proof now. I'll tell you about Ghostbusters later. So, in the movie, there's a guy named Stuntman Mike, and he's got this car, but I know a really cool car when I see one. And Stuntman Mike's car is cool in aces. It's a 1970 Chevy Nova, and it has, like, a skull with lightning bolts for crossbones on the hood. And he has it reinforced with steel beams, shutterproof glass, five point seatbelt, all this other stuff. And the reason he has gone to the trouble of death proofing his car is because he loves to ram it into other people's cars at high speeds and kill them. So he just generally wreaks havoc on the highway. And Stuntman Mike's car is death proof. He walks away from it several times, and it turns out that they're in real life, this is just a movie as far as we know. It's not based on any real life events, hopefully, but in real life, there are some people who are thinking about death troop cars, but they're kind of taking it in another direction. Do you know much about that, Candace? I do, and I'll redeem myself since I lack moving knowledge. This is a European commission called the Prevent Safety Research Group, and their very lofty goal is to reduce auto accidents in Europe by 50% by the year 2010. And to this end, a very well renowned European automaker. Volvo. Volvo. Volvo. I used to have one, too. I have one. And actually, our producer Jerry, admitted that she had one as well. So Volvo is very popular around the office. Got to love those fees. They have vowed to make an injury proof car by 2020, and it's not going to be injury proof in the way that Stuntman Mike is. It's actually going to rely on digital features to reinforce it. And that's a pretty good thing, actually, because Stuntman Mike, he's a hard driver, but for the most part, we humans tend to fold like card tables under pressure, especially when it comes to collision. Yeah, well, they're pretty scary. And the way that our brain works is a short little lesson for you. You can read more about it and how fear works. On howstaf works.com essentially, when you perceive something that's kind of scary, your brain interprets the stimulus and starts sending chemicals through your body to help with your reaction to that. Your fight or flight syndrome. And some things that happen are like your breathing speeds up and your heart starts racing and your muscles tense up and you can't always react. And in the case of auto accidents, that's pretty scary because in 50% of rear end collisions, people don't even apply the brakes because they're too frozen in fear and actually a big whopping 1.1 second pass before drivers in the face of an impending collision do anything at all. Yeah, which goes to Lanc cream to my theory that humans are useless. And I'm not the only one who thinks this either. These engineers that prevent are basically taking humans out of the equation when it comes to facing a collision. Right. There's already a lot of features on the digital car that you mentioned, which is another article on how stuff works.com. And there are all sorts of safety features that are popping up on high end luxury cars. Like the blind Spot Detection system, which uses sensors to detect when a car is in your blind spot and you can't see it. Or Collision Prevention Systems, which also use sensors to tell when you're coming up really fast on another obstacle. Tightening seatbelt brakes that can adjust pressure for your foot. All of these features that combined together are going to be a part of this injury proof car. And what's more, we mention brakes that increase pressure for you if you can't quite brake as hard as you'd like to before you hit something. Legs. There you go. Like myself. But this car could actually break for you. So completely removing humans from the equation, taking out emotionality and replacing it with hardcore rationality on the car. Nice. Yeah, hardcore rationality is what you want in the face of a collision. And it's not just breaking for you. Some cars will be steering out of the way for you. And the injury proof car most likely will be so set with sensors that will be aware of everything that's going on around it and ahead of it and behind it. In the future, when you have to swerve one way or another in the Facebook collision, your car may say, okay, well, we've got a baby in a stroller being pushed by a mom to the right and a squirrel left, and the car will swear to the left and goodbye squirrel. So there's a lot more information on this in the article I wrote and Candace edited. Can a car really be death proof? You can read it on howstuffs.com. For more on this and dozens of other topics, visit houseworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast@houseworks.com brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-berlin-wall.mp3	How the Berlin Wall Worked	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-the-berlin-wall-worked	It's hard to believe now, but just over 25 years ago there was a giant concrete wall separating East and West Germany. In this episode, Chuck and Josh get into the fascinating story of the Berlin Wall.	It's hard to believe now, but just over 25 years ago there was a giant concrete wall separating East and West Germany. In this episode, Chuck and Josh get into the fascinating story of the Berlin Wall.	Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:44:56 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=15, tm_min=44, tm_sec=56, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=233, tm_isdst=0)	42510288	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. What if you were an apparel company facing an avalanche of demand so you call IBM to automate your It infrastructure? And now your ecommerce platform can handle spikes in orders? Let's create It systems that roll up their own fleet. IBM let's create learn more@ibm.com. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. And this is stuff you should know. The podcast. Tear down the wall. Tear down the wall. Can you say it in German? No, it would be more authentic. Yeah. I would say Tear down the wall. Zwall. Yeah, I think that's it. Yes, that's right. I should know what that is in German. It's tear down the wall. Yeah, I remembered this stuff, man. You do too, to a certain degree, yeah. We both grew up in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, but several thousand miles west. Yeah. It's crazy, though, to think about it now. If you're of a certain age, the concept of falling in the city seems probably really strange and unlikely. Yeah. If you're like, under 30. Probably like, what one of the things this is a Grabster article, so it has the stank of quality on it. Yes, it does. That I learned from this article was that there were a lot of people in power at the time who were very relieved when the Berlin Wall went up. Yeah. Quietly relieved because things were coming to a head between two nuclear superpowers in the city of Berlin. Yeah. Even they couldn't really say it out loud, but even Western leaders were like, all right, well, this may be not the worst thing for now. Yeah, exactly. Give me a Scotch. Because world leaders drink scotch. Sure they do. Yeah, and they wear dark socks. Stuff is that I don't know. It's weird. So you want to get down to business here about the Berlin Wall? Sure. There was long a discrepancy over how many people were killed at the Berlin Wall. Yes. Trying to defect or escape, depending on which way you want to look at it. Yeah. And the exact number stands right now at 1.36. That's how many have been confirmed. Plenty have been denied, I guess some people said like as many as 300 were killed. Some people said as low as 98, but definitely 136 people were killed at the Berlin Wall either trying to escape or that included border guards who were killed by people who were escaping. And it also, sadly, included 30 people who were just trying to cross the border and weren't trying to escape, but were killed accidentally. Yeah, it doesn't sound like a super high number, and I guess it's not in the grand scheme of things, but it didn't need to be. Like when those first people and we'll get to who they were when those first people were killed sent a very strong message, do so and try it at your own risk. Right, because you might get shot in the back. Exactly. And there were trials. The exact numbers for the people who were killed at the Berlin Wall came out of documents that were used in trials to try people who were responsible for basically issuing shoot to kill orders. And it wasn't clear from the get go just how porous the border was, even though there was a wall. But when they started shooting people and putting in landmines, it became clear, like, you try to cross this border now at the risk of your own life, you're not messing around. Apparently, a pregnant woman was shot and killed trying to defect. Yeah. So, yes, we'll talk about them, but there's plenty of this wall, the Berlin Wall, that I didn't understand, and I guess I didn't really understand the context. And again, the grassroots did a really good job of getting down to the nitty gritty of where the whole thing started, and it finds its roots back in World War II, at the end of World War II, specifically after Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. Are we getting in the way back machine? Oh, you want to? Yeah, we got to blow the dust off of this thing. This is a dangerous time. We're going back to just before warm. You have to go prime the engine as well to pump that little bubble because it's been a while. Yeah. Start her up. Sounds like it's working. All right. So, yeah, it is a little scary. Here we are in the end of World War II. Yeah. Very uncertain time. We're in Berlin. That's right. And like you said, Germany has surrendered. But things were a little dodgy before that because Russia was initially against the Allied forces, which were the United States and France and Britain. Yeah. They had a treaty with Germany. Yeah. But then Germany, like Hitler was wanting to do, changed his mind, said, you know what? I'm going to invade you guys, too. Which is pretty stupid, because as everyone knows, you don't start a land war in Russia. It didn't work out too well in the end, but what it did was it flopped russia not super willingly, but it kind of flopped them over to the Allied side. Even though things were so different in our two countries, it was a little bit weird that they did that. Right? It was one of those the enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing. Yes. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was like, hey, guys, remember how we were just fighting on the same side? Well, my teammate just attacked me, so can I come over and hang out with you dudes for a while? What was weird was that this is a totalitarian communist regime asking democratic countries to come fight on their side. They were probably like, but how about that Hitler guy? Forget about us for a minute. We should all get together and stop him. There's a lot about how much everybody hated Hitler. Yeah. But like we said, in 1945, Germany did surrender. And oddly, and it's still strange to think about it, they decided to divide Germany up into four zones. And then within one of the communist zones, the East German zone, they divided the city of Berlin up into four zones. Right. Such an odd idea. Well, the thing is, the Soviets had a seat at the table at the Yalta Conference because they were one of the victors, one of the Allied victors at the end of the war. And even though the Allies knew, like, this is really weird, having the Soviets there, who knows, maybe it can generate goodwill. We don't know what's going to happen, so they get an even piece of the pie. And that's what they did. They divided Germany up into four zones, and France, Britain and the US eventually merged their zone, and that became the Federal Republic of Germany, also known as West Germany. And the Soviets said, we're just going to keep total and complete control over our side of Germany. We'll call it the German Democratic Republic and we're going to start a puppet state in there. I think the thing that really surprised the Allies, though, was that the Soviets took the chaos at the end of World War II as an opportunity to invade and occupy a bunch of other formerly independent countries. That's what really caught everybody by surprise. Yeah. And they basically formed what was to be known as the Iron Curtain, this isolation that they basically put on all these countries that they invaded. They just cut them off from the rest of the world. Yeah. And that was the Eastern block. And American and everyone else was like, didn't see that coming. Yeah, but there was an anomaly to the Iron Curtain. Like, it was sealed, like, all the borders and all of the Eastern Bloc countries were closed and guarded. And so there was this Iron Curtain between the Soviet bloc and the west, but there was this one little pocket, like, as part of the Yalta Conference, berlin, which is totally in East Germany, was also divided up into four quadrants in Britain, France and the US merged theirs together, and that was West Berlin. And there was also East Berlin. Soviet controlled East Berlin. So within Soviet controlled East Germany was a little island called West Berlin that was controlled by the West German government, the Allies. And there you have it. It wasn't a recipe for long term success. No. And I don't think anyone thought it would be. I don't know. I mean, why would you go to the trouble if you thought it wouldn't be, I don't know, maybe just to temporarily quell things. I mean, surely they didn't think that would be like that forever. Well, it's almost like they went in after Yalta whistling with a powder keg and just set it down in the middle of East Germany and paid out some fuse and lit it and whistled as they walked away. That's what they did when they divided in West Berlin. Yeah. And the Western nations weren't thrilled with all this, but there wasn't much we could do because they had nuclear bombs and we had nuclear bombs, and no one wanted that to happen. So there was a lot of spying and a lot of name calling, a lot of speeches and rhetoric. There was also a lot of kidnaps, a lot of bureaucratic delays, a lot of feet dragging. Yes. But in the end, it wasn't going to lead to another war. No. Because like you said, both sides had nukes. That's right. So nobody could step up and provoke one another militarily. Right. No, I mean, not to that degree. So life was really weird in Berlin. In West Berlin in particular. In East Berlin. It was just part of the rest of East Germany. But again, West Berlin was this little island in East Germany, and there was rail and highway connections to the west. Well, they shared an infrastructure. Yeah. It's a weird thing to do, like a mail system, trains. It's a hard thing to divide a country like that in a city within a country. Right. Yeah. That made it even weirder. And I guess it carried on like that for a little while, and then the Soviets were like, yeah, we really didn't mean anything when we agreed to this, so we're going to cut off all this transportation in and out of the city. And they basically blockaded West Germany from being helped by the west through rail and through car. But the Allies could still land planes in and out of West Berlin. Yeah. They were trying to choke them out, basically, and just say, good luck without food and supplies. Yes. We're going to take over the city now. And the American said, oh, yeah. How about the Berlin airlift, buddy? How about sorties landing every two minutes, 24 hours a day, bringing in all the supplies you need to a very tight corridor? It's difficult, but we're the USA and we can do it because we can fly planes. Right. And it worked. Yeah. Apparently, the Allied forces who were supplying West Germany just enough to keep the city going were bringing in more than 200,000 tons of cargo a month at the peak of the airlift. And they kept it going for almost a year. Yeah. They were basically like, you're not taking over West Berlin. Yeah, we had planes, we got lots of gas and lots of pilots, and eventually the Soviet Union was like, all right, well, I guess that didn't work, so let's go ahead and open up the rail traffic and the roads again. Right. They lifted the blockade. So things were cool for a little while, but the Soviets hadn't really forgotten anything, and tensions were just increased more and more after the Berlin airlift. And I think things were getting more I get the impression that we were getting closer and closer to the threat of nuclear war right there in the middle of East Germany, and apparently no one knew what to do about it. One of the biggest things that was provoking these tensions was the massive amounts of defection from East Germany to West Germany, because if you were in East Berliner or an East German, all you did was trot right into West Berlin. There's nothing to stop. You catch a plane out of West Berlin and fly out to wherever you want it. And a lot of people did it. Yeah. And it was a real divide between the old guard and the new guard. It was mostly young professionals that saw the riding on the wall. East Germany finally realized they were in big trouble when they started looking at the number of doctors leaving and realized they couldn't train enough doctors to support the country that we're exiting. So by 1961, more than 200,000 East Germans had left, and East Germany knew they were in trouble. And West Germany didn't love it either, because there was a big economic strain put on them by having all these people to show up all of a sudden and say, hey, we're here now. Help us out. Take care of us. Right? Exactly. And not just take care of us, but help us take care of ourselves. Sure. Yeah. Some of them wanted to stay in Berlin. I'm sure plenty of them wanted to just leave Germany altogether. But the point is, in the west, you have this infrastructure that's being tested by the number of defections. And then in the east, you have this huge brain drain going on. And so it was causing more and more tension because the Western forces, the United States and all, weren't doing anything to stop these defections. And probably we're being a little smug about the whole thing because it suggests, like, why do all of your people want to leave in droves? Maybe you're doing something wrong. Right? Maybe you should just give up. And the Soviets said, we're not going to give up next. Try Uncle Sam, but we're not going to do that. Instead, we're going to wait till night falls on August 12, 1961, and we'll get to what happened there. Right after this break, only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K Twelvecom podcast. That's K Twelvecom podcast. And start taking charge of your future today. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look in Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah, don't just take our word for it. Head to Squarespace.com SYSK and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code s YSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace. Comsysk squarespace. All right, Josh. It's August 12, 1961, code named Wall of China from the orders of Nikita Khrushchev, but spoken by what some call puppet leader Walter Ulbricht. Other people say he wasn't so much a puppet and it was his idea. I'm not really sure what the truth is there. That actually yeah. But at any rate, they said, you know what we're going to do? We are going to, in the dead of night, turn off all the street lights. We're going to start building the wall out of concrete post and barbed wire. And when people wake up all over the world, they're going to be surprised to see about 5 miles of wall through central Berlin. Yeah, and everyone was surprised, including President Kennedy. Like Wall. Right. And at first, it was kind of a skimpy wall, not just symbolic. Like, there were coils of razor wire and that kind of thing. It was intended to block people, but it was nothing like the construction that would follow and a lot of East Berliners saw the writing on the wall and said, we now have a narrow chance of escaping, so we're going to try it. Yeah. And at that point, the initial few days, they close 67 of the 81 checkpoints, seal bows off, put armed guards at the rest of them. They closed the train stations. Yeah. Close the train stations. And then they began in earnest what was called the first generation wall was the initial phase. And it was crude and didn't even have the foundation. They basically used bricks from bombed out buildings and mortar and just kind of started putting up whatever they could to form the initial wall. Right. And then how long after that until they started to build what we came to understand as the Berlin Wall? I think a few years, they had to get that first initial phase fully built. And then I think a few years later, they started work on fortifying it and making it like a real wall. So when we say this happened overnight, it literally happened overnight. Yeah. And there were some unfinished parts here, there, and some pockets that you could conceivably make a run for a while, a literal last ditch attempt to run through. But it was put up fast enough and in a substantial enough amount that people were trapped on either side, like, overnight. If you had a one night stand with a lady on the other side of the wall and you woke up and you're like, I got to do the walk of shame back over to my apartment, you were met with barbed wire fence and guns, and that was that. And you married that lady. There was a woman who gave birth to her son and ended up on different sides a few weeks after her son was born. And he was basically raised in West Germany and she was thrown into a prison in East Germany for a while. There were a lot of stories of people who were just separated overnight from their families. A lot of parents suspected that some sort of border enforcement is going to be put up at some point. So they're like, well, we need to get over to West Germany. But they tried to do it right. They went over and they rented an apartment, left their kids back there, got jobs, started to save money until they can move their kids over. And some families were cut off because they didn't get their kids over in time. Yeah. And again, this was all violated. The Yalta agreement, all these treaties were completely violated and it was illegal. But once again, quietly, it was a burning kettle. A boiling kettle. Burning and boiling kettle. And things were not looking good. So everyone was kind of like, all right, maybe this will at least quell things for now, and it's not the worst idea in the world. Yeah. But don't quote me on that. No. And if you were a West Berliner or an East Berliner, but especially a West Berliner, you did think it was the worst idea in the world. Sure. And when it became clear that America and NATO weren't going to do anything about this, there was a deep sense of betrayal by West Berliners. Yeah. They were like, Come on, America. But this spot in East Germany where the Soviets had been hemorrhaging face had been cauterized for now. And like you say, the west was secretly relieved. One of the things about this wall that I didn't know until this article was that it wasn't just a straight line, it was a circle. Yeah. The one that enclosed Berlin. Enclosed fully in a circle. West Berlin. Yes. And the reason why is because, remember, West Berlin was an island in the middle of East Germany. So you couldn't just cut off East Berlin from West Berlin. You had to cut off all of East Germany from West Berlin. And the only way to do that was to encircle West Berlin with a wall. That's right. Like a prison, almost. Yeah. All right. Well, I guess we should talk a little bit about the wall, the physical wall, and what it was like eventually when they got to the final. Well, it evolved over the course of many years. But the second phase was when they had the legit. Twelve to 15 foot concrete studded rebar walls with guard towers and guns. They were topped with tubes to make it hard to get a hold. They were really two walls. There was the first run of barbed wire and these tank traps. If you saw Saving Private Ryan, you've seen those big, jaggedy things, like on the beach. Oh, yeah. Tank traps. They're like huge jacks. Yeah, pretty much. And tanks can't run over them, which is, I think, is the key traps. So there was that area, and then there was about 30 to 40 yards, depending on where it was, of just they called it the death strip, where they put chemicals on the ground to kill all the vegetation. They got German Shepherds and put them on extra long leaders that basically brought them nose to nose, but didn't allow them to get into it with each other. But there were no gaps. You had to encounter a German Shepherd, and then if you got through all that junk, you got to the actual concrete wall. And then on that wall, the actual at some point, there were guard towers with searchlights, and they were crafty little Communists. They would use, like, sand or gravel for the walkways. Well, Germany is sand, so they would just use the ground. Yeah. But they would keep it very well raked, smoothly raked, so that you could see footprints very easily. And everything was painted a bright white, so anything would show up against it very clearly. Yeah. And that's on the east side. On the west side, it was painted with graffiti and art because they were just crazy free people. Well, they could walk right up to the wall, too. They didn't have to go through German shepherds or razor wire or tank traps. They just walked right up to the wall and showed their disdain for it by using graffiti or peeing on it, probably. I'm sure the Berlin Wall was peed on more than once. I guess Ronald Reagan famously did. There were trip wires that were hooked up to automatic machine gun fire for a while. Eventually they agreed to take those down. And apparently it was tough to even get guards on this thing because they first had to weed out. They didn't want any guards that had ties to West Germany at all. No Berlin. A lot of guards affected in the early days. Yeah. So they realized, we got to get guards that have no family over there, no affinity over there. And that really narrowed the pool down. And then I'm sure there were some guards that were gung ho, but a lot of them were alcoholics and did not like their post. Right. And didn't want to be there and didn't want to have the orders to shoot to kill. What they might have seen is still their fellow countrymen. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of them did. And we should say also that not everybody was trapped in East Germany. There was a strong sentiment after the war, especially, that West Germany was the part that was much more associated with the Nazi regime. Right. Some of the worst atrocities were carried out in what was now West Germany, and in the east, there was a perceived separation from that physically. And now, historically, that was one reason some people like to stay in East Germany. Yeah. And I got the impression that definitely was sort of a divide between the old and young as far as the older people thinking, maybe this Communism thing will take care of everybody. Right. And the young were like, no, freedom. That's where it's at. Yeah. So there was a social spent among some people. So there were people who were at least at first and probably throughout, but definitely at first happy to be living in a Soviet block country. Yeah. What struck me as super weird was that as a West German, you could travel into East Germany pretty much freely back and forth, which I never knew that I thought it was just completely sealed off. If you were West German? Yeah. You were supposed to be allowed passage through back out. Pretty simply. Yeah. And back to West Germany. There were special plates for people who lived in West Germany service man. Oh, yeah. I don't care what operates in East Germany. I'm not going over there. I'll get a new dentist. Right. And there are actually some standoffs there is a really big standoff in 1961 because the East Germans didn't allow egress like they were supposed to. The people with plainly marked cars. Actually, American diplomats and tanks ended up on either side of the border at Checkpoint Charlie for a full day. Soviet tanks and American tanks just facing one another. And luckily, everybody stood down and called the whole thing off. But it was tensor for a little bit, and the Americans were intentionally testing the Soviets to see if they would let them pass without stopping. And the Soviets didn't, like, four or five times in a two day period, and tank showed up. Yeah. And at Checkpoint Charlie was the main gate there at Berlin. Right. For use by NATO and the west. Right. That was the gate between West Berlin and East Berlin. But it wasn't the only gate. There were other ones. So going from West Germany into East Germany was Checkpoint Alpha. Yeah. And then from East Germany into West Berlin. Was checkpoint, was it Beta? I think it's Baker Alpha. Bravo, charlie bravo. Thank you. And that's where I get lost. Well, yeah, I think it might have stopped after Charlie. No, I used to know that alphabet, though. Oh, what's it called? I can't remember the name of the alphabet now. We'll have to ask Jeff Tweedy. What? Oh, remember Wilco and the numbers station? Yeah. Do you know Jeff Tweedy? I've met him before. Oh, at the rally to restore Sam. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he's a nice guy. That's awesome. I'd love to meet Jeff Wheatie. He's a good guy. Look at you. And that wasn't even a name drop, because I asked. Actually, you did drop the name, but you didn't drop it in the way that you knew him. Exactly. That doesn't count. So there are lots of awful stories about people trying to get across and getting killed, but we talked about, and I will highlight a few of those right after this break. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for indemand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K Twelvecom podcast. That's K Twelvecom podcast. And start taking charge of your future today. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from. Growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything. To sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah, don't just take our word for it. Head to Squarespace.com SUSK and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code SYSK, and you'll get off your first purchase of a website or domain that's squarespace. Comssyskquarespace. So one of the problems with building a wall is that it's not necessarily going to follow the easiest path. Right. So there was a street called Bernard Street, where there were literally apartments that were straddling the Berlin Wall. So, like, if you were standing in your window and you leaned your head out the window, your head was hovering above airspace of West Germany and your feet were in East Germany. And eventually they evicted all those people living in the apartments and sealed up the windows because people would go in the front door and leave the back door and just defect. Yeah, like, hey, that was pretty easy. So they addressed the issue in a multiprong fashion. They bricked up the first story stuff and I guess vastly underestimated the will of people who wanted to effect, because they quickly found out that people were willing to jump out of second and third storey windows. What's cool is Westbrooklanders would frequently help defectors. Sometimes they would stand there with blankets, like, pulled taut to catch somebody jumping from a second or third story window so they could defect more easily. Yeah, there was this one lady and you can actually watch footage of this. It's startling. A 76 year old woman named Frida Schultz. There's footage of her being pulled. She's hanging from a window. Well, not from a window. She's hanging from out of a window by East German policeman. And there's Western Germans. West Germans pulling her by the feet. So the East German cops are trying to pull her up into the window. The West Germans are trying to yank her down, the 76 year old lady, and she was eventually yanked down. Well, which is the good news, I guess. Yeah, but you can watch that file footage exists. It's creepy. Jeez. What's her name? Frieda Schultz. Cool. I mean, there's a ton of great documentaries on this, but I watch one from History Channel. It's a pretty nut so event in world history. Not so several decades long event. Yeah. Once the border was really kind of sealed and the East German guards had shown like, no, we're going to shoot at you to try to kill you if we catch you trying to cross. Yeah. People kind of settled into, I guess, a pretty dreary existence, from what I understand, which it's probably true because you remember when we were being raised and we were raised in the Cold War and we were fed a boatload of propaganda on a daily basis. Sure. And then once the Iron Curtain fell, we were able to see, like, oh, wait a minute. Those people aren't like they are not all coming over to kill us. They never wanted to kill us in the first place. They're just other people. And we were lied to a lot. Yeah. The Red Scare was just crazy. When you think about it, the fact that history still in the 21st century long after the Cold War and we're all adults now, still stands up that living in the Democratic Republic of Germany was a really drab, dreary, hard existence. It must have actually been that way. Yeah. I mean, that's why someone would risk their life to get out. The first person that was killed we mentioned, how many people did you say confirmed? 136. The first one was Gunter Litvin, and he tried to swim over canal and was shot, and that sent a message. But the big one was Peter Fest. Nice. He was shot in the back climbing the wall. And he was just a boy, maybe 1920. Yeah. And he was right there at Checkpoint Charlie and shot in the back and laid there on the ground crying out for help for hours. And American soldiers are right there. German soldiers are right there. And both of them feared gunfire if they tried to do anything. They just let this guy die, screaming in the streets, bleeding out, and they left him there for an hour before the East German guards came and dragged his body away. Unbelievable. And there's still a memorial to this day, like, almost immediately put up, and then it was installed permanently years later, but it's been ongoing ever since. There's a memorial to him on that wall where he died. I'm dying to go to Berlin. That would be neat. Yeah. I've never been. I did Munich, but I've heard Berlin. It's just awesome. It's a lot of fun. Just the history there. It must be crazy. Yeah. And I would love to hear from people over there, like, the lasting repercussions. It wasn't that long ago. I'm sure things are still strange in some ways. Well, yeah. Plus, I mean, even beyond strange, I think still Germany would probably be a lot further along today had it not been divided between Soviet and Allied rule. Yeah, it set it back quite a bit. Sure. Apparently. The drag on the East German economy was enough that when the two did reunite eventually and we'll talk about that in a minute the west had to assume this beleaguered. Economically devastated half of its former country. And that kind of like homer Simpson. Like adding water and then salt to keep pinching and the goldfish alive in the aquarium tank where both just kind of floating there half alive. Right. That's what happened with Germany after reunification. That's good stuff. That is the reference that I've gone to more than any other, I think. What, simpsons one? Yeah. I don't think I've ever remember using that one. That's like the fifth time. Really? Yeah. All right, that's my fault. So by 1963, actually, I have your answer from earlier. That's when the second phase, solid Wall, was fully complete. And that's when they also had grills through the rivers and canals and metal grills and sewer systems, and when they really ratcheted it up to the point where there was no way to get out unless you tunneled. So people tried to tunnel. There's a guy who killed a guard for trying to stop him evacuating his family out to a tunnel. Yeah. Through a tunnel between an empty lot in West Berlin into somebody's house in East Berlin. Wow. Yeah. The guy made it and then came back for his family, and some guard tried to stop him, and dude shot him. Man. He got a year suspended sentence years later, after reunification. Who? The soldier? No, the soldier was killed. I thought you meant no, the guy who was getting his family out shot and killed the soldiers trying to stop him. Oh, well, that's great. Yeah. So I'm saying he got a year suspended sentence for murder after reunification. Wow. That's a nice little slap on the wrist. All right. Well, speaking of unitification, I guess we're there, right? Yeah. Things were just kind of going along and seemed totally intractable, not just in Germany, but throughout the whole world. It was an utterly polarized world between the USSR and the US. Yes. And I think by the mid 80s, too, the idea of the wall coming down was in a lot of people's heads on both sides. Well, thanks to a dude named Gorbi. Gorbi? Remember him? Yeah. There was a point in time where he was more popular than the Pope and Ronald Reagan. Really? Yeah. There was some time surveyor poll, and Gordy was at the top of the list because everybody liked the cut of his gym because he was saying, you know what? This whole stranglehold thing we have on people's lives, like, maybe we should rethink that. He started to talk about reform, which was I don't know if he meant it that way, but it was the beginning of the end. If he didn't mean it, it sure got away from him. He instituted something called Glasgow, which is openness, which basically says, you know what? We want to hear from you. That's not a very Russian thing to do. We're putting a giant suggestion box outside of all your local government offices, and we want you to tell us how you really feel about your life and your life underneath our authoritarian rule. Yeah. And it's not a trap, it's not a bomb. When you drop the thing in the suggestion box, a lot of people thought it was. Yeah. But Glasgow's went over very well and people on the Western side had a lot to say. People on the Eastern side were still a little reticent, for obvious reasons. And then they set up the Sinatra Doctrine, which I hadn't heard of until I hadn't either. Basically, the Soviet Union said, this is what we've decided. So all of you Eastern block governments, this is your decision, too, like, you have to do exactly what we say. Right. And the Sinatra Doctrine, which is named after the MyWay song, they could also call it the Sid Vicious Doctrine, which would have been pretty cool. Yeah, that's true. Have you heard his rendition? Yeah. Great. Yes. I'm a Sinatra guy, though. Well, you can like both sure. Anyway, the Sinatra Doctrine said, you Eastern block governments, you have a lot more authority in deciding what you want to do. Yeah. And so that led Hungary, because all Eastern block nations had a closed border with their neighbor to the west, which was Austria. They said. You know what? It's 1989. We're going to start allowing people to get into Austria. And if you could get into Hungary, then you could go to Austria and presumably anywhere else you wanted to, and you could get into Hungary because it was an eastern black country. It basically was a passageway all of a sudden. And it worked. And they went, oh, things are starting to deteriorate now. Yeah. Because people by the train loads were leaving every day to Austria through Hungary, and things started to crumble. People started to feel a little less fearful of assembling, and they started to this group in East Germany formed the New Forum. The newest forum. Yeah. And they basically started demonstrating in the streets of East Berlin and they ran up against the East German Chancellor. His name was Eric Honecker, and he was a hardliner. Yes. You're a big guy. You can take yours in Gorbi's reform and shove it. We're not changing anything. And the German Communist Party said, we're going to replace you with the Liberal. Yeah. Because the rallying cry was strong at that point, like hundreds of thousands of people shouting, Tear down the wall. In German yeah. In the streets at the same time. Not one at a time over the course of many years, all at once in one place. Yeah. And the writing was on the wall. It was, and in a very unceremonious way. In fact, they didn't even tell the guards that they were doing this, which led to a lot of chaos, and they're lucky it didn't lead to people getting shot and killed. But they didn't even inform the guards that they, on November 9, 1989, announced, you know what? You can start traveling abroad. You're going to be allowed permanent departure. People are like, Wait a minute. He's saying what I think you're saying. It sounds like we can leave now. They all went and assembled at the gate, and the same official was like, Wait, I haven't read off the pork futures prices yet. That was my next announcement. And the guards, though they did gather at the gates, like, en masse, and the guards were like, what is going on here? We didn't get any memo of any free passage, but at that point, it was kind of too late, and people basically stormed the gates and took out their little hammers and started tearing that thing down themselves. And I remember freshman in college, man, it was huge and awesome. I had no stake in this fight other than believing in freedom, and it was a powerful thing to watch on TV. That's amazing. I watched it, too. I was begging my mom to hop a flight to Berlin that night. I was like, let's go. This is so huge. She said, Maybe let's wait a little bit. But you know what was cool was if you were in East Berliner who came over to West Berlin that day, you were greeted with a welcoming gift of 100 marks. They gave out 8 million marks that day? No, 80 million marks, because there were 800,000 people who were each given 100 marks. It's crazy. They gave out 80 million marks to people coming over there, and they went to the first beer garden they could. Yeah. Oh, man. And they reinvested it right back into their new economy. Yeah. And shortly after that, within a couple of years, the Soviet Union collapsed. And if this rang your bell, you should continue things on by going and listening immediately to the Who Won the Cold War? Episode. Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah. We got a nice little batch of that time period. Nice batch of podcast. It's good. We should do Cuban missile crisis at some point. Let's and Bay of Pigs. Okay. That time period is so fascinating to me. I just read maybe definitely in the top five, but maybe the best magazine article I've ever read about elevators. No, that's the best one about elevators. This one again is in the New Yorker. You know, The New Yorker has its archives open through the summer. They're trying to get you hooked so that when they put up a paywall, you'll subscribe. I subscribed for a while, but they started stacking up, and it intimidated me. Same thing with the Economist. Yeah, man, those things start accumulating quick. Yeah, because it's not a quick read, but you can get a digital subscription. True. But the point is, I've been reading a lot of New Yorker lately, and I read this one article called The Yankee Commodant, and it's about an American who traveled to Cuba to fight along Castro as this idealist freedom fighter and just his plight. It was amazing. Wow. But he was there for, like, the Bay of Pigs. And it was pretty amazing stuff. Totally worth reading. And it's free right now. That's a movie waiting to happen. I can't believe It's not a movie yet because this is the 60s that we're talking about. Late 50s, early 60s. Whoever wrote that needs to talk to Josh Beerman. Say, how do you do this, buddy? Yeah. I can't believe it's not in the works already. It might. I bet you it is. What was his name? Do you remember? His name was William Morgan. Bill Morgan. Interesting. Yankee commodore Leo DiCaprio. Perhaps. Maybe. Yes, maybe. I guess so. Who did you cast in your head? I cast Bill Pullman for a second because he kind of looked like him, but Bill Pullman's, he's just too old. This guy was like late 20s. Early 30s. Yeah. So who's the 20s? Bill Pullman. That's a tough one. You mean pullman or Paxton? Pullman. Pullman. Okay. I know the difference between the two bills. Yeah, I was just making sure. Why don't you guys let us know? We'll do a call out in a minute. Which one? Call? Which one? Who plays Bill Pullman as the late 20s, early thirty s. Okay. If you want to know more about the Berlin Wall, you can look up this article on how stuff works.com by typing those words into the search bar. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this favorite day stories. Remember, you put out a call for that on people's best day. This was pretty good. This from Ashley. Immediately thought of the day that I met my best friend. I was in the fifth grade, and my parents were building a pool in the backyard. We hadn't filled it yet, though. Lots of new friends show up under those circumstances. Oh, no. This takes a sad turn here. We hadn't yet filled it, though. And the cats that we had would have a nasty habit of falling in at the empty pool and not being able to get back out without our help. One night, it rained a lot. Filled the pool up some, and my cat, my childhood companion, ran into the pool and drowned. Oh, no. I know. I was reading this, thinking, how is this your best day? Be some kind of sick person. See, it continues. I didn't really like the cat, and this really handled the problem that I'd had for a while. She does say parenthetically. Trust me, the story gets a lot better. I promise. I woke up to my dad telling me not to go outside because Rosie had drowned. I went to school not really knowing how to feel. And as my teacher was giving the morning announcement, I burst into tears. She asked what was wrong. I told her what happened. She didn't know what to do with me. And none of the other kids would even make eye contact with me. I'd never felt so alone in my entire life. That is until someone reached out and held my hand. It was this girl in my class that I had never really noticed before. But she took my hand and said it's going to be okay. And that has been my best friend for eleven years now. That is very sweet. So that was my all time favorite day, guys. Keep up the fantastic work. And that is from that is from Harry. I'm sorry. And Ashley is the best friend. Got you. So Harry Jankie, well, you're really just took a weird twist at the end. I just don't know how to pronounce it. J-A-H-N-K-E. Harry Jonka honka. Honka. Who knows? Harry J? I think Harry Honka is the best name ever. So that's what I'm going to call it. Okay, well, thanks a lot, Harry. We appreciate you writing in and letting us know. And Ashley, that was very nice thing you did. It really is. You got a best friend out of it. That's a great story. Again, if you could tell us who is the late 20s, early 30s, bill Pullman, we want to know. Yeah, you can tweet to us at fyskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuff you should Know and you can send us an email to stuff podcast@discovery.com. And as always, you can join us at our home on the web stuffyousheno.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit househopworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylight is longer. And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from exactly right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hey, everybody, Chuck here. Right now, there are millions of people around the world hosting on airbnb. I mean, there's no doubt it's a great way to earn extra income, but I've always wondered about their stuff, like what happens if somebody drops a wine glass? Well, now I know. Thanks to Air Cover for Hosts, people can welcome guests into their home with confidence. Air Cover for Hosts gives you damage protection for free. Every time you host, learn more and host with peace of mind@airbnb.com. Aircover for Hosts."
120980c8-361f-11ea-91d6-5bf470770f71	Short Stuff: The Science of Funny Words	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-the-science-of-funny-words	Why are some words funnier than others? Well, one man has sought to figure that out. We'll tell you all about him and his project in today's episode.	Why are some words funnier than others? Well, one man has sought to figure that out. We'll tell you all about him and his project in today's episode.	Wed, 01 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=183, tm_isdst=0)	12899111	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And we have one word for you, buddy. Wiggle. Here's another one, Chuck. Poop. That's a genuine laugh. Always gets me. Poop is just funny. It is funny. It's literally a funny word. In this episode, we're talking about a guy named Chris Westbury who is a researcher out of the University of Alberta, a psychologist, actually. And he wanted to figure out what makes things funny and specifically what makes some words funnier than others. And apparently he was a bit of a math genius as a child, really got into the statistical analysis kind of stuff. And he's applied that as an adult in a study that has one of the better names of any study ever published. Are you setting me up? I am, yeah. It was called wriggly, squiffy, lumix and boobs colon what makes some words funny. And this is just super interesting to me too, because like we were talking about with the nouns of assemblage words and etymology really interest me and comedy interests me. And even though I've never done stand up, I know that comedians take a lot of great care with not only the bits and the flow and the tone, but specific words are funnier than others and can really punch up a joke. Agreed. And it says here in this House Works article a word like skinectidy or Rancho Cucamanga or Kalamazoo. That's right. They're just kind of funny words. And this guy went out to figure out why. Yeah, he said Why? People said, who cares? It's just funny, don't look too deeply into it. And he said, no, I'm going to do the opposite of that. You will sit there and listen when I explain it to you through Josh and Chuck. That's right. So what he did was he started off with and this is going to get really kind of not fun at all in a minute. Sure. But he started off with a list of 5000 English words that were rated funniest by people. I guess he did a poll or something. And then he constructed a mathematical model for predicting what would be funny for every single word, like a ranking, I guess, for every single word in the dictionary. Yeah. This model he came up with, it's kind of complex. It's multilayered it's kind of like an onion. And he basically now can run any word through it. It's okay, he can run the onion is hilarious. Yes. But he can run any word through it and basically spit out like a ranking. Yeah, like a last quotient, I guess. How funny that word will probably be received. Right. And this is all English word specifically, but he came up with, based on this mathematical model, the ten funniest words, one of which we probably shouldn't even say. Yeah, I guess so. But, hey, man, first Amendment. Alright. Up Chuck. Yeah, funny. Bubby, boff, wriggly. Yaps. Sure. Giggle Chuck. No. Cooch. Okay. Gofaw. Puffball and jiggly. Right. So those are the ten funniest. The runners up were squiffy, flappy and bucco. Bucco is a great one. Poop, puke and boobs. Got you just now. It just got you. I mean, it's funny. Poop is funny. The same reason farting is funny. Yeah, the word fart is funny. The word fart is funny, but it's also like shame inducing. It really makes you feel really bad about yourself when you use it. Right? Yeah, it might just be me, but poop, basically no one feels bad for saying the word poop and it is just a genuinely funny word. Yeah. And I'll also mention that farting is the one thing that allows me to hold on to the fact that there may be a God. There are farts. Yeah. And that God has a sense of humor because the fact that a smelly, flammable gas comes out of your butthole and makes a sound. Yeah. And believe us, everybody, we verified it is flammable. It's one of the greatest things about human beings. It's pretty great. Yeah. Especially when it's like food goes in. We say poot in our house. Now poot is a good one for obvious reasons. You know what I say? Of course. It's just shoot a duck. That's right. Or just pretend it didn't happen. One of those two. Right. So another thing we should mention here is the incongruity theory. And that is the idea that and this is sort of a tried and true comedy virtue, which is something unexpected will make you laugh most times when you have an expectation of something and something else happens. A lot of good comedy can come from that's. Absolutely the basis of comedy, at least as far as all anecdotal evidence, all sensible common sense. Which is the most sensible kind or the most common kind. You really stop and think about incongruity theory, it really makes a lot of sense. Right. But Chris Westbury was like, that's all well and good. Way to go Cicero, for coming up with incongruity theory. But I like to quantify things, so I'm going to do that. And we'll be right back to explain exactly how he did that after this. Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about Summer. I mean, what's not to like? School's out the sun is shining. And best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Smalltown Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. I got a question. Okay. Is Westbury the most interesting guy at the dinner party or does he make you want to gouge your eyeballs out? He might be listening, so I'm not going to answer that question. He's one of the other, right? There's no in between. You're either like, oh my God, I met this guy and you wouldn't believe that he's got these theories and mathematical things. Yeah, we're selling off all of our stuff and we're going to start following around. Or he's like, oh God, get me away from this dude. I just tried to make a fart joke and he tried to explain it to me. Right, let me go find somebody who's been on the keto diet for three years and talk to them instead. Oh, man, that's good. That's so funny. It is. You know why? Because the letter K is in there and we'll get to that in a minute. Totally. But what Chris Westberry did was he basically took all these words I think he took several hundred of them to start like a subset of those 5000 funniest words, and he just kind of took a random subset of them and he started analyzing them with a Google tool that basically shows co occurrence. Right. So basically, you run these words through this little Google machine learning algorithm and it spits out other words that people have used instead of or in conjunction with it. Right. And what he figured out was that out of, like, this couple of hundred sample set, you could basically boil it down to six general categories and all of the words had something to do with either an expletive being an expletive, sex, the body partying, I guess, which one kind of struck me as out of the blue. I was not expecting that one. What else? Chuck animals or insults. Okay. And so those are the six clusters of categories of funny words. Okay. So he said, all right, great. But the thing is, there's a lot of words that kind of straddle these categories. How can you say, like, what makes one funnier than the other? What's the deal here? And I'm not sure how he did this. I'm not even sure that he knows how he did this, maybe, but he basically assigned a statistical number to a word insofar as it related to its category. Right? So, like, birthday cake was probably pretty close to the party category. Like, it's probably pretty close or FET or fiesta or something like that. It's very close to it's synonymous to a word in this category. But even that didn't quite describe what made a word funny. And what I guess he figured out, and I'm not sure how he did this, was that the funniest words were related equally roughly to a number of different categories. And it seems like the more that a word was related to one or a number of these six categories, the funnier it was, and a good example he gave, was poop. Right. It can be an expletive. It can be part of the body. It can be a party. It has to do with multiple categories. And so it's funnier than, say, fiesta is. You know, that made sense to me for the first time after reading this, like seven times. Yes, 7810 times, maybe. Yeah, the way he was putting it never made sense. But you brought it around for me, so thank you. Thank you, Chuck man, that means a lot to me. So he got to that point, but then he said, you know, what the meaning of these words? That's only one kind of measurement. Everyone else was saying stop. That's good, you're fine. You did it, you did it. But he said, no, that's not enough. Meeting is only one type of measurement. And so he said, let's look at and this is actually kind of a good part to me. He said, we need to look at the form of these words, how long they are, the individual sounds that make up these words. And that's where incongruity theory of humor kind of comes back, because the fewer times that these phones, the individual sounds appear, the more rare they are, the funnier that people think they are. Yeah, basically, I guess the K sound in particular is much less used in English than, say, like, b. Yeah. So that's why words with K sounds or are funnier than words with, say, T sounds. So pickle is funnier than tomato, which is we just inherently know. And so what Chris Westberry is basically onto is that by analyzing the arrangement of letters and how frequently they occur in words in the English language, that he tied it into that incongruity theory. And he basically said, our brains are constantly analyzing the information that's coming in from watching TV or talking to people or reading or something like that. And we have a certain expectation. And when that expectation isn't met, like something that statistically is improbable, like the word wall of wall of Washington comes up out of nowhere. You don't see that every day. You weren't really expecting it. And it kind of makes things funny to you because it triggers that incongruity response. Yeah, your brain is you don't know it, but it's constantly doing this in the background and you just hear it as funny. Right. You just go. Walter Washington. So, yeah, if you're just starting out in comedy, really pay attention to the words and especially the words in the punchline. Because swapping out individual words can make a big difference. For sure. Can we close with this quote from the Sunshine Boys? Yeah, I think so. Have you ever seen this movie? I have not, man, but I know it's. George Burns and Walter Matthew. Yes, it is the best. It is a great, great movie about this comedy team who hate each other's guts. And they're old men now and they're trying to get them together for a reunion show. Nice. So Walter Matthew says this 57 years in the business, you learn a few things. You know what words are funny and which words are not funny. Alca Seltzer is funny. You say Alca Seltzer, you get a laugh. Casey Stingle, that's a funny name. Robert Taylor is not funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not funny. Cleveland is funny. Maryland is not funny. And then there's chicken. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny. And he's kind of right. Oh, he's beyond kind of right. He's fully right, for sure. Good stuff. But just one question. That was your Walter Matthew. It wasn't? Great. Well, everybody go watch The Sunshine Boys and see what Chuck was talking about. And you can compare his Walter Math out to the real Walter Math. How about that? And in the meantime, you can go check out this article on how stuff works. Right, Chuck? That's right. And in the meantime meantime, short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is production of iheartra Videos how Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
66fcece2-dfdb-403b-9548-aea600df5954	Short Stuff: Happy Foods!	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-happy-foods	Some foods make you happy. But they aren't necessarily comfort foods. You know what they call that? SCIENCE! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Some foods make you happy. But they aren't necessarily comfort foods. You know what they call that? SCIENCE! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=152, tm_isdst=0)	13407851	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell, anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce, templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comsysk, and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hi, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry. Infraredave. And this is short stuff, the Happy foods edition, which I'm good with. I like happy foods. Did you remember this from your past, my friend? What do you mean? You wrote this article. No, I didn't. This was back when we were in households.com, and this was a Josh Clark special. No, I did not. I have no recollection of it whatsoever, Chuck. You know why? It's because I sent you the file. I cut out the remember we always had to do this kind of corny couple of paragraphs at the beginning? I cut those out. Okay. All right. You might remember that. I mean, listen to this sentence. GABA is produced during the Krebs cycle, a physiological process by which nutrients are converted to energy for cellular use. I should have seen my own genius in that amazing sentence. Let me ask you honestly, when you're reading this, were you like, oh, God, this stuff a little bit. I was like, wow, that's a pretty ancient Cornell University study. And I'm sure those 277 participants were probably undergrads getting extra credit. So, yeah, I did beat up on myself a little bit. Well, this is a Josh Clark special, and it's about how certain foods can make you happier, and some foods can make you maybe tend toward depression or a little down. And it is not just not talking about comfort food. We're going to mention that briefly. But it's science, right? Science. Yes. Thank you. So, yeah. And there's a distinction that we'll get to happy foods and comfort foods, I call them happy foods. That's another thing. I was like, that's a pretty doofest thing to call them. What's weird is I feel comforted knowing that I was criticizing myself. It all just seems right and normal now, but we're going to call them because I call them that back in the day, back in the OT. Happy foods, which are foods that actually can affect your mood directly through physiological action. Whereas comfort foods are things that have an effect on your mood through psychological processes. Right. And if you're talking about the brain and the transmitters, there are a couple that are largely responsible for our moods inhibitory. And are we going with excitatory or excitatory? Excitatory. I thought so. I just wanted to make sure you wrote it. I'm just deferring to the author. This is so bizarre. So excitatory transmitters. We're talking about, like, Nora Epinephrine. Nora Epinephrine. Did I say it wrong? I think you said nora epinephrine, too. Man, she's been making appearances all over the place lately. Yeah. Body parts that sound like her, they stimulate she passed away, right? Oh, did she? Yes, I'm pretty sure. One of the greats. She really was one of the greats. I don't want to say unsung. Like, she was hugely successful, but I think she was even more of a genius than she gets credit for. Yeah, one of the great writers. So where was I? I was with Norepinephrine. They stimulate our body, they stimulate our mind, but it can be too much. And what you need is a balance of those excitatory neurotransmitters and the inhibitory, which gives things like Serotonin to kind of balance things out. And that's kind of where the true good mood lies. Right. As I put it. Ultimately, the best moods are found when there's a balance between these two types. I remember thinking, like, best. So the thing is, when we start producing these neurotransmitters like Serotonin or Norepinephrine, we actually make them out of the food that we eat. We eat the food, our bodies break down the food, and we use those as building blocks, as constituent nutrients, as building blocks for things like neurotransmitters. So there are actually foods that can aid in our mood, and a big one. Serotonin is a really big neurotransmitter, one of the biggest. And it's frequently considered like a happy neurotransmitter. It's an inhibitor. It kind of says mellow out Norepinephrine. It helps you kind of stay calm, stay relaxed, be in a good mood. And there's a lot of foods out there that actually help you make Serotonin. Yeah, it says put on When Harry Met Sally and have some turkey and bananas. And you're like, that's not a very good combo. And they said, well, add some spinach and that will really tie it all together. Yeah, but those things are all very high in folate, and that's a B vitamin that Serotonin needs to be made folate and tryptophan, too. And tryptophan is remarkable because it can go directly into your brain. It can cross the blood brain barrier. And interestingly, Serotonin can't cross the blood brain barrier. So since tryptophan directly is translated into Serotonin in the brain, you're basically feeding your brain Serotonin when you eat turkey and bananas and other tryptophan containing foods. That's right. I say we take a break and we're going to get back and I'm going to let the author speak to the Krebs cycle right after this. What if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yeah. Listed in its host, Barrettunde Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access, global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast. Force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. Capital One offers commercial solutions you can bank on. Now more than ever, your business faces specific challenges and unique opportunities. That's why Capital One offers a comprehensive suite of financial services custom tailored to your short and long term goals. Backed by the expertise, strategy, and resources of a top ten commercial bank, a dedicated team works with you to support your success and help you achieve your goals. Explore the possibilities at Capital one. comCOMMERCIAL. All right, Dr. Krebs, tell me about GABA. It always reminds me of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, because I think there's like CREB Co or something was like the generic company that they all was it? I think so, but it reminded me of the Krebs cycle. So GABA is GABA aminobutyric acid or GABA. Everybody knows what GABA is. It's called nature's volume, or so I said in quotes. And it is indeed made during the Krebs cycle, where you convert energy for use, nutrients converted to energy for later use. And GABA helps you sleep, it helps you mellow out. And it's based on what we get from foods called glutamates. And I think those are actually also the basis for, umami, too, am I correct? Glutamate. Yeah, that sounds really all that stuff sort of was ringing some bells. But the idea is if you eat something like sesame or sunflower seeds, or if you're a meat eater and you like pork and beef, you're going to be getting a lot of that glutamate, and that's the amino acid, which is not GABA, but it helps make GABA, and that can glutamine. Did I say glutamate? I've been saying glutamate, but it is glutamine, and I'm sure there's a pretty substantial difference between those two, right? So glutamine hold your emails is what we mean, and that can transcend the blood brain barrier. And so you're going to have a pretty significant impact on your happiness with the foods that you're eating there, which is pretty cool to think the foods you eat can actually impact your mood. It makes you kind of want to nourish yourself, right? Other times, though, you say, I don't want to nourish myself at all. I want to do the exact opposite of that because I need comfort food. And here again, we reach that distinction, whereas those happy foods, those foods that can actually influence the production of GABA and serotonin in your brain. Those are different from comfort foods, which basically activate neural pathways of a happier time and that we crave to make ourselves feel better when we're not feeling very good. Yeah. Which is the difference of physiology and psychology. And what you mentioned is pretty true. Because I think if you did a survey of people. You would find that most people lean towards comfort foods that is. Something their grandma made or their mom or dad made or something like that. When they're a little that reminds them of maybe a special time or happier time in their life. Or maybe a time when things were a little more simple. Maybe, dare I say Mr Hodgeman, a bit more nostalgic. But my comfort foods are those, like, mashed potatoes and fried chicken, and it's like, sort of good old Southern home cooking is my comfort food. Because I remember my mom and my grandmother making all that stuff and just chowing down on it when there was no regard. And that's probably part of it, too, as an adult who gets older and has to deal with weight issues, back when it didn't matter when you were a child. Right. And you could just eat all of that stuff, and you had the metabolism of a nat and you could consume guilt free. Yeah. So comfort foods like yeah, you just kind of took me back, man. What's your comfort food? I don't know what my comfort foods are. I like sweet stuff. I like cakes, cookies, donuts, or big time comfort food of mine. Is that childhood stuff for you? So I've learned not to look too deeply into the psychology behind my comfort foods or else to start weeping. So I just take them on face value. I'm like, this makes me feel good. This is the food I go to. You go, Homer Simpson. Which is fine. So with comfort foods, the fact that it's, like donuts for me and fried chicken for you underlines the fact that it's a really personal choice. But apparently there are kind of commonalities between, say, like, men and women over who wants what when they're craving comfort food. Yeah. There was a study in 2005 out of Cornell that surveyed close to 300 cisgendered men and women and found that women tend to seek sugary things more than men do. Men tend to seek out things like I do, like soup. I gotta say, it's a comfort food. Soup and steak and things like that. Steak is a comfort food? Well, I mean, according to Cornell. But I'm saying for you, is it a comfort food? Oh, I mean, I love steak. I don't know that I would say it's a comfort food. Yeah, same thing for me. It's like my body's like, get steak, eat now. That's how I end up eating a steak. It's not like I'm feeling down, josh, I could really use a steak that's never it's rainy day I'm feeling a little blue. Yeah, exactly. Like a nice bowl of soup. Sounds really good, but yeah, you're right. Not a toilet seat size steak. It's not what I'm going for when I'm looking for comfort food. They also found that the cisgendered men tend to use comfort food as the reward, while women might feel guilty about it, and that there may be an evolutionary advantage for women when it comes to that. This sounds awfully made up. Oh, you wrote it. I know. I'm trying to suss out if I did make it up. I don't think I did. So it does sound editorial, though, that this idea that if you are craving comfort food all the time and you just eat at Willynilly, that's not typically good for you, because the foods that we crave for comfort are not particularly nourishing or nutrient rich or nutrient dense. They may or may not be bad for your junk food, depending on your perspective about food. So I don't know if that's like an evolutionary thing that sounds like a segue that I forced, but who knows? Well, there's also the idea that if you are not eating something, the lack of that can physiologically affect your mood because there's a fatty acid called DHA daco sahxonic. I think that's it. Yeah. Okay. This is the most abundant fat found in the human brain, and it's very important for brain structure, and there's a lot of it in fish and shellfish. And they've done studies, and even though they're not correlative and not necessarily causal, they did find links, and other studies have confirmed links that in places where people eat, like Taiwan, where people eat a lot more fish and it's a big part of the diet, then people are happier. Yeah. Ten times the prevalence of depression in areas where they don't eat a lot of fish. And I do say, although this doesn't prove causation, it's a pretty good reason to eat more fish and other foods containing DHA. And that's true. What's the problem? Eat more fish. Even if it doesn't say yes, we link DHA and lack of it to depression. Just eat some more fish. If you see a study like that, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. I feel really defensive about this episode. I feel bad that I didn't tell you beforehand. I kind of wanted to see what would happen. Well, I hope you're ashamed of yourself for how it turned out. I'm going to keep doing this and just pop them in there every now and then, see if you represent well, now I'm going to be on the lookout. I'm going to be super paranoid. You got anything else? I got nothing else. All right, well, since Chuck got nothing else, I got nothing else. The humiliation ends here. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-diving-bell.mp3	How does a diving bell work?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-does-a-diving-bell-work	About 2,400 years ago Aristotle mentions the use of diving bells, apparatuses that convey divers to the bottom of the sea -- or at least below the surface of the water -- and allows them to breathe -- at least until the air runs out. Learn about the physi	About 2,400 years ago Aristotle mentions the use of diving bells, apparatuses that convey divers to the bottom of the sea -- or at least below the surface of the water -- and allows them to breathe -- at least until the air runs out. Learn about the physi	Thu, 08 Aug 2013 17:27:38 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=8, tm_hour=17, tm_min=27, tm_sec=38, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=220, tm_isdst=0)	28971756	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell. Anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. comSK and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics. For digestive health. Find us at chewy. Amazonandhalopetscom welcome to Stuff You Should Know From Housetofworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant is with me, which means it's time for stuff you should know. That's right. Man, I got all confused right there. You were about to say, Listen to me. Yeah, it's a little close for comfort. Our shortest show ever. Yes. How introductions work. How are you doing? I'm well, sir. How are you? I'm good. It's a little warm in here today, isn't it? I feel like this tomb, like a room that we're in is always sort of warm and off putting. Well, there's like 18 Ikea lamps in here and I guess it feels like it's warmer than usual. They generate some heat. That's how they power Switzerland with Sweden with heats. Sweden. Sweden, yeah. Sorry, Swedish. Yeah, I know. People are like, Good Lord. Chuck. Yeah. You got a map as a desk. They're like skipping diving bells. Yeah. You have a tan map, don't you? So, Chuck yes. I want to dive into a subject that I believe you know something about. Okay. It's called diving bells. Yes, that's the subject. And I know you know about it because this article that we're basing this off of is a Chuck Bryant jam. Yeah, I forgot all about this. And I got about halfway through it and I was like, that sounds like something I'd say. Oh, really? You didn't realize that you'd written it? No, totally forgot. And then it wasn't halfway through, but it was probably somewhere in the intro. What was it you said? That silly, clever intro was really not clever. Oh, I don't know. I feel like I used to start all of my articles like I was writing a middle school term paper where they're talking about how there's not very many images of our early attempts to scuba dive because quote of the lack of availability of underwater filming techniques at the time. Yeah, it sounds like Filler very member in summer school with Chainsaw and Dave. Yeah. The Mark Harmon movie. Yeah. They had to write, like, a 300 word essay or something. Like that and somebody they admired, and I think it was Toby Hooper or it was the special effects there, but they said he was very I remember those days, counting the words. Yeah. That's not what this is. No. This is a great article on diving bells. It's kind of interesting. The precursor to scuba diving. If any folks out there, scuba enthusiasts, there's a trail that was blazed many years before, littered with dead bodies and big iron casks. Yeah, not just dead bodies, but crippled bodies too. Like a lot of bad stuff can happen to you and a lot of bad stuff did happen to people before we really understood the physics of pressure. Yeah. I mean, people still lose their lives, obviously, in the pursuit of just forwarding technology, but not like they used to. People you're like, we really owe a debt to the people who figured out everything that we have and lost their lives doing it. Well, what's spectacularly amazing to me is that not everyone died trying to use diving bells. And we're talking like 2500 years ago. Yeah. It wasn't in the early 1920s, right? Yeah. Apparently by the concept of diving bells were so, I guess, entrenched in societies around the world, civilizations around the world that they were just routinely used for all sorts of different stuff. Yeah. Aristotle wrote about it. Yeah. Back in the fourth century BC. Right? Yeah. That's a long time ago. So he was the first, I take it, to mentioned diving bells. Would you describe them? Right, yes. Should we read that quote? I think it's a good quote, but you have to read it in an Aristotle voice. Aristotlean? Well, I really have no idea what ancient Greek sounded like. Well, the key is that no one does. Okay. So you can just make it up. They enable divers to aspire equally well by letting down a cauldron, for this does not fill with water, but retains the air, for it is forced straight down into the vasa. Yeah, I just added a German at the end. I was going to say there was an 85% chance that the Greeks were going to sound like Sean Connery coming out of you. No, it wasn't Sean Connery. It was close. Okay, so yeah, so Aristotle is talking about this and the very fact that he's talking about diving bells proves at least that the idea was in place at the time. Yeah, there's some legends that Alexander the Great, who is actually a student of Aristotle's, used a diving bell. Yeah. There's pictures, drawings of Alexander the Great, like laying down or sitting down beneath the water in some sort of diving bell or like a barrel or magic bubble of some sort. Yeah, but we don't know if that means he just talked about it a lot and draw pictures of me doing this or if he actually tried it. We're just not sure. Well, supposedly he used it one when he was eleven. But then again, as an older man, during the siege of Tyre in 332 BC, and I looked that up and it looked like it seems pretty reasonable, like apparently there is some underwater obstructions around tire, and he had some underwater divers removing them. So he used a diving bell to go check on their work. Not the most fantastical tale anyone could tell if they were just making stuff up about him using a diving bell. Yeah, that's true. So I kind of buy that one. Yeah, I could buy it. And of course, DA Vinci sketched them out because he invented everything. Even if he didn't properly invented, he at least sketched out ideas, right? Yeah. He had a lot of great ideas that have come to life now. That's true. The Star Trek phaser. Really? No. Okay. But Aristotle, he kind of hints at the basic physics behind the diving bell. He says that you have a capsule that you're forcing straight down into a water. The water and the air bubble, whatever air was inside is pressed upwards so long as the vessel is concave. Right, yeah. And so long as it is straight down. Like you said, you don't want this thing, because if you've ever played in the bathtub, and I know you do, if you take a cup and invert it and just push it straight down, there's going to be water. And then if you want to make it poop, you tilt it on its side and the air comes out in little bubbles. That's true. Does it poop or shoot a duck? It shoots a duck. Okay. But I think every kid has done stuff like that. And that's essentially what all a diving bell is. It's just really heavy. Yeah. Because when you have a cup above water upside down, it has air in it. When it contacts the water, the air can't escape any longer because of the water surface tension. And then when you push it up, the water compresses the air. That's right. So that's all you have, like you said, at the top of a diamond belt, inside is compressed air. And human beings can breathe that. Yes. It doesn't have to be concave though, does it? I don't think so. But they make them square later. Well, I think there needs to be some sort of point that the air can be pressed up into, but maybe not. Okay. I've seen here they're concave, so maybe that's the best design for a dying belt. But yeah, not everybody's used concave design. Yeah, but many were shaped like bells. Some were barrels, like whiskey barrels. Some were wooden, many were iron. They were trying all sorts of things, basically just to see if it worked right. And they figured out, like, the heavier the better, because this thing had to be able to go down to the bottom of the sea, whatever depth that was, and not tip over. Yeah. It couldn't tip over and it had to be balanced, too. So you had to have ballasts. If you weren't using an iron diving ballot, you had to put weights on it and they had to be balanced or else it would tip over. It was a big deal. Yeah. And I think the key here is this is breathable air. It depends on how deep you are and how big your bell is, obviously. But I think one example I gave in here was if you have a ten foot tall bell down 325ft, that's only about eleven inches of air. Right. That's not enough. No, I don't think they were going that deep back then. No. At least they were not smart to do so. No. Those are the ones that died. That's right. So one of the other problems that these people face, aside from dying because they went too deep and ended up with just eleven inches of air yeah. Now we should point out that before we go any further, physically speaking, by volume, that's eleven inches of air. Yeah. But that's still the same amount of air that filled up the diving bell above water. Right. It's compressed. So you have compressed air. So all those oxygen molecules are still there. They're just in compressed form. Yeah. The point the problem is if you're in there, you're compressed too. Right. Yeah. And when you're in that state of compression, the oxygen and the nitrogen in your bloodstream gets compressed as well. That's right. And they dissolve. Which isn't a problem with the oxygen because the tissues that surrounding tissues absorb that oxygen. And they love it. It's like yummy to them. But the nitrogen remains dissolved in the blood until you decompress. Then you have a problem. Yes. Then you have a radiohead album. Do they have one called the Bent? Yeah. I didn't know that. It's a great one. It was the one that preceded okay computer. Sort of. Did they make a bad album ever? No, it's a good point. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. What's not to like? School is out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where true Crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you to download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music. You can access new episodes early. Download the app. Today, Capital One offers commercial solutions you can bank on. Now more than ever, your business faces specific challenges and unique opportunities. That's why Capital One offers a comprehensive suite of financial services custom tailored to your short and longterm goals. Backed by the expertise, strategy and resources of a top ten commercial bank, a dedicated team works with you to support your success and help you achieve your goals. Explore the possibilities at Capital one. comCOMMERCIAL. Yeah, that's what the bins is. And when the nitrogen tries to escape, it forms little bubbles that block blood vessels. And that's why you can have a stroke or a heart attack if you ascend too quickly. And it can go to your joints and cause excruciating pain, I imagine. Crippling. Remember I mentioned being crippled before? Yeah. You've suffered the bends. No, earlier you said that she's littered with dead bodies and I said, and crippled bodies. I feel like we talked about my life long crippling. Well, momentarily. I thought you meant I've never had the bent. Okay. I thought I remembered many moons ago you mentioning scuba diving. Something about the bins. I've never had the benz. Okay. Yeah, poor Scuba Cat. Yeah, he got in the bins. I don't know. I wonder if Scuba Cat is still around. I don't know. Who's. Kind of old already, wasn't he? I don't remember. Boy, that was a winner. One of our best. Yes. When you come up too quickly, the nitrogen in your blood undisolves, forms bubbles, blocks your blood vessels, blocks your joints, causes tremendous pain, strokes, death, all that stuff. So when you're an ancient bell diver, I guess, is what you call is that right? A bell diver? Yeah, seems right. And you were down for very long, too deep and you came up too quickly, you're in a lot of trouble. That's right. And they may not have even understood the Benz at that point. I imagine they didn't. Right. They're like, he just got the diving belt sickness right again. Yeah, it was because he sinned or something like that. That's right. He upset Zeus. So things went on like this for quite a while, through the Renaissance into the 16th century. People were using these diving bells. It was all well and good, they're having a blast down there having parties. And then at some point, people were like, you know what? I bet we could make this better. Right. These guys keep running out of air down there and dying, or they run out of air and they have to come up too quick and they get to bend. So how can we improve this? Or they're only 14ft down sitting in a bell, and what's the point? Which is magnificent, but the ship that we need to get to is 100ft down. Yeah, exactly. They wanted to have applications they could use, like to build things or repair things or get pirates booty. Exactly. And speaking of pirate, Jack Sparrow does this with a canoe in the first Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes. He turns a canoe upside down and walks along the ocean bottom. And I don't remember how he pulls the canoe down. Technically speaking, it's possible if he pulled it straight down. I think the magic of Disney, but I don't think it's physically possible, what he did. Just want to make sure that anybody who really liked that part, I poopooed. Okay, so in the late 16 hundreds, it was a Frenchman named Dennis Papin, and he was one of the first dudes that said, you know what? I think we can get some fresh air into there. And very smartly. And simply, he used hoses and bellows that the bellows were outside, obviously, up on the boat, and they had dudes manning the bellows and pumping fresh air in there. Yeah. And it wasn't even, like, difficult. You didn't even have to navigate, like, where to put the hole in the top of the dining belt. The hose literally just goes under the bottom and up inside, and then the air just presses up super easy. Yeah. So you've got fresh air now. Yeah. They can stay down there longer. That's all that solved, basically. But it's still not pressurized. The air they're pumping in isn't pressurized. That's true. So they couldn't go any deeper. They could just stay down there and do whatever the heck they were doing, sitting in these cast iron bells. Right. So we invent diving bells in at least the fifth century BC. We have to wait until the 17th century Ad. Before we make a real innovation to them. Now we have a whole other obstacle pressurizing these things. How long do we have to wait to overcome that one? A year. It's true. Yeah. And it took an Englishman to do so. Edmund Haley, he basically attached these wooden barrels. He's weighted wooden barrels to the diving bell, and they could be brought up and down, and they contained air at the bottom of each of these as a hole that allowed water to come in, forcing the air up. And at the top was a hose that ran from that barrel to the bottom of the diving bell, and there was a faucet. So basically, it's sort of like having air tanks down there. Whenever they wanted more pressure, if they were trying to equalize things, they would just turn their little faucet and allow air in. Once the barrel was empty, they would pull the barrels up, I guess refill them with air, which probably meant just opening the top and then closing it again and then lower it back down there, and all of a sudden, you could control the pressure. And that was the same Halle who named a comment after himself. Was it really? There was no way. That guy was all over the place. Renaissance man. Yeah. That's where that word comes from. He's a post renaissance renaissance man. That's true. So now we have pressurized diving bells, right? Yeah. And basically equal to that of the surrounding water. So that means you can go deeper, stay down longer, you can run out. Like if the water starts to creep up, you just add more pressurized air and it pushes the water back down. It keeps the water at bay because it's at the same pressure. So to the water, whatever is inside the diving bell might as well just be more water. Yeah. It doesn't have this crazy urge to fill the diving bell up any longer because there's something there that just kind of goes along its happy way to the Mariana Trench. That's right. And I bet there was some 17th century David Blaine that very shortly afterward was like, I can stay down here for two months. Right. And people are like, who cares? Well, the horrible thing was when you added pressurized air again, you're pressurizing not just the diving belt, but the people. So to become pressurized to go down on a diving belt was a pretty horrific thing to endure in and of itself. Yeah, I guess. So. When they built the Brooklyn Bridge to the two towers, the main ports yeah. Those are down almost to the bedrock. They were going to go on the bedrock, and then they found out, like, there's some pretty stable aggregate, 30ft above bedrock. So they just planted them on those. Yeah, but to construct those, they had to drop these huge caissons, which are basically like giant structure old diving bells, and they pressurized them and it kept the water of the river out. So literally the river is just flowing around this stuff so weird. But there's men working in these things and they'd have to pressurize before going in them. And it was just like their ear drums would burst once in a while as they were being pressured because it wasn't gently. It was like I guess it was better than just walking right into the caisson, but it was still pretty rough. And then they go and work in there for a couple of hours and then come out and hopefully not get decompression sickness. Depends. But actually, the project manager, the son of the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, washington Roe Blaze, the son, he suffered a lifelong crippling from decompressing sickness after going and inspecting some of the work and wanted to get something coming out too quickly. Well, I know a lot of people died, and I enjoy walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, as many New Yorkers do. And you should think about that next time you're doing so. Yeah, people gave up their lives so you could say snarky things and Instagram photos of yourself and all the other things that you do. There's a really great Ken Burns documentary on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. I haven't seen that one. It's good. It's a straight up PBS one. No. Frills. Well, he's not about frills. Right. He just moves pictures around and pans in and out. This may be his least friendly okay. Yeah. I'm not knocking. Ken Burns. I like to get kinburns. Well, you'll probably like this one now. So, 100 years after being able to control the pressure with bellows and the barrels I'm sorry, in English. Another Englishman, a scientist named John Smeaton, invented an actual diving air pump in 1788. And it was on the surface, obviously, and took, like, four guys to operate it. And it was basically like Dennis Papin's original plan, but it was just mechanized. So they were able to build, like, big ones, like people. Like twelve people could go down and have a party if they wanted to. They made windows eventually. Yeah. They put electricity in them. Yeah. That's a little scary for that time period. I don't know if I would have trusted that. Yeah, I wouldn't have. No, 17 or early 1800. Right. We just discovered electricity. Now let's put it underwater. And they use them for, like you said, building bridges and repairing docks. Early Saboteurs would sneak up underwater to cut the anchor lines of enemy ships. Really? This is a very handy use of diving bell. So you dug up a cool story about was that this year? Yeah, just this May 26 yeah. A guy named Harrison Oucini, a 29 year old Nigerian boat cook, was on a tugboat, a Chevron tug boat in the Atlantic, and it capsized. And he was eventually, through all this, capsizing and tumbling around and water flowing in and sinking a hundred feet and sinking, of course, ended up in a bathroom trapped with air, sort of like the same concept of a diving bell. And people wondered, he survived after 60 hours. That's a good thing. 60 hours. But physicists were like, well, how did this happen? You probably shouldn't have been able to live that long down there. Right. The press reported that he had something like 4ft of air or something like that. And yeah, the chamber that he was in was only about 4ft high. So 60 hours of air shouldn't have worked. It shouldn't have kept them alive. Because think about it like you're breathing, even if it is pressurized air, you're breathing air, you're also exhaling carbon dioxide. And when the ratio of carbon dioxide or the percentage of it gets above 5%, things start to go horribly awry, and you die shortly after that. Yeah, I didn't realize that lack of oxygen isn't what kills people. It's too much CO2. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Yeah, it can happen when you're on a ventilator. That's apparently a big risk when you innovate. Somebody is CO2 build up. So anyway, why didn't this guy die? Well, it turns out that with pressurized air, especially when it's pressurized against cold water, CO2 is readily absorbed by that water around it. So when he was exhaling, the oxygen was remaining but the CO2 was basically being whipped away. Right. And since that CO2, or the air bubble that he was in, was pressurized, he was 100ft underwater, which actually helped him. Right. He had a lot of oxygen. A bunch of oxygen was just pushed into this little area. But the CO2 is being wicked away. And that's how he managed to survive. Yeah. It said for every 10 meters you descend, 1 ATM of pressure is added and it makes it more dense. According to some lawmaker named Boyle. According to Boyle's law. And so since he was 30 meters below, it became more dense by times four. And so that meant that he didn't need as much air as you would think for someone that's underwater. Right. So how much did he need? You need 10 day of air. So he only needed 6 m\u00b3 in the end because of the temperature of the water and how deep he was. Right. Also, I mean, don't remember that's a lot of air compressed into the same amount of area. All those molecules are still present. They're just in a smaller amount of area. They also think that it was connected to another AirPods, which probably helped. Even still, the guy survived in an impromptu inadvertent diving bell 100ft below the surface for 60 hours, dude in the dark, under the ocean with his head next to a toilet. And they said that he could hear the sea life scavenging on his dead crew mates. Wow, that's horrific. That happened this may not in, like, 1812 in May. Yeah. So there you go. By the way, we'll insert this right now because it's a good place for it. Okay. You were out of town. Did you hear about the whole Sharknado thing? Yeah. You predicted Sharknado. I invented it, yeah. It's pretty impressive. Chuck for those of you who don't know, sharknado was a very cheesy movie on a network that aired a couple of weeks ago. It blew up. Blew up. Didn't get as many viewers from the blow up as they would have hoped, but I watched it. It was very funny and fun. Yeah, it was terrible. But in that way wasn't one of the guys from Nine or Two I know on it? Yeah. Ian zeering was in it. And Tara Reid. Oh, yeah. She's looking rough. You mean I were out of the country and we heard about this. About Sharknado. Yeah. So thankfully one of our listeners alerted me to the fact that I invented Sharknado because can it really rain frogs? Episode I say this? No. I mean, I think they're light because that's the whole point. Even an updraft from a water spell to 200 miles an hour isn't going to be picking up great white sharks. That's a movie for you. Raining sharks. Yeah. So thanks to fan Todd Waters for bringing that to my attention. That's impressive. You very clearly I even said a movie. Yeah, you invented Sharknado and this thing was released a good year ago, right? It was, I think, may of 2012. That was almost a year before Harrison Ouchini survives in a diving bell. All sorts of stuff coming together, doing the bulldc, feeling the flow. So I don't know if I can sue anybody, but I'm looking into it. You should always ask before you sue. Yeah, sure. Give me some cabbage. How about some bread? Little sharknado cheese. I think we should bring back bread for money. Okay. Bring it a little bread. Yeah. All right. So they sent me bread, though, that would suck, with, like, a note that just says, wah wah wah. Yeah. Shape like a shark. Yeah. Maybe we should bring back bread into the regular vernacular, and then you ask them. Okay. That's our plan. All right. So sorry about that sidebar. I just want to give myself credit where it's due. You should be very proud of that. Thanks. Hey, I know when a good movie idea comes along. I'm all over it. You and Iain's Earring. Yes. If you want to learn more about diving bells, you should type those two words into the search bar. Howstepworks.com? And it will bring up this delightful little article written by a young exuberant, Chuck Bryant. And since I said exuberant, it's time for a message break. Hey, Chuck, it's summer, which means school is out, sun's shining, the daylight lasts longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story, isn't there? There sure is. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, you can tune in to the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right Media. That's right. Part true crime and part comedy, My Favorite Murder takes you on a journey through small town mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. That's Right hosts Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstark Banter with each other, sharing their favorite true crime tales and explore unique hometown stories from friends and fans alike. And they're both great, and it's a fun show, and you should listen. So listen to new episodes of my favorite murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today, Capital One offers commercial solutions you can bank on. Now more than ever, your business faces specific challenges and unique opportunities. That's why Capital One offers a comprehensive suite of financial services custom tailored to your short and long term goals. Backed by the expertise, strategy and resources of a top ten commercial bank, a dedicated team works with you to support your success and help you achieve your goals. Explore the possibilities at Capital one. comCOMMERCIAL and now it's time for Listener mailchuck. Whether you like it or not. I hope you're ready. We heard from another teacher we like to read these. Hey, guys. The reason I'm writing is to tell you how much stuff you should know is help me. During my first year. Of teaching. I am 24. Just finished my first year as a high school social studies teacher. All right. This year I taught law and justice and AP psychology. That's awesome. And AP Psychology. Yeah. Well rounded. Since I listened to a huge bulk of your shows when I was preparing various lessons, I use the information that I had on different podcasts. I'd heard on different podcasts. Then I thought, you know what? I should just play it. I'll get even lazier and just play the show. The podcasts were a big hit with the kids. They got a break from hearing my voice, and I got a break from talking. Stuff You Should Know is also great for teachers, because the articles you guys use for the podcast are well researched and written. Thank you. I don't have to worry that you guys are just making up information, and if you are, don't tell me. Student said the winner of their all time favorite in class was How Barbie Works. That's probably my favorite, too. That's a good one. Bed and Disco. I created a pretty awesome PowerPoint to accompany it, and I attached it and I looked at it. It was really neat, actually. Yeah. We discussed how Barbie and other toys can influence gender identity and body image in developing children. Overall, some of the podcasts have streamed japanese internment camps dueling right to privacy. When you die in psychology, I hit on concussions monkey syndrome. Oh, yeah. Hypnosis, lobotomies and PTSD. Remember Lobotomy? That was one of the alpha. We should have called it lobotomy's heart. We love my Lobotomy on NPR. Do you remember? Oh, yeah, that dude. Yes, that guy. Here's our hero. Howard something. Yeah, Howard. Just to tell you guys again, thanks a lot for making my job easier. Because you use classroom appropriate language and report factual research based on evidence and information. You're an amazing classroom resource. Resource. Did you say that or did she misspell it? I did. Okay, keep them coming. Carly brown. Thanks a lot. Carly Brown. We appreciate that. Or, Ms. Brown, as your students probably tell you. That's right. Thank you, Ms. Brown, for letting us know that. We like to know that we're helping shape young minds for the better. That's right. And we do use classroom appropriate language, don't we? I never termed at that. All right, well, let's see. Checkers. What should we say? Anything you want to hear about if you have invented something, because I invented the snowboard, too, remember? No, I don't remember that. I have a crayon drawing from when I was six of the ski board. Oh, yeah. It's a guy going down a ski slope on a little skateboard with skis on it. Wow. So I've invented two things, the sharknado and the snowboard. Yeah. So if you have inadvertently invented something, that's a great one, man. We'd love to hear about it. Yeah, you can tweet that to us at Syscapodcast. You can post it on our Facebook page@facebook.com, stuffychnow. You can send us an email that Chuck and I will both get to Stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And you can check out our home on the web. It's a little website known as Stuffyoushhnow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetopworks.com. This episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by State Farm. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands? Find Halo elevate date as petco pet supplies. Plus and select neighborhood pet stores."
211a2a4e-121b-11eb-85ed-6378eadaba35	Short Stuff: Chastity Belts	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-chastity-belts	Were chastity belts real? Sort of. But not in the way you might think. Tune in to hear the real story.	Were chastity belts real? Sort of. But not in the way you might think. Tune in to hear the real story.	Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=23, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=174, tm_isdst=0)	12164326	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Dave here in spirit. And that means this is short stuff, which I already said, which is a waste of time. Let's just start. Which is funny because Jerry is actually here. I think supposedly she is, but I haven't heard from her in a while, so who knows? She's here, but then she's like, I can't be bothered with those twelve minute episodes. Dave here if you take it. Yeah, I can't. There's only so much of these schmoes I can take. Jerry has a lot on her plate. And we're glad she's still around doing our full Linked episodes, right? Yeah, we are. We're very hashtag blessed to have Jerry still working. She left us in the dirt a long time ago. Totally. And she doesn't because I secretly suspect that she likes us. So chastity belts. I don't think I ever got the memo. And we'll go ahead and spoil this right up front. The chastity belts were probably not even a real thing used for the purpose that we all think they were used for. Yeah. I mean, I guess I never did either. I never really sat around and gave some thought. So, like reading this, I wasn't blown away. But it does occur to me that I guess I had always thought that they were a real thing and they are technically a real thing, but they're just not from the time we thought they were from. And it all seems to just be a misinterpretation of potentially an old timey joke that we just lost the punchline to over the years. Yeah, I think maybe that's kind of sad, that this could have been a very believable thing that they did in medieval times, but it seems like something that could have happened. Well, part of it, though, is like this desire from people looking backward and saying like, look at how dumb and savage and brutal and just uncaring those people were back then. And it gives us a sense of self satisfaction. And that's why, basically myths like this are allowed to perpetuate. And it's really just a misunderstanding, but it also prevents us from understanding those cultures a little better than we do because we just think they're dumb and backwards instead. So it's a real issue. It's probably the greatest issue humanity has ever faced. Chastity belts in the myth behind them. So I guess we should say what they are. I kind of figured everyone knows, but if you have never heard of a chastity belt, the legend was that if you could picture basically metal underwear that a man would put on his wife that is locked onto their body, like with a padlock. And it had a couple of openings for going PP and poopoo, and sometimes they were gussied up with hearts and flowers and stuff. And the idea was like, well, I'm going out of town on a rampage. I don't want you messing around on me while I'm gone. So I'm to going lock your private parts away, basically behind this iron underwear. And that's what a chastity belt was. Yeah. And if you look at pictures of some of these chastity belts, the place where what did you say you go? PP and poopoo. The holes are exit only because they have metal teeth carved into them. It's not meant to mess around. And when you look at these things, you're like, this can't be right. Is this for real? And it certainly seems that way because you can see these things with your own eyes. But the problem is, the things you're seeing with your own eyes come much later than the age that we attribute them to. Right? Yeah. A guy actually wrote a book on this. His name was Albrecht Closson, and he wrote the medieval chastity belt colon a myth making process. Boy, I'm going to flip my lid if we ever get a book that comes through this podcast that doesn't have a colon. Oh, yeah. Like just in our research, you mean? Yeah. That's not a novel. Okay. I dare somebody to write one. I mean, we did. Well, ours feels like as a colon, but it doesn't. It definitely does. The colon is implied, for sure. Right. So this is the book that Albrecht Chasson wrote, and basically he's like, listen, poets wrote about it. There were artists who made these things, but it seems to be just a big sort of practical joke, or maybe the equivalent of like an editorial cartoon or something in its origin, because the first mention of it comes from Conrad with a K. Kaiser Von Ikstadt. Great name. Yeah. And this was an engineer who designed all this technology around sieges, like weapons and defenses and stuff. And he wrote in the early 15th century about a device in a manuscript called Bellafortus, meaning strong in war, which was just a big catalog of like, military gadgets. And among them was chastity belt. Yeah. Because this was frequently supposedly used by men who were leaving for war while they were gone. Like, you're saying they would use it while they were out of town or whatever. So it would kind of make sense that it would be in this military gadget book. And you would say, okay, proof positive. This thing was written in the early 1004 hundreds. This is a medieval device, and this is possibly where it was invented, was in Belafortus. But the problem is, if you go through Belafortus with a scrutinizing eye, you're going to see that there's other stuff in there that don't quite add up, like a machine that makes you invisible, or a device that propels you through fart power. That's my favorite. There's a chariot, apparently, that's shaped like a cat. So while a lot of the stuff that Von Iksta was designing and creating was real and legitimate, he also was apparently not shy about peppering his works with joke stuff as well. Right. And there were other instances where it was clearly used in a satirical way, like a political cartoon, basically, of the time. There was one in German from the 16th century that has this sort of older gentleman saying goodbye to his young wife, and she is naked except for this chastity belt. And then behind a curtain is her younger lover, sort of hiding with a chastity belt shaped key, and the husband has these donkeyers growing out of his head. So this all sort of leads us to believe that this was kind of a joke, not something that was really used. No. And maybe it was even originally used and described metaphorically, and it just kind of took off from there, almost like a medieval meme. But the fact is, there are chastity belts in existence and I think we should take a break and then we'll come back and talk about where those came from. How about that? What a perfect spot. Okay, Chuck, where did the chastity belt that you can actually go see in a museum come from? They come from much later. They come from probably the 19th century. There was a little Gothic Revival thing that happened then, and iron and steel were much more readily available as Europe became more industrialized. And they started making things out of them. Obviously, they made things like bridges and things like that, but they also made things for fun. And it looks like there were these manufacturers in England who said, you know what? There are these curiosity shows and museums that would pay for chastity belts to display them, and so we're going to start making them as sort of a joke. Yeah. So the idea was that the Victorians were wound up so tight and were so proper that they would expel their puriant interest in bound up sexuality in, like, sideshows and stuff like that. They would pay to see things like torture devices or like a chat. Right. Or something. And for their part, part of it also was being able to become self satisfied with your own culture, in your own place in history by mocking or judging earlier ones. But the fact is, these things, they were recently made and apparently passed off as much older than they actually were. And so some museums said, well, we need to get these out of our collection, because we've been displaying them as medieval, and they were really created 20 years ago. And the British Museum actually still has one, but they have a little placard next to theirs that basically says there's no real evidence that any of these were actually created or used during the medieval era. Yeah, I love that last line. It says that the evidence is largely anecdotal or in burlesque fiction. Very tantalizing. That's right. So, yeah, they kept one around because I guess they thought it was still funny to look at in the proper context, which it's really not, when you think about it. Right, exactly. But yeah, it looks like it was basically an urban legend from back then that came about many years later as an actual object. And like you were talking before, I think people look at that period as these backward people that would do something like this. And I think scholars of the Middle Ages try to be a little kinder and point out that while it was no picnic, certainly, to live back then because of disease and no modern medicine and no electricity and not very much plumbing, it was no party. But they weren't, like, completely backward. And it wasn't just a culture full of maidens locked away in towers either. Right, exactly. There's a USC professor named Lisa Battle. I think it's maybe how you say your last name. She points out that they had a different way of looking at things in the medieval era, and there were lots of different politics and sociopolitics, but they weren't just stupid. So the idea that they couldn't possibly have had jokes or written things in jest or whatever and basically pull one over on those of us alive today inadvertently is a falsehood. It actually seems to be the case, for sure. Yeah. And there were even some women who are writers who didn't write under pseudonyms or pinnames or anonymously. I don't think we're trying to make the case that it was just like a really progressive society or anything like that, but it may not be exactly as backward as we're led to believe. Yeah, it's like, take a look at your own age for what? No kidding. Maybe put your own house in order first before you go judging others. Right. I love that term. What's funny is that there really are chastity belts in existence today that are of recent manufacturer, but they're mostly made of latex and they're used almost exclusively for BDSM. And I think, Chuck, we should just leave the listener here to explain to whoever else they're listening with what BDS sent me. That's right. And maybe we should do a podcast on that one day. Sure. We'll explain it for you later on. All right, well, that means, of course, then everybody short stuff is out. Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…stunt-people.mp3	How Stuntmen (and -women) Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-stuntmen-and-women-work	They get blown up, shot, drowned and thrown out of windows on the silver screen - and we don't even know their names. Stuntpeople are the unsung heroes of the movie industry. Learn the ins and outs of the stunt world and how one becomes a stunt person.	They get blown up, shot, drowned and thrown out of windows on the silver screen - and we don't even know their names. Stuntpeople are the unsung heroes of the movie industry. Learn the ins and outs of the stunt world and how one becomes a stunt person.	Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:36:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=15, tm_min=36, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=29, tm_isdst=0)	37757678	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the 2012 Toyota Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopforcecom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's. Charles was w Chuck Bryant. And this is stuff you should know. Well, Jerry had an itchy trigger finger today, you hear? And there yeah, she's ready to go home. Yeah. She's like, come on, who do you want to go? You guys aren't my entire life. We like to think we are, but that is we're like zero 1% of Jerry's life. Yeah, she's giggling in there. She's quite the adventurer. How are you doing, man? I'm great, man. I'm ready to jump from a tall building or roll a brand new car, man. Sorry. That's what I was going to ask you. So I guess you did the intro for us. Go ahead. Let's pretend like that didn't happen. No, it's fine. Okay. You were just doing what the theme from The Fall Guy, starring Lee Majors, 1980s awesome TV show, was probably the best truck ever featured in a TV show. Yeah, that GMC, man. The thing is sweet. Yeah, dudes, recreate that truck. If you Google it, there's a lot of guys that have made that truck for themselves for good reason, too. It's a cool truck. Yeah. And it's interesting that The Fall Guy points out a couple of the show itself points out a very important things as far as stuntman go. One is that he had to moonlight as a bounty hunter. And that's kind of one of the things we'll learn, is that there's not a lot of work out there to go around. It's tough to make it as a stuntman. Yeah. You get punched. And B, if you look at the lyrics to that theme song, man, he is really salty about not giving the glory and the girls. Yes, mainly the girls and the glory. When he winds up in the hay. It's only hay. Hay. The song complains about not getting glory or women. And that is one of the hallmarks, though, of the stunt person, is to remain anonymous and to be bitter about it. Very few stunt people you've ever heard of well, yeah, the Academy of Arts and Sciences. They give out the Academy Awards, the Oscars motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Yeah. They don't have a category for stunt people. No, never have. And the reason some people give is because they like to maintain the anonymity and the illusion that's provided by stunt people filling in as doubles for stars. Yeah, but you can win what was the award? You can win an Emmy for best Stunt coordinator. True. Or the Stunt Award. They have their own stunt awards. Oh, yeah. The Taurus World Stunt Awards. Yeah, you can win a Tory. They took a hiatus. I saw that there was 2010, and they're having stuff for 2012. Couldn't find anything about 2011. Really? Yeah. So if you know what happened to the tourist World Stunt Awards for 2011. We are curious, interesting. Let us know. So thanks for listening. So anyway, let's talk about the history of stunt people. They pretty much have only been around as long as you've had motion pictures, right? Yeah. There wasn't much of a need for them before then. Maybe for like a show or something like that, like a while Bill Hickok show. Oh, I guess I see your point. Call them stuntman, but really you kind of want to differentiate because you can also say, all right, so people who ride horses on standing up on a horse's back, that's a stunt person. Right. A guy who like, is in the X Games, those extreme sports kids that all the kids are into these days, that's a stunt. These are by technically stunt people. What we're talking about are movie stunt people. Sure. And the whole point to their craft isn't to, like, do a 580 on a bike unless somebody asks them to. What they want to do is create what you would just take for granted, like, oh, that guy just got clocked. No, he didn't actually get clocked. That was a stuntman who knows what he's doing? And that was a carefully choreographed scene that just flew right past you, but your brain still just absorbed it as that man just got punched, even though that didn't really happen. That's right. And we will probably slip into the word stuntman here and there instead of stunt people. Of course, there were tons and tons of stunt women, but we'll say stunt persons are stuntmen. And, like, luckily, there are women now. Back in the day, they would dress men as women to do stunts many times. Yeah, there's a lot of cross dressing back in the day. There was until they decided, hey, women are people, too, and they can act and do stunts. Right. Just like guys can. We can put them in danger just as much as well. Exactly. So there wasn't much call for stunt people for movies before. Movies, just by definition, sure. Don't be ridiculous. But right out of the gate, when we started making movies, we started needing people to do stunts. And the earliest people who were doing stunts were actually comedians, slapstick comedians. Like, Buster Keaton had a very famous early stunt, steamboat Bill Jr. Is that what it was in? Yeah, the very famous you've probably seen it in Hollywood legends of screen clips and things like that on the AMC. Yeah. It is the famous shot where the front facade of a house falls down and would have been on Buster Keaton, but he is saved because the attic window or attic door was open, so it just falls all around him. And there was some careful measuring in place because if he would have been off by a few inches, he would have been dead. Yeah. And that was a real thing. Like the earliest stunts were nothing but the real thing. Apparently, if you had, I don't know, somebody hanging from the construction, the skeleton of a steel skyscraper, you needed that shot. That's what the guy did. Yeah. And the Grabster wrote this one, of course. And Ed points out that back in the day, before they called them stuntmen, they were just like, let me go find someone crazy enough to go do this. Exactly. And that guy craft service looks crazy enough to do it, and let's go see if he wants an extra $20. Yeah, and he does, because back in 19, $220 was a lot. Sure. As the film industry grew and grew early in the 20th century, we went from just nothing but slapstick comedies to things like westerns and action flicks. And all of a sudden, those people who really can ride on the back of a horse standing up became stunt people as well. And as stunts became more and more complex, the idea of having somebody whose job and specialty was to just do the stunt and make it look like the actor the star was doing it started to really develop. Yeah. And then FlashForward even more the when things really came to their own as far as stunt technology developing. Things like squibs, which we will talk about for gunshots and air rams. Is that what they're called? Yeah, it's like a hydratic lift. Yeah, it's pneumatic. It just shoots you up into the air. Like with a human cannonball. Right. So if somebody if a grenade blows up by somebody, you see the dude fly through the air. He was on a ram. That's right. And then other things like airbags and more technology with cars, with the roll cages, like, it just got more and more complex. Right. And now, of course, we have CGI, which replaces a lot of stunts in many cases. Yeah. Not necessarily to a better effect. Like all I have to say is kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yeah, where it was like they suddenly cut to drawings of Harrison Ford swinging on alaso. He's famous for doing his own stunts, though. He didn't do him in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Well, that's because he's 89 years old and he would die. He was awesome in Bruno. I didn't see that. Was it? Harrison Ford is in it. Yeah, for about 2 seconds. Did they do like, gay jokes to him or something? They didn't even get that far. Okay. Yeah. Did you just shut it down? Yeah. But anyway, I guess throughout this progression of the field of stunt people, safety has gotten better and better, is what I think we were just trying to say to the point now where they're not even used it's CGI, but there's always going to be room for stunt people. And the fact that it's gotten safer is much better. But there's an element of risk to it no matter what it grabs or points out. If a stunt didn't present some sort of risk. There'd be no need for stunt people at all. The actors would do it. Yeah, but the actors can't always do it. That's right. And when you want to call in a stunt person is when they either have a specific skill that they're really good at, like fake martial arts. I mean, real martial arts, but fake hitting and kicking. Or fake martial arts, like chukwang, like stuff you just made up. It's a lot of, like, just front kicks in the air. That's what you practice. Sword fighting, stage combat, like we've talked about, stuff like that. They are trained to fall. They are trained to safely fall, I guess I should point out. And basically, it's a safety factor on one hand and it's a financial factor on the other, because you can't have your main actor actress going down with a broken leg for four weeks. So you put your stunt person in there and keep your actor all nice and safe in their trailer. Yeah. Or you want to be shooting two things at once. So you have your second unit out there shooting the fast cars whizzing by and the car chase. Then you have your first unit shooting the actor inside the car, driving a lot slower and acting like it's really fast, but shouting and moving the steering wheel back and forth a lot, and maybe there's somebody rocking the car. What's it called? Poor man's process. Yeah. I guess we should say this. When you're in a car, you either have a camera rig on your car where the real car with cameras attached to it we've done that. Or the car is on a process trailer, which means a lot of these shots you see of someone driving you're, like they're not even paying attention to the road because the car sitting on a trailer being pulled by a truck. Or it's got a little rock to it. Little rock to it. Or you do the poor man's process when the car is not going anywhere and you have PA pushing on the outside. Pushing on the outside. Little tricks with lighting to make it look like headlights going by. We've done that. It's really neat in the end to look at a scene that's poor man's process and think, wow, they're really not even moving. And it looks so good. Yeah. See if you can pick it out. And the stuff you should know, TV series, they can probably pick it up. So, yeah, it's financial. It makes sense. Also, one of the other reasons people use stunt people, they come with a set of skills that the average actor doesn't have a particular set of skills. Exactly. That makes them very dangerous to you. And so you can either hire a stuntman who looks like your star to carry out, like a combat scene, sort of looked like a star, or you can teach your star, spend all this extra money and time training the star to the skill and the crash course. Most of the time it makes sense to just hire a stunt person. Yeah. And chances are these days you're going to get a mix in a big action movie. You're going to get a mix of all three. You're going to get some CGI, you're going to get some stunt people. And these days you're going to get real actors doing some of the real fake fighting. Doesn't Tom Cruise do a lot of his own stunts? Yeah, I got a list of actors who prefer to do I didn't mean to jump the gun. No, the Crews is famous for that. I was reading this and I was like, I wonder if I would do my own stunts. I would do some I would say, sure, I want to learn how to sword fight. Teach me. That's something I want to know. And I'm certainly not going to shell out for it myself, ever. So let's go ahead and learn now. That's a good point. I would do my own stunts. It depends. Heights. No way I would do that. I would jump off. So California state law and of course, there's shoot movies all over the place now, and the union rules in Hollywood have really made it pretty safe these days. But you're still going to find injuries and your occasional death on set, which is really awful. Yeah, well, there always have been, pretty much from the beginning, deaths and injuries. Howard Hughes. Yeah. The movie Hells Angels, which we must have talked about in the Hells Angels podcast. I'm sure we did, because I think we talked about the origin of the name, which is from the air combat. Yeah, that's what they think. The fighting homecare. Yeah, I think that was one of the theories. But there were three, maybe four fatalities because they were doing, like, real dog fights with airplanes and there were a lot of crashes. So that was a movie where people died. Yes, very famously. The Twilight Zone. The movie. Jennifer, Jason Lee's father, Vic Morrow, and two little Vietnamese kids died when a helicopter crashed into the water where they were crossing a river. That's on YouTube, by the way. I know. It's pretty awful. It is. And I saw it recently because I was just curious. I'd always wondered how it went down in my head because I've heard the story since the movie came out, since I was a kid, and I was wondering exactly what was the logistics and how did that go down. It's pretty bad to watch. It is, because it just goes totally out of control. It does. So I would not recommend that. But you do have to enter your age, by the way, to watch that video I saw. Yeah. And onset. The Ad is ultimately responsible, the assistant director, for everyone's safety and in fact, on our own little TV show when we had fake guns on set, just as props. Like, we didn't even use them in the scene. But just to have a fake gun on set, the ad has to announce to the whole crew and show them the gun. It's fake, it's not real. Look at the barrel. There's no bullets, there's no nothing. It will not be fired. We will not be shooting blanks or dummy cartridges. And it's just even on a stupid little silly show like ours, you have to be really careful with that stuff. Yeah. So, Chuck, because of this incredibly high risk profession, work, stunt people must be paid out the YinYang. True or false? Well, they make a good rate, but like we said earlier, there's not a ton of work for the amount of stunt people trying to get work. Okay. And that was when I used to work out in La. As a PA. I would always try and talk to the stunt people when I worked on jobs where they had stunt people, because they're just really interesting, and to say the least, and they would usually bemoan the fact that there's not a ton of work and they're all kind of scrapping for the same piece of cheese. But that's like everyone in the film business. Sure. From crew to the lead actor, you're all after the same piece of cheese. Yes. We've worked with some stunt people, too. Yeah. You'd be surprised when you need to call in a stunt person. I worked on this one commercial where it was just like bad traffic on the highway that the shot was, and cars had to just sort of pull over to the side while another car came through. All the cars that pulled over to the side of the road had to have stunt drivers. I was like, I could do that, but then I'd be taking bread off the table. It was stun person. Right. And then the whole production was shut down. That's true. Okay, so most stunt people, you say, because there's just so little work for so many people, it's not a high paying job. A lot of people do it for the love of it. Right? Yeah. You can make money if you're experienced and get tons of work, obviously, but I'd say those are the few and far between. But you'd have to love it because the hours are usually very long to do a stunt. You don't just walk up and get in the car and drive it and all of a sudden it flips and there's an explosion and you're hoping for the best. Right. Like when you see a stunt, these things are rehearsed over and over again. Say, for a car chase, they'll go through the entire car chase, but they'll do it at a low speed. Right. So that it's choreographed, rehearse, and everybody knows what's going to happen when. Yeah, that takes a very long time. If you need to flip a car, you need to do measurements. The Pyrotechnics guys are probably involved. Yeah, there's a lot of standing around. There's a lot of practicing. There's a lot of measuring. There's a lot of talking. And then if, say you're doing something like in water, you're probably standing in water the whole time. So you're doing that for 14 hours. It sounds like you would have to love your work to do this. Yeah, it's definitely not a glory job. Especially factoring in the anonymity factor. Right. When you do all this and you do it absolutely perfectly, no one notices. That's the goal. In fact, one of my biggest pet peeve is when you do notice and you see that one shot of the dude with a wig on supposed to be Clint Eastwood. Right. Disappointing. So you're saying the second unit director handles this? The second unit director is in charge of shooting stunts. But the person who's in charge of the stunts themselves is the stunt coordinator. Yeah. And that person hires the stunt people, plans the stunts, oversees the stunts, execution, does everything but actually sets up the camera and all that. Or handles the camera shooting it. Right. Yeah. It's basically like a film crew is broken up into many departments, and that's just sort of its own little department headed by the coordinator. Got you. Like they'll have a budget to work with and all that kind of stuff, just like any other department. So let's talk about how they do some stunts. Okay. And actually, the second unit director a lot of times is a former stunt person or stunt coordinator. Right. That makes sense. Comes in handy. Sure. Let's talk about stunts without fire. How about punches? How about them stage fighting? Man, something we have not learned yet. That's pretty much a must if you want to become a stuntman. That's lesson one, is go take stage fighting courses. Yep. Learn how to sell a punch as the giver and as the receiver without looking corny and hokey and fake. Like pro wrestling. Right. But it's very much similar to pro wrestling, especially if you've ever seen somebody throw a punch in pro wrestling and you can hear the skin slap. That's because that person is actually just punched. The key is they weren't punched very hard. Certainly not as hard as the jerk of their head would say. Yeah. You got camera angles and you've got sound effects. And through the art of movie magic, it looks like a good knockdown drag out brawl. Right. And if you got, like, a really good stunt coordinator, there'll be like a punch that sold, and the person who's being punched is on a ramp, so they fly through the air afterwards. Yeah. That's awesome. All right. Gunshots. We talked about squibs. A squib is basically you're going to have a chest metal chest plate with a squid on the front of it to protect your body. And it's basically a little blood packet that's rigged electronically to explode when it's supposed to. And so the plate in between the square meter just protects you. Sure. And maybe you are in charge of you the stuntman are in charge. You have a little button. Yeah. Maybe to explode the charge or there's somebody else doing it remotely. And it's pretty awesome. It releases theater blood, opens a hole in the shirt. Yeah. Pretty awesome. It is very awesome. This I didn't realize, though, how they make bullet holes in a wall, like a stucco wall. I thought this was pretty ingenious. They drilled a hole ahead of time, and then they cover it up with, like, putty or paper or something and paint with a squid in there, and they blow that squid out, and it makes a bullet hole. It's pretty cool. It's ingenious. It's simple, it seems like, but it's very ingenious. Well, especially when you watch a movie, ideally, you're getting lost in the movie, not paying attention. But if you watch, like, a John Woofhome or something and you see just like, a wall get riddled with bullets, just think about all the time it took to set up all the squibs. And what if the actor trips in the middle of it? You're just like, we have to do it again. Yeah. Which is no good. And, in fact, big stunts, they go with many, many cameras on stunts that you don't or can't recreate because of either danger or money. And some of these shots have a dozen or more cameras shooting, which makes a lot of sense, of course. And Grabster points out that another reason why you don't want to do a big take like that more than once, is because every time you do, the danger for the stunt person multiplies. And I was like, how? And then I thought, oh, well, doing it more. Right. Your chances of injury are increased the more you carry out the more times you carry out a dangerous act. So that's how it multiplies. Getting back to squibs, these days, a lot of directors are opting for CGI blood and bullet wounds. But supposedly Quentin Tarantino and this is out by the time this comes out, Django and Jane. I can't wait to see it. Supposedly, he had 100% real squibs. And the blood, like, they're supposed to be the bloodiest, nastiest squibs that Hollywood has seen in years. Is that right? Yes. It's supposed to be pretty awesome. Yeah. Have you seen Machete? Yeah, that was pretty bloody. Yeah, that was bad, though. I didn't like it. I agree. It was, but it was still pretty blank. They also have blanks. If you were firing a gun on set, it is probably a blank. You would hope so. It's not the same as a dummy cartridge. No, a blank actually fires gunpowder, has gunpowder and fires what's called a wide. It's like paper or wood or plastic. But it does not, obviously, have shot or bullet. No, but sometimes when the bullet explodes, bits of metal can end up being shot out as well. Yeah, that's how Brandon Lee died when they were filming the crowd. Yeah. His was actually an accident. There was a bullet lodged in the barrel that they didn't know about. What? I thought okay, well, then I'm thinking of somebody else who was messing around with a gun that was I can't remember his name. Put it to his head and pulled the trigger and the water, like the gases or something killed him. Yeah, that was I can't remember his name, but it was on a TV show set and he, like, goofing around, put it to his head as a joke. So you should never mess around with blanks. No, it's very dangerous, though. No, but there was a bullet in the yeah, there was a bullet. They got the guns mixed up and there was a real bullet slug lodged in the barrel that they didn't know about. So it fired a blank, but it ejected that other thing. And Brandon Lee died. Well, I didn't know that. Yeah, man. It was one of the biggest oops probably, in Hollywood history. Yeah, I guess you could call it that. And I think they thought he was still acting and continued to roll cameras for a bit afterwards, even. Yeah. Very sad. Tragic. Are we to falling? Yeah. Which you'll do. I won't do. Yes. I'll jump off the stuff. I've always done that. Well, they use these huge airbags, right? Well, back in the day they did. And if you're doing a fall today, they still will sometimes. But generally these days they have like a bungee type contraption. I would still demand an airbag. Apparently. Also for shorter falls, they'll take some cardboard boxes and they'll cut the sharp corners off and then you jump onto that. Did you do that when you were a kid? No, I always would jump into water. I would jump onto the ground off, like, the credenza or whatever. And now I'm like, I wouldn't even do that. That's dangerous. Falls used to be the thing. I'm sure you remember as a kid, falls were a really big deal for stuntmen. And Dar Robinson. Remember that guy? No. He did the sharkiest machine fall in Atlanta and the Burt Reynolds movie. No. Very famous fall out of the Peach Tree Plaza Hotel. I was up in Toledo at the time it was released. In Toledo? Not in Toledo. Sharkey's machine was? Yeah, off the witch hotel. He went through a window of the Peach Tree Plaza onto an airbag. And it was one of the famous early falls. Not early falls, but one of the famous falls. What floor did he jump out of? Oh, man, I can't remember. Was it pretty high? Yeah, I mean, it was over like 150ft. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's nuts. That's pretty cool. So imagine planning that how many times they measured everything to figure out where the airbags needed to go. And then they probably supplemented it with additional airbags. And if they loved the guy at all, they did all this. Yes. Stuntman. When you go to talk to one, if you're on set, you'll be disappointed by the fact that they aren't these crazy dudes like you want them to be. They're actually really sensible because they want to work and earn money. Right. So they want to be really sure that no one gets hurt. It's a little more boring than you would think, talking to them. Sure. But they are a little nuts. Yeah, you'd have to be at least a little. What else, Chuck? Fire. How about fire? I just saw Anchorman the other night. Remember when they had the street brawl and the guy on fire just walks by? Yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty serious stunt. Sure. When you set yourself on fire and there's a lot of safety precautions, but even still, you're on fire whether you like it or not. Yes. You're wearing all kinds of fire protective clothing and fire retardant. And then you're smeared with the flammable gel. Yes. You have a hood on that protects you as well. And there's an oxygen tank in there. So you're basically just completely wrapped in this outfit. But yeah, the flammable gel is on and they liked you and then film you and you're going it's always the wave of yard. It kind of looks the same. And then people run over and put you out with fire extinguisher. That's right. But they time it very closely as well, I'm sure, because I think it's kind of like, well, if we go 12 seconds, he actually will catch on fire. So we can shoot for 1111.5. Right. Explosions are a big deal, obviously, these days. There's so many explosions in movies, sometimes they cheat a little bit, what's called a technique called force perspective to make it look like the actor is closer to the explosion. And if there's an explosion, you're probably also going to be propelled with the air ram that we're talking about. I would call it a Hollywood trope at this point. The explosion and the dudes flying like 20ft in the air. Oh, yeah. That was big in Commando. Oh, yes. But there are a lot of errors using Commando. More than I can count. That was such a good movie. Car chases and crashes. Yeah. They use rams as well. They may be attached to the car. So if a car needs to flip, you see people like going up on a ramp or whatever. Yeah. And they probably use that if you're just trying to stay on two wheels. But if you're trying to flip, there's usually a ram that pushes the car, pushes it off to the ground and it flips. Or if you have them coming out of the rear, it will make it jump really high. True. Like in Hooper. I don't know all these movies you're talking about. Oh, dude. Hooper was the stuntman movie with. Burt Reynolds. I didn't see it. Hal Needham, very famous stuntman turned director, directed, founder of The Cannonball Run. Well, yes. And director of the movie The Cannonball Run and Smoking the Bandit. And Hooper. Hooper was about an aging stuntman, Burt Reynolds, who was challenged by the up and comer jan Michael Vincent. And of course, there's the love relationship with Sally Field. She was in that, too. And it was good. It was like it's sort of the best stunt movie ever because it was about stunts. And he had a rocket car. And that one, that was a big rocket car jump. It was the big climax. I did not see Hooper. Did you need to see Hooper? What was I watching back then? You were probably watching TV and stuff, I guess. Yeah. It was a little before your time. Secret of NIM. And like I said earlier, stunt drivers, it's not all like a lot of the stuff you're going to see on TV is stunt driving, even though you might not think it's necessary yeah. Apparently. To just pull off of the sometimes not. How do you become a stuntman, Josh? Well, apparently, as far as grabbing, aki says you basically have to start off as an extra on the set. That's not necessarily true. Okay. If you want to go from zero to stuntman in the slowest way possible, then you would start out as an extra on the set. You have to be a member of the Screen Actors Guild in most cases. Yeah. And when you're hanging around the set, you identify who the second unit director or stunt coordinator is, and you hand them your headshot. This ed painted a path to becoming a stunt person that we kind of laughed at. It is not the only path. But one thing is for sure, to become a stunt person, you need to get to know someone else in that department. And that's really with every film department. If you want to be in wardrobe, you should get a job as a BA and start hanging out with the wardrobe people. If you want to be in makeup, start hanging out with the makeup people. And that's just how it works in Hollywood. There is no degree. You can get a film degree, but come on, that's wasted money. Just go to work on the set. You get to know the people in the department and then start bugging them a little bit when they're not busy. Stunt coordinators are a little testy because there's a lot on the line. Sure. So if you're a new PA on set, don't run over the stunt coordinator and start bugging them right away. Pick and choose your time and then give them your headshot. But yeah, what you're saying is that it's apprentice based. It is, basically. There are schools. One recommended driving school. The Rick Siemen Stunt driving school. Yeah. There's also the International Stunt School. That sounds pretty serious. And this is where you can learn to do some of the stuff, but it's not like you exit with a degree and then show up and say, now, I'd like to do stunt work. Right. All the rest of you are fired. I have a degree from the International Stunt School. Grabster points out that you should have a large area of specialty rather than one thing. I thought it was a very good point. Yeah. But it's not necessarily true. I've talked to some stunt dudes that say eventually you would like to have a wide range of skills, but a good way to get in is to have one really specific skill that you're great at, and you might get that call. Like, this guy is good with wire work or water work. Or he's a hell of a driver. Or a really good motorcycle guy, or a great skier, if you're doing, like, what was that for your eyes only? Yeah. Is that the one that ski chase never say never again. No, it's definitely Roger Moore. Okay. I think it's for your eyes only. All right. But it helps to have these skills. Like, a lot of stunt people are former motorcycle motocross racers or car enthusiasts, or they know how to stand force back riding. Yes. So a lot of them have these skills just anyway, and they're like, hey, I've been driving dirt track for 20 years. Might as well make some money. Yeah. Film me. There's books out there. Are there? So you want to be a stuntman by Mark Aspet. That's a great name for a book like that. The full burn by Kevin Conley. Fight Choreography the Art of Nonverbal Dialogue by John Kring. And then Hal Needham's biography stuntman with exclamation. Had to be. Had to be. You said you have a list of actors that do their own stunts. Yeah, I think most people know this. People like Jason Statham, famous for doing his own stunts. I see Zoe bells on there. I thought she was a stunt person. Well, she is. And she was in Death Proof, though, as an actor. Right. And they were like I guess they include her now because she did that awesome hanging onto the hood scene. I was watching that earlier, and it is just nuts. It's pretty cool when she's hanging on. It looks like by belts or whatever. Yeah. And then she's kind of sliding still across the hood. All it would take is, like, half an inch, and then all of a sudden, she's gone too far and she's off the side of the car. That was it. She's one of the best in the business, apparently. Yeah. That's scary. Burt Reynolds used to do a lot of his stunts. In fact, he got injured pretty bad. That led to some bad health problems on set. Oh, yeah. City Heat. The Clint Eastwood movie. Burt Lancaster used to do his own stunts. He's a tough guy. Yes. Remember the movie tough guys. Yeah, I don't think we mentioned her either. That's one of the famous stunts ever, the chariot race. Yeah. You want to tell them about it? Go ahead. What do you got? Well, there's a stuntman named Joe Canut, and he was doubling for Charlton Heston. And during the chariot race, this big, long, intense race yeah. He falls off the chariot and is about to be run over, but in true stuntman fashion, grabs it, is being dragged, pulls himself back up and continues on. Wow. And I think that made it on screen, too. Yeah, it's in the movie. But that was a real thing. Like, it wasn't a planned stunt. Like, the guy saved his own life. That's awesome. Yeah, it is. Harrison Ford, we mentioned, as far as the ladies go, angelina Jolie and Cameron Diaz are known for doing stunts. Arnie Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan. Yeah. Very famous for doing his own stunts. Sure. And it makes a difference. Man, when you can tell, it's Tom Cruise on the side of that mountain. Man, that was scary. Was that really him? Yeah. Emily worked on that shoot on there just that segment in Moab, the rock climbing segment. And that's when, famously, Tom Cruise is, like, 4 hours late and flies in on a helicopter, and the whole crew is waiting around all day for him. I hadn't heard that. Yeah, I mean, famous in my family. Okay. And now, I guess, famous to the podcast community. Yeah. Cruises, not punctual. It was wasn't that day. Wow. Stunts. Have you seen Haywire, the Soderberg movie? It's about assassins, basically. It's an action movie. Soderberg take on an action movie. But Gina Carano is a former mixed martial artist, and she's awesome and does her own stunts. What's her name? Gina Carano. I don't believe I know her. She plays the lead. I think that was her first legit movie. She's known for mixed martial arts, but, yes, she does her own stunts, and she's BA. Haywire. Haywire. I'll check it out. I got nothing else. I don't either. Pretty straightforward. If you want to learn more about stunts, you can type stunts into the house. Stuff works. Search bar. And I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Josh I'm going to call this things. We, I guess, say a lot. Oh, no. Like, no, that's not in there. Everyone says, like, though. I know, but people have pointed out here you guys say like, a lot. And I've started to notice when I say it when I hear the podcast, I don't hear it when I'm saying it. Only later on when I can't do anything about it. Don't beat yourself up. Everybody says that. Like, there are articles written in The New Yorker about the use of the word, like, in the 21st century. Okay, so you're part of that crowd? No. You're? No millennial. I'm not. I'm an aged person. What's wrong with me today, guys, before I start, I feel like I should get out. My adoration of the podcast always listen as I'm walking my dog. Chloe keeps me entertained for hours. I love that you guys are still going strong, and I'm very thankful. I have comprised a list, however, of words and phrases used most often in the show, besides obvious ones like Chuck or Josh or Search Bar. Let's hear it. In no particular order. Bada bing. Badaboom. Sure. He left off the Bon jovi. Oh, she we'll talk about this later. Or we'll get to that. And then a lot of times we don't. Yeah, I feel like I say that a lot. I think it's hilarious when we say that we are going to talk about something later and then we just forget to yeah. Or I say all the time, I think we should point out and she didn't put that in here, but I'll go ahead and throw my own on there. Oh, yeah, you do. Send it. I'm making air quotes. Yeah. iEEG. Yeah, that's one of yours. So pretentious. That's a good band name. That's usually me. Sure, that's obnoxious. Sweat. You just talk about sweat a lot because of me. That's a stand up guy. I don't remember saying that a lot. Do you say that a lot? No. All right, I'm going to take issue with that one. Catherine on the up and up COA, of course we say that a lot. Definitely. People always ask it what it means. We never tell. You never tell. And then, have you seen the movie ironically? That's about right. Yeah. And those are ten things that we say a lot. And she says she thinks these are great. Comforts her and she smiles. And that is Catherine Phillips. Thanks a lot, Catherine. That's pretty cool, somebody's out there, like, writing lists of things we say. It's nicer to hear people say, like, I take comfort in that. Except for the emails. When we get like you guys always say this, you say like too much that John Travolta is taking us to task. What if you want to take us to task? Whether you're John Travolta or anybody else, or you just want to say, hey, here's a list of things I noticed because the podcast or whatever, you can join us on Twitter. Actually, first, before we sign off, let's remind everybody that we're going to be on the TV again. The TV? Yes. Saturday night on Science Channel at 10:00 PM. Will be the premiere of another stuff You Should Know episode. You can watch this each and every week. Yes. TV show stuff you should know TV Show 10:00 PM. Or Get it on Itunes the following day. Yes, Sunday. That's right. Just go to itunes and type in Stuff You Should Know and see what comes up. All right, so now we'll sign off, right? Yes. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com STUFFNOW, and you can send us a good old fashioned email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Brought to you by the 2012 Toyota Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
86a70c12-3b0e-11eb-9699-77de3fc9c3b2	Child Labor: Not Funny	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/child-labor-not-funny	Child labor is no laughing matter. Even though we've taken care of it in the USA (mostly), it's still an issue around the globe. Listen and learn! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Child labor is no laughing matter. Even though we've taken care of it in the USA (mostly), it's still an issue around the globe. Listen and learn! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Tue, 10 Aug 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=10, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=222, tm_isdst=0)	50144727	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's out there hovering around in the digital weird audio ether. And this is stuff you should know. This is going to be a good, uplifting, fun one. A bouncy light one. I think so. And it's hot off the presses from my daughter just wrote this episode for us. Yeah, in record time, too. I was impressed. He didn't pay her. Did you? No, but it's funny. I went to look up I've talked before about the fact that I started working when I was 13 at a barbecue restaurant, and minimum wage when I started working was $3.35 an hour. Wow. How far we've come. They've doubled it past, whatever, 40 years. Isn't that nuts, dude? Yeah, and we'll get to that, but I have a list of kind of where we ended up with minimum wage along the years, but yeah. JJ's barbecue. 335 an hour, baby. Wow. That's pretty great. My first job was even younger than that. I was, like, nine or ten when I was a paper boy. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't have made more than because it's not like I was working every night. I was working weekends. I probably made, like, less than $50 a week. But, I mean, you're 13. What were you spending on 13? And, like a good, clean, Christian kid, you weren't spending that on anything. Archie comics. That buys a lot of Archie comics. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Although they have a lot of variations. So you could easily spend $50 a week on Archie comics. Back then, though, those things were cheap. I was living high on the Hog 13. So it sounds like our buddy Dave helped us out with this one. Dave Ruse, and he makes a really good point that you and I sitting around talking about. You made $50 a week. I was a paper boy. Whatever stresses and troubles that we ran into post 1970 something, as far as our first jobs go when we were younger, that does not qualify as child labor. That's not really what we're talking about here today. It's called a kid having a job. Exactly. It's called you just stop your griping right now, because there are actual kids out there who are, like, real deal child laborers who work in dangerous conditions for little to no pay, who don't get to play, who may not socialize with other kids their age. They may live and work in a mining camp with nothing but adults and grown ups. They would kill for a JJ's barbecue job, basically, yes. And this is a good time to be talking about that in particular, because 2021 is the International year for the elimination of child labor. And as you'll see throughout this episode, we've made a lot of strides here in the US. But like you said, it's not that way everywhere. And it should be and I should say it's probably a little off the mark to say that a child labor would kill for a better job. They would probably kill just not have to work at all in general, and just to get to be a kid. And I think ultimately for people who are activists against child labor, that's the goal. It's to not like, get better working conditions for six year olds. It's to just make six year olds not have to work any longer. And we'll talk about how to solve that, how that International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor aims to do that. They have some pretty pragmatic ideas. And so hopefully this episode of a nice bow on the end. But we're going to have to slog through some misery to get there. Chuck, take it away. There's no better place to slog through misery than the founding of this country. Way back in the old days when the New World was new and settlers came over and they very much believed. And why did I think this was Ed? You said this is Dave. Yeah, I'm almost positive it was Dave. What was Ed? It reads like a Dave to me, but oh, man, if it's Ed, I'm sorry. Sorry to both of us. Well, sure. We need to get those guys together one day, I think. Or maybe we should keep them far apart. Yeah, exactly. They might turn against us. Yeah. So they believe very much that the idol's hands were the devil's workshop. That old saying, and this is one of those. It was kind of hard for me to let's just lop off developing nations today, which is clearly awful. I found myself as an adult more and more with the cultural relativism thinking, like, obviously five year old shouldn't be working in factories. But when I read about like twelve and 13 year olds working hard back then, I was kind of like, it's not great, but that's just kind of how it was at the time. If you had parents that were farmers, you're not going to be just hanging out until your sweet 16th birthday, having a good time, you're going to be working from a pretty young age. And I found myself more and more thinking, like, in certain situations, that wasn't the worst thing, but then you get to the Industrial Revolutions and that's what things really got bad. But kind of early on, that's really what we were talking about was a lot of kids working on the farms, a lot of boys working on the farm, girls working in the house alongside their sisters and mom. And this kind of started when they were about 13 years old. They were sort of expected to either go work and get a job and work full time, or to become an apprentice and unpaid apprentice, to work for food and board and training. And I think also, in addition to that Protestant work ethic just completely in the fabric of America that was just coming out on you. It's also this idea of, like, what else are you going to do? It's not like you can sit around and play video games or watch TV or do almost anything else except just play outside. But Chuck, I went back and looked to see if it was always this way, and apparently in medieval England, you played basically until you hit puberty and then you started to get put to work when you hit puberty at four. Right. More like 14. But there was like a childhood, and it seems to have been somewhat wiped out by that Protestant work ethic that the Puritans brought over. Or at the very least, it was set back a little more age wise where you started working maybe a little sooner than you would have had you been in medieval England at the time. Right. I think I guess I'm just trying to draw a line between life in the 1640s and then life in 1938, when we eventually did something about it in the US. Yeah, no, totally. And there is an enormous distinction between that, because it was, like, widespread, but it seemed like they were mostly working with their families and it was just kind of the way that things were. That was how life was. Well, to try and keep your family alive, it's not like they were trying to just all survive, basically. Right. And that's actually the reason why it's still around in other parts of the world today. It's not even necessarily like a work ethic where children should work, because idle hands are the devil's playthings. Like the Puritans thought it said. It's like, this is an extra worker. We can have go out and make money to keep the rest of the family alive. We just don't have a choice in not doing that. And that's what drives it still today. Right. When the Industrial Revolution came around and we're talking about basically cotton factories in a big, big way, there are a lot of little kids working there and people like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton thought that was awesome. They did. And we're going to be skewered for even suggesting that Hamilton said this, but he did. He said that women and children in America would be, quote, rendered more useful by manufacturing establishments than they otherwise would be. And I think what he's saying is, like I'm not even going to paraphrase what he's saying. I think you can understand it on its face. Yeah, he's saying they're not doing much use for us, these kids. He's mainly talking about kids here who would otherwise quote, who would otherwise be idle. This isn't Manuel Miranda saying this. We all love him. No, he didn't say this in a charming rat. No. This is the real Alexander Hamilton. And again, it was just a different time. But even way back then in the early 18 hundreds. Not everyone thought this was a great thing. There was a future mayor of Boston named Josiah Quincy, diamond Joe Quincy, who toured a cotton factory, a cotton spinning factory, and they had four year olds working there all the way to maybe 1012 hours a day for anywhere from twelve to day, not an hour. Right. And he said, Compassion calls us to pity these little creatures playing in a contracted room among flyers and cogs. At an age when nature requires for them air, space and sports, there was a dull dejection in the countenance of all of them. And we'll get to some of these photos of some of these kids later on. When you look at them, they look like beaten down, miniature adults. Yeah, they really do. They look like us. Exactly. They look ready to retire. They look unhappy. They look just beaten down, but they're miniature. And their kids, their children. And it's really upsetting to see that a photograph of that. I'm sure it's even more upsetting to see it in real life. And that's actually how a lot of change came through, is just people being exposed to seeing that and kind of being shocked, having their conscience shocked. But as potentially bad as it was for the children of colonial America who were forced to work, it got way, way worse when the Second Industrial Revolution kicked off, the one powered by steam and steel and railroads and little hands and unbridled capitalism. When you inject unbridled capitalism into an economy that allows for child labor, you can imagine that things are going to get much worse for the children before it finally gets that's right. And things did get worse when all of a sudden you have a robust steel industry and coal mining industry. You have railroads that need the stuff in a big, big way. And they partially kind of ran out of workers and partially just saw what was right underneath their noses, which is these kids who at this point, they had long known that they could work and farm and work hard. So they said, you know what, a lot of these families in rural America, farming dried up a bit, so they moved to the city. A lot of it was immigrant labor as millions of people came into the country from Europe fleeting, their poverty, famine stricken countries. And no matter where they came from, it was all under the thumb of the robber barons, which was I can't remember when we did it, it feels like a few or three years ago, but pretty good podcast on the robber barons. Yeah. And we also talked about them in our book. We talked about keeping up with the Joneses. They played a big role in that, too. But yeah, so the Robert Barrons got rich through innovation, through consolidation, through some pretty clever stuff. A lot of them invented new techniques or processes or procedures. So they definitely were doing something. They were being productive, but they also got to be filthy rich off of the backs of immigrant labor, child labor that they directly exploited. And it was basically like there was just nobody looking out for anybody else at this time. It was just such a period of such enormous economic insurgents that there weren't anybody or there wasn't anybody who was sitting there saying, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, everybody. We need to stop and really think about this and do this in a much more directed, smarter, healthier way for our society. It was like, just go, let's see where this takes us. And a lot of people got trampled underfoot, and that definitely included children laborers or child laborers. That's right. And I think that's a good time for a break. Yay. Yay. That's two yays. Any nays? So we'll be back, and we'll talk a little bit about what some of these jobs might have been in the late 19th century for these kids right after this. I wonder how many gallons of coffee everyone who has listened to this show since the beginning has heard me drink. I didn't even hear you drinking. Oh, you didn't? When I said I had a mouthful of cafe. Oh, interesting. We had no shirt on. That's awesome, man. You just top mine. You said, no, that's not true. I think you should have left it mysterious, Chuck, because there were a few people out there who were about to email and say, I was offended that Chuck said he wasn't wearing a shirt. Yeah, no, I put it on right before he recorded. I had it off. It's a little hot. I felt like I needed to dress up. Put the T shirt back. Right. Are you wearing one of those tuxedo shirt T shirts? Have you ever had one of those? Did you ever have no, I didn't either. You didn't? You didn't wear them with your rainbow suspenders? No, that stuff was a little too cutesy, even for me. Got you. Okay, what about the one of those that looks like I would wear it? Okay. What about one that looks like a ripped chest and abdomen? Have you ever worn a T shirt like that? No. Those are fun, though. For certain people, they're fun. They're also really good at boosting your ego quietly. Sure. There's nothing like me looking in a mirror at my beer belly covered in spray painted ABS. It really works. The brain is so dumb that it falls for it every time I can attest all. Right, so we were going to talk about what some of these jobs might be, and it kind of really depended on where you were living, if you lived in the city or if you lived in a company town where they had these factories. You are going to be working in factories out in the rural areas. You're going to be working on farms. Most Americans still lived on farms. At the time, so most child labor took place on farms. But if you were on that farm, you're going to be picking cotton and tobacco. You're going to be picking a lot of stuff and doing all the sort of stuff that goes on after the picking, which is semi DC. Yes. All that stuff. Shucking stuff I did when I was a kid. We had a big, big garden, and my mom took us to the cannery, and it was awful. I hated it. She took it to the canary for a sightseeing trip or for work to can. So, like, there was a cannery that your mom went to. You guys had so much stuff, you had to go to a second location to cant. There was a cannery in de Cab County, a sort of industrial cannery for the people. Okay. And we would take green beans and corn, and we made preserves and all kinds of stuff, and they had, like you could can your own junk there. Sounds like a lot of utopia. Yeah. And we would put sharpie, like, beans on the can and sharpie and put it in the banter. That's really interesting. It's really interesting. I had no idea that there was a cannery in the Cab County. Yeah. Not too far from where I live now, actually. Like 15 minutes away, probably. Do you shutter every time you pass it? I do a little, actually. I don't pass it much, but it's over near the dog pound where you can go adopt a dog. And so I think we adopted Nico there. And I drove by the cannery and just like yeah, I'll bet it was hot. Well, you were lucky you weren't five or six and left there to work all day every day, aren't you? Yes. For almost no money. Yeah. Pennies for a bucket of whatever you shocked or shelled or did whatever peeled. Yeah. Working at a cannery would probably not have been very fun. There were also furnace stoking jobs available, whether you wanted them or not. What else, Chuck? Well, kids did work in canneries. They also worked in textile mills. They had bobbin, boys and bob and girls. This one doesn't sound so bad to me, but I'm sure I'm missing something that makes it atrocious. Well, I mean, they would climb up on the machine and remove the full bobbins and replace them with empty ones. So I don't think that was, like, the worst job in the world, but when you're doing that for ten or 12 hours a day and you're six, it's probably a bit of a buzzkill. Yeah. I have a problem inherently with child labor in general. Not like having a job like you or I had first up. They got no problem with that. But any kind of child labor, even if it is kind of cush comparatively. No, I agree. That one wasn't terrible. It may have been dangerous, though. There's no way bobbins were yeah. There's no way it wasn't dangerous. It had to have been dangerous. We're talking about the 19th century in industry. It was dangerous in some way. There was no ocean. No. If you did live in the city and did work around factories, you would do that. But there were also plenty of other jobs you could deliver. Like essentially the column telegraph boys sort of delivering emails basically by hand to people all over town. You could shine shoes, you could sell newspapers like you did. I didn't stand on the street corner. I was on a newsy, which we'll talk a little more about. News is in a second. I was a delivery boy, and not a really great one either. I frequently overslept and was not good at delivering papers. My mom and my oldest sister would have to do my route once in a while. This is a bike deal. Yes. Okay. And the thing is they also make you shake down the people for their Delinquent subscriptions. So I was like a strong arm guy too for the Toledo Blade as well. I want my $2, basically. That's exactly right. And that was right in my wheelhouse too. I was like, this hits a little too close to home for me to laugh at this kid. I know what he's going through. I've had to put my foot in somebody's door before to get their $2. Didn't ask for a dime. I haven't seen that in a while. It was a good movie. Yeah, classic. If you lived in the mountains of Appalachia, you might have been a breaker boy or a mule handler. And breaker boys will get I guess we can go ahead and tell everyone what that is. Sure. You would sit around and break apart lumps of coal into uniform pieces all day long and break dance on your brakes. Yeah. Breaker boys. But that was it. And they wouldn't let you wear gloves while you were breaker boy too, because they're like, no, you can't break these things as uniformly if you wear gloves, you stupid kids. So you have to basically absorb all of this coal dust into your skin, get all sorts of little cuts and calluses and all that. By the time you're six, seven, eight and just do this, this is your life now. Welcome to Pennsylvania. Right then, let's say you managed to escape all forms of formal jobs. Your parents, they didn't make you go to the factory. You did live in the city so you didn't have to work on a farm. And you might think you just had it made in the shade. Not so because there was plenty of jobs that you could do right there from your credit little tenement apartment like weaving baskets or making paper flowers or hand rolling cigars and cigarettes all day long and selling them. Yeah, it was like your whole family worked on a farm. Or if you lived in a tenement, your whole family worked in what are called tenement industries. So there was basically not a lot of escape. I get the impression that you basically had to have wealthy parents to not be forced into child labor at the time. Yeah, and I might have mentioned this once before. My mom did a thing for a little while where we would make money doing like, stuffing envelopes. Did you remember that stuff? I do, and I don't remember what it was for. I guess they were for companies. Okay. I want to say Easter Seals had people do that too, but I'm sure they didn't pay cheap. So this would be like a company that would have like a packet they would send out that had like five things in it. I got you. And we would be responsible for getting all that stuff in huge boxes, assembling it all into the envelopes that they could mail and we would get paid as a family to do that. That's cute. That's super late 70s, early 80s. Like, I can see your mom talking on the princess phone, making all the arrangements for them to ship that to her and giving the instructions and then hanging up in that 50 foot long cord just kind of coils up on its own, quietly on the floor. Yes. And I didn't mind that so much because I made a little money and that's something I could do while I watch television. Yeah, totally. This is the perfect job, as we all know. Yes. Not exactly a high pressure job, it sounds like. I wouldn't even know if that qualifies as a tenement industry, to tell you the truth. No, not in the no. You had a lot of jobs though, as a kid. Good for you. I always wanted my own money. Protestant work ethic shining through like a city upon a hill should we talk newsies? Yeah, we should. And I think also the newsy strike that we're going to mentioned deserves its own episode at least. I agree. If not its own episode. Okay. So yeah, let's just not talk about newsies. No, I thought the same thing. And the more I got into the strike, I was like, this is just too much, we got to do something. But the idea was that little boys would buy a stack of newspapers wholesale for about fifty cents per one hundred dollars too. I saw girls that did it too. Oh, girls did it too, all right. And they sold them for a penny. AIE. So they would make half a penny per paper selling in the big cities, especially New York City, of course. And then eventually in 1899, they did go on strike and it was a big deal. It kind of ground. I mean, it didn't grind them to a complete halt, but it really disrupted their flow and getting newspapers into the hands of people. Dude, their sales over this two week strike went down two thirds. They brought Pulitzer, Polycer and Hearst to their knees, basically, these newsies did. And they got some concessions, too. Yeah. And I think the deal was that morning subscribers were generally subscribers, or the morning papers generally for subscribers. But it was that afternoon paper, that second edition that the news is really raked it in on because most people didn't subscribe to that. So they really weren't selling any second editions. Hardly. And the one big concession they got, which was huge, was they got them to agree to full buybacks on unsold papers, which is a really big deal. But it also really kind of goes to show you how much the newspaper barons believe newsies were scrappy enough that they wouldn't just sit around and be like, I don't have to sell these. I don't have to worry about this. They'll be bought back anyway. I don't have to work to sell them. Well, the buyback just means they give them back the money they paid for them. It's not like they would make any money. In fact, it incentivize them, I think, to take out more papers and sell more papers because they knew they wouldn't be stuck with them. Yeah, totally. We'll probably edit that part out. So one of the things you mentioned was making cigars, like in your family's one room apartment in, say, New York or something like that, right, yeah. That was apparently really bad in that not only did you work long hours for very little pain, cramped working conditions with your family on top of everything else, you would frequently come down with nicotine poisoning as a little kid because you're rolling, cured sometimes you're handling uncured tobacco and you're ingesting lots of nicotine through your skin in a single day. And so you might be nauseated, you might be dizzy, you might just turn green. It can get worse than that, too. You actually can suffer respiratory distress as well. And apparently this is a big problem still with child laborers in Zimbabwe, because I think about 20 years ago, that country doubled down on their tobacco production and now it's like one of the biggest exports of Zimbabwe. But it's also a very poor country, so they use child labor a lot. And so children are still to this day being exposed to tobacco. And they're handling tobacco, they're rolling stuff, they're rolling cigars, they're sorting it. Kids in tobacco should not be in the same room together, basically. Yeah. It never occurred to me that I guess it would be a transdermal ingestion. Right, yeah, totally. But sure. I mean, you put tobacco on bee stings and all kinds of things, so of course it's going to get into their skin. Yeah. And having gotten myself sick on tobacco a time or two in my life, I can tell you it is not pleasant. And to do it against your will just because you're handling it for your job that you don't even want, that sounds torturous. Actually. Yeah, I love that story. Should you retell it for people who haven't heard it? Are you talking about 8th grade in the tree fort? Was that when you smoked a whole pack of cigarettes and got sick? It was more like a pack and a half. Okay. It was right after I first started smoking, and I was like, unbelievable. I was like, I really like how this makes me feel. Let's see how 30 of these things make me feel. And I'm reading comic books up in a tree fort in the woods that my friends and I have built, and it just went too far. And I felt so bad, man. Like, green. I felt like I looked green. It was bad news. That's one of those moments where you really wish you could have video footage. Kind of what I look like. I kind of hope when I die, it's a little bit like defending your life, so they can be like, show me that one. We can go over the other stuff, but I really want to see that clip. Yeah. Rip. Torn will be there. Yeah. The upside of this, though, is do not ever start smoking. I deeply regret ever having started smoking as a kid, as an adult, it doesn't matter. Like, just don't ever start smoking and do yourself a real favor. You did a great job quitting, though. And you never looked back. No, I didn't. Good job. It was surprisingly easy because I was worried hold on, one more thing. I think if there are people out there who are considering smoking right now and are worried about the time they're going to have, one of my big worries was that I was going to spend every day of the rest of my life wishing for a cigarette. And that's just not how it goes. Like, you spend a week, two weeks, if it's really bad, maybe three weeks, really longing for a cigarette, and then it starts to get easier and easier, and then eventually you're grossed out by the thought of cigarettes and people smoking cigarettes around you, and you don't ever want to see one again. So if that's what's keeping you from quitting, don't let it, because that's not how it is. I like that. Good. PSA. Thanks, man. Thanks. I think before we break, maybe we'll just go over some of these final stats here basically the peak. And then about 1900, by 1891, out of every five kids under 16 was working. 1.7 million kids under 16 was 6% of the total workforce in the 1900 census. And that's just kids who are registered to work in these factories. Like, that does not include these kids rolling cigars in their house or the kids on the family farm. So it was much higher than that. Yeah, because I think two thirds of kids in general in the country worked in agriculture, so yeah, if they were not counting agriculture, they missed out. On a lot of kids in that number, and that's still a staggering number in and of itself. 1.7 million. Yeah. And if you're wondering back then what effect this had on education, just a snapshot from Philadelphia in 1915% of 13 year old boys had left school to work. And I think half of 15 year old boys were not in school anymore because they were working, like, a significant portion because they were naughty. Right? Yeah. They just didn't want to do anything. But get this. This is the staggering one to me. 17 year old boys, only 10% of them, were still in school in 1900 in Philadelphia. That does not bode well for the future of an economy. And I think that actually is one reason why public education became so much more compulsory. And one reason why people came around to anti child labor laws is the idea that, no, there's a lot more that they could be doing than just working in a factory almost literally their entire lives. We can do better, and we can build a better society and a better economy if we invest in their education instead of robbing them of it. All right, I guess we'll take a break and talk about when that started in earnest. And it wasn't just then, when you mentioned it. So, Chuck, it turns out that there were so the Progressive era is one of my favorite errors. Or I should say, the people from the progressive era are some of my favorite people, like Frances period, although she was a second or third wave progressive reformer, but she was inspired by some of these earlier ones who were working on things like fair wages, like a minimum wage, minimum or maximum work days or working hours. And then they also train their sites on things like ending child labor, or at the very least, really restricting the amount of work a kid could do, especially in regards to them being in school, too. The idea was to put school first, and then if the kid had the wherewithal or their parents really needed the money or something like that, they could let them work in addition to school, but the school needed to come first. And this is really radical. I mean, it seems radical. We had kids rolling cigars in their one room apartment in New York their whole lives, and now all of a sudden, some people are coming up to me like, no kid should be in school and then maybe working, preferably not working. So how do we make that happen? Yeah, it was a very big deal. And most of these a lot of them were women. People like Jane Adams and Julia Lathrop and Lillian Ward. Anti poverty measures. And this is stuff that they would also go on to champion women's rights and women's rights in the workforce and women's rights to vote. So the whole progressive move was kind of tied up in all these radical ideas about being fair and good, decent human being, right? Yeah, radical. Here's the problem is you've got these robber barons and these factory owners and then these industrialists who are like, wait a minute, we got a good deal going because we don't have to pay these kids much. They're probably not going to unionize. Like, the newsies thing was definitely an anomaly. That didn't happen much. And he said they were like, we got a good thing going, and so we're going to lobby against this as hard as we can. But surely they were unsuccessful, right? No, they were successful. They did. They blocked a lot of legislation early on for this kind of regulation. Federally states, it kind of depends on where it was. But states did establish child labor commissions, and some states had some minimum ages or maximum hours and minimum wages. They were sparse. I couldn't find what states passed it, but probably for the most part, though, there was a lot of pushback and enough pushback among the states, the residents of the states that not a lot got passed. So there was a progressive movement that started saying, like, the 1890s, and basically like any progressive movement, it ran full steam ahead, hit a huge wall of industry, and then had to slowly just keep pushing and pushing and chugging and chugging and keeping at it for a few decades before it was successful. And one of the ways that it became successful, or the way that it kept pushing at it after it hit that wall of industry is a group called the national child labor committee formed, and I think they formed back in 19 four, and they were basically they became a lobbying group to lobby against the lobbying against child labor laws that ended child labor. Yeah, they had a pretty smart way to get attention, and that was in hiring a photographer named Lewis Hine to go around and sneakily document what was going on with his camera. He worked as a sociologist and a teacher and then later became a photographer, was also a photographer. And I think he himself was a kid who was working 1213 hours, days. So he was like, let me start taking pictures of these kids. And maybe that because that's worth 1000 words they say, at least. And he took 5000, so that means that he took 50,000 words that's owe $5,000. It was totally wrong. It was purposefully wrong, though. Let me just do that real quick. Carry the one. He took 5 million words. That's a lot of words. And if you go back, you've probably seen a bunch of these pictures. If you seen pictures of very unhappy kids outside of a coal mine or standing on mountains of shucked oysters or standing around factory machines like little miniature adults, they were probably Lewis Hines photos. Yeah, I mean, 5000 photos, all archived in the library of congress, from what I understand. And he had a really great eye to begin with. Man. They're really great photographs in and of themselves, but you don't have to sit there and try to really contemplate it. It just hits you immediately what you're looking at and how sad what you're looking at is. And so he and the national child labor committee got these into newspapers, and like you said, he was very sneaky. He opposes different things. One of them made sense to me, the industrial machinery photographer. Okay, yeah, got that. But what excuse would a bible salesman have for taking photographs of the kids at the factory? I could not find that to save my life. I mean, the only thing I could think is, that got him in the door. And then maybe he was like, and I just love kids, and can I take some pictures? But I don't know. This is a time before stranger danger, I guess. So they were like, sure. I mean, they're child laborers. I don't care about them. Yeah. He wore a special jacket where he had the buttons on the jacket aligned in known measurements. So if he went over and stood, like, he would take a kid's picture, and he would ask they're documented, like, their names and their ages and stuff as best he could, but he would go stand next to them if he felt like he couldn't outright ask what their age was, to kind of tip off that maybe he was not a bible salesman. Right. And if the kid went up to the second or third button, he would know roughly how tall they were, or he would know how tall they were then roughly how old they're they were giants. Right? Yeah. I'm sure he didn't get them all right? But you can't win them all. But the other thing that made that jacket special, Chuck, was that the lining was made of a t shirt of a ripped chest and abdomen, and it would make him feel really good about himself when he put that jacket on. That's good. Nice call back. When did things finally change, though? Well, they started to kind of change. Like, these pictures shocked the conscience of the nation when they saw them, when they made them in the newspapers, and they were accompanied by MuckRack getting articles about how bad these conditions were. And shame on you, America, for turning a blind eye to this kind of thing. But it wasn't like an instantaneous switch was thrown. It still took decades. I think the first proposal for anti child labor legislation came in. Senator Albert beverage of Indiana was the first to propose. It got taken up in 1916 by the Keating act that was actually passed, but the supreme court shut it down. And then there was some more legislation that there was a constitutional amendment, actually, that got passed but wasn't ratified by the state. And then it wasn't until the great depression and the new deal that it finally got passed. And I think if it were just the new Deal, it wouldn't have gotten passed. But the Great Depression changed things socially enough that it opened the door for an end to child labor in America. Yeah. Ironically, I think massive unemployment with so many adults out of work, they couldn't turn around and just hire kids to do these jobs for lower wages, even at a time when a bad look didn't really matter as much as it does today. They even knew that that was a really bad look and that they probably couldn't do something like that. Yeah. Eventually. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Thank you. Francis Perkins. Our old buddy. That's right. Among others. This finally set a national minimum wage for the very first time, maximum number of hours for workers, and then child labor limitations. Notably that if you are under 16, you cannot work in manufacturing and you cannot work in coal mining at all because they're just too dangerous. Another couple of things it did, it established overtime time and a half. Oh, yeah. So if you went over 40 hours a week, you could only work up to 44, but you could work 4 hours at time and a half. And that very first minimum wage was $0.25 an hour. Man, 1939, I went up to 30, 45. It went up to 40. In 1956, it finally reached a dollar kitchen, and it didn't crack $6 until 2008. I know, dude. It's just shameful. Isn't that nuts? We definitely need to do a minimum wage episode, too, because it's just not as cut and dried as raise the minimum wage. There's a lot to it. I really want to do one on that. Yeah. I hadn't really kept up with it because before I got salary jobs, I worked as a waiter for 15 or 20 years or something, or as a PA on movie sets and TV sets. And that's not an hourly thing either. So I hadn't had an hourly rate job since college, so I didn't really know kind of how it changed over the years. I did not know it was 2008 when they cracked $6. That's really low. It really is not. Okay. And it's still at seven something right now. No, it's 725, actually. Yeah. That's the national minimum wage, right? Yeah. Again, some of the states are raising stuff slowly but surely, but that's the federal one. So this is alabama doesn't have a minimum wage. Is that right? Is that possible? Yeah, that's possible, man. I'll have to look into that. That's on the fly. So, yeah, we'll do a whole one on minimum wage, for sure. Coming up. You said that the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in, and it still basically governs child labor. And one of the things that it does, Chuck, is it divides child labor into agricultural and non agricultural jobs. And with agriculture or non agricultural jobs, there's like a pretty decent amount of protection. Like, kids can't work in hazardous stuff until they're 18. Things like blasting, mining, forest firefighting, that kind of stuff, that if you're under 16, you can only work a maximum of 3 hours a day during the school year. There's some exemptions. Did you see the thing about homebased wreath making? Yeah. So you cannot non agriculturally you cannot work if you're under 14 at all. Like, I could not have worked as a busboy at 13, supposedly, but I still did. Right. Unless that was passed since then, because this thing has been ratified a million times. Or not ratified, but amended. But yeah, if you're a child actor, you can work if you're under 14. Obviously, if you're a newsie, you can still deliver newspapers if you're under 14. And home based wreath makers. Dude, so weird. It is weird. And not only is it homebased reef making is exempted from child labor laws in the United States, it has to be a specific kind of reed that has to be mostly evergreen reeds. Wow. So if you're making reads and it has to be at home if you're having your kid make reeds at home and they're not mostly evergreen, that's illegal. And if they're making things out of evergreen that are not reeds, like, say, garland, that's illegal. Specifically, homemade wreaths that are mostly evergreen. It's really interesting. It's one of the most bizarre facts we've ever talked about on this episode of this show. I'm going to keep that one in my pocket. Totally. But agricultural, though, they have very little protection. Like almost shamefully little protections. Yeah. If you're 16 years old and you live on your family farm, they can work you there's no limit on how many hours they can work you. You can work jobs that the Department of labor considers hazardous. I think 14 year olds also can work unlimited hours if it's outside the school day, and then the kids as young as twelve, I think actually twelve and younger can work with parental consent. Yeah, basically unlimited hours, or at least up to 72 hours. And that's during the school year as well. And as a result of this, 55% of child farm workers graduate from high school here in the 2020. Ish yeah. In the United States we're talking about, and the 1000 of them are injured on the job every year. Child farm laborers. Yeah. We're trying to get all this changed. Yeah. They're basically saying, like, look, just take these things that we apply to non agricultural jobs and apply to agricultural problems solved. And that would solve a lot of problems. I'm sure it would create a lot of problems that you and I are unaware of, not being farm folk, but it would solve a lot of the child labor problems that child labor activists have issues with. It would do nothing for the much more rampant problems that are endemic around the world with child labor where a lot of it resembles basically how America was with child labor during the Gilded Age. Yeah. 158,000,000 kids are estimated to be the victims of child labor around the world. The good news is, that's down 30% from 20 years ago. But the bad news is that's a lot of kids, and I think 71% of those are in agriculture, harvesting, fishing, herding, stuff like that. But there are a lot of kids around the world that still work in coal mines. Yeah. That's too narrow for an adult. It's too dangerous. You go in there and do it instead. And they'll work at wildcat gold mines, so they're having to separate gold with mercury. So they're getting mercury poisoning at a young age, which really messes with you developmentally on tobacco farms in places like Zimbabwe. Not only are they having to get nicotine poisoning, they're also being poisoned by toxic pesticides that are used on the crops and stuff, too. So these kids are working in deplorable working conditions, and there's just some really basic stuff that needs to change that would just free the children of the world, the world around, from what is essentially like indentured servitude right now. Yeah. And there's four kind of basic things that the ILO says we can do around the country. And like you said at the very beginning, they're very pragmatic, they all make sense, and they would really make a difference. And the first is expand access to education, get kids in school and get rid of fees to be in school and put them if they're in a school situation, they're way less likely to join the workforce. That's what our friends at Co ed do. They're like helping get kids off of family farms and into schools by removing any barriers between them and school. Yes, it's all through education. It's a great, great organization. Yeah. What else? And that's, by the way, the cooperative. I always say that word wrong. Cooperative for education. Look them up. We've championed them for years, and we got a little fun thing coming up that we're doing with them that you guys might be interested in. So stay tuned for that. Yeah. Let me see. What's the next one? Help families meet basic needs. This could be a universal basic income. It could be monthly stipend, but basically so families don't have to send their kids out to work to provide at the most basic level. Yeah. And a way that you can help that is through kiva, by lending making micro loans to people so that they have the capital to grow from initially. If you make sure that adults are getting better wages and pay and their rights are protected, it makes their children less likely to be forced into the workplace to begin with. Because, again, there's not like, adults the world brown saying our kids need to be working because they're lazy, like their kids need to be working because adults aren't getting paid enough. And if you make sure that if you're a Western company and you make sure that you're paying everybody a fair wage, there's a good chance that you can eradicate child labor from your supply chain. Yeah. And then the last thing is just enforcement. They can put all the laws that they want on the books, but unless someone is going to actually work on enforcement, then it really doesn't matter much. So that's really sort of the last step, is funding for enforcement. Yeah. And Germany actually just passed a law recently that demands that its companies examine do due diligence and examine their supply chains to see if there's child labor involved and to do something about it. It doesn't have, like, as much teeth as Human Rights Watch was saying that they wish it had. But it's a good first step and hopefully the way that progressive nations will start moving. That's right. Two things. Big shout out. I can't remember his name, but the young listener who was mowing the lawn for his dad and wrote in to request this episode. That's right. I think he prompted this episode. So hats off to you, young sir. I hope you can kick up your heels for a little while. And then also, this was indeed a Dave Ruse joint. So thanks again to Dave for this one, right? That's right. Since Chuck said, that's right, everybody means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this. I think it's just thanks. Hey, guys. Riding in from Louisville, Kentucky, to see how much I love the show, even though Josh said the KFC Center was in Lexington. I'll never live that down. Your correction put a smile on my face knowing that there are other Stuff you should Know fans near me. I work in long term care and use your podcast in many different ways. I help people with cognitive impairments set up their tablets and such for enrichment, socialization and stimulation. And one of the first activities I show them is how to access entertainment. With educational podcast, everyone can find something they want to learn about on Stuff You Should Know. I also help people find ways of remembering new information and use your Short stuff episodes for those with shorter attention spans. And finally, my own enjoyment is a factor. I listen to many different podcasts during my drive to and from work, but only Stuff You Should Know has the ability to get me into a different headspace. I attribute that to Josh and Chuck. None of these topics would be nearly as interesting without you guys. I've cried and laughed sometimes, both in all of your episodes, even the really mathy ones. I feel you on that one, chuck and Josh. Yeah, that was a dig. Are you a math guy? No, but I like to think I am. Okay. Sorry about that. The episode on snake handling is a personal favorite. I appreciate an episode. I love the show and everyone that works on it. Thanks for keeping it going. I hope to see you all in Kentucky. That is from Ellie. Well, thanks again, Ellie. And if you want to get in touch with us like Ellie did, you can write us an email, send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you shouldn't is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ern-analysis.mp3	How Blood Pattern Analysis Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-blood-pattern-analysis-works	Numerous television shows feature blood pattern analysis -- but how do these fictional portrayals measure up to the real thing? Tune in as Chuck and Josh break down the science behind blood pattern analysis.	Numerous television shows feature blood pattern analysis -- but how do these fictional portrayals measure up to the real thing? Tune in as Chuck and Josh break down the science behind blood pattern analysis.	Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:12:33 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2011, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=15, tm_min=12, tm_sec=33, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=46, tm_isdst=0)	35557125	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopforce.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast and happy Valentine's Day. I'm that was Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I'm Josh Clark. This is stuff you should know. The podcast. The love edition. Yeah. Let's talk about Valentine's Day and love. Do you want to hear a possibly true Valentine's Day back? Sure. So you know where we get the concept of sending Valentine's Day cards? Hallmark. No, it was even earlier than that. Little guy by the name of St. Valentine. Okay, again, this is uncorroborated, but I'm pretty sure it's true. Back in the day, St. Valentine used to hang out with the pagan, I believe. Greeks, maybe. Yeah, romans. One of the two. And who had accustomed of hooking up, like picking a partner. And that was who you're going to be with for the rest of the year. Not married, but like all the benefits. You know what I mean? Sure. And to consummate that choice, they would go off and hook up like that day, February 14. Right. St. Valentine comes along and goes, this is an importance to my god and soon to be your god. So let's figure something else out. How about you guys keep picking people that you want to be friendly with, stop the fornication. Okay. And instead just send notes of affection to one another. Those became, as far as I know, the Valentine's Day card. I'm sure it sounds good to me. Does it? Yeah. All right. One of the great symbols of Valentine's Day, Chuck, is the heart, which is almost invariably colored red. Yes, it's a very cute iconography, but if you really think about it, what you're seeing is the organ colored by our life blood. Yes. What happens when something happens to that organ or that life blood, and it goes from inside that cute little heart to being sprayed all over the wall at a high speed velocity? A bunch of things happen. Sure. A lot of telltale symbols are left behind after the person falls forward, killed or backward by the love of their life on Valentine's Day, no less. Blood spatter. Bud spatter. Yeah. We should say probably right now it's not splatter blood spatter, which, strangely enough, is an appropriate interchangeable term or phrase for blood pattern analysis. It can also be called blood spatter analysis. Did you see that? Yes. Interchangeable. Or it can be called that stuff. Dexter. Does it? Could. You like dexter, don't you? Yes, I do. Okay, so I know that I have a lot of bad karma coming against me, right? Because let me explain why. It wasn't just a blanket statement. Because of the three times now that I've ruined 16 under for people who haven't seen the whole thing, but I have not seen season five. So if you're going to talk about dexter, don't give me any clues as to what goes on season five, aside from the off camera breakup of the marriage between Michael Hall and Jennifer Carpenter. Yeah, that was very sad, but Julia Styles has nothing to do with it. She even released a statement. She said really she felt like she needed to. Yeah. Interesting. Which is not her style, usually. No, she's pretty lucky. So, Chuck, do you want to talk about Dex? Yeah, well, you know what I couldn't find out on the show? He is a crime scene photographer, spatter analyst, and I couldn't find if that's really a thing. So I'm guessing I'm positing that maybe in some smaller municipalities, they may do double duty like that. Yeah. But I bet in Miami they probably have a dedicated photographer. Dedicated analyst. Yeah. Actually, from this article, I believe it says that a lot of people who become blood pattern analysts start out as cops or detectives or whatever and kind of find that they have a penchant for reading blood and they start taking courses and workshops and become certified. So I imagine yeah, it's possible, especially in smaller areas, that people are pulling double or triple duty like that. Yeah. You're probably not going to end in some tiny county. You're not going to have a full time crime scene photographer. Or maybe it's some local that's not on the but we'll get to all that because this is a two parter well, one reason, Chuck, that it's not just an across the board filled position or even available position at every police department is because, as it's put in the article, it's as much art as science right now. It takes a lot of interpretation, and you can't just hand the stuff over to the prosecutor and they're just like, bam, case closed. There's the blood pattern analysis. Yeah. Look at all that blood on the wall. He did it. But it is used to corroborate other evidence, because, as we say, it does tell a story when the person who you love shoots you through the heart and spatters your blood all over the wall on Valentine's Day, killing you dead. Yes. You can tell a lot of things. For instance, this list that I'm about to read, the type and velocity of the weapon you always hear about. This is a blunt force thing or knife stab wound, stab, wounded, gunshot, the number of blows that this person could withstand before dying and even after death. Yeah. I mean, think about passion killing rage, killing the handedness of the assailant, because everyone knows if I was going to punch you in the face and do it with my right hand, hit you on your left cheek. That's how it works. Yeah. Position of the victim and like, whether or not they were moved or they flailed around on the floor for a little while, trying to live. Yeah. Pull themselves to safety. Perhaps the wound that was inflicted first. Like this was to kill wound and all this other stuff happened because it was just a sicko type of injury. How long ago the body's been there and whether it was an immediate death or whether they bled out over the course of hours or yeah. If it was an immediate death and the blood just kind of pulled where they fell. Or if there are smears from them crawling or something like that. Which would indicate that death was delayed or being dragged. Maybe there's nobody yeah. I think that I took from this. It wasn't explicitly said, but you can, especially with an old crime scene, learn a lot about something where there's no other evidence. Just from the blood. Right. Like skeletonized blood. Yes. Blood can actually where there was once a blood droplet, it can skeletonize and flick away, and there will be no drop, but there'll be an outline ring around where the drop was. Right. You can also tell from the amount of clotting that's taking place. Apparently, once clotting starts, you know that it's been at least 15 minutes, which probably isn't that helpful, but it's been at least 15 minutes since the blood exited the body. We did come up on the person who died more than 15 minutes ago. We can say that. Thanks a lot, Dexter. But if some stuff more clotted than others, you can tell that the attack took place over a period of time. Sure. And we talked about in crimes and clean up, obviously, how it can harden. Brain can harden on walls. It's not just blood. You're looking at all sorts of bone fragments and pieces of whatever that's in you that is no longer in you. But as we'll see, just the presence of, say, brain and skull fragments indicates a headwind. It does. That's a good one. You're on your way to being certified. And it also usually indicates probably what type of weapon, as we'll see later. Right. Yeah. The cool thing about blood, though, Josh, is that it's very predictable. It's very cohesive. It has a lot of surface tension, so the molecules, like, bind really tight, so it's always a little round sphere until it hits something. And when it hits something, it's really predictable what happens. Like, you can read it and pretty much be able to tell things that will get into, like, angle and velocity and stuff like that with some certainty. So much that they use in court. Yes, they do. To put people in the pokey sometimes unfairly. We will see that, too. Should we talk about the types of spatter? This is my favorite part. The three types of spatter. Hit it, then. Okay, well, there's low velocity, medium velocity, and high velocity. Right. That sounds pretty stupid, but there's different characteristics of each type of velocity group, right? Yeah. So when blood moves, like you said, it follows, like, predictable patterns, gravity, force, surface tension, keeps it together. And for example, say, how high up a blood drop drifts from is going to determine how spread out that drop is. Sure. Because it has more time to accelerate in a greater force when it hits the ground than if it's an inch or two off of the ground. So that's a pretty good example of a low spatter velocity, a blood drip, right? Yeah. Like, I've been stabbed and I'm laying on my couch with my arm dangling off and it's just dripping off my fingertips. Twelve inches to the carpet below. Sure. That's great. The force that's acting on this low velocity blood spatter is gravity. Yeah. Nothing else. Right. They usually come from stab wounds, like you said, and then some of the properties of a low velocity blood spatter, the force of impact is less than 5ft/second. Not much. Yeah, not much. That's like a blood drop, right? Yeah. Usually between four and 8 mm. That's about the size you're going to get with a low velocity like you said, you've been stabbed and you're laying there. So most of the low velocity blood spatters come about after an attack, after the injury has been sustained. Right? Yes. Sprayed all over the wall. Right. So stabbing is a pretty good usually stabbing is low velocity or vice versa. And one type of low velocity blood spatter from stabbing is called a passive spatter. That's after you've been stabbed and you're walking around and you're basically leaving a dripping blood trail. Yeah. Should we, at this point, say that this might be a little gruesome? Is it too late? I think it's a little late. All right. I guess we could go to the trouble of going back and inserting it, but I predict hold on. I predict we will not. We will not. So let's just say that now you can turn it off at this point if you have already, if you're a little creeped out by blood, which I am. Are you really? Yeah. I mean, you picked these? Yeah, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't cover it. Okay. I don't have the true phobia, but I mean, who likes seeing large amounts of blood in that bright red on white surfaces? Have you ever passed out at the side of blood? No. It's not that bad. I had a roommate in college named John Johnson real name, who was shucking oysters down in Florida when we were down at the beach once, and he shucked the meat of the palm of his hand and looked at it, and none of us knew that he was afraid of his own blood and just fell right over. And he was a big boy, so he made quite a clamor. Yeah. He came to and was okay after that, but he fainted dead away at the sight of his own blood. Well, I miami, I've never seen something really gruesome. Have you never seen pictures? Yeah, I don't like that stuff. I don't either, but yeah, I'm not into it, but people are, and we'll get to that, too. Medium velocity is next. And that has a force from five to 100ft/second diameter, no more than 4 mm usually. And that can be caused by a blunt object or I love this line, like a baseball bat or an intense beating with a fist. You got to be a tough guy, dude. If you can have the same impact as a baseball bat with your fist, then you're either doing something right or wrong. Or are you using brass knuckles? Yeah, that's true. So that could also be from a stabbing, actually. And in this case, if you damage an artery, something can happen called projected blood. And that means you're laying there, and as long as your heart's beating, it's really pumping that blood out. And it can project in a very distinctive pattern, evidently. Yeah. I mean, like if you ever see somebody's carotid arteries been punctured and they have their hand there, it's just like spewing from between their fingers. It's projected blood that's medium velocity, which can be compared to a good squirt gun, one of those ones called super suckers, like that kind of spray. And it's not just the heart that's projecting it. That's a good example of medium velocity, the heart pumping the blood and projecting it out of the body. Right. Another medium velocity blood spatter is let's say you're beating somebody with a lead pipe when you're drawing back again to the conservatory. Exactly. That's what I thought of, too. I thought about that when you're drawing back for another blow. Oh, yeah, sure. You're whipping the blood off of the lead pipe after that first blow. So that's medium velocity, which you said is about five to 100ft/second. Yeah. Okay. So then you have high velocity, which is pretty much a gunshot wound, and that's more than 100ft/second. That's when blood is really hollow. You got tiny little sprays on the wall or wherever, and that's the one where you're going to find, like, tissue and bone, usually along with the blood. Chances are less than 1 diameter. And you can have front spatters, back spatters, or both. If the bullet goes through you, you're going to have both. Yeah. Think about it. Anytime you see somebody get shot, the blood almost doesn't spatter. Like you'll just start soaking the shirt or something like that. Look behind. Yes. You look behind and all of a sudden there's a huge hole because of cavitation. Full metal jacket comes to mind. Gross. So you have seen gruesome things oh, yeah. In the movie. What is your major malfunction? And my favorite thing on this page was the bit about internal muzzle staining and stippling. Sick stuff, but pretty awesome, too. Yeah, it's basically I guess it could happen in any kind of gunshot. That's close, but it's got to be really close. I think, of an execution style murder. Sure. Like when the mobster says we need to whack Jimmy 2ft. I guess 2ft would be normal, but yeah, he's got 2ft he's the most nondescript gangster of all time. Exactly. Which one again? So they would put the gun up to his head, and in that case, the skin, if there's still a body, kind of burns from the gunpowder. And the inside of the muzzle, because of the cooling of the explosive gas used, can actually suck blood back inside of the gun. Yeah, the spray that I missed. So if you're lucky enough to get a hold of that gun, they can swab the inside. And this is Jimmy 2ft blood on the inside of your muzzle here, buddy. That's why you just throw it in the East River. Yeah, or use the old pillow method. Don't be cheap. Right. Well, I just gave advice to murderers. Yeah, that's weird. I guess we did. I've never done that before. The other thing I'm sure you haven't the other thing that they can look for is oh, you got to use brass knuckles is avoid. And avoid is where, let's say I were to kill somebody and the blood is spraying on me and the wall behind me, there will be you're going to leave a handsome silhouette. Yeah. Not an outline of a body, like a cartoon, but there will be a void there where they said something or somebody got in the way of the blood spatter. Go find me that shirt which is now in a trash can. Go find me that Last Chance garage hat covered in blood. That'd be bad news. I love that hat. So, Chuck, you've seen Dexter? We talked about this, right? Seen them all. Yeah, I have two. Except for season five. Right. Oh, Dexter, I thought you meant, like, all crime. Oh, no, I've seen each episode. Got you. Sorry. Surely you've seen then at least I know for a fact in at least one episode, he's messing with these red strings in the room. That's when the art department really gets involved. Yeah. So you can imagine, Chuck, that this is a very painstaking process for the art department. Each of these lines not just for the art department, but this happens in real life. It's a method of figuring out the angle of the path of blood. I thought this might be outdated, but they still use it sometimes. They do. There is something that the article I thought left out, and it was the importance of determining the angle. It just went into how we figure out angles. Oh, yeah, sure. But there's a lot of import in figuring out what angle this blood spray traveled. Right? Yeah. Because it'll tell you a lot of times that the person who fired the weapon was probably smaller than 6ft because the gun was at a certain level, at one angle. So was it a man? Was it likely a man? Was it likely a woman? Based on the height? Right. Yeah. If it's a downward angle, then that might corroborate the idea that this person was killed. Execution style, which juries like to hear about. If that's going on, that's like get on your knees type of thing. Usually. Yeah. That's pretty cold blooded. If somebody's pleading self defense and said they were on the floor, an upward angle would corroborate that. It might get them off in their self defense plea. There's a lot of reasons why figuring out that angle is very important. Right, agreed. And it's also probably the most scientific of blood pattern analysis. Math heavy. Trigonometry heavy. Yeah. We should say we tried to find a math heavy, and I made the mistake of emailing our editorial department to get someone to describe it. And I thought we're all math half hearted attempt. That's why we're writers, so we don't have to do math. That's obviously not triggering. Yeah, we do now, though. I think I have this licked, but it's really not that hard. Actually, once I re ready, let's talk about the strings first. Okay. So they do use these strings, elastic strings. Each one represents a drop of blood. So if you have a lot of drops of blood, you're going to have a lot of strings. It's going to take a while. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But you find a level. Right. Like you create a level point. Yes. You start running strings through the level point from the blood to somewhere else in space, the wall or a ceiling. And then all of a sudden, after you start doing a few of these strings, you're going to find that they all come together at a certain point. And that point is the area of convergence, aka what was originally a person's head. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And that's where all the blood came from. So you're going to find where they on the ground, were they up high? Basically, you're creating in real life a three dimensional model of the path this blood took. Yes. Right. And where the person was standing, where they were in relation to the wall, all that stuff. You're probably going to figure out how the person was attached, from what side, that kind of thing. Yeah. So it's very important. And that's the old school, really methodical way to do it. Right? Yeah. You're going to explain the trigonomic this is for college boy blood pattern analysts. Yeah. Because I'll explain the way I would do it afterwards. Okay. Which I think is actually how this article describes it. We'll see how Chuck would do it. Yeah. Okay. So when blood hits a surface, whether it's drywall or the floor or the ceiling or something like that, if it falls or travels straight up and down, that's a 90 degree angle. Yeah. You're going to get a little round drop. You get a round drop. But the stronger the angle right. The more severe the angle. The drop starts to elongate. It hits like, you know, when you skip a stone, it's kind of like that. Or when you spill any liquid, that's another way to put it. Yeah. So as it elongates, it gets longer and thinner. And what you can actually do is take the measurements of each one of these drops. Right. And you take let me see if I got this, Chuck. You take the width. Right. So obviously, we're riders. Anytime this comes up, you take the width and you divide it by the length, and that gives you a number. Yes. This is trigonometry, by the way. Right. And you take that number and you use a calculator. Yeah. And you use the arc sign function. Yeah. Don't ask us to really explain how to even in the article, I couldn't find it. Yeah, they should get a calculator. Arc sign is the converse of sign or cosign, one of those. And basically what you're finding is the angle of a right triangle by taking the opposite side and dividing it by the hypotenuse. And that will give you, once you figure out the arc sign of that number, the angle. And that's the college boy way of figuring out the angle that blood traveled from the area of convergence. Exactly. So a quick example. If you have a two millimeter wide bloodstain that's 4 mm long, you divide that, and you get zero five, and the arc sign of that is 30. And we figured out the arc sign of five is 30.5 is 30 by using that calculator. Yeah. And 30 would be your angle. That means a 30 degree angle is what you're looking at. Right. So this is how Chuck would do it. Chuck would get a computer program called no More Strings. I guess they couldn't use no strings attached. That's what I would have called it. Maybe you could make a competing program. Yeah, maybe so. No More Strings is a program that actually creates a three dimensional model, and you plug in all your numbers, and it does it for you with computer animation. I say modern. It is modern. But they do still use the string method, and a lot of times they say that will be more convincing to a jury if they can look at animation than hear some nerd explain it in front of them while they're falling asleep. Exactly. I think that's very much the case. That's probably why that software is probably more used than either of the other two methods these days. Yeah. I would call it the jury swear program. That's what I would call it. I would call it the Widowmaker. All right. Little history. Yeah. We usually cover that first, but we didn't I think this is a fine article. I like the way it was pasted and then laid out. Yeah. Very detailed. Yeah. It's been around, actually, since the 1890s. They've been analyzing blood stains and spatter, but they didn't really start using it too much later. I love the name of this book. The first guy from the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Poland. His name was Dr. Eduard Pietroski. Wrote a book called concerning the origin, shape, direction and distribution of the blood stains following head wounds caused by blows. And I imagine that was also his telling me that was shown his book to the ladies. And it would be, I think, probably about 50 years later that they actually started using these interpretations in court. That guy laid the groundwork for how to do it, at least for a beating. Yeah. For Paul Kirk. Yeah. And Paul Kirk was a physician in Ohio, right? Yeah. There was a 1955 case of Samuel Shepard being prosecuted for murder. And Dr. Kirk figured out from blood spatter analysis where Samuel Shepard was when he attacked the victim, allegedly while he was prosecuted or convicted. So that's the fact. And then it also showed that Sam Shepard or that the victim was attacked by a left handed person. But I'm assuming Sam Shepard was won the case. Bam. Blood spatter analysis is on the map. I wonder what the jury thought about that first, because, I mean, now it's so all over the place, you know, all about the stuff. But the first time someone recreated a scene and said he was this tall and left handed, were they like, wow, that's amazing, or what are you talking about? I wonder. Probably while it's amazing, just like once today. Yes. Have you heard of the CSI effect? Yeah, we talked about it. Did we? Yeah. It was a long time ago. Yes, it was between episode zero and 100. Got you. But explain it because we have new listeners. Oh, well, welcome, new listeners. Hey, new listeners, listen up. The CSI effect is basically juries watching things like CSI Dexter, all this television eyes, blood spatter analysis or forensic science and expecting that. So if a prosecutor fails to deliver, that means that the case isn't all that great. Or conversely, if the prosecutor of the defense can deliver some whiz bang, no more strings 3D graphics of somebody getting shot or not getting shot, the jury is swayed because that's how you win a case. There's an expectation that a case has to have that kind of thing. That's the CSI effect. Yeah. Or someone going, that's not how they do it on TV. Exactly. Or hey, that's exactly how they do it on TV. Right. Probably has the reverse effect too. You could also just as easily call it the Dancing with the Stars effect, the American Idol effect. Like, well, those are different effects, but they have the same effect. Bleeding, deadening, dumbing down. There was a third gentleman, Josh, in the history of blood spatter analysis, doctor Herbert McDonnell, and he came around. He wasn't born in the early 70s because that'd be pretty young to be studying this kind of thing. It's the doogie house or blood spatter. My brother worked on that. He came into prominence with blood spatter in 1971 and wrote a book about it. Probably more updated version than the Polish gentleman, and he started training officers in that and got together at a convention in 1983 and said to his fellow guys, like, we should start a group. We should start an organization. Listen, I imagine you get pretty loaded at a convention. And so they did. They started the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Analysts. That's great, Chuck. I hope I don't get in trouble for that. I don't think you will. No, he was a great guy. He didn't drive. I gave advice to murderers earlier. Chamberlain case. Should we go ahead and hit this one? Yeah. You're a fan of Seinfeld, so you're familiar with maybe a dingoeight baby? Yeah. Wow. That was Elaine doing her best. Meryl Streep, who actually said, the dingo ate my baby, who was doing her best. Lindy Chamberlain, who in real life said, Dingo ate my baby. I think my baby is what the original line was, and I think Elaine changed it to eight. It's much more severe either way. In 1980 in Australia, the Chamberlain family, Richard and Lindy, and their two kids Zarya and Reagan, were camping Airs Rock. Another kid. They had third there, too, actually. Oh, they did? It never gets any press. Okay. It's like, I want to stay out of this. Yeah, well, they were camping with their three kids at AZ Rock, and apparently Lindy, the mom, noticed a dingo near her kids tent and went over and saw the dingo. I guess it was nighttime, running off with something she said she couldn't see what. Yeah. But when she looked at the inside the tent, she saw that the four week old or ten week old Zarya was missing and that there was blood. So there was a huge search of this park, and they found a dingo layer, found the baby's clothes now bloody, and basically didn't buy the mom's story or the parents story that it was a dingo. They think that they thought pretty quickly off the bat that there was something fishy, something hinky, as you would say. Yes. And they started investigating her and kind of under the assumption that they framed a dingo. They actually murdered their baby. Yes. A couple of the things that happened was when they found the little jumper, it was not torn that much. It was bloody, but the snaps were closed, and it looked as it had been pulled off of a body. The key thing that happened was the mom said, lindy said there was a jacket. She had a jacket on, and they didn't find any jacket at all. Right. And the other thing that happened was there was a witness not a witness, but someone nearby camping that obviously when all the brouhaha started, she came over there and she saw the cops pick up the jumper and just fold it and take it away. Right. And even she, I think, at the time, thought you probably shouldn't be handling evidence like that. Yeah. It's not the way to do it. And they didn't photo document the scene. Right. No. Big mistake. They basically mishandled all the evidence in the things they were hit cops from central Australia handling, like, a huge murder case or a huge death case. Yes. So they muddled the whole thing to the point where there was just basically a lot of speculation. They had one expert testify that from the blood stain on the jumper, it looked like a throat was cut. And that's pretty much what sealed her fate to be convicted. Well, we also sealed her fate is that she remained very cool and unemotional throughout this trial. Really? And the jury hated her. They did not like her. They didn't understand why a woman could remain collected and her baby was dead, let alone when she was being tried for it if she hadn't really killed the baby. So in addition to just botched handling a blood pattern analysis or no real blood pattern analysis, it was her demeanor that helped convict her as well. I want to see that movie. I haven't seen it. I haven't either. I just know about it for some reason. Yes, well, she got an Academy Award nomination, but all she has to do is show up and she gets an Academy Award nomination. Not necessarily true. Let's get real. No, you're about to point out a stinker of Meryl Streeps. I'm just saying she's played the same character a few times. Oh, please. Okay, we won't go down that road. What happened to the Chamberlains? Well, she was convicted of murder. And he was convictedright, too, as well. Of being an accessory or some say accessory to murder, right? Yes. And she was in jail, sent to prison for a life, and then three years later, a guy was hiking in a similar area fell to his death. Oh, my God. And when they went and found his body, he was near a dingo layer. Several dingo layers. And they found the missing jacket just by chance. Why this guy had fallen to his death, they did not know that. And as far as I know, Richard Chamberlain did not push him to his death so they could find the planted jacket. So they actually said no. This clears you guys. We found the jacket years later, covered with blood near dingo layers. Torn. Sorry. Here's 1.3. Sorry about your baby. She got 1.3 million Australian pounds. Australian dollars. Australian units of money? No, Australian dollars. And apparently that was only about a third of their legal fees. So it's not the happiest ending. Although she did end up out of jail and exonerated. She got to meet Meryl Streep. I imagine so maybe. I wonder if she met Julia Louis Dreyfus. Probably not. So that's blood pattern analysis. There's a lot of really cool graphics and illustrations. Did you see those? Yeah. By graphics, we don't mean awful, awful pictures. There's some pictures of blood. And if you read the captions, you're like? Yes, but no. It's not like anything that the average person couldn't handle. But there are some cool illustrations of how you figure out areas of convergence, that kind of stuff. Yeah, really puts the punch into trigonometry. That's what half the works does. Absolutely. Type in blood. Just blood. It'll bring up a bunch of cool stuff. But if you really want to do a good search to blood pattern in the search bar, the bloodybladinggustingssearchbar@houseofworks.com. And since I said bloody, bleeding blood. What did I say? Bloody, bleeding search bar. Since I said that, it means it's time for the listener mail. Josh I'm going to call this malingling monkhouse. Jerry either laughed at that or she blew snot because she's sick. Maybe they both can tell. This is from Brooks. And Brooks says, hi, guys. And Jerry, I've been loving your podcast for the last few weeks. New listener. If loving our podcast is wrong, Brooke doesn't want to be right while he's been driving 45 minutes to a different hospital for his Er rotation. Sorry, Brooke. He's a fourth year med student. During the Munkhousen podcast, you mentioned malingering, which made me think of one of the patients we saw in the Er last week, and he says that this doesn't violate any HIPAA oath because he doesn't have any details that matter. I don't know if I believe him. I don't, but we'll see. Young guy came in complaining of sudden onset flank pain. Classic for kidney stones. Sure. We asked him for a urine sample to check for microscopic blood. Our first clue that something was up should have been when he asked if we needed to watch him supply the sample. That's only routine procedure and drug testing, not medical testing. When we got the sample from him, it was totally bloody, and we knew it was contaminated. Wow. So we asked him for a catheterized specimen, and I was totally shocked when he said, okay. Not many people pick the catheter. I think he was shocked by the size of the tube used to get the sample. He nearly jumped off the table during the process. But during his moving, an empty blood bile shook out of his pocket. What we concluded was that he had stolen a vial of his own blood from a lab earlier in the day, brought it to the Er with a goal of convincing us he had a kidney stone. His secondary gain. Aside from malingering painkillers. Yeah. Med seeking. My boss was not amused, though. I was. Just thought you'd enjoy hearing about a good, solid case of malingering. From J. D. Of scrubs. Yeah, from Brooks of Charleston redemption. It's a good one, Brooks. We appreciate you. Thanks for sending that in. That's awesome. Good luck. Med student, fourth year. Fourth year. Good luck in the real world. We're pulling for you. Keep sending us cool stories. My mom was an Er nurse for decades, and she always had the best stories ever. Yeah. If you have a good story about probably not too many blood spatter stories up. A good Valentine's Day story. We want to hear it. Wrap it up, send it in an email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetepworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our home page. The house upworks. iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry is ready. Are you?"
459db786-ba8a-11e8-9ed2-7f649eac90c8	Short Stuff: Smoke Signals	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-smoke-signals	Were smoke signals real or a Hollywood invention? Turns out, they were indeed a thing and invented by the Chinese, even.	Were smoke signals real or a Hollywood invention? Turns out, they were indeed a thing and invented by the Chinese, even.	Wed, 12 Jun 2019 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=163, tm_isdst=0)	14098641	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comsysk, and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. Everybody pipe down. We've got to get started there's Chuck, I'm Josh Cherry, etcetera. Let's go. Let's go. Stop laughing. Boy, that's never going to get old, is it? Not to me. Probably to other people, but not me. We're going to start getting emails where people are like, I like short stuff, but I always feel so anxious. Well, join the club, pal. So I wrote this article on smoke signals many years ago. I know it's a good one. You think? Sure. All right. It's a fairly short topic. Like, even when you go research elsewhere outside of your brilliant article, there's not that much more to it. It's like, pretty straightforward stuff. But I think the first thing to kind of cover with smoke signals is that they actually were real. It's not something that Hollywood invented from cowboy and Indian movies or something like that. Yeah. Which that seems like it could have been the case. The one thing that got me in reviewing this again, and then originally when I was doing it years ago as an article, was just like, how brilliant this is. It really is. It is. Also, Chuck, the one thing that struck me when researching it is just how stressful it would be. Because if you screw it up, it's not like there's a signal for wait, let me start over. Well, maybe there was. I hope there was for people like me, for neurotic Native American. Yeah, I guess so. All right, so we're talking about smoke signals, which, like you said, they were real and they are still real. It's not like they're still smoke and they're still wet blankets. Right, exactly. But Native Americans, and not just Native Americans, as we'll learn here in a second, but Chinese soldiers along the Great Wall of China, they couldn't communicate long distances, but if you have a big fire with white smoke, you can see that for 1000 miles. Maybe let's just say a million miles, Chuck. Yeah, a million miles. And they were so smart. They figured out, hey, this is a great way to send a kind of rudimentary message over a long distance. Yeah. And that's a really important point, too. You're not sending, like, hey, how's it going? What's up with Alexander? How's his foot doing right now? I'll wait for your reply. Alexander the Apache. Yeah, exactly. Or the Chinese soldier. What are they? This is just strictly like, Everything's okay, or I am here, or Please, God, send help. Something really horrible is going down, like really broad stroke communications that you would need to send over long distances. Yeah, but it could be. I mean, depending on the tribe and what they are arranged, because the beauty of smoke signals is it's just puffs of smoke. So you can have it mean whatever you want to mean as long as you all talk about it beforehand. Get everyone on the same page. Although they didn't have pages, they had smoke. You couldn't use that term back then? No. Get on the same puff. I'm going to start using that. Yes. As long as you have everyone together, you could send more complex messages. It's not just like, hey, someone's invading. It could be like, hey, we're really sick over here and could use some help. Right. Or hungry or whatever. Yeah. And because everyone could see it, you had to kind of have previously agreed upon meaning to each of the messages between you and who you're sending it to. So it was encoded in a way, I guess you could say. Yes. And as far as China and the Great Wall of China, that's kind of a perfect scenario. Best case scenario for sending a smoke signal, because it's sort of wide open and you can see it for many miles. And they had watchtower, so you could convey you could string along from one watchtower to the next, and all of a sudden you're sending messages over a few hours, three to 400 miles. Yeah, I saw that. The earliest accounts of smoke signals being used is with the Chinese along the Great Wall of China. What I think is interesting about the whole idea of smoke signals is that it's just such a great idea that it evolved independently in different parts of the world. I could say that with Native Americans. As far as we know, they never had any contact with the Chinese, the book 1421 notwithstanding. But the Native Americans in the Southwest and in the Plains were using smoke signals at the same time the Chinese were half a world away. Just because it's just such a basically good idea, but they were using virtually the same technology. Yeah. And technique, too. Yes. Depending on we're going to talk about the best stuff to burn, but in China, they burned apparently salt peter, sulfur and wolf dung to create really dense smoke. Yep. And I can't imagine what that must have smelled like. I'll bet it smells a lot like poop and salt peter wood. Yeah. Sulfur. Dude, that's the icing on the table. Is that the kicker? Yeah, just throwing a little eggy smell on top. Exactly. It's like, did you know it's the fire? That guy is always saying it's the fire, not the fire. He's always blaming it on his dog or the fire. Oh, Alexander. Well, should we take a break and then talk about how to do this? I guess so. All right, let's do it. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about Summer. I mean, what's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah, and with so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. It's 2022. When things look different, like doctor's visits, for example, sometimes you don't have to go into a doctor's office to be treated for non emergency situations like a sinus, infection or allergy. And that's why teladoc gives you the chance to connect with board certified physicians right from your home via phone or video. That's right. Doctors are standing by 24/7, so you can schedule a visit according to your schedule. You can see for yourself why teladoc is ranked number one by JD power and telehealth satisfaction with direct to consumer providers. Teladoc is available through most major health plans and many employers. But even if you're not covered by insurance, everyone has access to use teletoc. That's right. If you want to check it out, download the app today or visit teladoc. comStuff to register or schedule a visit today. That's teladoc.com stuff. For JDPower 2021 award information, visit JDPower comAWARDS okay, Chuck, we're back. And before we really get to the nuts and bolts of all, I want to say I also saw a lot of mention of how tribes in North America used mirrors, too, and I was like, do they have mirrors? In my thought it's like polished mica, sure, but they use those over long distances as well. And body positions, too. Like you could see how somebody was standing or sitting or crouching and that indicated something to other people in the tribe who were, say, like also going through the woods with them that they had seen something or who they had seen, or that there was a bear or whatever, which is pretty ingenious. Yes. I wonder if they got respect from and by the way, I'm going to stop using the word settlers. Did you see that email? I didn't recall us using the word settlers, did we? Well, I mean, I've said the word settlers a lot over the years, I'm sure. Yeah. But I mean, have we said it recently? I don't know, but it was just a very nice email, one of those. It was like, oh, you know, I never really thought about it. It was already settled. They weren't settlers, right. They were conquerors, invaders. Invaders. Interlopers. Yeah. So I just wondered if the invaders from Europe, if they saw these things, I know that they were always like these rudimentary savages. I wonder if they ever saw the genius in some of these things. Hopefully. Surely. Yeah. I'm sure that there were people who adopted smoke signals after they learned how to do it. Like white Europeans who figured it out from watching or maybe even from being taught. They're like smoke signals. We use pigeons far more advanced. Get with the times. All right, so this is still relevant today. The Boy Scouts of America still teaches smoke signaling. And it sounds silly to think about, but if you are ever in the woods and you are hurt or injured or lost and alone or can't get help, lonely, just lonely, need a friend, this is still a way that you can send a message. And wilderness people understand if they see three clear wilderness people, if they see three distinct puffs of smoke, then that's a signal that says, hey, somebody needs help. Get me out of here. Pretty much, yeah. That's a universal and you can also do that with your gun. If you're lost in the woods, you can shoot three times in the air. It's the same as car horn. The one thing you don't want to use, like that old joke, is you don't want to shoot your bow and arrow three times in the air. It doesn't really do anything. When I'm sitting at a traffic light behind someone on their cell phone and it turns green, I go, honk, honk, honk. And they always go, what do you need? What do you need? Are you lost in the woods? That's all that goes down. Yeah. So to do this, first you have to start with a fire, obviously, but you have to start with a pretty good fire. You have to let your fire get going to start sending smoke signals, because you're going to do your best to smother that fire from time to time, repeatedly. So you want to get a really good raging fire going that won't easily go out. Right. That's step one. Yeah. And part of the being able to see if you want that good, thick, dense, white smoke, if you've ever been camping, if you throw greenery on a fire or something that's even a little bit wet, it's going to turn really white and thick. And that is sort of after you get your fire going really good, that's when you put on the more green timber and leaves and stuff like that. Or if you're glamping, you have someone do that for you. Exactly. So that's another reason you want a really good fire going, because you don't want it to be so weak that the grass or the green sticks or whatever put the fire out. So you're creating this nice white, dense smoke, and you get the thing going pretty well. Maybe you've got somebody's attention. They're like, you don't see that kind of smoke every day. What's going on over there? You want to have a blanket with you. It's vital that you do have some sort of blanket or some sleeping role or something like that that you can wet. That's another thing, too, because I was thinking, like in the American Southwest, that was kind of an investment of your water to wet a whole blanket, enough to send a smoke signal. But you want to take a wet blanket and you throw it over your fire and hold it there until there's no smoke coming out. Right. And we don't mean Alexander, who is a total wet blanket. We mean a real wet blanket. Right. Like the literal wet blanket, as the hipsters would say. Yeah. So, I mean, I imagine you could do it with something dry as long as you're sending, like, one quick signal, but obviously something dry, you'd run the risk of catching it on fire. So if you have no access to any water, you could probably still get by, but you definitely want a wet something. It's going to make it a stressful form of communication, even more stressful. Right. So you hold it on there long enough for smoke to cease, and then you pull the blanket off. I guess you kind of flap it off is probably the better way to do it. And while you have that wet blanket over the fire, smoke was still building up. So when you pull the blanket off, a big puff of smoke comes up and there's your first signal. And if you just stop right there. What you've just told the world is, hey, how's it going? I'm here. Well, it could these that I researched were specifically Apache, and a single plume basically is sort of an attention getter. Maybe something's going on, but you don't need to send in reinforcements or anything, but maybe just keep an eye on the sky as things play out. It could also mean something like I've arrived, like somebody's watching for your signal. You're saying I made it across the valley or over the mountain or across the desert, whatever. It's just basically a generic signal. Just saying this person is still alive. Right? If you are really good, you can do two in a row. And that's saying what, Chuck? If you're in Apache? Well, if you're in Apache, that meant everything's fine. You may have seen my one puff signal. That meant that we're not so sure about things. But now my two puff signal means everything's good. We've established our camp. We're all safe. You just stay where you are unless you hear something else or see something else, rather. And this is important because they would travel around, they had some more permanent encampments, but they also went where the food was, depending on the season and where you could hunt better and get more resources. Right, exactly. And, yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. I confused the Boy Scout technique with the Apache technique. What was theirs? The Boy Scouts. One puff is just here I am. Whereas with the Apache, it was like something weird was going on. Stay tuned. Yeah, exactly. And then, like you said already, three puffs in any language, boy Scout or Apache, means there's something bad going on. Yeah. Come and help us. Whether or not we have all been befallen with an illness or there's an invader or we have no food, we definitely need some help. And I saw also, almost across the board, it was just puffs, basically, was the way that smoke signals are communicated. But I did see reference to one tribe from Texas called the Karakawa, I believe. And they could get super fancy. They could do spirals and zigzags and stuff like that, which is pretty impressive. I'd be stressed out with just the puff system, let alone having to make a spiral or a Zigzag. It would be kind of cool to know how to do that, though. And then, of course, the Snoop Dogg tribe used the puff puff pass. Exactly. That meant come on over. Exactly. The door is open. Well, that's it for this episode of Short Stuff on smoke signals. Hope you enjoyed it. Until next time, so long. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio's how Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
c56afb08-5460-11e8-b38c-df5b75aa67cd	Selects: How Royalty Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-how-royalty-works	In some nations royals are so ingrained in the national fabric they are considered part of the country. In this classic episode, Josh and Chuck take a look backward in time at the ancient tradition of despotism and unbridled privilege.	In some nations royals are so ingrained in the national fabric they are considered part of the country. In this classic episode, Josh and Chuck take a look backward in time at the ancient tradition of despotism and unbridled privilege.	Sat, 26 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=177, tm_isdst=0)	44899761	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. Mr. Chuck Bryant here. Charles W. That is, if you want to know how royalty works, we can sort of explain that. This is from Jeez about six years ago. From September 11, 2014. We talk all about royal royalty and probably get about 75% of it. Right. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry. What's your problem? This is stuff you should know. My problem is I got an eye twitch. Yeah, it's a little weird, a little off putting. You could see it. Who can't? My left eye is going crazy. Alright, think stabilized. Yeah, it seems too mitosis is kicking in though. Your what? Mitosis. What kind of PSIs you got? Ptosis is when you have a droopy eyelid. I told you about that recently. Like you do see that left eyelid is more exposed. Like Forrest Whitaker. Yes, I know what you're saying. I see that. Like if I compare it to the other eyelid, I can see more of your left eyelid, but it doesn't appear droopy. I don't think that's the right term for it. PSAs? No. Droopy. No. Well it's TTIs is the droopy eyelid and I have it. I think it's a toastic eyelid. That's what you got man. I was diagnosed and it's apparently going to get worse. So who is it? Force Whitaker? Who else? I think tom York of radiohead. Oh yeah, you're a good company. And I think Paris Hilton has POSIs. Oh yeah, she does. And me, the four. It's worse when I'm sleepy or if I'm drunk. Yeah, I could see that. But I'm never either one of those. So you're always fine. Yeah, I don't know why I stroop into it. Are you drunk right now? No. That's good. Should not be drunk while we do these, Chuck. It's too important. That's right. So I've got an actual info for this. Oh man. Like the old days in my head it could be up to like 20 minutes long. So just sit back and relax. Perfect. So Chuck, up until about 9100 years ago, all humans walked around and gathered food and followed herds of animals which they hunted and killed and ate. And on any given day you ate what you gathered and then you just kind of moved along to the next spot. That was typically the way things were done. They were called huntergatherer societies. Then during what's called the Neolithic revolution, people started selecting plants in their area and realizing that they could replant the seeds from those plants. And all of a sudden you had agriculture. Yeah. Which made things very stable. Very stable. More stable. Tied people to the land. Sure. But it also gave rise to something that hadn't been around before, which was surplus. Because if you're a hunter gatherer and all of your buddies and family and friends are hunter gatherers and you're all just hunting and gathering just enough to sustain you for that day, then there's no such thing as surplus. Sure. That means everybody's pretty much equal. Maybe one guy takes mushrooms more than the rest of you, so he's your religious leader or something like that. Right. But for the most part, everybody's roughly equal now that there's a surplus. Say somebody has a particularly good bounty on a year where everybody else in the area has a bad bounty. That person's in what's called a position of power yeah. They have an advantage. Yes, they do. That happens a few times to the same people. And if they are clever enough to consolidate that power and have more and more kids in a larger and larger kin group yeah. Which they would if they're more powerful, they're going to have more kids. Yeah. Then they can form what you would recognize today as a dynasty. And then over time, these people would say, you know what? This is my birthright to rule you guys to be rich. I'm going to just say that I'm connected to the sun, which is our god that we worship. So by proxy, I'm the sun god's ruler here on Earth, which means I'm in charge of you. Right. And while you're at it, give me some of your surplus. And all of a sudden, now you have a king. A king. Dumb. And this happened roughly all around the world independently, but following almost the exact same course. You got agriculture, you have surplus, you have certain people consolidating power, rising to power, associating themselves with gods to make their power that much more stable and unchallenged. And then you have that's what happened. Boom. Over time, these kingdoms did more and more crazy stuff, but they all follow roughly the same thing. Yeah. And if you're out in the middle of a desert, you don't have a lot of options to go other places. So that helps along the king, because you don't have any choice. Or if you're in Peru, there's a big mountain range there, you're kind of stuck. Yeah. Because you still need your potatoes. Sure. You still need your grain. And if you can't move very easily, if you're getting resources from being a member of a community, then that explains why you, as this normal, independent minded person, might go along with some guy saying he's a descendant of the sun god and you have to give them half of your grain for no good reason. Yeah. Or if you're in the Amazon, where you're not surrounded by desert or mountains and you can say, screw this guy, I'm out of here, then you may be a little slower to have something like a king or maybe not at all. And so this whole mentality, this whole process took place independently. Like I said, the world around. And also everybody seemed to have come to the same idea that you need to export this stuff. The more power or the more land, and therefore the more crops or whatever you can get under your power, the more powerful you are. And the way to get that is to get a bunch of guys who are sick of farming and like to mess around with spears to go conquer some other cities and make those people give you half of their grain. Yeah. Then you become even more powerful. So you export this kind of mentality of being ruled by a single person who's getting fat off of taxing everybody else. And still today, we have virtually all of these same processes just in a different guy. Yeah. And we should give credit to Simon Powers, because we didn't just make all that stuff up. No. Simon Powers, the researcher or the writer? He is an author of the study that kind of looked at that theory that we've been talking about and made a model that I don't know if it proved it, but made it seem pretty likely yeah. How Despots arose during the Neolithic revolution. Yeah. So. Way to go, Simon Powers. And if you're interested in that kind of thing, also go back and read Dr. Jared Diamonds, the Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, which talks a lot about this transition and basically argues that we were all better off as hunter gatherers. Yeah. Dust and diamond wrote the same article, and the answer was saved by the bell. Yes. The worst mistake in the human race. Hey, it was a good show, all right. In all the wrong way. You're right. So in this article, How Royalty Works, we're going to kind of default to England yeah. Here and there, for the most part. I'm sorry, Great Britain. We're going to explain all that stuff finally, once and for all, because that's what we were exposed to. That's the kind of the Western English speaking standard, the British monarchy. Sure. But you can kind of substitute in a lot of ways, a lot of the way that it developed for just about anywhere in the world. Because, again, the idea of hierarchies, of class, of social stratification, and then some group of people being at the absolute pinnacle is extraordinarily ancient. Yeah. And it all comes down to land and owning land. Since people had tried the Earth, the most powerful ones are the people that owned more of it than their neighbor. Yeah, but not since they tried the Earth. I mean, we're talking just in the last 10,000 years. Yeah. And even after that, the English didn't create the this idea that you could take the land and say, this is my land now. You used to farm it, but you can still farm it, but you owe me because this is my land, and I'm letting you farm on it. And after, everybody's like, Wait, what? Then you say, oh, I forgot to tell you, if you don't do this, I'm going to kill you and your entire family. So do it. And they created what's known as the feudal system. Yeah. Let's get in our way back. Machine awesome. Let's pull the cover off this bad boy and let's go back to, oh, like anywhere between the 9th and 15th century. Let's do it. Because it doesn't matter. It's all about the same. That's not true, but it's similar to the feudal systems of medieval Europe. Basically what went on was there were very few people that owned a lot of the land, a lot of territory, but they basically looked around at one point and says, you know what? I have too much stuff to govern on my own, so I'm going to divide it up and I'm going to let other people use it. I'm going to call them vassals. And you're my vassal. You're going to go out and you're going to manage that territory for me, going to collect some taxes. You can keep some of that. You can farm. You can keep some of that. Well, they didn't farm. They had people farming for them. Well, sure. So it's like a hierarchy, habit farmed. Like, you can imagine all of England as being owned by the king and then he divided up and then those people further divided it up. Yeah. Because the vassal could divide theirs up for sub vassals, I guess. Surfs? Yeah, I guess so. Is that what they're called? Yeah. How about raising some armies for me? You're all going to be beholden to me, but I'm going to let you keep a lot of the dough as long as you still give me some. Yeah. And prior to this, Chuck, this is kind of a sweet deal. And the way that you ended up with Basil is you had an army that could conceivably challenge this guy who said, I'm the king of England. Everybody and everyone said where? And he's like, Here, this is England now, and I'm the king. And so if you had an army that he could probably defeat with his army but could still pose a problem, he turned you on to his side. Sure. And said, well, wait, before you say anything, I'm going to let you handle some of this land like you said, and you can get these people who are farming the land to give you some of their grain. You give some to me, but you keep some yourself. Yeah. You'll be like a smaller version of me. Yeah. And we'll be more powerful together. Exactly. And that's how this hierarchy, at least under the feudal system, began. That's right. And these vassals, they had rules of succession, a lot like inheritance. You could pass your land onto your children and then they would be a vassal. Yeah. You also passed your obligation to the king on to the children, too. It wasn't just the sweet life. Oh, no. You are always beholden as long as you maintain that land. Right. And it was the same in other parts of the world. Japan had the imperial system that was similar to the European monarchies. And Japan's, actually, their monarchy is the oldest in the world. Did you know that? Yes, I did. The Japanese imperial family traces their lineage back to the 6th century BCE. That's crazy. Yeah. Although they are purely ceremonial at this point, right? Well, yeah, but they were the exact opposite of just purely ceremonial up until, like, 1945. And GI. Joe came in and said, you guys aren't divine deities any longer. Right. Which is what everybody considered them up until 1945. And check out my kung fu grip. So everything was going along well until about the 17th century, when republicanism began to kind of just chip away at the royals and the power that they held throughout Europe. And little democracy starts to form, and sometimes it happens gradually and kind of nicely. Sometimes it happens via revolution, like in France. And sometimes when they would kick out the monarchy, they would come back with a vengeance. Like after the English civil war between the roundheads and the cavaliers, we had king Charles executed. His heir charles II was exiled to France. Parliament gained a lot of control, but they would later come back, of course. Charles II. Well, just the monarchy, period. Right? Yeah. But after that, the monarchy. This was never the same now, although maybe under, like, Elizabeth, she was pretty powerful. Yeah. But I think parliament had gained a lot of control. Yeah. Everybody after that point had to deal with parliament before anybody had under Charles I, the same stuff was going on in the middle east. It was a little different, though, because religion was so much more a part of their monarchies. Is it called a caliph? Yeah, I guess that would be the king. Yeah, I guess so. Head of state. If you compared it to, like, the English model, the caliph would be the head, the king of England. Right. And then beneath them would be sultans, which would be like, vassals, which are powerful kings, but they are not the religious leader. So you get the caliph and the sultan. Yeah. Insults were like military commanders, but not priests. Right. But they were involved. Everything was all tied into religion. Still is, of course. Yeah. And then if you look at the middle east model very early on, look at Egypt. All of the Egyptian rulers were considered deities up until America said no. The imperial king, the emperor of Japan, was considered a deity of the shinto religion, like a god. In the middle east, the caliph is a religious figure. In the holy Roman empire, the kings ruled along with the pope. So there's always been this real marriage, either in the form of one person or in the form of some sort of allegiance between the holy ruler and the political ruler, because the religious aspect of it gives credibility to the rule of the political ruler. Yeah. Like, even in England, they went so far as to come up with the divine right of kings, which said, the king is God's emissary here on planet Earth, and the king is therefore infallible. Right. Nobody can get rid of the king. And we just made that up. Exactly. But I mean and it had been going on for millennia since before then, but that was like they just put it down into text. Yeah, that's the way it is. That's right. Unfortunately for the king, that meant that the only way to be gotten rid of was to be murdered. Yeah. But they figured it'll be a pretty wild ride until then. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the risks when you're the king. So now you have royalty. You have this class system. Royalty actually transcends class because it's the bloodline that's just between nobility and royalty is nobility. The nobles didn't have the bloodline going. Yeah. It depends on the country that you're in. Yeah, that's true. In some countries, there are more than one royal family, right? Yeah. Different houses. But just one of them holds the throne at a time. Yeah. Just one of them has the ability to be the heir to the throne. Right. So in other countries, it's like there's one group of royals and they're the only royals, and everybody, no matter how powerful, no matter their noble title, they're still technically commoners. Exactly. They're almost always wealthy, even though technically wealth doesn't have anything to do with it because it's about your bloodline. But if you're in the monarchy, you're going to be wealthy. And in some cases, also, they're considered an actual part of their country. They're that much ingrained into the national fabric. Crazy. So we said that in some countries, there can be more than one royal family. And this kind of comes into play when there's not a clear line of succession. Yes. Things can get a little messy when the king dies. If you have what's called an agnetic succession, that means that the oldest male heir inherits the throne. Yeah. And actually agnetic, it means your brother takes over and not your son. Okay. So it's patrilineal it's on the father's side, but instead of giving the throne to your child like your firstborn son, it goes to your little bro. Okay. Your oldest little bro. Okay. Got you. And then in other lines, it can be the oldest heir, right? That's right. Whether it's male or female, like how Queen Elizabeth is the queen now. Yeah. You can be a female heir in Britain, of course. So all of these people are all related. They're part of the royal family. They're either a sibling, a child, a grandchild, even a cousin, but they're still a member of that family, which is also known as a house in a country where there's more than one royal house and there's a dispute or a problem with the succession, the normal succession rights then you can have a challenge to the throne by another royal house. Yeah. Or it's just simply elected by a committee of nobles, maybe who the next king is going to be. Yeah. Or if there's not a very clear line, they can just say, you know what? It's no man's land here, and whoever ends up with the Crown may not even be a part of the bloodline. Maybe they just had the best military or the most money. Right. Original houses were set up. Yeah. I mean, the only difference between that situation happening now and someone else's house, like, taking control of the throne, is they just ascended to royalty millennia ago rather than right now. Yeah. All right. Titles. It's all about the title. At the very top of the chessboard, you're going to have your King and Queen or an emperor empress, depending on if that's the kind of game you play in your country or your empire, then the relatives of the King and Queen, it really depends on the country and the monarchy. A lot of times they're princes and princesses. It can be your children, your grandchildren, could be your brothers, could be your cousins. It just kind of varies depending on what country you're in. And those titles are called peerages, and there's hereditary peerages and then there's life peerages. That's right. And the peerages, at least in European royalty, go in from in order of importance and from the lowest number to the most number. Yeah. Duke Marquez or Marquis. Earl Vikt and baron. So the barons are the least powerful, but there's the most of them. Is it VI count? I've been saying discount my whole life. VI count. It's all right, man. Everybody says Viscount Good, and then the dukes are the most powerful, but there's the fewest of them. And so if you have a hereditary peerage, you inherited that at some point in time, some king or queen said, you are now the Duke of Lab and you're a noble, but you are not royal. Right, exactly. Although you can be royal. Yeah. I believe Prince Charles is the Duke of Windsor. Right. Yeah, man, it gets confusing. It definitely does get confusing. It gets even more confusing because when Prince Charles becomes King Charles, the Duke of Windsor will vanish. That title will vanish because he became King, which he'd much rather be King then Duke of Windsor, you know what I mean? Yeah. And that's called being absorbed into the Crown. Exactly. Or by the Crown. The title can also just be left, like if there's no heir, you can also take it and give it to another family. Although I think that probably is subject to being approved by the Queen or the King. Yeah, probably. And then there's a whole other kettle of fish called life peerages, which basically says, you are now a baron or baroness while you're alive. Right. And then your kids will still receive some sort of honor, they won't receive the title, but they can call themselves the Honorable, which suggests that their parents had a life peerage, but that it wasn't a hereditary title, so the kids don't inherit it. Yeah. And to add further confusion, a prince isn't always the male child of the King. Sometimes that is the king. Right. Sometimes it's just a noble. When Britain ruled India, they made a very clear distinction that your rulers and your provinces in India are going to be called princes. So it's clear you're not going to call yourself a king, which is BS, because India already had its own monarchy system, but now they were all downgraded by the British. Yeah. We should also say that if you receive a peerage of any sort, you are automatically a member of the House of Lords, which is the upper chamber of British Parliament. That's right. And so it's part of the duty of the Queen to appoint these things, to appoint these peerages. But in these modern times, she wants to kind of appoint them along party lines to make sure there's an appropriate representation of everybody in the House of Lords. Yeah. And you also get season tickets to manu games, do you? No, I don't think so. I'll bet you do. All right, so I guess we can move on to the functions of these royals because it really has varied throughout the years and depending on which country, whether or not you're ceremonial figurehead or you actually have real duties. Well, let's just start with England. Okay. So with England, do you want to read Her Majesty's full title? Should we get into this now? I think we should. All right, because, boy, we have botched this over the years with saying, Britain and England and Great Britain in the UK. We're going to set the record straight here today, okay. Because technically, calling QE Two, we know her, we love her. Calling her the Queen of England is not correct. No. And it's pretty disrespectful to some people. It is. And we're going to explain this right now. Follow along with our little history lesson. And man, I hope we get this right. Where did you find this, by the way? Oh, I found it on the internet. Can't remember where. It's all over. There's many different versions. Okay. But here we go. 50, 67. You have King James VI. He ascended to the throne of Scotland after mom, who was married Queen of Scots, abdicated the throne. At the same time, you have Elizabeth One, daughter of Henry VIII. She was the Queen of England. Right. And she was Mary, Queen of Scott's first cousin once removed. Go forward a little bit to 16. Three. Elizabeth one dies. Then James was King James one of England and King James VI of Scotland at the same time. It's making any sense? Not so far. They have united the crowns of England and Scotland, okay. Even though they were separate kingdoms they had separate parliaments, separate institutions. It is a crown united with England and Scotland. Okay. Now we have the birth of Great Britain. That was in 17 seven. Yeah, man. Everyone in the UK right now is just saying, like, following along so closely, waiting for us to mess up. So after the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, it was a rough time. There were different monarchs, there were a lot of wars. Eventually, the wars ended. In 1660, the monarchy was restored, and in 17 two, Queen Anne became Queen of England, queen of Scotland and Queen of Ireland. Okay. It's very confusing. Where's the rub? Well, Scotland was still independent. They still have their own parliament, their own legal system. In Queen Anne's reign, the English and Scottish Parliaments passed separate Acts of Union, and on May 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland ceased to exist and were replaced by the Kingdom of Great Britain. So now Anne is the queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Okay. So that means that while Anne was Queen, she was the last Queen of England. Yes. And then after these acts were passed in 17 seven, she automatically became the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. That's right. Since 17 seven, it has been incorrect to call anyone the King or Queen of England. Yes. Story is not over yet. Gets more complicated. The next century, Ireland was separate kingdom, it gained its own Parliament. And then 1800. That all changed when Irish and British Parliaments passed separate acts of Union, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. One country, 18 one. So it was three separate kingdoms prior to 17 seven. Now, one kingdom ruled from London. The active union passed in 1800 and it's still enforced today, although there have been amendments, of course, along the way. Then George III, at that time, was the king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It gets even more confusing because Ireland had their problems. In 1922, they partitioned off what was the Irish Free State, and then eventually the Republic of Ireland was created. In 1927, the name was changed to the United Kingdom of Great Britain in Northern Ireland. And at that same time, United Kingdom was removed from the title king George V. The king at the time became king of Great Britain and Ireland. Eventually, in 1953, we arrived at Her Majesty Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of her other realms and territories, queen Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, man. So she's not the Queen of England. Nope. You don't hear England in that title. And then she also has titles in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica. Yes, she's the Queen of Canada. I didn't know all that stuff. The Queen of Australia? Yeah. Not the Queen of England. No, man. She's the queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain in Northern Ireland. But the reason why she is the Queen of England and the Queen of Australia is because there was a treaty, an agreement amongst these other countries and Great Britain that basically said, you guys can go off on your own, but keep the Queen, will you? And she's not the Queen of like, you guys aren't part of this territory, but keep her as your Queen. So she is, in addition to the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, separately, the Queen of Canada and the Queen of Australia, but she assigns a governor to do all the work. Right, right. And so she's strictly a figurehead there. Right. And the reason why she's strictly a figurehead there is because in practice, she's supposed to approve all treaties and all sorts of powerful legislation, but her agent never opposes the Parliament of Canada or Australia. Yeah, man, it's super confusing. But she's still the Queen of Canada. And the Queen of Australia. Back in the day, it was a lot easier because the monarchs had absolute power. Well, not absolute power. Well, remember, the Pope could get them or they could be subject to tyrannosite. Yeah. And basically, they had the last word, but they had all these other people that were advising them. And you don't want to make enemies of the people that are taking care of your land and making you money and raising their own private armies, because that's where the tyrannos I can come in. Exactly. So you want to pretty much kind of keep things copacetic as much as possible or you're going to have the English Civil War. Yes. If you're smart and not an inbred ding bat, because there are plenty of kings that ruled like complete nut jobs. And then those nobles, too, that we talked about that weren't royal but noble, they also formalized. And the dukes and bishops started evolving eventually into what became the House of Lords, which is the upper house of British Parliament. And even today, the House of Lords is still made up of several dozen of those hereditary nobles and a lot of life peers that are appointed by the Queen. And that's when you were talking about she has to sort of balance it out politically with these peerage appointments. And she still plays an enormously ceremonial role in England. She's a huge tourism draw, she's the head of state, all that jazz. Yeah. But then in other countries, the monarchies are even more ceremonial. Like in Japan, the Imperial family, the heir to the Emperor ship. Sure. His name is Prince He Sajido, and he recently got his ceremonial age six haircut. Really? And wore pants for the first time. Apparently, if you're from the outside, you're like, what are these people doing? But these are traditions that are steep back again to the 6th century BCE for this lineage. Yeah, but they are strictly ceremonial as a result of World War Two treaties. That's the same lineage. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's remarkable. But then supposedly they're no longer deities. But if you're a shinto in Japan, you view the emperor as the highest apex of your religion and of the monarchy as well. Well, sometimes it's not ceremony at all. Like in Jordan, they're a constitutional monarchy, and the King of Jordan, in this article, they equate it to the US President, so they have appointments, they appoint judges, they sign laws, but they can be overruled by the National Assembly. But they actually have a job to do in Jordan. Oh, yeah. Good for them. Although it might be nice just to be purely ceremonial. I bet that's a cushy life right there. I bet it wouldn't be very nice for whatever transitional monarch lost power and now has to just do whatever Parliament says. But, yeah, I'm sure if you're like Harry, he's having fun. Yeah, you bet he is. Some of them, some royals are famous for not letting all of this go to their head. Like, apparently Scandinavian royals are called bicycle monarchs. Just regular folks. Yeah. They ride bikes like everybody. Yeah, they're not even expensive bikes. I bet they're pretty nice. But when you think royals, typically you think, like, Sultan of Brunei or King of Monaco and Princess Grace Kelly and just incredible wealth. Or the British monarchs again, that's a good well to go back to for this one, too. Yeah. Let's go over a couple of these things, because life is pretty good at Buckingham Palace. 240 bedrooms in London, 400 servants. Not bad. That seems excessive. Windsor QE two's family retreat. Right. Eight thrones among 650 rooms. Not bad. Right? But you mentioned it's a pretty good ratio. Brunei. That is where things get really crazy. That is the world's largest palace. Almost 1800 rooms, and they have a throne room tiled in solid gold and chandeliers that cost $12 million. Wow. They must be royal. And the Britannia, which I don't think they use anymore. I wonder why not the royal yacht? Did they retire it because it was wasteful? Do you know? No, I don't know. Someone will tell us. I know that Jimmy Carter sold the presidential yacht because he thought it was wasteful and excessive. Did he really? Who do you sell it to? A private company. Really? That's kind of cool. And then I guess we should talk about pretenders to the throne. Yeah, that's an important thing. That is not someone pretending to be king. Although sometimes that's the case. But a pretender is someone who doesn't hold the crown but lays claim to it. They're saying, like, hey, that person is an illegitimate king. Right. I should be king, but I'm really just a sad pretender. That happens sometimes when a monarchy is deposed. Okay. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's somebody who's holding the throne, although it can. Like, there can be no throne anymore. And whatever family was in charge when the monarchy was deposed is still keeping track of all this stuff in case they can never go back. And whoever is the king in that secession is the pretender to the throne. Okay, I got you. That's the other way it can happen. Alright? Right. For this break, we're going to talk a little bit more about what life is like if you are a royal. All right, so we talked about some of the opulence of the royals and how they love to show off their wealth. Stick your nose in it. You're a commoner these days. Children. If you're a royal child, you have all the best education. But that wasn't always the case. They used to be big dummies for the most part. They didn't even want them to go to school or to learn military tactics because they wanted them to just sit around and eat turkey legs. Turkey legs all day. Don't even worry about the book learning. Right. So you got to hit a bunch of dumb royals back in the day. Dumb monarchies. Yeah. Again, Prince Hisuhito is the first in the Japanese imperial family to go to an elementary school rather than the specific school designed just for the youngest kids of the royal family. Like a school of three people. Yeah. Or one at the time. Yeah. That's private tutelage, right? Yeah, I guess so. But they call it a school if you're really young, like, sometimes you'll be a king and you're just a little baby or like you said, like a little toddler, you're going to be assisted by people called regents. Right. And they are going to be running the show for the most part, until the king or queen can come of age. So, Chuck, here's the thing. People often take potshots at royal saying that they're genetically unsound. It's true. It is true. Apparently, pretty much around the world, royal families are fairly well in bread. It's because of power consolidation over millennia. And so even if you had, let's say, two or three royal families in a country that were considered royal, but only one was in line for the throne at the time, they might want to kind of keep it amongst themselves. So even though they're intermarrying between the families, it's still just basically like intermarrying between three families. Yeah. And it's to keep the bloodline pure, which has always struck me as odd because it results in some disease and genetic defects. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Apparently that's where hemophilia came from. Yeah. And that was a gift courtesy of Queen Victoria. Apparently the reason why this happens is you can't just say it's inbreeding. When you have a narrow or shallow gene pool that you're pulling from, the possibility of recessive genes appearing is increased. So if you have two people who both have a copy of a recessive gene, that gene is going to become dominant and come to the forefront. And so a lot of stuff that normally wouldn't pop up in a person when you just are intermingling in a normal size gene pool, you're going to have a lot of problems because these people all share the same genes, roughly. And so recessive genes are popping up in pairs. That's right. That's a big problem, actually. Yeah. And a lot of royals throughout the years and a lot of different countries have been mad. Yeah. You found an article on some mad ones, didn't you? Yeah, I picked out a few of these. King George III, he was probably the most famous. The movie Madness of King George is in my top 100, by the way. Oh, yeah. Great movie. So I was listening to is it Kenneth Durant who does MPR movie reviews? I think so. He did an awesome essay on sequels, and now there's an art to naming a sequel. And he was saying that the stage play originally was The Madness of George III. But when they turn it into a movie in America, they decided they need to rename it because they didn't want American film Goers to think that this was the magic of George Three. I missed the first two, so yeah. Oh, wow. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Dumb Americans. Yeah. Madness of King George, he had all kinds of wacky behavior, supposedly attempting to shake hands with a tree because he thought it was a King of Prussia. Doesn't that sound like something Mr. Burns would do? Yeah, totally. These days, they try to diagnose all these people now with what they think they might have had. And they believe he might have had schizophrenia, or maybe he was bipolar. Or maybe he had this blood disorder called porphyria, and that is hereditary and it can mimic madness. And then you have Christian the 7th of Denmark from 1787 to 18. Eight. He had these wild mood swings, hallucinations, paranoia, self mutilation. He may have been schizophrenic and also may have suffered from porphyria. So that was another one. And then more recently, farook of Egypt. This one is my favorite. And you can find pictures of this guy, which is kind of fun. Well, yeah, he was around in 1936. He loved his sports cars so much. So he loved his red sports cars that he decreed no one else was allowed to have a red car in all of Egypt. Yeah. And he would apparently shoot out the tires of people that passed them on the road. And they think that he had misophobia, which was a fear of contamination. So he would search for germs and little imaginary bits of dirt and was also reportedly a kleptomaniac who may or may not have stolen Winston Churchill's watch. He was a little wacky, too. I lied, Chuck. That guy was tied for first for my favorite, King Charles the 6th of France. What was his deal? Dude, he was pretty out of it. He apparently got very paranoid that people were after him. So he murdered some of his own knights and he thought that he was made of glass. What? And had clothes made for him, special clothes. He wouldn't allow anyone to touch him because he thought that he would shatter. Actually, apparently he would forget he was king. He didn't recognize his family. Wow. They're not exactly sure what it is. Like all these guys, they diagnosed schizophrenia, bipolar. Right. I think the most exact one is mesophobia for Farook. Yeah, but the rest of them how do you diagnose somebody like that? You can't like hundreds of years later. Yeah, it's tough. But there have been some wacky mad rulers. There have some monarchs. You got anything else? Yeah, this one last bit about crowns. I learned this, I thought there was one crown that was like if you're the king or the queen, you've got your one single crown. Yeah, that's what I thought too. But that is true. Apparently they have different crowns worn by their ancestors and they even create their own for special events like coronation. Yeah. Or you got to have your own crown or something made for you. Yeah. And you've heard the term heavyweights. The crown, they can be super heavy. King William the Force coronation crown was \u00a37. That's heavy crown. That is heavy. King George V had a two pound crown with 6000 diamonds. But Queen Victoria was like that stuff. I want a little light crown because that's obnoxious and hurts my head. I was trying to find I have this idea that crowns were originally fashioned to represent halo. Is that right? I don't know. I'm making it up. Got you. It sounds right because remember forever, monarchs has been like member. And the closest I could find is that in pre Christian Rome, there was a sun cult that I think a lot of the Roman emperors were members of. And they would wear crowns that look like the Statue of Liberty's crown, which emulated rays of sunlight. So that's what those early crowns are based on. I like your theory. I'm going with it. Statue of Liberty is a member of a Roman sun cult. Well, no, I like about the halo. I'm just going to start telling people it's true. Okay. I think yeah, tell them Josh sent you. No, tell him Josh sent you. I got nothing else. All right, well, if you want to learn more about royals, you can type that word into the search bar@howstepworks.com and it will bring up this excellent article by Edgar Banowski. Yeah. The Grabster. And since I said grabbanowski, it's time for listener. Now I'm going to call this random number generation. We did our show on number stations and random number generation is a key to the number station. This is from Aaron in Toronto, Ontario. Okay. Canada. Yeah. Hey guys, just listen to your recent podcast and number stations. It was fascinating. Had no idea what these words so he described them. Give an example. And then I suddenly remembered scanning through the frequencies on my little shortwave radio and picking up some of those transmissions. Never really thought about what they were and what they meant. At the time, I was too caught up in thinking about where they were broadcasting from. Since the voices always had an accent, I wanted to add a small detail about computers generating random numbers. Modern computers are indeed capable of generating truly random numbers, but often the random data is generated too slowly to be of great use. So what they do is use some true random data to see the high quality pseudo random generator algorithm, which can generate random numbers as quickly as needed. But doesn't that make it less than random? I don't know, things like that. Every so often, the algorithm is receded from the true random source to keep the sequences more random. While what you said is not wrong, it was missing a bit of detail that those of us who enjoy the nitty gritty details don't want to be overlooked. Smiley face. Thanks for a great podcast. My wife and I often listen to pass the time on our two hour road trip to and from the cottage. Aaron, good for you for having a cottage. Yeah, really. And I said, you're coming to see us in Toronto for a live show. He's like, I didn't even know. How do you not know? And then he bought tickets and I think he's going to come. Awesome. Yeah, I'm very excited. This is going to be fun shows. If you want to get in touch with Chuck and I, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyoushhnnow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howsfworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyouw.com. Stuff You Shouldn't is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…an-body-hair.mp3	Why do humans have body hair?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-do-humans-have-body-hair	Humans aren't truly naked apes, but other primates put us to shame when it comes to body hair. Why? Tune in to hear Josh and Chuckle discuss the theories and hypotheses behind human hair growth and distribution.	Humans aren't truly naked apes, but other primates put us to shame when it comes to body hair. Why? Tune in to hear Josh and Chuckle discuss the theories and hypotheses behind human hair growth and distribution.	Tue, 05 May 2009 10:48:27 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=10, tm_min=48, tm_sec=27, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=125, tm_isdst=0)	20548208	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Chuck Bryant. How you doing, man? Well, that sounded very unsure. Are you feeling the same way? Jack and I are recording on a Monday. Jerry is forcing us to. Usually we record on Friday. Last thing we do in the week. Which is why we're so chipper and up and drunk. And this is a shift. It's different. Yeah. It's like a funeral. It's harsher. Buzz. Plus, it's kind of cloudy out, and the weather I know, affects me. I have Sad seasonal affective disorder. Do you really? Yes. A little bit. Like, diagnosed? No. Self diagnosed? Yeah. Are you also self medicating? No. Okay. Not into that. Good for you, Chuck. All right, well, I have a question for you. Fire away. When you were a kid, did you have one of those little plastic little razors? Yes. Did you use it or did you just leave it around? Yeah. I remember getting into my dad's shave cream and playing around like I had facial hair. Me, too. Right. And now we do have facial hair. I know. It's kind of like when I was a kid. When I was, like, seven, all I wanted to do was mow the lawn. Right. More than anything else. And then come eight, I actually got to mow the lawn. And the first three times were heaven. Right. And after that I was like, you are such a chump. Same thing with shaving. It was really exciting. Now things just get kind of mundane after you do them a number of times, huh? Yeah. I was pretty late to a late bloomer to the facial hair, too. So later on in high school, my friend Jim that you've met yes. He is of Arabic descent, and Jim literally had a mustache when he was, like, the 8th grade. Yeah, he was one of the stin ones. And he's a drummer in a band, and so he had a little, like, the mullet and the mustache. Yeah. I knew a kid like that, too. His name was Ron. He was a Polish descent, and he actually his voice was deep in the third grade, and his stash started coming around a little after that. I developed a little later. I'm still developing. Are you? Yeah. Your voice is still changing. It is. They're very nice, Chuck. Sexy. Have you ever wondered, though, how about this first segment? Have you ever wondered, Chuck, why humans even have body hair? I hadn't until I read this article, and then it kind of occurred to me, yeah, that's kind of weird. Why do we have hair? Actually, this isn't the first time I thought of this. Really? Yes. Did you think that when you were a little kid? No, anthropology student. Okay. Yeah, I wouldn't down with anthropology. I remember how we were just talking about shaving the face. Did you know that you or I will probably spend about a month out of our lives shaving? For average? Less than that. But, yeah, I'm below average. I shave once a week. I shave once a week, too. God, we are made for each other. I know. Wow. All right, well, let's get to this. All right? Yes. Why does your hair grow? The hair on your head grow longer than the hair on your arms. Chuck Bryant well, before we go there, Josh, we need to understand a little bit about hair. Can we go there? What happens is, when you're talking hair growth, you have cells inside the hair follicles. They divide and they multiply. Right. And then space fills up inside the follicle and it pushes older cells out. Right. Because hair is actually just like the protein keratin and dead cells that have hardened. Right, yeah. That sounds kind of gnarly when you put it like that. Did you know something like 98% of all dust is dead skin cells? Really? It's like bedbugs. Not to get off on another tangent, but all that stuff grosses me out. Sure. Never bring a black light into a hotel room. That's all I have to say. Right. So as space fills up, it pushes the older cells out, like I was saying, and those cells harden and exit. The follicle informs a hair shaft. Right. Which you said is mostly dead tissue and keratin. Correct. Yes. So that's basically what's going on. But it happens in spurts. It rests in active and resting phases. So the growth phase is called the antigen phase. Yes, sir. And then there's the telogen phase, and those are resting phases. And strangely enough, your different parts of your body go through different phases at different times. Right. Which is what you're talking about with the arm and the head. Right. So your arm hair has a much longer telogen or resting phases than your hair head. Your head hair. Yes. Which I usually just call hair. Which is why this is going to be a really confusing podcast. I know. Because there are different types of hair on different parts of your body. Yeah. Let's caveat that right. Now, if we just say hair, we're talking about the head, the scalp. Okay, sure. Everything else is facial hair, arm hair. There's a qualifier. But let's go ahead and get the different types of hair out of the way. Let's do it. What you have in the womb are little tiny hairs called lanugo. That's how I pronounced it. Too. Good. Then after you're born, babies grow velos, which is fine, unpigmented hair. It's like peach fuzz. Yes. That's what I got. Yeah. Little baby's heads are all soft. It's so cute there. And then you hit puberty, most of us. And the velocity hairs give way to terminal hairs, and they're a little more coarse. And that's what you find underneath your armpits and around your genital area. Or on my back? On shoulders? Sure. Do you have hairy back? Holy cow. Really? Yes. I've never seen you with your shirt off. I'm like class four or Robin Williams level of Harry. Wow. I'm not quite there. It's up there. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I'm not that bad. I have the creepers that come around the collar, but Emily waxes me from time to time. Does she? Yeah. My brother in law is shaved by my sister down to where the collar of his undershirt comes. And if you ever see him with his shirt off, it's like hair. No hair. It's really hilarious. It's like a redneck pan, kind of. Yeah, that's nice. So then back to the hair that we all think about, the hair on the scalp, the thicker hair, eyebrows, eyelashes. That's also terminal hair, which is the same as what a lot of people call pubic hair. Yes, it's actually the same type of hair. You might not think so, but it is. It's terminal. Okay. And then a different kind of hair. This is distribution, not the type of hair is. Androgenic yes. And that's like your facial hair, your chest hair, your arm hair, and it's usually stimulated by the hormone testosterone. Right. So there you have it. And then you add all that up together, Josh, and you get about 5 million individual hairs for an average adult, which is strange, because that's about the same density as a chimpanzee. Did you know that? I did. And this is where it gets a little more interesting. Let's get all the science, thank God. Get all those terms out of the way. Now we're talking about chimps, and this is something that I did not know until I read this. We actually don't have fewer hairs than a chimpanzee. It's the size of the hair, actually. Yeah, they're shorter and less coarse. So we have about the same number of hair follicles, or at least the same density of them as a chimp. Yeah. I bet no one would answer that unless they knew. No, but we could. Well, sure. We should totally go to Tribune. And now the dozens of people who listen to our podcast can know that, too. Exactly. But on the chimps, we also share the same hairless parts, which is lips, palms, and soles of the feet. No hair. I have hair on my palms. I'm not going to go there. Okay. Josh, do we need to talk about some theories? Yeah, I like this. This is why I've thought about this before, because we were taught this kind of stuff in anthropology class. You're the wiz. Okay. So my favorite theory, this is the one that makes the most sense to me, is that we started losing our hair when we became biped. Right. If you look at most primates, they have a tendency to walk on their knuckles as well as their feet. That's how they move most quickly, which would require you have a lot of hair on your back, because then that whole area is exposed to the sun. Exactly. The whole point of hair. Well, actually, there's two points. Right. One is to regulate body heat to keep your body warm. Sure. And the other is to protect from UV radiation from the sun. Okay. Pretty cool. So once we started walking upright, we needed hair on our head, some on our shoulders, maybe a little on her back, some on the chest, and then everything else is kind of sexual. Right? Absolutely. I think about one third of our bodies are exposed to sunlight once we started walking upright. Right. That's the one that makes most sense to me. But that's pretty far from the only theories. What else you got? Well, there's another one I thought was kind of cool. That one theory was that early man was a water dwelling ape. So since they're in the water, you don't need hair in the water. You don't see a lot of hairy fish, no hippopotami or rhinos or any elephants. Yes. It's been a lot of time, and they're all mammals. They have very sparse hair growth. Right. Because they're in the water a lot. Absolutely. So I kind of like that one. Yeah, that one makes sense. The other one that makes sense to me is that about 1.7 million years ago, we went from basically a forest dwelling species to kind of moving more out in the open. Right. And since we're in the forest, we would not be exposed to the sun as much, and it would be cooler because we're out of the sun. So we would need more hair to keep our body temperatures higher. Right. Once we move out into the open savannah, we don't need the hair anymore. Why'd we move out there was that when we started developing weapons, we always move for food. Okay. Usually food is the basis of migration. That's where all the good meat was. Yeah. Okay. So the thing is, if we lose our hair and we're now exposed to the sunshine, we still need to protect ourselves from UV rays, but we need to use a method that doesn't keep us hot. Right? Sure. Enter skin pigment. Okay. This is news to me. Okay. So actually, there was this researcher in 2000, doctor Roslyn Harding at Oxford, and she went back and traced the evolution of the MC one R gene. This is the gene that produces either a dark pigment or a lighter reddish pigment, depending on where we live and our exposure to the sun. The closer you live to the equator, the darker pigmented you're going to be because it protects skin from skin cancer, that kind of thing. Right. Sun cancer. I like that. Sun cancer is the worst kind. So Professor Harding or Dr. Harding, I'm sorry, traced the mutations on this gene as they're found in African populations, which, strangely enough, there are no mutations or I'm sorry, there's no variation among Africans of this gene. And if you go and you look at Asians, you look at people of Nordic descent, native Americans, we all have the MC one R gene, but there's variations on it in Africans. It doesn't matter where you go on the African continent, you find the same exact gene with the same exact mutations. Interesting. And that's the birthplace of humanity. Yes. Many believe. Sure. Myself, which I was also surprised, we apparently only exited Africa within the last 50,000 years. Really? I thought it was way further back than that, but I read an article in the New York Times that said different. Well, and they know. Sure. So anyway, Dr. Harding traced the evolution of this gene through mutations back to about the last time it swept through the African population, and she found that that was about 1.2 million years ago. Right. Now, the point of this is that when this gene, when this mutation would have swept through, thus darkening everyone's pigment right. We would have needed it then. So for at least the last 1.2 million years, doctor Harding posits that we've been hairless. Got you. Pretty cool. Yeah, it all makes sense. I love it when it comes together like this. It all makes sense. Sure. Yeah. But I also like biological and anthropological abnormalities that don't add up. I know you do. Let's hear about it. Well, now, I don't have well, are you talking about the hairy guys? The very hairy guys? Yeah. That actually wouldn't have set up. But I'll take it we're talking about hypertrichosis. Okay. Which some people might have seen. They're called the wolf people. I don't know if they call themselves that. Well, they may not, but that's what they're called in the research I've done. All right. Victor, Larry and Gabriel, Danny, Ramos, Gomez are in a family of 19 that spanned five generations. Wait, what? That's their name? No, a family of what? A family of 19? Yeah, exactly. Well, that's 19 over five generations. There is bound to be some genetic mutations in a family of 19. Absolutely. So they all suffer from that rare condition is called congenital generalized hypertrichosis in their case. And basically what that means is a lot of body hair, we're talking 98% of their body is coming here. I was looking at a picture that you have, and you can basically see their eyes. Yeah. And around the lips. Oh, yes. And around the lips, they look kind of like they're wearing hairy ski masks. Yeah. Is that one of their little siblings? No, it says it's one of their fans. Okay. They're taking a picture of one of their fans. Very cool. And there's also a man in China named Yu Xinhua and his claim to fame, he has the same thing. He's called the hairiest man in China, and hair covers 96% of his body. And he is trying to become a singer, apparently, and make it big as a singer, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah, I think the Gomez brothers have him beat big time. Well, by 2%. Yeah, not much. And you actually made his entertainment debut at the age of six in a movie called A Hairy Child's Adventure. So early on, he felt like he was exploited somewhat. I'm sure he's ashamed, but he's learned to live with it and now kind of embraces it, which is kind of cool. A Hairy Child Adventure. I'm looking that one up. Yeah, I'll bet it's Riveting. So that is hypertrichosis in a nutshell. There's a lot more. Maybe we should do a full podcast on this is pretty interesting, actually. But shaving, plucking, electrolysis and laser removal, there are different cosmetic things you can do to help that out. I also did a tad bit of research on that, and there's an acquired version there's. Genetic version. Right. There's an acquired version. Through malnutrition, you can develop this well, so your starvation diet, you better watch out, buddy. That explains the hair on the back. Yeah. Is it sprouting more and more lately? Yeah, it is. And it's getting kind of Billy Goat esque. I had a pet goat. Did you know that? I did not. It's good stuff. How is it, hair? Good growth pattern. Yeah, of course. Goats are really great pets, actually. Yeah. Very affectionate. Yeah, they are. They can cause some serious allergies, though. Oh, really? Sure, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, you do now. So here's to you, Nestor. My goat. Hey, Nester. Thanks for listening. You want to do one last thing? Sure. Okay. So what's the deal with growing hair and armpit hair? I mean, these places aren't exposed to the sun any longer, but they are. It's at, like, Camp Sunshine Nudist Resort, right? You tell me. Camp Sunshine is actually a camp for kids with cancer, so I doubt that's not a nudist resort. Yeah, well, there's another word that you're thinking of. The camp sunburn. No, it's Camp Sunshine in upstate New York. Okay. Yeah. That's funded by the same people, strangely enough. That's awesome. Now, I guess hypothesis, right, not a theory yet, would be behind why we have growing hair and armpit hair is because these places are where we emit the most. Do you see where I'm demonstrating right here, Chuck? Up down here? These are where we produce the most pheromones. Right? And the hypothesis is that the hair acts as kind of like an amplifier for these pheromones. It traps in the smells. Mine does. Interesting. Yeah. What a grisly topic. Kristen Conger wrote this, right? Yeah, conger. If you want to read it, you can type in why do Humans have body Hair? In the handysearchpart housetepworks.com. Okay, so we did that. All right, so that's why do humans have body hair? Right, Chuck? Because we need it. Yeah, I guess. Although, if we ever make it back into the water, prepare to go bald. Right? And it's funny hair, human head hair has become one of the more distinct features that people have, hairdo's. And it's a very cosmetic, cosmetic thing. Yeah. It's there to protect our head, but it's also to look cool. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Mohawk, maybe. Sure. Okay, well, let's plug something. Chuck plug. You plug. Okay, I'll plug. So let's plug the blog. Okay. Chuck and I have a blog called Stuff You Should Know, appropriately enough, and we just post about all sorts of cool stuff. Chuck does a podcast goodness round up every Friday, too. And, yeah, we post each once a day, every day during the week. And you can find it on the right rail on the homepage of how Stuff works.com. Yes. And there's our blog plug. Perfect. Which means for mail time, Josh, today I'm just going to call this the Great Australian Toad Wart correction cast okay, we missed quite a few things on this one. I'm not ashamed to admit that happens occasionally, and it happened this time. So here we go with corrections for the due toads calls works. I see that part of it has been redacted right, because someone was wrong. They wrote in and said that toads were not in Perth, but I went back and listened, and you said that they were heading towards Perth. And I sent the guy linked to an article that verified that they are indeed heading towards birth and are going to make it there. So beyond that one, Josh, at one point you said, there are no predators that have figured out how to eat the cane toad because of the toxins on its back. Okay? And apparently an Australian woman wrote in and said, the crows have learned how to flip them over and attack the belly. Yeah, I'll bet that's an unpleasant sensation. So thank you for that. We don't have names. I apologize about that, folks. I was short on time. We also mispronounced HPV, which is I know, go ahead and say the real word. Human papioma virus. Yeah, right. Yes. And we said pavlova virus. I know, and that was my fault. As we all know, Pavlova is a dessert and was a famous ballet dancer. And you and I are both into eating dessert and watching ballet, so we probably at the same time, too. Yes, I apologize about the mispronunciation. Josh, he said that there were alligators. He said it kind of in a flip way in Australia. Not true. It's crocodiles. How were we drunk or even no, we weren't, but the list goes on. I mispronounced salicylic acid. I apologize about that. And that is the last correction. But we should mention a couple of folks wrote in and talked about ways to get rid of words that we did not know, okay? And duct tape was the most well regarded. I mean, a lot of people said if you put duct tape on it and leave it for a little while it will get rid of your wart. How long is a little while? Did you get an impression? No, I didn't. Until the wart goes away. Yeah, I would guess so. Okay. And then Chris from La, he calls it Lower Alabama, which obviously is funny. Yes. He said breast milk and I haven't heard that one, so that is unverified. But that's what Chris says. Christmas may have to think so. Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you for all those corrections. Do you want to get the Eau Claire thing out of the way now? Go ahead. So it's not eau. Claire, Wisconsin. It's Eau Claire, Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, folks wrote in and said oh, no. Yeah. Actually, yes. I guess we should say it's. Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Wisconsin. Yeah. So thanks for everybody who wrote in to correct us. Whether you are correct or not, if you mention Perth, that's okay, right? The Aussies loved it, though. They love hearing podcasts about themselves. We got a lot of good feedback, right? We'll have to do that a little more often. Yeah. Okay. So if you want to send us any words of encouragement, any word of derision, anything at all, you can shoot an email to stuffpodcast at how stuff works. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
https://podcasts.howstuf…inents-final.mp3	Who Gets to Name Continents?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/who-gets-to-name-continents	America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, right? Maybe not. And who named Australia? Find out the unusually uncertain origins of the continents and other interesting stuff in this episode.	America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, right? Maybe not. And who named Australia? Find out the unusually uncertain origins of the continents and other interesting stuff in this episode.	Tue, 22 Mar 2016 14:41:13 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=22, tm_hour=14, tm_min=41, tm_sec=13, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=82, tm_isdst=0)	40088217	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building your website today@squarespace.com. Enter code Stuff at checkout and you will get 10% off Squarespace. Set your website apart. Hey, we have a tour of eight if you live in Denver, Colorado, or Houston, Texas. This makes our third trip to Texas, which ties it for California, for the city. They're neck and neck. Neck and neck. Well, in that way only. So this is actually Memorial Day weekend, people. On Saturday the 28 May we will be in Houston, Texas. And on Sunday, May 29, we are going to Denver. You can find out all the information@sysklive.com right. Powered by Squarespace. Squarespace and tickets go on sale this Friday. Yeah. So go get them. Be there or be square. Houston and Denver. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's Charles W, Chuck, Bryant and Jerry's over there. So this is stuff you should know. Geography. We are in North America. That's right, Chuck. According to some yeah, actually, according to everybody. No, not everybody. Oh, yeah. We'll get to it. Okay. We don't want to spoil basically the facts of the podcast. Right. Already, this is, as I said, about geography, and if this kind of thing close your boat, I strongly suggest you go look at how maps work or read or listen to that episode. Yeah, that was a good one. It was. Remember, we found that, like, other people see the world, the map upside down. Sure. It all depends on how you look at it. Agreed. And that actually kind of comes into play, not just with how you look at a map and say, oh, I'm on top and you're on bottom. So therefore you must be developing. Right. Naming continents is a kind of a humans are kind of big on names, I guess. Yeah. We're big on location. Sure. We're big on identifying with where we're from, with where we live, that kind of stuff. It's a whole in group, out group BS. Yeah. And boy, I have to say, for a shortish podcast, which this is going to be our longest one, let's take an eyebrow. No, not yet. I hazard to say that I learned more in this than Ten Barbie podcasts. Ten Barbie podcasts. Actually, that's not true. I learned a lot in that one, too. I love that one. But this is just loaded with interesting stuff because I am not the biggest geography buff for someone who is a maps buffer for their artistry. Right. Yeah. And I just ordered a great new map. I wish I could remember the guy's name, but I read an article on this super detailed, awesome map of the United States that this guy spent years and years drawing, plotting the RVs all over the country. Not an RVs map. That would be great, though. Although you can just follow your nose. You don't really need it. Always knows. Yeah, just like, smell the horsey sauce. I love that stuff. Although the RV sauce is by far the superior of the two. Well, I think you got to mix them. That's the key. Not always. I'm more of a beef and Cheddar Mix with the RBI sauce. It's delicious. And the horsey sauce, although I'm okay with horsey sauce sometimes. I haven't had arby's in forever. Oh, yeah, it's delicious. I have a fairly disgusting road speed sandwich is so good, right? Yeah. All right. Anyway, I ordered this amazing map, and it hasn't arrived. I can't wait for it to get here, though. I'm going to frame this one, I think. Okay. You don't have all your maps framed. No. You need, like, a huge wing of your house and just have every map you have framed on the wall that should be like I'm starting to see a pattern here. That would mean I have a huge room to my house all to myself. And that's not true, unfortunately. You know how to swing a hammer, don't you? Yeah. Just build another room. I wish, my friend. So, Chuck, we were talking about continents and their names and all that stuff, right? Yes. It turns out that when you think about the continent's names, some of them seem kind of hohum or whatever. There's actually some really great stories behind these things. Agreed. And we should probably start at the very beginning, way back, way back in 1948, even further back than that, 200 million years ago, if you looked at the planet Earth, you would have seen that there weren't a bunch of different continents. There was actually one huge continent that wore a headband and had enormous, like, four arms named Pangea. Yeah. What a stud the continent was. And there was one ocean, and the name of that ocean was Panthelossa. Yeah. It wasn't all divided up. It was just one big chunk of land and surrounded by one massive ocean. Right. And then, as we'll see later, this is a prominent theory, by the way. Right. Okay. No one was around back then, 200 million years ago and be like, no to 2016. This is the way things are land wise around here. This theory actually was we've talked about before. It had to have been in the earthquakes episode. This guy was awesome. Alfred veganer. Yeah. Back in, I think, 1915, he published his theory on continental drift. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Well, there are some reasons behind it, but the theory is that the Earth has made up these big plates. If you listen to our volcanoes or earthquake episodes, we talk a lot about that. And over time, these things cracked apart and shifted and drifted, and we now have many continents. Right, but that's not what people thought for a very long time. Like, I guess they just took for granted that the continents were the way they were. But Alfred Fegner, first of all, he noticed on a map like, wow, it looks like you could really tuck West Africa into the eastern part of South America really nicely. Yes. And in fact, the more I look at it, the whole thing looks like a puzzle that kind of fits together if you have a brain. So that's where he got his idea first, and then he started setting about proving it or supporting coming up with evidence. How about that? Yeah, that's good. And one of the things we looked at was coal seams along edges of these puzzle pieces and found that they were composed of basically the same stuff. Yeah, like Poland, pennsylvania. Deposits in Pennsylvania were similar or the same to those in Poland and Germany and Great Britain. Yeah, which shouldn't happen because what coal is basically compressed former organisms, decaying matter. Right. Yeah. And so you would think that these different organisms would have evolved differently on different continents if they weren't together. And the fact that they were the same and decomposed in about the same amounts suggests that they were all part of the same land mass at one point. Pretty neat. And then he also found fossils on different continents that really shouldn't have been the same. Yeah. He saw plant fossils and said, Wait a minute, I'm finding this stuff in places that are wildly different from one another as fossils. So maybe again, that leads to my theory. Or how about this mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains, very similar to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Maybe it was all one big mountainous mass at one point, and it turns out they probably were. That's right. What was the name of that mountain range? The legends were part of the central Pangaea Mountains, which apparently formed through the collision of the supercontinents of Gondwana and Larusia. Yeah, because we're also, in addition to this How Stuff Works article, you found a great article by Tiagoes, who writes for Life Science and writes some pretty great stuff. Yeah, this is really good. And Ghost basically just broke it all out, like how Panga formed, what Panga broke into. It's a really interesting article. Yeah. And concise. I like articles. It's not fluff. Right. Just, like, packed with text. Get to it right at the beginning. Okay. I love it. And don't let up. Don't stop till you have enough. So in the article, they talk about the process that spend a few hundred million years with a continent called Laurentia that's a great continent name, which includes part of North America and some other microcontinents that formed eventually Euro America. That's not bad. It sounds like a craft work album. It does. Totally. Your America crashes into Gondwana, which I mentioned before. I like I'm just going to count and say I like these pre current continent continent names. Pre white dude name, right? I guess so. But I think they were named by white dudes, probably. Okay. More creative white dudes. And Gondwana included. Africa, Australia, South America and Indian. Subcontinent. Yeah. It's so hilarious that all of these ideas of nationalism and all this man, if you've just gone back a few hundred million years ago, it used to be, one, you'd be neighbors. Let's all just lighten up. Exactly. And that's actually a thing that we talked about in the maths episode, too, is like when you draw a map, you're making a political statement. There's such a sense of otherness and togetherness based on geographical distribution. It's interesting. It says a lot about the human psyche. Yes. We should do a podcast one day on the human family tree. Yeah. Super interesting. Yeah. So getting back to the supercontinent, a couple of hundred million years ago, Gondwana split off from Lord Asia. That's a good one, too. 50 million years later, Gondwana broke up, and then 60 million years ago, North America split off from Eurasia. And these are all the prominent theories again. Yeah. Well, they follow the continental drift theory. Yeah. And, I mean, it's not like they're just like let's say the Indian subcontinent broke off from this continent. It's like now they have gone through and done the geological comparisons and have seen when this basically matched up to that, and that's what they've come up with. It's pretty astounding that. You can do that if you have enough patience. Yeah. And brains. So interestingly. They talked a little bit in the article about a climate and what it might have been like back then, and maybe the interior of this large supercontinent was completely dry because it was surrounded by mountains. Maybe parts of what is now North America used to be like the Amazon rainforest. Like a super lush jungle. Right. It would be kind of cool. Yeah. But once you got into the interior, when you cross the what was it? The central Pangaea Mountains. Yeah. Apparently there was a ring of mountains that ran around the middle of the whole Pangaea in the interior, and it just produced rain shadows that kept rain out from the interior of the continent. So it would have just been just a totally arid desert. Pretty cool. It is cool. And of course, this isn't over. They point out in the article that things are still changing. Australia is creeping up on Asia very slowly, of course. Yeah. Pretty cool. And part of Eastern Africa is trying to get out of the rest of Africa. Yeah. Eastern Africa is saying, so long, I'm going off on my own. I'm going to seek my own fortune and adventure. Of course, this is over the course of hundreds of millions of years. You will likely not be around unless the singularity happens soon. Yeah, exactly. Then you may and you can be like, this is pretty cool. The people of Sydney will have a docking party with the people of Hong Kong. I love that. So you want to take a little break here and then we'll talk a little bit about these names yes. So, Chuck, that is the theory of continental drift. And the whole idea is that there's a layer of magma and then on top of it are the continental plates, and they're constantly shifting and moving again, albeit very slowly. And when they do, they expose a fissure and you've got volcanic activity, or two plates slide up against one another, or one subduct below the other one, and you have earthquakes. So there's a lot of evidence that continental drift is real and that things like Hollow Earth are probably not correct. Probably. Have you noticed every time we do any kind of geography, especially when we mentioned plate tectonics, that the Hollow Earth people come out of the woodwork and just send us emails and leave comments? They're like the high fructose corn syrup people. They're, like, really active in the comments section. Yeah. Frodo and the gang that way. That's Middle Earth. Different. In Pangaea, we should mention, is Greek for all lands or all earth. So that's a great name for the original supercontinent. Right. And Panthelasa is all ocean, the ocean that surrounded it. And Pangaea was what's considered a true continent. We should say this because it will come up later, but a true continent is a landmass surrounded by ocean on all sides. I'm looking at you. Asia in Europe. I know. In fact, actually, I think you sent this idea, didn't you? Yes. The whole idea for the show was from you. But not too long ago, I think Emily asked me, she was like, what is Russia? Is it Asian or is it European? And I was like, well, I don't know. Asia. Let's go look. Well, it depends. Part of it really? Well, yeah, part of it. Same with Turkey. It's split. And some people identify with Europe. Some people identify with Asia. Wow. That's why the term eurasia. Well, no, I got that and I got it from this article, but I didn't know that Russia itself was split. Yeah, that's what it says. I could see, like, Kazakhstan or something being, like, straddling the sides, but I didn't realize Russia itself was split. That's pretty interesting. Yeah. Maybe some Russians will write in. Tell us how you identify. Yeah. Are you? Euro? Asian? European? Which one? Yeah, because obviously a lot of these lines are drawn culturally. Right. Because they're mountain ranges that separate it. Yeah. It's a geographical border. But when you're speaking incontinence, it's not incontinence. Right. Should we tell them Jerry's bad joke? Yes. Before we started, Jerry said, I guess we're technically all incontinent. And I said, no, technically we're all on continent. And then she said, or within continent. And none of the three things that we said were funny. That's how things happen before we hit record. Yeah. That's why we don't release this stuff beforehand. It's usually much better than that. So let's get down to this, Chuck. All right, let's talk about naming continents. Right. All right. Apparently with continents. If you are prominently involved with this discovery, you typically get some sort of naming rights. Yes. And a lot of these are very just conjecture goes into maybe who named these and who didn't. One big exception is Antarctica, because it's new. Ish it's like Pluto? Yeah, as far as when people discovered it. In fact, you can go to The New York Times and read in about the naming of Antarctica. Yeah, if you were so inclined to be bored to tears. No, I love those old articles. I like a lot of them, too. Like, remember the subway accident where people got shot out of the subway tunnel that was being dug? Yeah, that was an interesting article. This one is bad. Oh, did you read it? No, just the sonography. Well, a man named Sir John Murray was a great explorer and oceanographer. He was part of the famous HMS Challenger Expedition, which, for my money, is the greatest of all ocean going explorations. The Challenger. Yeah. Man 69,000 nautical miles. Wow. Unbelievable. If you look at the map of this thing, the route, it was just staggering. Do you have a map of it? I don't own one, but I looked it up today. Okay. It's pretty neat. And I never knew what HMS stood for. Did you know that? Her Majesty ship? Yeah, I never knew that. It's just like HMS. There's another one that I don't like. RMS? I don't know. And is the USS just United States ship? I don't know. I never thought about that either. Probably someone from the Navy can maybe point us in the right direction. So anyway, John Murray, even though the expedition, the Challenger expedition did not, they kind of buzzed Antarctica. They didn't actually see the land, but they came close. But he would later go on to actually go to Antarctica. Okay, I was going to say then how did he know anything about it? I guess his interest was peaked. He saw icebergs and stuff. He got you. I'm coming back because this place is cold. I'm coming for you. Taro and Giro so in four, he actually was able to name it as a combination of ant, opposite and Arctic, the North Pole. So opposite of the North Pole, aka the South Pole. Pretty neat. And which one has penguins? So the Antarctica has penguins and the North Pole doesn't? Isn't that right? I don't remember. But that's the case, right? Doesn't one have one and the other one doesn't? I know, we got a lot of emails. We did. I don't know why I'm doing this again. I know I might as well just hook a car battery up to my nipples. It'll get the same. I got you on that one. Yeah, that was good. So let's talk about America, because I just realized something. Chuck, this may be played in geography classes in, like, middle school and stuff, so if that's the case, I want to go ahead and apologize to all the middle school. Just had to hear me say that that's okay. And don't try that at home. Bad idea. It doesn't matter what grade you're in or how long out of school you are. Agreed. So america. The name America. If you went to took civics class or geography in elementary school and high school, you probably got the story. That Emerigo Vaspucci. It was named after him. European explorer. Yeah. That guy has been slandered maligned, maybe worse than Columbus, even. Apparently he had a lot of rivals back in Italy, and they worked very hard to solely his name. And it was quite effective over the centuries to the point where there was almost a revival in hatred for Americano vespicy. Interesting. And a lot of really inaccurate ideas were revived based on propaganda, contemporary propaganda against him. So what's the idea that he ripped off Columbus? Well, it depends on your definition of ripped off. So I don't have the impression that he ever said, I discovered America. He said Columbus discovered America. But the distinction between Vispucci and Columbus is that Columbus didn't realize that he hadn't hit undiscovered or previously undiscovered by European land. Right. He thought that he had just found another route to the West Indies, apparently, until he died. Vspucci was the one to say, no Europeans ever seen this before. Please. That was great. No, it wasn't. I like it. And so he is the one who supposedly this continent was named after because he was the one to recognize it as previously uncharted land. Yeah. And it's on record in German. Cartographer named Martin Vautzemuela. Our two favorite accents. Yeah. Italian and German. Two are the only two you can still do these days. Right. And not get taken to death. For sure. He very famously made a map. There was a big effort in France in the really bring the modern map into the forefront. And like, these old maps, these were made by a bunch of dummies who didn't know anything. So let's really expand our geographic knowledge. Well, yeah. This is when Mercators started working. Yeah. So this woodcut map that Voltsimula made was the first to depict a separate western hemisphere, the first to show the Pacific Ocean as a separate thing. Oh, this guy, he's like, get that sea monster off over there. I'd leave a sea monster. Okay. Just for fun. It's an Easter egg. Yeah. There was one of these maps there is one of these maps still existing. And in 2003, the Library of Congress bought it with donation from Discovery Channel. Oh, is that right? Apparently. Nice. For $10 million. It was in a castle for 350 years in southern Germany. And they're like, wow, let's buy it and display it. I read about a guy who found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence folded up behind a painting that he bought at a yard sale. $4. Amazing. And I think he sold it for a few million, and then Norman Mailer bought it for like 8 million. Wow. But yeah, if somebody just found the declaration of any sense, I guess, in much the same way. That's amazing. Yeah. I got nothing in my attic. I even looked. Oh, you did? I was going to say you don't know, but I guess you do have some old doors. Doors can be worth 30, $40. Yeah. The door from the early 1930s? Yeah. People love those things. They go crazy for them. I think it's neat, but I wanted like a stash of gold bullion or something like Prohibition era money. Yeah. My house isn't enough. Where's your house built, like 1930 Prohibition? Yeah, I guess so. Maybe some old booze, some old moonshine. Right, that'd be delicious. So the reason this map is significant by Baltimorea is that it says America, like North South America are designated America by this map. And this map is in question was from when was it? And somebody said, hey, buddy, why did you call it America? And he said, I did it in honor of America Vespucci. Sure. So the first guy who really uses the word America is on record. Apparently it's saying he named it America after Amerigo vespucci. Yes, but a lot of people said that's a lie. It's a historical fallacy. It's inaccurate. Right. One guy went so far as to say that Emerigo Vispici actually changed his name after America was named and that his real name was Giovanni Vispucci. No, Albergo Vispucci. And that he changed his name to Emerugo from Albergo to conveniently align with the naming of America. Right. But apparently, and again, this is contemporary stuff, people said, you changed your name, you big liar. Right. And then in the think, some historian revived it and that was the idea. But somebody else went back and apparently found his baptismal certificate that lists him as Emerigo Vespucci. The thing is, that still doesn't mean that America was named after Vespucci. Chuck true. There is a long tradition among cartographers that had already been established by the time America was discovered to name new lands. If you were naming it after an explorer, you named it after the explorer's last name. If you wanted to name it after royalty, you named it after the royalty's first name. So think about it georgia, Virginia, and then Columbus. Sure. Or Hudson, like the explorer's last name or royalty's first name is how you name things. So they would have named America Vispucci land, the United States of Vespucci. Exactly. Rather than America. Yeah, that'd be great. But if it's not named after Vispucci, then where did America come from? Well, there are some theories. One is that it was named after the it's a Mayan word, actually. Yes. Mountains in Nicaragua. This is where my money goes. You think so? People think that Columbus and Vispucci both went to these mountains after American. Neighbors said, hey, there's gold in themdar. Hills, which of course is really all they wanted anyway. Well, that's not true. They wanted to discover new lands, but hopefully new lands with gold. Right. And people you could subjugate. Exactly. So that they went there and then it was named after those mountains. Yeah. Not bad. And did you say both Columbus and Vasquiti supposedly traveled to these mountains? Yes. Because they wanted the gold. Right. So that's a pretty good reason to call it that. And when you combine that with the evidence that a Cartographer likely would have named it Vispucci land rather than America after a Mergo, it's entirely possible that America is actually named after an indigenous Mayan word for some mountains. I think it means place of wind in Mayan. Interesting. Yeah. Another theory. And this one, I don't think it holds water, but there was a British royal rep named Richard Amerik. Amerike. And supposedly explorer John Cabott became the first well, this isn't supposed at 1497, he definitely became the first to sail under the British flag to the New World. And apparently when he got back, he got a big watt of cash from Amarik and he was like, hey, I'm going to name the country and continent after you then. But there's really nothing to substantiate that, right. No. And then Cabott retired to make some pretty decent butter. Oh, yeah. Is that him? I think so. Okay, surely it's him still. Maybe. And he is several hundred years old. Do you want to take a break again? Yeah, let's break and then we'll talk about our favorite continent, Australia. So check, you were telling everybody our favorite continent is Australia. Yeah. That's what Lex Luthor Jean Hackman has left. Lex Luthor, wanted in Superman. He wanted Australia to his own or Superman, too. Yeah. Remember electric Google the three terrance? Stan and the gang came down and like touted or was working in Cahoots with them, and they were like, well, what do you want in return for delivering Superman? He said Australia. I don't remember that, man. Gina Hackman was great. I saw this the beginning of a movie with Robin Williams and Walter Matthew. Robin Williams was like a baby at the time, but they foil a robbery and become heroes. Yeah, they go to like, a survivalist camp or something. Yeah. It's called survivors, I think. So I saw like, the first ten minutes. I totally know the movie, but I was like, man, there is no one, no one on the planet like Walter Mathau. No man anymore. He was awesome. And I was like, God, I just can't imagine Robin Williams and Walter Matthew working together. And then didn't they do like, Moscow and the Hudson too in that one? I don't think Matthew was in that one. Oh, he wasn't? I thought he was. Maybe it wasn't I could be wrong, because I never saw it. Those early Robin Williams movies were great, according to Garp. I never saw that one. That was by the guy who did Cider House Rules, right? Yeah. John Irving. Yeah, he's pretty great. Oh, yeah. But then it made me think about Couch Trip. You remember that movie with Dan Akroyd and Walter Matthew? I didn't see it. Was it good? Yes, it was so good. I haven't seen it in decades, but I guarantee it still holds up. I mean it's. Matthew and Ackroyd. Yeah. One is like a con man pretending to be crazy, and the other one actually is crazy. Who's the only person who can sense that this guy is a con man? I've never been the sorry. He's a con man pretending to not be crazy. Okay, that makes more sense. It's great. I've never been the hugest Dan Ackroyd guy. He definitely is Dan Ackroyd. Dan Ackroyd. And I don't dislike him, but Walter Matthew, I was providing a nice slow burning distraction over here. If you don't like Dan Ackroyd, you'll still like couch chip. Yes. And boy, the odd couple method. Lemon. I don't know if I ever saw that original one. So good. All right? That's called movie sidebar with Josh and Chuck. And it started with Gene heckman, we didn't even talk about him. Oh, I love Gene Hackman. He needs to unretire, is what I'm saying. Seriously, like, go make another movie. Your swan song. That's what I say. All right. We own you, Gene Hackman. Australia, which is what Gene Hackman is like. Luther wanted. It is a bit of a mystery to most people will point to Matthew Flinders in 18 Two as the namer because he was the first to circumnavigate it and create that map in Australia means southern. So it all makes sense, right? Yes. Back in the day, the Cartographers were already aware of Australia before Matthew Flinders circumnavigated it, but they called it the Terra Australis, which is the southern land. Matthew Flinders is like I like the sound of Australia more. It's more pleasing to the ear, apparently, is how it was put. All right. The thing is, for a very long time, that's how Australia was named, as far as anyone's concern. But then Australia's National Library discovered a way older map from before 18 Two from yeah. From a German astronomer named Siriaco Jacob Sumbharth. That's a great name. Great name. Not at all German, if you ask me. Except for the yakka thing. Sumbath is but that Siriaco definitely doesn't look German. No, but yeah, 1545. That's, like, way before yeah. And apparently there's maps that are even slightly older than that. And one of them might have been produced by Mercator himself that also referred to the area around Australia as Australia something. So not everyone was referring to it exclusively as the Terra Australis. Okay. But it's probable that the Siriko Jacob Zumba was the one who first labeled it Australia. All right. We should do a podcast on the history of Australia. Sure. Super interesting. Starring Hugh Jackman for the. World War II part. By the way, when I mentioned Hugh Jackman it's PT. Barnum. Okay? He is, in fact, playing PT. Barnum in an upcoming musical version of the movie. But I either didn't know or I subliminally knew. Okay. But I didn't overtly know. I thought later on, after I found that out, that you've just been messing with me the whole episode. Well, I apologize for assuming that. That's all right. I either didn't know or maybe I had read that and just forgot or something because you said it like three times. Or maybe I should get into casting. If you didn't know, then hats off to you, because that was prescient. So now let's move on to did you see some of the suggestions we got, though? Oh, for PT. Barnum? Yeah. I think my favorite one was John C. Reilly. He'd be an odd PT. Barnum, but he could totally do it. Yeah, I saw one. Someone said, Tom Hardy, he'd be great in anything, but he's in everything right now. He's so hot right now. And then someone sent Colemani, who was sort of like the name. I know the name. Who is it, though? He's like the English John C. Riley. He sort of looks like him. He's older, though, right? He may be Irish. Yeah, he's a little older. Yeah, I know who he is. They kind of look alike a bit. Called me. And he's got a little more dapper next to him. A little more swabness, maybe. Well, there's nothing about John Sue, how he swab. Have you seen we need to Talk About Kevin. Oh, you'll love it. The movie. It's a sleeper with John C. Reilly and Tilda swinton about. They have a kid who's a bad kid, and tola Swinton is having to deal with it. Interesting. Really great movie. It's on Netflix right now. I love John C. Riley. He's kind of a prop in the background for this. It's mostly Tilde Swinton. I'm sure we appreciate hearing that. He knows. Okay. There's no way he played that role and doesn't know. All right. I never knew we could talk so much about movies in this one. I didn't see that coming. So let's talk about the other continents. Africa, Asia and Europe. Basically, what it boils down to with the rest of these is they were likely named by sailors who had to call them something. Yeah, probably. And Africa has a few different contenders that are pretty good. There's the Aforeque people who are in the northern part of Africa. They're Berber tribe. Not a bad source. Yeah, makes sense. And then apparently Eprik in Greek or Aprila in Latin means sunny, right? Yeah. Okay. Who knows? The point is, there's no documentation for when Africa was first named, and it was most likely Africa, europe and Asia were named by seafaring folks who were like, we're going this place. And they needed a name for this place so their families would know where they were to go look for them if they didn't come back. Yeah. And so they came up with names like Europe and Asia. Yeah. Phoenician sailors. It's believed they may have used their proximity to the sun because Asia might come from ACU AQ for sunrise or east. And Europe, which is, of course, west closer to the sunset if you're standing in the east. Ereb Arab, which means sunset or west. That's a Phoenician word. Right. So it's possible. Phoenician sailors named Asia and Europe. There's other ones, too. Like, Europa is a Greek mythological figure, right? Yeah. And then Asia could have been named after a ruler. Named Asios a Trojan ruler. Yeah. I don't think that's it. That's the fun thing about things where it's like, no one knows. You can be like, that's not right. Yeah. You read theories and some make sense to you and some don't. All right. I like that. That's why I think math never appealed to me and why it does appeal to math fans because it's rules apply and, like, there is a right and a wrong. So I'm much more prone to be, like, to think about something and have theories about it. Well, you know, they say you read a lot of fiction, right? Yeah. They say that people who read fiction are much more open to ambiguous resolutions or non resolutions they lack in closing you. And because you so frequently get that from fiction. It leads to the question, though, which is, first, are you attracted to fiction because they usually have resolutions like that or have you been trained to accept resolutions like that from appreciating fiction? Well, back to movies. One of my favorite things which really bothers a lot of people or movies with ambiguous endings, if done right, I think it's one of the coolest things you can do in a movie is to not wrap it up in a little bow and kind of leave the end with the decision, like, what's going on here? Possibly leave it open for a sequel. Well, maybe. I bet math majors hate that, though, now that I think about it. Yeah. And then finally, some people still, depending on where you are in the world, don't recognize all the continents. No. And this actually makes sense to me because we said earlier continent is a body of land surrounded on all sides by a body of water. Right. So that means that a lot of the continents that we recognize over here in the west as continents ain't continents. Yeah. They're incontinence. So according to some parts of the world, north America and South America, that's just America. Yeah. And then Europe and Asia. Just Eurasia. Yeah. And that's it. I've got a great pavement T shirt that has North America on it and it says Canada and then Mexico, and in the middle it says Pavement. And I get a lot of compliments on it. And I think it's from people thinking I'm making a statement like the United States is just a bunch of pavement and Canada and Mexico, when in fact it's just the band. Or maybe they're all just pavement bands. Yeah, you can't tell. You can never tell these days. Did I tell you I'm Facebook friends with Bob Destinovich from Pavement? You didn't. I tricked him because we had some mutual friends. Your mom said that you have to be friends with me on Facebook. It's pretty great, though. I like seeing insight into these people are revered. Sure. He's a big horse racing guy. Oh, yeah. He likes the ponies. Yeah. I don't like going to the track necessarily, but I like the big three. Yeah. Although I would go to the track. We just don't have them around here. Yeah, we don't. And bring it on. Send an email about how I'm wrong for going to the track or wanting to. If you want to know more about naming continents or geography or any of that jazz, head on over to Houseauffords.com and type in geography in the search bar and it will bring up a massive great article. And I said meth. It's time for listing and mail. I'm going to call this road tripping. We get a lot of emails from people that listen to us while they're road tripping. Yes. It's very nice. Hey, guys. My husband and I are adventuring on a road trip from Texas throughout Florida. I've been addicted to the show for a couple of months now, but my husband has not listened to a podcast in his life. I started the driving in the trip and he asked if I could make it all the way to Florida. First of all, husband Tom. Yes. That's pretty serious stuff. All right. We're in Texas hunt, can you make it all the way to Florida? Yeah. I got to catch some ZS. I need some sugar. I said that if I could listen to stuff, you should know that I wouldn't stop driving. He sighed regrettably and then let me turn an episode on five days into the trip. Every time we get into the car, he now says, educate me on stuff I should know. Nice. Our biggest debates are deciding on which podcast to listen to next. We literally made it to one of our destinations and sat in the car for another 15 minutes after a three hour drive just to finish an episode. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for what you do. And that is from Kim and Tom Kepler. And since we are not recording too far out these days, they are most likely still on their trip. Yes. Enjoy the trip, be safe, have fun and drive every now and then. Tom. Yes. Really, Tom? Let's get it together, shall we? That's awesome. I hope they just heard this. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with us because you love us on a road trip or whatever, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com Stuffychnow, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housestuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the Web stuffysheanow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstofworks.com you know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com."
2aa98c9a-3b0f-11eb-a672-afbe431724aa	Aleister Crowley: Blowhard Narcissist?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/aleister-crowley-blowhard-narcissist	Aleister Crowley was known as the "wickedest man in the world." But was he really just a blowhard narcissist? You decide! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Aleister Crowley was known as the "wickedest man in the world." But was he really just a blowhard narcissist? You decide! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Thu, 10 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=10, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=69, tm_isdst=0)	50029804	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And Jerry's here too. And that makes the stuff you should know. And Chuck Chuck. Chuck. Yes. Before we get started, I feel like we should say something to some of the newcomers who haven't quite figured out our vibe yet. There's a couple, the two we'll call them the twins. When we say Stuff you should know, we even said this in jeopardy, by the way, when we say stuff you should know, we're not saying like, why don't you already know this stuff? You should know this. We're saying, this is so interesting, we want to share this with you. We think you should know this. So we want to tell you about it. That's the purpose of the title of the episode of the podcast. We should call it in this tone. Exactly. Here's something you should know. Guys. Okay. I just wanted to get that out of the way. I love that. Do you feel like there's been confusion? I feel like there's been confusion for 13 years among some people. I think some people are actually offended by it. Like, who do these guys think they are? Telling me what I should know. Didn't you think they were title? Yes. It was apparently imperfect because I had an alternate title back then. What was yours? Yes. Something You Should Know. Guys, I'm going to try and do my best to couch my disdain for today's topic. Well, I think you already missed that mission. It's about Alistair, and there's a lot of just someone like him was very divisive. You could go to any internet board and read a little bit about this dude, and you will still see so much divisiveness. And there's a lot of conflicting information, including right before we recorded, I said something about Crowley and he said, I heard it was Crowley. Yeah. But I'm going to go ahead and get this out of the way. We'll do an overview of this guy, but I found him to be, above all, narcissistic, one of the most self aggrandizing, misogynistic, manipulating users of others who didn't really have anything interesting to say or add to the good of humankind. Wow. In my opinion. And yet this is your pick. What made you decide to want to do one on Mr. Crowley? Crowley? I didn't know anything that much about him, so now I do. And now I can have my own informed opinion. Yeah, totally. But if you go on these message boards, you'll find people that say what I said. You'll find people that say, the man was pure evil and blah, blah, blah of that train. I don't think he was. I think he was no, we can dispense with that. And then other people who are like, he's my hero. Yeah, I think and the people who he is a hero too, are also not so, like, disillusioned that they're like, no, he was great in every way. He was misunderstood. And he also was often his own worst enemy, is usually how they kind of defend it, because it doesn't matter whether he was a hero to you, the most evil person in the world. He was frequently called the most wicked man in the world, or just a total Ahol who didn't contribute anything. He was a jerk. Everyone agrees. It's the one thing everyone agrees on, that he was a total jerk. Well, I think that's where the narcissism is something that really triggers me in particular. So that just kept popping up over and over, and I just kept saying, who does this guy think he is? You must have had a really hard time during the narcissist epidemic of the 2000 odds. What was that? Don't you remember? It was like a whole psychology moving. This parapsychologist basically tried to make their career by trying to prove that there was an entire generation of narcissists that had been raised, and now the world was about to be ruined. They were right, but it was pop psychology. What generation was it? I guess millennials is what they were they were talking about. Which is kind of me because it was at the time. Everybody's picking on millennials for just about everything. And then these two come in and we're like, yeah, and get this, they're also narcissists. I don't know about that, but I think in Crowley's case, there's a narcissist. A narcissistic, actually. I said it right. Yeah, you did. This kind of off the charts. Like there's a self importance. That self importance really bugs me, too. So intertwined someone who really thinks they have a lot to say, you can tell by how much this guy wrote, like, overwriting. I have so much to say. Write 50 books and read any of this stuff and it's just like, kill me. Okay, all right, so I'm going to park all that to the side and be totally neutral from here on out. Well, I don't think you have to be, but I do think we should explain why this guy would even be worth a podcast episode then. Part of the reason who he is first, because everyone who doesn't know Ozzy Osbourne is like, who even is this jerk? Okay, so even if you're not familiar with Ozzy Osbourne, which stop this podcast right now and go familiarize yourself with the body of work of Ozzy Osbourne. Yes. Start with the income back and then go back to Black Sabbath. Right? Even if you're not familiar with that, you probably have seen a picture of Alistair Crowley. The picture basically the picture where he looks like he's doing the Olin Mills pose, like, hey, I'm just hanging out around the barn yard feeling good right now. But he's actually performing a magic ritual oppose a form, I think is what they were called. Everybody's seen that picture, right? I think so a lot of people have probably seen it, didn't know that's who that was even right. And even if you haven't seen that picture and you still haven't heard of Alistair Crowley. If you're a Beatles fan. If you are a fan of New Age stuff. If you like crystals. If you buy people candles with their birthday horoscope on them because you think it's actually going to influence their year. You can thank Alistair Crowley because he was basically the CenterPoint for all of that stuff coming about in the west. The idea of occultism, mysticism, spirituality outside of Christianity, Judaism and even Islam, the fact that it's present in Europe and America today is almost exclusively through his efforts and work. Yeah. I mean, I will say this. The only reason he's noteworthy is because he did what he did when he did it. In the 80s, if you would turn on Jerry Springer on any day, you would see eight Alistair Crowley sitting on stage. But this guy was doing it very early on in the 19 hundreds throughout the early 20th century. When that kind of stuff that's why he got so much press. Was because he was doing things that you dare not speak of at a time when people weren't doing these things. Or at least out loud. Even today. Still. People are like. This guy was really over the top and out of bounds in a lot of ways. Like he said, there are some people on the message boards who still are like, he was evil, they're still scared of him. And this guy has been dead for 60, 70 years. And even when he was alive, he really wasn't all that menacing. He tried to be, but if you just stopped and were like, what are you doing? And really kind of took yourself out of his little realm, you might even laugh at them, depending on the situation. I wouldn't. I know you would. All right, so let's, I guess, start at the beginning and we'll kind of breeze through his childhood, which was formative for sure. He was born in 1875 in England. He's a British man, and he was born into a wealthy family. His family were brewers. They brewed ale. But we're very religious. And this was a big, big deal because they were members of a religious group called a Christian group called The Brethren, which was sort of just Christianity on steroids as far as saying things like sex was bad and sinning was bad, to the point where it reversed him, it had the opposite effect. Yeah, not only was like, sex bad, like that's bread and butter Christian stuff, this was like, you didn't sign a lease I saw, or you didn't take out life insurance because it suggested that you didn't have full faith that Jesus was about to come back any day now. Like, you didn't plan for the future. You also didn't take medicine. And that ended up killing his father, Alistair Crowley's father, who developed tongue cancer, and that apparently was a treatable condition at the time, which kind of surprised me. Although they were probably just going to cut his tongue out. That was it. But rather were they really? Is that what they were going to do? I mean, when they say cancer of the tongue and surgery, then what else could it mean? Okay, sure. So the Brethren, of which he was a member, apparently they were an equal egalitarian group. They all kind of got together and like, we don't think you should do that. We think that it kind of shows a lack of faith in Jesus. And he was like, okay, I'm just going to roll the dice and see what happens. And he died. And that apparently really soured Alistair Crowley on Christianity because he really looked up to his father one. But I think he also really fully bought, like, the Brethren as well. And this was a huge jarring crash into a wall. Yes. It left him with a lot of money when he would become an adult. And the grabster helped us out with this one. I think he said it was about $2 million in today's money, so a lot of money. But as we will see, certainly not enough to last a lifetime. Even back then, at least the way he burned through it. Definitely. It's amazing it lasted as long as it did. Really. Yeah. It made me wonder how much drugs cost back then because he bought a lot of them. Yeah. But he could just go down to the local chemist or pharmacy and buy them over the counter. So they were relatively cheap, I guess. I would guess so, yeah. Chemist doesn't try to tax you. Yeah. Everyone knows pharmaceuticals are super cheap. Sure. He was left with his mom, who by all accounts, they didn't have the best relationship. She was also super religious. I think Ed dug up in one biography that he sort of treated her as if she were the help in one of the servants, and she in fact referred to him as The Beast, which was from the Book of Revelations and a name that he would later, I think, kind of keep on using for himself. Yeah. And I saw both that she was jokingly calling him that, in a way, but also just chiding him for his bad behavior or that she was a very pious person and that she would not have called him The Beast unless she was like, genuinely disgraced and abhorred by his behavior. You know what I mean? Like, she wouldn't have used that lightly. So I'm not sure I'm going to go with that. The second interpretation, because it's scarier. Okay. So then he eventually makes his way to Cambridge in 1895. He didn't graduate, but this was where he really kind of started getting interested in two things that would define the rest of his life the occult and sex. Yeah, for sure. That's where his life continues, is typical going to college stuff. He got into some other stuff. We don't have to get into it much. But he was not like a grandmaster, but he was a really good chess player for a while. He would have been a grand master from what I saw, like, if he had pursued it legitimately. Yeah, he was considering a profession of chess. He also was a noteworthy mountaineer. He was in the party that attempted the first British attempt on K Two Ever. It was unsuccessful, but they ended up breaking a record of living at 20,000ft longer than anybody else. Like, he was a serious mountaineer for a very long time, but as he just kind of got a little older, and especially as he got a little further into, like, magic and sex in particular, he just kind of lost as much interest. Like, those were his life's passions, and all of a sudden, he's like, I think I'd rather have sex of every single kind I can possibly think of than climb a mountain. And he still climbed some mountains, and there were some huge issues that came out of that pursuit at times. But like you said, more than anything, he directed his life toward magic and sex. He says, I think I'd rather climb sexual mountains. Sexual. Right. Well, should we take a break already? I think we should. Oh, okay. Well, you just answered your own question. You begged the question in the best sense of that term. All right, we're going to take a little break here. I'm going to collect myself, and we'll talk more about sex, magic right after this, I think. Before we talk about sex magic, can we talk a little bit about his poetry? Sure. He was a writer, and like we said, he wrote up to about 50 books, and some of these were collected and published just from stuff he had written along the way after his death. But he felt like he had a lot to say to the world, wrote a lot of erotic poetry. The first collection was called White Stains under the pseudonym Archibald Bishop. Don't have to work too hard to figure out what that means. It's so juvenile. It's hilarious. Did you read any of his poetry? No. I mean, I saw, like, clips and snippets of it, and just from reading so much stuff about how not great it was, I was like, I'm not reading this. I'm not going to read it. In fact, I can't read it on the air because it's a family friendly show. All of them start, there once was a man from Nantucket. There once was a narcissist from Nantucket. But there is a poem I would encourage our readers of age to go look up. And if you are not of age, don't do it. If you're listening with your kid right now, distract them briefly, but it's a poem called Celia Farts. Celiapharts. No. F-A-R-T-S. And it's just a great example. And I'm sure he had more, I guess, legitimate poetry than this, but reading Celia Farts really soured me on what I felt like he thought he had to say to the world. Well, yeah, that's the thing. I think one of the things is I see what you're saying. It's a little bit wow. Did you look it up? Yeah, I did. There's a Pinterest post that has it. It's like the first thing that comes up, so you don't even have to really click in anywhere. But I think one of the things that's so off putting about him is he's like a Victorian, maybe an Edwardian or Regency era, but he's, like, of that era Victorian. He's using words like farts, and it just keeps getting worse in that poem. Yeah. And it's just so crude today. Like, if somebody published that stuff today, you'd be like, this is crude and lowbrow, but somebody from the era doing it makes it exponentially worse for some reason. And I think that is exactly what he was into. Yeah. Well, he certainly loved to push buttons. He rejected Christianity so forcefully that he decided, not only am I not into it, but I want to be the opposite of it. I think that the only problem with sin are the hangups that people put on it, and that to be truly happy, you should just sin, sin, sin. And I'm really good at it, and so that's what I'm going to do with my life. Yeah. And that is what he did. And he did, like I said, basically any sex act you can think of. I did not see any accusations of Bestiality, which really surprised me. Oh, I did. Oh, you did. Okay. Did you get the impression that he actually did that? Because I, again, would be surprised if he hadn't met a donkey or two in his time. And we'll get to this. His time when he was living in his slum commune in Italy. Things got really weird there. And of course, I don't think we even said why. There's a lot of conflicting information. You could never tell when he was being straight or writing the truth, and you could never tell when someone had when he had made an enemy and they were writing something not true to make him look even worse. It's really hard to parse out the truth, but I did see stuff about not him committing a sexual act with an animal, but forcing a woman with a goat. Oh, okay. The thing is plausible. It is plausible. And the reason why is because he really did have a lot of sway, a lot of goats. Right. He had enough sway over his acolytes during his peak that he could have gotten something like that accomplished if he'd really set his mind to it. Sure. It's entirely possible. It did happen. He was into some really freaky stuff. But like you said, you can't really tell what was made up by his enemies. And he had almost nothing but enemies. He had people who had just met him and were under his spell and enemies, which were people who had known him for longer than a couple of years. That was basically his world. He didn't have friends, necessarily. Actually, not even necessarily. He didn't have friends. He had people who were under his spell or had just come out from under his spell. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things, too, that really helped reinforce how I feel about them, is that, well, first of all, anyone who doesn't have old friends, you got to investigate that a little further, I think. But sure, things happen in life, but in his case, I think had he given the opportunity, he would have started a massive money making religion. Elron Hubbard but it seems like he could never attract more than a handful of people at a time, and I think that's for a reason. Yes. Personality based reason. I think the proof is in the pudding. He set out to create a huge, massive religion that would change the world. That was his goal, and it didn't happen. And he also died without money, even though he had money, despite actually trying to perform magic rituals to attract money. So, yeah, his intent was there. But the thing to me, the thing to me that makes him legit in some way is that he was still performing rituals, still performing magic to the end, like, he never gave up on it, even though it didn't bring him the fame and the fortune, and it didn't change the world that he wanted. He truly dedicated his life to that. Yeah. I don't think he was a charlatan. I do think that he bought into this garbage himself. So he was authentic. Definitely. I think that's actually what I was trying to say. Should we go to Stockholm? Yeah, I think we should go to Stockholm because that is where one of his first mystical experiences happened, or that's the way he described it, at least. Yeah. Am I reading this right in that this mystical experience basically was a result of having homosexual intercourse for the first time? Yeah. Gay sex. Okay, good for him. And, hey, I want to be clear. I'm not knocking anyone's kink because he had a lot of them. I'm not knocking that at all. What someone does in the bedroom is like, that's fine, and that's great. I support all of that. But I think his self importance of having to detail and write about it all as a guidebook for others, it was a real turn off for me. So the reason that he was detailing this stuff in writing a guidebook for others, using things like sex and by the way, once he was like, oh, actually, I'm bisexual for the rest of his life. He had relationships with men and women. Sure. And there was one man in particular, Jerome Paulette, that he later said he really regretted breaking off his relationship with, because Paulette wasn't into the occult. But he wrote that with Paulette he had achieved ideal intimacy, which the Greeks considered the greatest glory of manhood and the most precious prize of life. So that's how he described one of his relationships with a man. And that really says a lot for somebody who didn't necessarily consider himself bisexual. I think he, more than anything, considered himself straight. He just had gay sex from time to time when it suited him. And sometimes some of those accolades, like you said, he had no more than a few people around him. Sometimes it was all men. And if you were an acolyte of his, not only were you helping him perform magic rituals, you were helping him perform sex magic, too. And who knows where that was going to go? But very often, more often than not, it was degrading. He used sexual degradation as a path, like a magic ritual, but also it was to show power and dominance over his acolytes as well. Yes. And for some reason, and again, if you look at the SNM community, it didn't feel like that to me, because if that's your kink, that's fine, too. This felt more like a manipulative user of people than any particular sexual kink. Or maybe he was born at a time where I don't know. He certainly lived in a time where none of this was acceptable. Homosexuality was illegal in England at the time, so I don't know, I try to frame it in the time and place and try and be a little bit more understanding. From stuff I saw in reports, from some of his accolades, he seemed to truly get pleasure from this stuff. Oh, I'm sure he did. So I don't know if it was just like a means to an end. I think he was really immersed in it personally as well. I think so. But it seemed like every time he was challenged, as not that he was done with someone once he had used them up, including his wife, which we'll get to in a minute. But I guess we should quickly mention he did have other career paths he could have taken. We mentioned the chess. He did go to Russia to learn the business of diplomatic services, which is something he chose at Cambridge, but none of this stuff interested him. I think once he went down the path of the occult and these sexual orgies at times that he would get involved in, he was like, this is it for me. Yeah. I'm living my best life. I'm out there, Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it. Very nice. I didn't think of Seinfeld references. So he winds up his time at Cambridge and he basically comes out of it like completely devoted to the occult, even more devoted to sex, figuring out ways to combine those two things. He's still mountaineering from time to time. He considers himself a poet, but he also he would have said he was a poet before he read zillia parts. But one of the other things about him, I saw it described as he was a magician, and he considered himself a genuine magician, and he presented himself as a genuine magician, not an illusionist, not a stage magician, somebody who actually could bend reality using his will based on rituals and spells and incantations and communicating with people or beings from other spiritual planes. Right. Yes. With the CK. Right. And he apparently was the one who added the K at the end, which is an old spelling of magic. But he did that to differentiate the two. Right. But he didn't invent the K. He just brought it back. Yeah. He revised it. Yes. From what I saw, he was obsessed with books. Not only reading, he had wall to wall books in his apartment, but, like I said, writing. Ed dug up a scholar that suggested he might have what's called grammamania, which is a pathological obsession with writing and to never be satisfied and to just keep writing, starting new things before you're finished, that kind of thing. So that might be possible. Right. So one of the other things that he was really good at was traveling. Like he could just go somewhere. I saw him described as, like, utterly without inhibition, whether it was with sex or whether it was like, oh, let's go see how they do things in Burma. And when he went from place to place, he picked up things he would find, like the occult, nesoric traditions and religious traditions, even mainstream religious traditions of these places, and would figure out how certain parts of them fit in with his own view of the occult, in his own practices with magic. And he did that by just touring the world for long periods of time, which is something people did back then anyway. Right. Like, if you went to Europe, you stayed there for, like, two years because it took so long to get there and back. Right. But even for his time, he was a very seasoned traveler. Yeah. And like you said, it's really one of the important facts of his life, because what he would end up doing is creating his own I guess you would call it a religion Philma. But Thalema was based on all of these travels and everything he picked up. There were a couple of secret society, occult societies he joined along the way and then eventually ran afoul love. One was called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and one was called the Auto Template Orientus the Oto. And it seems like in both of these groups and these were years apart, so it wasn't like, I think, seven to nine years apart. He joined these both times it seemed like he tried to run the show when he got involved and rewrite their stuff to suit his needs. And what he was doing, though, was really trying to create his own jam and kind of using up these religious orders along the way. Yeah. And I saw just a little side thing real quick, Chuck. I saw that he once had a vampire sick on him by William Butler Yates. The poet. Yeah. They were enemies within the what was it called? The first one? The Golden Dawn. The order of the Golden Dawn. Yeah. And, like, Yates considered himself a white witch, and he very clearly had decided that Crowley was a black witch, or a black magician, I should say. For Yates and the other people in The Golden Dawn who are opposed to Crowley, they considered, like him dangerous. And he couldn't learn some of these mysteries because he would unleash the stuff on humanity and basically start a reign of evil here on Earth. So Yates a vampire on him for, like, nine nights. All right, he just went up a notch in my book. Then who, Yates? No. Oh, Crawley, why do you hate Yates even more than you hate Alistair Crowley? No, I love Yates, but to be able to say that, hey, one time, WB. Yates sticked a vampire on me for nine days, he just earned a little point I got in the Chuck world. Okay, well, I'm glad we talked about that then for a while. He lived for a pretty long while. He bought this house on Loch Ness. It's not pronounced the Boluskin House or Bouleskin, not old skin. This house became a little more famous in the 19th 70s when Jimmy Page bought it a blood zeppelin, because he was fairly obsessed with Crowley for a while, although by all accounts, Page did not spend much time there. It was in very bad condition, and he kind of took one look at it and was like, somebody should fix this place up. And he assigned a guy to live there and just never really went back. But he did live there for a while, and he owned the house for kind of a long time. It was one of the only places he would stay for any length of time, basically. Yeah. Bowlskin reminds me of Archibald Bishop for some reason. Doesn't sound right. Like another student name would be Dr. Bolskin, right? Yeah. One of the ways that he brought people under his influence, too, even people who opposed him, was by using his wealth. He wasn't above using drugs. He was surrounded by people who were using drugs, and some of them had happened upon habits like heroin or cocaine habits. He would find people who had power or status in some of these orders and would be like, hey, how about I give you some of that hair when you crave so much an unlimited supply? How's that? Sound. Go ahead and initiate me into this inner circle. He would use stuff like that. Like you said, he was one of the greatest manipulators of his age, for sure. But in doing so, what he was doing was he wasn't just doing it to get power. His ambition wasn't just to become the head of the Golden Dawn or the head of the Oto. He wanted to learn as many secrets as he could, just like when he was traveling in the east and he was picking up yoga or he was picking up mysticism from Egypt. He wanted to learn their secrets, to figure out the stuff that actually worked. That was his goal. That was his ultimate goal. Okay, so I mentioned a wife in 19 three. He married Rose Edith Kelly, and they were really into each other. She got very into what he was into. They went to Cairo on their honeymoon in four, and by all accounts, it was a life changing experience where they were both channeling Egyptian gods, and this is where he, through channeling Egyptian gods. So says he wrote his big sort of Bible called the Book of the Law, which would become the basis for the Lima. And he says he was, like you said, channeling a being called Iwas. That's all I say. Oh, really? Yeah, iwas that's how I heard it from everybody. Okay. This is where he has his head awakenings before, but this is where he came up with his Dianetics, basically. Yeah, I saw Iwas continued on, like, for years and years and years, is basically a guardian angel for him and whatever acolytes he had serving him at the time. Like, they would call on I wash for protection sometimes. So he was like a kind of a lifelong guardian for Crowley, at least to Crowley and his followers. Yeah, I think so. I mean, he talked a lot about guardian angels. He had two daughters, and then toward the end of his life, had a son who has an interesting story that we should probably do a short stuff on. But in 19 five, they had Lilith, who was her first daughter. She died, and I saw different things here. She died of typhoid in Burma. But I saw that he had basically kind of abandoned his wife at this point, and she couldn't really care for herself because of her alcoholism, and he blamed her death on her. I don't know how true that is. But they would eventually have a second daughter named Lola Zaza, who you found one of the greatest pictures of any human of all time on the Internet. It is so cool, man. That kid looks like just a genuinely cool freaky it girl, you know what I mean? Well, she's wearing a goat, so we should just preface that for people who are triggered by wearing animal hides. And she's wearing more than a hide. It's a hide and a head. Yeah, I think that was a good idea. Yeah. So her sister's name, her full name sister Lilith, who proceeded and died as a baby, was newweet Mahathour Hectate sappho jezebel Lilith Crowley. I'm in hotel. Yeah. Just went by Lilith for short. Yes. And she had, very sadly, a very short life. Yeah. So I saw that too, that even though Crowley had abandoned his wife and infant baby in China and they were making their way back and she died in Burma, that he still blamed Rose for the baby's death fully. It took zero responsibility for it. And that was a frequent, like a common thing that happened that he did during his life, too. Sometimes life ending tragedy would befall people around him because of him and his decisions, and he just would not accept responsibility for that kind of stuff. Yeah. One of the reasons he was eventually ostracized from the Mountaineering Community, which was a pretty small community at the time, he reportedly was on a trip with some people, got into a fight with them while they were on the trip because he wanted to control how it went down and he splintered off from them. There was an avalanche and they were all basically buried and crying for help. And as the story goes, he was nearby drinking tea and didn't do anything to help them, and they died. And then the word got out and everyone was like, I don't want to climb with this guy anymore. Yeah. I think he even wrote like, an article about the expedition in the Daily Mail and used it to blame everybody but himself for it. That sounds about right. Yeah, I mean, he really was not a good person at all and actually was a bad person in a lot of ways, too. Yeah. He had Rose institutionalized eventually for alcoholism. I didn't hear about his son and I don't know what his relationship with his daughter Lola. They just kind of fade out of the story and he just kind of continues on, which probably says about everything you need to know. Yeah. Well, let's do a short stuff on his son because there was way more to the story than I could really comprehend for this, but he had a son late, late in life who eventually was a part of the, I think, British military and tried to overthrow the government, who died in the think he died in 2006. Wow. This was like way late in his life, but yeah, let's maybe follow up on that. So you want to take another break and then just come back and hit a few more high points and then talk about his idea of what magic was? Sure. Okay, we're going to do that, everybody, and don't worry, we will talk about sex magic eventually. Okay. So you said that he ended up joining a second group, the Oto. Prior to that, he tried his hand at founding his own secret occult group, the AA, which from pretty much every source I saw, stood for astrum Argentina, which means Silver Star. So it's the Order of the Silver Star? Basically, yeah. It's a with a little symbol, then a in a little symbol. And after the Oto, which was an established group, approached him because apparently he was publishing Secrets of the Oto, but sued. He did get sued, but from basically all accounts, he really had not exposed their secrets, knowingly he had stumbled upon this stuff himself through his own rituals and practice. And they found out that he had accidentally done that. He'd figured it out himself, and they said, oh, well, you're immediately like a high ranking Oto official, and we're going to initiate you now, because anybody who stumbled on their secrets themselves just automatically became a member. And so he was very proud of that and happy about that. And of course, the Oto kind of went different ways with him because it was Alistair Crowley, after all, and he started pursuing other stuff, too. Yeah. And we should point out, too, that when he was sued by his rival from The Golden Dawn for publishing secrets, he won that lawsuit. So he didn't lose it. But, yeah, he pursued other things. There's this long standing story that he tried to and he definitely tried to become a spy for Britain during the wars, but he was always rebuffed, unless you believe that he really, really was a spy. And he was so on the down low that that information never really came out. But by all accounts, he tried to be a spy during the wars in England. And I said, thank you, but no thank you. Then he went to work for the Germans for a little while, and this is where it gets a little confusing because he claimed he was trying to write as a writer. He was trying to write stuff about the Germans. It was so preposterous that it would have helped the Allies, but who knows? Yeah, who knows? It is kind of up for debate whether he was actually a secret agent or not. For sure. Probably. Well, I don't know. I guess it could be settled, but those things are probably those documents are still around somewhere, if they exist, you know? Yeah. So after World War II, he ended up going back to England. Remember, he traveled the world. He traveled across the Sahara into Tingier, I think, on foot. He traveled from the Pyrenees down to Gibraltar on foot. He did time in Mexico, Japan, India, did a lot of mountain climbing, so he did tons of traveling. But I guess towards the end of his life, as it was winding down a little bit, he wanted to be closer to home. He had a lifelong case of bronchitis, so we moved back to England, and a doctor prescribed him heroin. He said, I've had plenty of right. He's like, oh, yeah, well, friend. But I don't know if he had successfully kept himself from becoming addicted to it before or not, but this time it got its hooks in him and he spent the last several years of his life addicted to heroin, like heavily addicted to heroin and ended up dying, I believe, in 1947. Yes. Basically broke in a boarding house. Yeah. All right, so maybe we should talk finally about sex magic. Finally. Blood sugar. Blood sugar. I knew you were going to say that. I can't. Proceeding, not proceeding. This is all a big part of it, but I did mention his stay in Italy. These were three big years in his life is when he lived. Ed calls it a small estate in Sicily, but it was really a pretty rundown, ramshackle farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere. And this is what he calls his church. This is the Abbey of Thalema. And it was squalid and it was gross. And this is where things he did the worst of the worst, even by his standards when it came to these rituals. And this is where animal sacrifice may or may not have happened. Blood ritual may or may not have happened. Ingesting all kinds of human excrement may or may not happen. These were the dark days, or I guess as far as he's concerned, the best days, the salad days, maybe. So sex magic. I don't want to give sex magic a bad name because a lot of people practice sex magic and there's a lot of wide variety of sex magic. And even the stuff, a lot of the stuff that Alistair Crowley performed was just kind of like, oh, that's it, okay, that seems fine. It wasn't necessarily degrading or debating. It didn't necessarily involve sacrifice or anything like that. There are frequently multiple people involved, but all of it was in the service of entering a higher plane, communicating with other beings and figuring out what worked best and what didn't work. But with sex magic. And sex magic seems to have been pretty much the basis of all of his rituals. Did you get that impression too? Like pretty much all of the magic he did was sex magic to some degree or another. Right? Yeah. And that's one of the sort of issues I have with him, as it seemed like most of it revolved around getting people to do sexual acts they wouldn't have ordinarily done. Again, the purpose of all of it, as far as he was saying, was to figure out what else is out there and to basically use magic to communicate with higher planes and to get that knowledge and to basically bring it back here on Earth to create a more just an equitable society under Thalamic law. Right. That's what his stated point was. That's what his point was. He wrote very detailed graphic manuals that were very precise about every sex act you can think of to be part of his thylemic religion. And he sort of believed that he was onto something with magic being what he thought was the middle ground between science and religion. He thought religion seemingly thought religion was way too constrictive and kind of got in between people and attaining spiritual enlightenment. It seemed like he thought science was too rigid. I would argue that he probably thought science was too caught up in facts and things like that, where he wanted to be a little more loosey goosey with it. And so he thought he sort of had the perfect middle road there with magic with the CK. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He would use experimentation and trial and error to figure out the best way, the most effective ritual magic. Right. It seems that and this is one of those deals where Eddie Van points out he was sort of a man of his time and his attitudes towards other races. He did express racist and anti Semitic attitudes at times, but maybe no worse than other people did at the time. That doesn't excuse it, obviously, but as far as just sort of putting him in a time and place but he also traveled all over the world and experienced all different types of cultures and I don't think did so with disdain. Right. We talked also chuck about thalema and the law of the Selema. And there's a very famous passage from it. Well, there's really just kind of Three Laws for the Lima, but the one that people cite most frequently is actually, I guess, inscribed on the vinyl of Led Zeppelin's third album, appropriately called Led Zeppelin Three. It's do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Yes. And if there's ever been a string of words more ripe for misinterpretation, it is that one. Yeah. I think a lot of people say he's basically saying there are no consequences, just do whatever you want. We should point out he was never a Satanist. He was called bad at times. And I think when people think of Alistair Crowley, probably because of Ozzy, and people think he was a Satanist, but he never was. And he kind of used that a little bit to get some attention. But he was never into Satanism. But the reason I mentioned that is to do with that quote, apparently he did not mean it that way. Like, you can just do whatever you want as long as you're making yourself happy and go not with God, but go with yourself. Well, what I saw was that he's saying, do what that will meaning, like, your purpose in life is the purpose in life, like figuring out what your purpose is and applying your full self to it. Is it that's the whole of the law. That's what that meant to him. He also said that love is the law. Love under will, meaning, like, to find love and to be a loving person under, like, secondary to the idea that figuring out what your purpose in life is. So then loving your purpose and learning to love by carrying out your purpose. And then thou hast no right, but do thy will, which means you really should be doing those first two. That was like the law of Thalema. But like you're saying, he's frequently considered a satanist, even though he never was, and people are like, he didn't have any regard for consequences, and he kind of didn't, but that's not really what that Selena's Law was saying. So he was very much misinterpreted and reinterpreted, and that especially started, I think, he died. He was very notorious while he was alive, but when he died, not many people showed up. The papers covered it. But then that was 1947. He just kind of fell out of public consciousness, from what I understand, until 1967, when he made a surprise cameo on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Yes, the very famous album cover, which was a collage of many famous people. And Alistair Crowley was right in there. Apparently, John Lennon enjoyed his writings, as did Jimmy Page and Timothy Leary, and his influence was pretty great in what would end up being sort of the hippie experimental drug culture of the 1960s. They would invoke Alistair Crowley's name here and there, for sure. So for someone who would probably not be a blip on the radar today, he had a lot of lasting influence and still does. And apparently also the new age movement that really started to blossom in the has been kind of revived today. Seventy s and eighty s, I should say, found its roots in the those people were directly influenced by Crowley's followers. So he is very much the father of the modern new age movement and all of its preoccupation with occultism and mysticism. And you mentioned how had he had a chance to be like Al Ron Hubbard, he would have grabbed it. And I agree with you, I think he would have. But there's apparently a story that even the Scientologists confirmed, but they interpreted it differently, that Elron Hubbard was actually an acolyte, a follower of Alistair Crowley's immediate heir. So they founded the Agape lodge, and Ron Hubbard was there performing magic with another guy, jack Parsons, who founded the jet Propulsion Lab, who is a big time Crowley acolyte. And the scientologists say Auroran Hubbard was there trying to destroy this church from the inside, but a lot of people say, no, this is actually where Elron Hubbard started to get his ideas for Scientology, and that's where it grew from, was from Crowley's influence. He could draw some parallels, that's for sure. Yeah, one or two. So that's it. How do you feel? Like you take a bath? Yeah, I'm with you. I kind of do, too. Okay, well, we made it through Alistair Crowley, everybody, and since Chuck said he needs to take a bath and I agree, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this rep in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is from Evan and Kaylee. Evan Weaver from Harrisonburg. Virginia. Sophomore at James Madison University. And his girlfriend Kayleigh Wagner went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And he says this on our way there. We relisted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame podcast to build the anticipation once there and when we finished looking through all the exhibits. We found ourselves at a station where we could design custom band logos and print stickers. Kaylee and I decided to make some of these stickers based on our favorite band names from the podcast. Awesome. They print two copies of the sticker, one to take home and the other to place on the walls of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Needless to say, if you ever visit there and find stickers with a band names, worm Burden and Itch Scratch Cycle, that's awesome. You know who put them there. That is really cool. Yeah. Evan and Kaylee. That is huge. We need to get this to be a thing that Evan and Kaylee started. Yes. Every visitor needs to do this. Attention, Stuff You Should Know listeners, including the new twins, if you ever go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, will you follow in Evan and Kaylee's footsteps for us? It'd be awesome. Yeah. Our goal is to one day take over the real band names. There's so many stuff you should know. Facebook. That would be wonderful. See, that's a great exhibit. That's way better than Jimmy Page's mailbox from Bowlskin house behind Plexiglass. I wish that was there. It may be. It's where I got my post. So thanks a lot, Evan. And Kaylee. Not just for the email, but for starting what we can only hope is Stuff You Should Know tradition to last for years and years and years. Okay. And if you want to be like Evan and Kaylee and start a new tradition or even if you just want to get in touch and say hi, you can email us, too, at stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts MyHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
426a02ac-53a3-11e8-bdec-1385534fd6a8	How Environmental Psychology Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-environmental-psychology-works	In the 60s, psychology expanded from exploring inside the mind to exploring the inside of buildings. Environmental psychology looks at how our spaces affect us – from how a busy mall can create a panic attack to how looking at nature can speed recovery from surgery.	In the 60s, psychology expanded from exploring inside the mind to exploring the inside of buildings. Environmental psychology looks at how our spaces affect us – from how a busy mall can create a panic attack to how looking at nature can speed recovery from surgery.	Tue, 08 Oct 2019 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=8, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=281, tm_isdst=0)	49711315	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there. This is stuff you should know. That was real. It was a real frog. So we're in our nice quiet room here. It's so nice to feel. The walls are dark and padded and scanced in love. And our chairs are comfy. It doesn't smell that much. Cherry's food isn't as stinky as usual. Actually, it's funny you stayed in here when I went to go get a drink to come back. It smells pretty polak paneering is a good smell. I'm just used to it. It's a good smell in like a restaurant or your dining room at your home or kitchen. Yeah, in the studio. It's a weird smell. You know what kind of food Jerry hates? American food. I know she hates American food. She does. And she's always eating great food from all over the world. Good job. So Chuck yes, we're talking today about psychology, but not the head shrinking more the head expanding variety of psychology. If you shrink that head, blow it up. Because psychology over the years has really kind of increased its scope further and further out of your noggin. Yeah, it kind of started out very focused on the noggin, very and then it was like, well, truth be told, your mom has a lot to do with this stuff too. And your friends where's going to come out and say it and your dad, they really screwed you up. And then with this stuff, with environmental psychology, it has really expanded on a macro level. Yeah. Because it's saying not only are you all screwed up by yourself and your friends and family are screwing you up, the physical spaces that you exist in can screw you up. Or the other side is great to make you happier, more relaxed, less stressed out. And we environmental psychologists, this is what they started to call themselves are going to figure out exactly the how, what, who, why, when, where, the who's. It the any who, all of it the why to explain how our environments affect us. And then while we're at it, let's just throw in the whole kitchen sink. We're going to do it the other way too. We're going to figure out how humans affect the environment and how we can make humans better stewards of the environment. But for now, we're going to go take a nap because this is a lot. Yeah, but all of this through the lens of psychology, which like I read this stuff. I think it's really cool and interesting. I think you do too, initially, but it seems to break down a little bit scientifically. And my whole jam when I walked in, I was like, I think this is really neat. Maybe they just shouldn't call it science and they should just say, like, hey, let's look at how a grocery store can best be planned out and touch on some psychology, but don't ask me to prove it with studies that can be replicated. So there are a lot of studies about this stuff. They're legitimate, peer reviewed studies, but they're real desperate and not necessarily related. And I think what you're talking about is environmental psychology tries to kind of bring them all together and say, this is our jam. Right. And the pieces don't necessarily connect yet, like you would think they would from looking on the outside, seeing that there's a whole field of psychology dedicated to studying. This is it. Hey, I want to be paid a lot of money to consult on a new shopping mall. Maybe so, but I honestly don't know what the drive is. I don't know. It's interesting stuff, though. Yeah, to be sure. But it's famously interesting. Everybody loves environmental psychology, even if you don't know the name of it. And people have understood, too, that, like, our environments do affect us for way longer than environmental psychology has been around. Every history of environmental psychology that you'll read will give this example of Marco Polo reporting in the 13th century, he came across a ruler in China who was curious about why some neighboring state or kingdom was always, like, super hostile, not only with other kingdoms, but within the kingdom themselves. So he ordered an experiment done where he had soil brought in from that kingdom placed under the chairs of some people, and all the people started arguing, so he concluded it must be in the soil. I guess an early scientific experiment. Yeah. He never explained what was in the soil. Maybe ghosts. Yeah, it was ghost soil. Right. Should we talk about Churchill since we're talking about history? Yeah. We got to kind of leap forward from the 13th of the 20th century. Yeah. Churchill very famously said, we shape our buildings, and later they shape us. Belch cigar toad. And he very famously when world War II bombed out the parliament building, he said, rebuild it just as it was. And everyone else is like, hey, governor, shouldn't it be a bit bigger? And he went, no, they had the chance to give everyone a little more space. And he said, no, do it exactly like it was. He wanted to create a sense of urgency, and he said, at critical votes and moments, it would be filled beyond capacity with members spilling out into the aisles. I said, a little Sean Connery in there. I can't let it pass, in his view, a sustainable I'm sorry, suitable sense of crowd and urgency, that's pretty good. Can you do? Roger Moore doing Winston Churchill. No, I've never tried Roger Moore. Yeah. I've never heard anybody do Roger Moore karate chop. That was pretty good. There's been this awareness that, like, Churchill says, we shape our buildings and later they shape us. Right. But it wasn't a field, a part of psychology until the late 50s, early sixty s and actually, you can trace it back to one group of people at City University New York. Puny. Yes. Led by what are they, the Fighting Manhattan transfers? Well, they have a great Acapella group. They're a bunch of Kunis. I'm not sure which one this was. City, University of New York. They're all over town. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, okay, well, I'm not sure which one it was either, but Harold Prashanski was the leader of this group from CUNY, and they were a group of social psychologists and some people at a hospital in New York, we'll just say hospital because probably only one. Like there's only one CUNY. They came to this group and said, hey, we're trying to figure out how to make our hospital rooms, like, way better for patients. They said, we're from hospital. Right. They said, oh, okay. We're from Kenya. And Harold Prashanski is like, we have no idea how to tell you how to do that. So he went ahead and founded Environmental Psychology, which seeks to do exactly that. Yeah, he wrote the book on it. The first one that is I'm sure they're a gazillion now. In 1970, environmental psychology colon man and his physical setting. And by man, he means person, human. But it was there were only men that mattered in 1970. So he is the father of environmental psychology. He's the father of lies. You know what I think the deal is? It's so unwieldy, and they're trying to corral this unwieldy thing because it's nature and it's design and it's color and it's fabrics and people's brains. I'm with you. All right. We're just going to gripe about it sporadically throughout the whole episode. So the whole idea of prior to environmental psychology and still is the case in a lot of cases, if you're going to do an experiment, they would bring you to a very just plain lab. And their idea was like, let's strip away everything so you're not influenced by anything. They would hose you off. Yeah, exactly. delouse you. And you would be just sitting in a white room with fluorescent bulbs buzzing above your head and Bill Murray zapping you whenever you gave a wrong answer. And they were like, this is the way to do it. But there were a couple of psychologists, roger Barker and Kurt Lewin specifically, that said, you know what? That's making things worse, stripping the world away and putting people in a sterile environment. Like, you're going to be confounding the results. Yeah. Just from the outset. It doesn't make any sense. And psychologist, other psychologists said, Shut up, be quiet. You too. And they said, no, we won't. We're going to go found Environmental Psychology, along with Harold Prussiansky, and the idea that you have to not only study people in their natural setting to really understand what's motivating their behavior, but also the idea that natural setting itself is creating part of their behavior. You can't study that in the lab. So that's one of the things that makes environmental psychology unusual is it's not meant to be conducted in the lab. It's meant to be conducted in a real world study or real world setting. Right. Then the other thing about it is it's multidisciplinary as well. Unwieldy. It is, some would say inclusive, but unwieldy also works as well. Yeah, because what they're looking at is what they call molar units, which are very large scale. We're talking about communities, neighborhoods. Maybe your house or room is probably about the smallest thing, you think. Yes. Or maybe your personal space. They seem to have adopted that as well. Yeah, it's all over the place, and it covers every angle that you can think of in terms of how you interact with your environment. Like we said, like spatial planning and lighting, ergonomics, acoustics color, empty space. Yeah. Imagine that. It's a brainbuster. Right. There it is. And so what they're studying what environmental psychologists study, or what they call transactions, and this has been a particular bone in my crawl. I've never once seen someone concretely define what a transaction is. I would guess that it's a transaction. It's just how you transact and interact with those things. Right, but exactly how like a transaction and I'm totally pulling this out of my key, sir. Well, then you're an environmental psychologist. But a transaction might be like when you walk into a room and sit down in a chair. That's probably a transaction with that room, right? Maybe. Sure, why not? Okay. But my question also is, like, okay, if you sit quietly in a room for an hour, is that a transaction itself? Or is that hour made up of much smaller transactions? Like you stirring in the room because the concrete floor is making your butt fall asleep. Maybe it is a bunch of stuff. Or you start to get scared because you hear a weird noise. And, like, all of the things that happen over the hour, are those transactions, or is the whole thing a transaction? I've just never heard it concretely defined. It kind of drove me crazy because I really looked for a solid definition of it. But just suffice to say that in the field of environmental psychology, where they study your transactions, which means your interaction with the environment, and hey, let's just go ahead and say it the environment's interaction with you in return. That's right. I'm sorry. I'm glad you're crabby about one. That's usually my role. I'm happy to take it over this time. So where you first started seeing the impact of environmental psychology was in architecture. And this has been going on for decades, basically. And it makes sense. This part makes the most sense to me. Yeah. Like, when you transact with a building in a lobby or an elevator or a staircase or an office or airwolf or airwolf. Or the concierge desk in a hotel, all of this stuff. There's always been a lot of thought, probably before they even called it environmental psychology. How do people interact with this? When you walk in, you want people to feel good and understand where things are. There's a balance that has to be struck, though I don't know if that actually did exist before environment. Oh, really? I think that may have been a contribution from the field. Yes, I'm sure there was some design or something like that. But the idea is what you just said bottom up to have really been helped along by the field of environmental. No, you might be right, because that's what's called bottom up. Like, let's really think about how people interact with this environment. And whereas before it's top down, like, let's just build this beautiful building. Right. And it turns out it's really confusing. Yes. Because they didn't think about people. No. And there were actually two big things that happened in the 60s. Well, one in the in the early 70s that kind of said, oh, wait, our environments, our physical spaces really do affect us. And they can have really negative effects too. The first one was the Kitty Genovese murder. Yeah. Which we covered. We did a whole episode on that. But the long story short, the popular conception is that an entire apartment block of people watched Kitty Genovese be murdered publicly over the course of like, an hour, and nobody did anything, even though that's not fully true. But the reason that they didn't do anything is because they were all isolated from one another. They all figured that somebody else was going to call their architecture messed with their brains and made them less compassionate or separate, at least. Yeah. Then they would have been, maybe if they lived out in the country or something like that. That was the big first one. Yeah. Which I don't even know if we touched on that in the episode, did we? I think maybe if not, we just did consider that a follow. The other one was this housing complex in St. Louis in 1972 that was built called Pruitt IGO, and it was built in 1056 2870 units and 30 311 storey buildings. It was a very big deal because it was touted as being this progressive, really modern place for a housing project. And people are going to be living in this modern space and it's going to be amazing, and that's going to make a big difference in their lives. Yeah. I looked all over for what magazine it was, but some architectural magazine named it the Best High Apartment of the Year while it was being designed. And the idea was like, here, we're going to give you this amazing place to live, low income, downtrodden St. Louis people, and you are going to be able to raise yourselves up out of poverty just by living in a nice new gift from the gods of architecture. Basically. Right. And the exact opposite happened. That's right. Within 16 years, by 1972, the Pruitt IGO complex, 30, 311 storey buildings, was raised to the ground. Yeah. And there became a really negative popular idea about Prude I Go. And that was that no matter what you did for poor people, and in this case read black people, they're going to drag it down to their level, because within that 16 years, Pruitt I Go became blighted by crime, vandalism, neglect, disrepair. The police were afraid to go out there into the complex. There's a sense of lawlessness. And so when it got torn down, everybody said, yes, see, can't do anything for those people. And then later on, academics, including environmental psychologists, said, wait a minute, I don't know if that's actually the case. What if it was the actual buildings that were the problem? Yeah, they came in and they called it this is dysfunctional architecture. And they said that you did this top down thing and built this beautiful building, but didn't think about the people, this bottom up approach, you never thought about the residents and research later on. This is where we get into a couple of other theories that we've talked about. I know we talked about the broken windows theory, which basically is the idea that you need to go after the vandal or the person who throws a brick through a window, even though that's low hanging fruit, legally speaking. Sure. As far as cops go, we're fine. Yeah. So you need to go after those people because those small things that happen will basically lead to larger things. And that's what happened at Pruitt. I go. They never changed out the burn light bulbs, they never fix the broken windows. And if you believe in the broken windows theory, that's a pretty prime example of how something can get out of hand. Right. The other big theory that kind of evolved to explain what happened at Pruitt IGO is called the Defensible Spaces theory. And that was basically that the designer of this complex had failed to delineate each unit from the other. So that really the only thing that separated units were the thin interior walls. Everything outside was just common public, belong to no one, so it was totally ripe for abuse and lawlessness and criminality, criminal behavior. Part of the other problem with the design was that the common areas, the play areas, were all kind of like around corners, we're out of view, so there was no way for the community to keep an eye on their kids or one another. And so these became hotbeds for crime as well, and inside and out. Right. Wasn't the idea that they were all identical, so there was no sense of individual ownership. Right. Which can bring about pride. It was just, here, you live here now, stay here, and that doesn't work with people. And so environmental psychologists had this idea afterwards as they were kind of thinking about all this stuff that, well, maybe there's some easy things we can do. Like, I don't know, asking residents what they want or need out of a building while you're designing the building. Right. Or if something doesn't work out or is working out okay and people are moving out, interview them then and say, hey, what do you like about the place? Right? What did you hate? And those are, like you said, low hanging fruit. But that's the kind of thing that actually can help make a building successful and give people a sense of ownership. And if you feel ownership over a place, you're going to tell somebody, hey, pick up that trash. That's my walkway. Right. You don't just throw your trash there. If that's really kind of their walkway as much as it is yours, maybe you don't feel quite as moved to say something. In that case, taking that stuff into account as far as environmental psychology is concerned, helps explain how you can prompt someone to take ownership of a place and therefore get more out of it, but also take care of the place as well, which is that bidirectional reciprocal interaction with our physical environments that is like the basis of environmental psychology. All right, let's take a break here. This is dense. We'll be back right after this. Well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, wanna learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. Alright. All right, so let's talk about some of these behaviors as far as, like, fitting into a space that have kind of popped up over the years. There's 1230f these listed that make a lot of sense to me. Yeah. The first one is territoriality. And you put this together, you describe this very plainly as like if you go into a coffee shop and you put your bag down on a table and then go out of your coffee. Or if you just dress up your cubicle with dumb stuff. Yeah. That's you claiming your space. Even if it's not your space, like your cubicle. You're like, this is my backpack on this table. Don't sit there. Right. That's just territoriality. That's one way that we behave. Because most places, most spaces are social spaces are used by more than one person. Right. The next one is crowding, which I think is super interesting because crowding is a result of density. But you can have density without being crowded. If you have smart design. Like thousands and tens of thousands of people go through a shopping mall every day. But you should never feel crowded in a shopping mall because of the way they have these things designed. Oh, dude, it happens to me every time. Do you feel crowded? It's just a spectrum of how soon it starts. Really? Every time I go to a mall, you feel crowded? Yeah. That's the opposite of how it should be. Right? I know. But it's me. I'm in really well designed malls, but it's still me where I still feel credit. There's a period where the thing that you mean I would do in the wintertime would be to go walk around the mall because we're like, a half a mile away from it. So you mean Momo and I would go walk around the mall? Oh, I thought you meant the interior mall walkers. That's basically what we were doing. But we were just killing time because I worked at the Gap for a month and I didn't know that was the thing before the store is open, the mall was open. Right. And that's where you'll find some really fantastic jumpsuits, dude walking around and exercise clothes. Yeah. And they'll have, like, clubs and coffee and clutches and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, mall walking is the thing. Okay, but you were on the outside of the mall. No, we were inside. We have a bag that Momo comes from. Okay, got you. So we're walking around the inside just at night or whatever. Even the youngest one is there, kind of. But every time I just be, like, tense and just feel crowded and, like, edgy and stressed out before the mall opened? No. Okay. I don't stop with the mall walking thing. It has nothing to do with that. All right. Mall's open. Mall's open. Your shopping, maybe even night time. I'm almost there. Okay. And we're inside. Okay. And there's no one wearing to jump. And you're not 75 years old? No. Okay. Well, now we've reached the end of the story. Oh, so you would just get anxious despite the fact that they were purposefully designed to not feel crowded. Right. And that's part of the challenge of mall design, is to make it so people like me can stand to stay there as long as possible. Because the longer you're there, the more shopping you're going to do. But you want a bunch of people. You don't want just one person at a time going through the mall because of crowding. You want a bunch of people. So you want to juggle how to get all those people in there shopping at the same time without making one another feel crowded. How are you at genuine crowded things like sports, games or concerts? It's about the same. Oh, really? I think because in a situation like that, I'm going into it, expecting it, apparently. It surprises me every time I'm at a mall. Will you leave a concert early or wait for people to file out a little bit before you or are you in the middle of that elbow to elbow hit or miss but to crotch scene? It changes. It depends on how relaxed I'm feeling. Okay. And it's like, you know that they're going to play the big song in the last song. Oh, yeah. Usually I don't like sitting around for the encore, but if it's the song that I came to see. I'll do it. Right. So you're at the who's, the German techno group? Skinny Puppy? No. So you're at a craft work show. I've actually been to see Kraft. I know you're like, I really want to leave, but they haven't played Liverworld yet, which is their best phone call. Liverworld? I don't think so. Maybe we autobond. Yeah, autobond. They definitely do. We saw them at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It was amazing. I never went there. Or maybe I did. I saw an opera there. It'd be a good place for that. We left early. Oh, really? You didn't wait for the encore? Yeah, we saw Skinny Puppy, too, by the way. I think they're from Washington State, not Germany. But we had to wait for their encore to see, like, their big song Smothered. Hope they waited till the encore. I know that they do that every single night. Sure. Even though it's Skinny Puppy and that's not really their thing, they still do it. All right, so that's crowding right there's three of us in here. How do you feel? I feel fine now. You guys make me feel very relaxed. That's nice. So privacy is the last one, and people want a private space, but there's a subset of that called personal space, which is not the same thing as privacy. Personal space is what do they define it as? The one and a half to 4ft around you in all directions. Right. There was an anthropologist actually named Edward Hall who came up with that. I'm big on personal space. One of my big pet peeves is being online for anything and feeling online. It's different. Online is what you say in New York. Okay. Feeling someone, like, kicking my heel or breathing down my neck, I'm always like, you're not going to get there any quicker by breathing on me. Dude, please back off. Are they fraudulent? Have you ever considered maybe you're being the victim of a fraudulent I'm not sure. Subway creep. I don't know. I had a situation a few weeks ago. Jeez, shouldn't even talk about this. Oh, boy. I like where this is going. All right, I'll go ahead. I was in a grocery store, and I was really motoring because I was just going to get a couple of things and I wanted to get out of there, and I went and I cut through what usually is the sandwich line, of which there was none at the time. In the deli. Yeah, but it's a little sort of narrow space where you stand in line. It's like roped off. And I kind of cut through there because there was no one there as this kid was ducking under the little rope. Oh, boy. And I just sort of shimmied by him and did one of those, like, went by the kid. You did a Rick Flair thing. No, I didn't say a word. Okay. But I come back five minutes later and this kid's mother starts yelling at me that I pushed shoved her kid. And first of all, I sort of looked around. I was like, Me? Yes. She shoved my kid. You shoved my kid. I was like, no, I didn't shove your kid. And she starts she was like, I saw it. And the kid was like, yeah, you did. And I looked at them, and I was like, I didn't say it out loud, but I was like, you liar. I did not touch you. And I started again to say, no, I swear I did not touch your kid. And she was really adamant, and people started looking, and I knew the only way out of there was just to and I'm a big justice guy, so this really was hard for me, but just say, ma'am, if I did, I'm really sorry. I have a small child. I was not aware that I did, but I clearly did, and I'm really sorry because I was waiting for a cell phone to come out. Right? It was like, the only way out of here is just lie and say, yeah, I shoved your kid, and I'm sorry. You're like, I have a small child who I shove all the time, and she doesn't title, like, your little really upsetting because it was getting out of hand. I was, like, very upset for the rest of the night. How are you feeling now? Okay, now recounting it. I didn't shove that kid. I believe you didn't touch them. I'll bet every single person listening believes you. Oh, man. All right, so where are we? Personal space. That's what I was talking about. I shove kids when they get in my way. Right? Exactly. So the upshot of all this, everything we talked about, the idea that you need space that is your own, that you can defend and that you can consider a place to have privacy and to put your stuff and the idea that high density of people in the wrong kind of situation creates crowding, all this stuff contributes to the ultimate goal. One of the big goals of environmental psychology is to create put all this stuff together and create ideal environment. That's right. Which is a balance of things. It's not necessarily like just the biggest open place in the world because people have to shop and people you have to still have these other things that have to be accomplished. Right. But the quote here is where people feel self assured and competent, where they can familiarize themselves with the environment whilst being engaged with it. And there are four main factors here that basically say it's ideal or not unity. Basically, things work well together. Self explanatory. Like the dude saying that his rug really tied the room together. Yeah, exactly. Legibility that a person can navigate that space without getting lost. Very important. Right. Complexity that it's just complex enough to keep you interested. And then finally mystery, which I. Think is pretty interesting, which is, like, you never know what's around the next corner. Right? Could be a pot of chocolate melted, could be death. Who knows? You won't know until you go look. That's right. So a lot of people who own businesses over the years, since the 60s, when environmental psychology has started, have said, hey, you know what? A lot of this stuff about how people behave in spaces, I could use this to make people stay in my space longer, and maybe they'll be, likelier, to spend some money that I'll get to keep because they came to my space and stayed here. And in fact, one of the pioneers of environmental psychology, guy named Philip Cotler, he coined the term atmospherics, and atmospheric is exactly what you would think it is, but he had this very famous quote, famous in these circles. I should say that in some cases, the place more specifically, the atmosphere of the place is more influential than the product itself in the purchase decision. In some cases, the atmosphere is the primary product. Yeah, you brought up the Apple Store, but there are other I don't go to these places, but I've been through and walked by some stores that feel like a nightclub. Right. With the way they're lit and the music. Yeah. Like Abercrombie and Fitch, I think, is what you're referenced. Yeah, banana Republic. But yeah, they're trying to create an experience, and Emily even does this with her store, but it's not a cheesy nightclub. Sure. She tries to create an experience where people come in and they smell nice things, and it's relaxing, and there are plants. A yoga club. Yeah, sort of a night yoga club, basically. Yeah. What she's doing is engaging in atmospherics, and it makes total sense. Of course. You want people to not want to turn around and leave your store. You want people to mill around, just have the product. He's taking it to the extreme thing. Like, sometimes the actual place where you buy the product is even more important to the consumer than the product. I think that's pretty rare. But those are two extremes on the spectrum, just the products and the place being more important than the products, whereas most stores fall within that spectrum. Right? Yeah. We went to a store in Paris where both of us that just sold a bunch of different things, from pottery to quilts to clothes to plants, and we were both like, I never want to leave this store. It was just so awesome on every level. So, like, the store itself, the atmosphere made you want to stay. Yeah. The design of it, the mystery I wanted, because they had go through stairs. What's up there? I see a light shining around that corner, a bloody candlestick on the stairs. You're like. What's up there? I wish I could remember the name of this place, man. It was just like everything about it was perfect. Okay, for us. We'll buzz market at some time when you got it. No, that's right. But one of the places that has really kind of posed itself as a really great example, an understandable example of atmospherics and how they can be used to kind of work its mojo on our brains or casinos. Yeah. Which we talked about in our episode on casinos. Here's the deal. Humans have triggers and clues that the germans call sait quebec, not sight burgers. I want to say it so bad, right? Every time. Time giver is what that literally translates to or synchronizer. And these triggers that we use are how we adjust our biological clocks. Things like where's the sun literally in the sky or even looking out a window, does it look like dusk or dawn? Things like that. Or even literal clocks can allow us to reset our biological clocks. Casinos don't like those things. No, because casinos want you to forget all about time and any pressing matters you have on the outside. That's right. And instead spend your time and your money in the casino. So they remove any windows to the outdoors far away from the casino floor, so there's no sense of what time of the day it is. There's no clocks or anything like that. They're also very well aware that sound plays a huge role in the environment. So in any casino, you will hear all sorts of dinging and buzzing and bells and stuff like that, but it's a constant. It's constantly going on, and then when somebody wins, it rises. So much so that everyone in the casino knows somebody just won. But the fact that the dinging and buzzing is always going on to some degree makes you think without thinking that winning is always going on, because you've associated these sounds with winning, and it's constant. So people must constantly be winning here. Maybe I should play some of these slots. Yeah. The one thing I noticed in vegas is the casino doors are never closed to the outside. So if you're walking around and it's 110 degrees in nevada, which could be the case in any given month, you walk by that casino and you get hit with a wave of air conditioned air like you've never felt before, and you're like, maybe I should go in there for a little while. Oh, totally. You want to go in there just to cool down? And like, well, I've got $5 in my pocket. Might as well give it to the casino, right? And then you get a snoot full of raw cigarette smoke, and you're like, I'll go back outside. Awful. It's pretty bad. What else, though? Mystery. That's a big one in casinos. Yeah. So we should talk about the actual layout of the casino floor. We talked about legibility and how you should be able to find your way around. Casinos deliberately make their casino floors illegible so that you just kind of wander around this is a general sense of the direction you want to be going in. It's not like they want you to get lost, because once you get lost, you're in trouble, and you don't want to do anything. You want to just get out of there. They want you not to literally get lost, but figuratively get lost in the experience, like, where you're okay with wandering and meandering. Right. So they make it so you're just kind of meandering. Like you said, there's, like, little offshoots. They're like, oh, what's around this corner? Oh, more slots. Maybe I'll play it. What a great little thing to find for the venues and the restaurants they're placed along the back of the casino floor so that if you're coming just to go to dinner there, you have to go through the casino and wander around and maybe play some slots. Sure. And then, as I was saying, that they don't want you to get lost or feel lost, because environmental psychology has identified a condition called spatial anxiety where once you're like, wait, which way do I go? You don't want to party. You don't want to gamble. You don't want to shop. You don't want to do anything but get out of there. So they walk a really fine line here and deliberately confusing you with the layout without making you anxious. And they do this partially by unconscious subliminal cues they will use literally on the floor that show the way that you don't realize you're following. But if you stop and look down at, like, a casino floor or an airport floor or something like that, you'll notice that there's probably a different color, something that is leading you in the path that you're really supposed to be going on. Yeah. Whether it's a different color carpet or maybe a runner in the center of a carpet that stands out or a tile on the edge that feels like it leads you in a different direction. Right. And this is all to help you in way finding what you think of in nature, but you're way finding anytime you're in a big area like that, for sure, like, you're literally finding your way. There are signs. That's a technique of wayfinding. Yeah. Signage is a real thing. They do have signs in casinos. It's not like again, they don't want spatial anxiety, so they'll have a sign that says, restaurant this way. Just walk through this maze to get there. But your steak is waiting on you for 399. That's not the case anymore. No. It used to be, though, right? Yeah. Becky prime rib. That's right. All you can eat. So one thing is signage. One thing is like actually putting a lion on the floor that you don't realize is there. Like, you're not it's not like an arrow. Right. I'm lost. Let me look down at the floor and see which way to go. You're not even aware that you're picking up on that. I'm following it. They've also figured out that lighting can do the same thing, too. Next time you're walking down a bright main corridor, look up and realize that you're following very bright light. And then along some of the corridors and hallways that you're not supposed to be down, the lighting is not nearly as bright. Right. Or an information desk or a concierge or something like that that's always got those usually can lights pointing straight down saying, come over here, I'll help you out. Right. So what's really interesting to me, Chuck, is I didn't see anybody being like, this is the next step. This is the next horizon for environmental psychology, although I'd be surprised if it isn't. But all of these findings, all this stuff that we just talked about, wave finding, things like cognitive maps, spatial anxiety, all this stuff appears to translate fully to virtual environments. So all the stuff that environmental psychology has found out about how to make a casino more palatable and make you want to spend, also works for online storefronts or how you find your way around, also works for designing video games and that kind of thing, too. So environmental psychology works in the virtual world, too. So it's your home, it's your stores, it's your cars, and then it's also virtual. The future. The future. Do you want to take another break and then come back and talk about the whole green movement part? Let's do it. Well, now we're on the road driving in your truck. Why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? So this is pretty dense. You're right. FYI. Are we back okay? Yeah. I didn't know if that was off, Mike. Oh, I'll stay in front of everybody. You didn't call me. Hey, jerk. I figured it was on, Mike. Figured we're going to leave it in. Hey, jerk. This is dent. You're right for once. Are we recording? Sorry. So, yeah, this is where it gets interesting to me, because finally I think it's all interesting. But the flip side that we mentioned a couple of times is how you affect your environment as well. And I'm all about affecting your environment. Like peeing outside grow, plant grow. Like, everyone knows that green spaces are good for your psyche, and looking at a window is better. I think I've said before I went to high school that didn't have windows. No. You didn't see that? Yeah, we didn't have windows in our school. What? I know it sounds crazy, and it is. Now that I look back at we had one common area that had these very high up windows, but none of the hallways, none of the classrooms had windows. My friend, your high school was an experiment. It might have been. It was built in 1979, the year no, I think it very much might have been an experiment. Like, kids get distracted with windows. Like they'll do some real learning at reading high school, right? Because you can't see anything. And then they followed your class and they're like, oh, God, no. Tear it down. But everyone knows that green spaces and looking out a window or taking a walk through a park or something can really be restorative. There was one example of botanical gardens, one of our favorite things to do as a family. But they said in the study here, it's like, leave your family at home. If you really want the benefit, go by yourself. Each of you needs to split up and wander around by yourself, which I look forward to when we can do that. That's pretty low hanging again stuff. Sure, yeah. Hanging out in a botanical garden is restorative. But the thing about environmental psychologists, they're like, why does that happen? Right. And then also, specifically, how can we use that to build ideal environments? Right? And remember, back at the very beginning, harold Proshanski was asked how to make hospital rooms better, more conducive to patient. Wellbeing, he said, put them outside. Well, that eventually became kind of a separate arm of environmental psychology. That was led by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan from the University of Michigan, which has a huge EP program. Oh, really? I believe because of these guys. But starting in the 70s through the end of the 90s, they studied the effects of the outdoors on humans to understand how to improve built outdoor settings. To make it to just squeeze and extract every little bit of that restorative juice from nature and let it drip down your face like so much navel orange juice. Just get all sticky from it. What is it going so good. And the smell is almost overwhelming, overpowering, but it's just so beautiful and natural that you eventually just faint. That's what their goal was. Yeah. So they went that way by way of a couple of kinds of attention that they talked about, directed attention, which is how if you're in a real, structured, human built environment, you're going to narrow your focus, which can be good to a degree if you're at work or something, but it can lead to depletion and stress and anxiety over time. Yeah. The other kind of attention is fascination, which I mean, should we even talk about that? It says it all. It makes me smile just saying that word, fascination, which is expansive. And the wilderness and nature is what brings that along. Yeah. That kind of mindset where anything can happen or you can just kind of trance out or zone out. Your attention is not being directed. Right. And they have done there have been plenty of studies where they found that people do recover from sickness and surgery a lot faster. Need less meds and have fewer complications and just feel better about your recuperation if your hospital has a green space. They found that not only just a real green space. But if you had a view of a window that was just a picture of an outdoor green space. Like, my school still recovered better. They didn't even give you pictures of that stuff. They did. They tried to beat out of you the memory of what the outdoors were like. So they've come up with a ratio, though, of green spaces to structures within that green space, like a plaza or a fountain or whatever, right. Of 70 to 30, I guess. 70% green space, 30% human built structures. Right. 70 30. I guess they just kind of worked out over the average. Yeah, but I think that's a cool thing to know. If you're planning a green space, is there's actual science behind it? Well, yeah. And even if there's not necessarily science behind how restorative it is, which there is, increasingly, the opposite is definitely well proven. Right. Sensory deprivation drives us nuts very quickly. Sensory overload does as well. There was a 1972 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that patients began to exhibit the symptoms of schizophrenia, especially disordered speech, after just a 43 minutes movie that was highly intense in sound and color. Yeah, sound is a big thing for me. If I have more than one different kinds of sound coming at me, like I'm listening to the radio and, like, my daughter will play something on a thing and maybe Emily is saying something to me, forget it. It's like you're at the mall, dude. I lose it. I got to get rid of a sound. Can you just run and start pushing kids out of the way? Start shoving kids and put duck tap over Emily's mouth, and I destroy Ruby's toy. You got mesophonia, buddy. Is that what that is? Maybe. Usually it's more like when chewing chewing sounds or something like that. If it's one thing chewing, it doesn't bother me. Okay. Two people chewing might be a problem. Yeah, especially if they're hum chewing, man, like those people, Matt Dylan and the flamingo kid. Did he hump you? Yeah, it was like he went to his girlfriend's parents house for dinner. He's like, Man, I haven't seen that in a long time. I haven't either. A deep cut. Never forget that part. It's a good movie. So one of the big challenges now that environmental psychology has taken on is this idea that they got to figure out how to make people want to take care of the planet more. Right. And they're figuring it out, but basically all they're doing is repurposing social psychology and its findings on consumerism and redirecting it toward more conservation minded stuff. Yeah, which is interesting. Like the finding. Like, some people like new things, so if you present something as new and novel and nobody's adopted it yet, some people say, oh, I want to try that. Right. Other people are more competitive, where if they find out Shelbyville is about to win a recycling award right. They're going to redouble their efforts so their town wins it. Or if the celebrity endorses this product. That's sort of an obvious one. Sure. Like, James Spader wears sustainably sourced suits that are made of recycled tires. Does he really? No. Okay. I read that, and I was like, Good for you, James Bigger. You're right. It made you want to wear a suit like that, didn't it? I wondered how you would make a rubber suit that was comfortable and fashionable. The fraudulents love it. But there's a big debate over whether that is really part of environmental psychology or if it's taking too big of a bite. And in the 90s, something called conservation psychology came along, and it wants to do the same exact thing. And there's also ecological psychology that wants to do the same thing. So there's a big leg wrestling match going on, and that guy Phillip Kotler that you referenced earlier, the guy who was like, how can we better sell things to people? He is now kind of going the way of environmental psychology with making things greener. Right, right. He slipped. Yeah. So even if they are trying to he turned into a dirty rat. Even if they are trying to nudge us into that behavior, it's tough to fault them for nudging people toward pro conservation behavior. Yeah. So that's environmental psychology, everybody. That's what we found out about it. If you want to find out more about it, just go start reading. You can spend years and years doing it. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. This is anonymous, but very interesting. Hey, guys, listen to four years of podcasts in a year's time. Today I saw boy, you got a lot of years to go anonymous. Today I saw the new post on Guardian Angels and begin to listen in about the 15 minutes. Mark Chuck says the guy gets a job at McDonald's in the Bronx and says the McDonald's late night scene in New York City is still nuts, but you're not getting murdered. But it is crazy town. I stopped immediately and replayed what you said because I couldn't believe it. My uncle was murdered last year at McDonald's in the Bronx. I couldn't believe it. Did you read this one? Yeah. The details are horrific and mostly sensationalized for the media, which, of course, makes me angry, but he's an amazing man and strong, loving force in my life. Could it be I'm just super sensitive to this week, given that this is a year from that. But imagine that, though. I know. Imagine being anonymous like this. What are the chances that you would even say that in the podcast would be published almost exactly a year later? I remember listening to a podcast we talked about when people see their numbers, like 1111 what's the name of that? Oh, yeah. That's where you see, like, something you learn about something, and then you see it everywhere. Right. That's what she's talking about. Yeah. Or when people use old gimmicks to find out what sex or baby will be. And it being because you're training yourself, allowing your subconscious through to make it seem like your number is appearing more often. Or that you got an answer. Thank you for always giving me something to think about besides my stressful job, guys. And I will see you in Brooklyn on the 24th. I'll be the one who's blacked out in the shadows with the modulated voice. No, she's pregnant. And then maybe we'll be able to say hi to Ms. Anonymous. Well, thanks a lot. Anonymous. I'm sorry about your uncle in this time of year. Yeah, it is very bizarre though that happened. We can attest for sure it was not planned. She emailed back. She's very excited that we're reading this. That's cool. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, like Anonymous did, you can go on to Stuff You Should Know.com and check out our social links. You can also send us an email to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topped series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
4156e0d8-53a3-11e8-bdec-cfd8dd0e3eaf	What's the deal with ASMR?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/whats-the-deal-with-asmr	ASMR is soothing to some, maddening to others. Learn all about these whisper tones in today's episode.	ASMR is soothing to some, maddening to others. Learn all about these whisper tones in today's episode.	Tue, 05 Mar 2019 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=64, tm_isdst=0)	44387761	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworkscom? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there eating God knows what for lunch. And this is stuff you should know. No. The Jerry's lunch edition about ASMR. That's the edition that everyone loves. It is abettz. Oh, yes. You're doing so good job. I'm sure zero people had an ASMR experience now. Well, I mean, I need to know. Do you get the tingles? No. I don't either. I don't even think I can put myself in that position where I'd be like, stop touching the camera. That's supposed to be my face. Not comfortable. I watched a bunch of these just to see you have to dive in head first. Sure. And really get a sense. And I had a hard time sitting there for too long. Even I might have the opposite effect right on me. Yes. There's a very good question that I wrote at the end. Why not be freaked out by this? Why do the exact opposite and enter a euphoric meditative state? It's a very bizarre, really interesting thing, and not bizarre in any kind of weird like, look at these weirdos, I want to poke them in the neck kind of thing. It's more like it's a genuinely legitimately bizarre, and if we can figure it out, it'll unlock a whole other corridor to the brain that we didn't really know existed. Yeah. So in True Stuff You Should Know fashion, a lot of you have no idea what we're talking about. ASMR stands for autonomous. Is that you say it. I went with autonomous. Autonomous. I think so. I think you're probably right. Autonomous sensory meridian response, which sounds very clinical. Yeah. And we'll get to that in a second. But I just said everybody I think everyone needs to know what it is. Yeah. And what it is is generally a video that you will watch online, although it really just sounds. But the way they present themselves these days are audio clips and video clips. And it's not just sounds. It's also closeness is a big part of it, too. Okay. But it's a response to sound that some people get and some people don't. A tingling sensation in the head moves down the neck. Some people call it like a tickle. Some people call it like a head orgasm or brain orgasm. Yeah. Like a tickle in your skull. Yeah. And that is triggered by hearing certain sounds, like whispering voices or seeing repetitive motions is another one, too. Yeah. But for my research, I found that it was mostly sound and that the visual component is just by virtue of the fact that a lot of these are on YouTube. So I got that from that, too. But I also saw that in one of these surveys, it said that slow movements accounted for triggering for 53% of the participants. So it may seem significant, but I get what you're saying. Like, it does seem like the sounds are far and away, like the crux of the whole thing. Yeah. And they're all different kinds of sounds. Like the best way to really it's hard to describe it, to really just go listen to R1 quick. It always includes a whispering, and I think that's my biggest turn off. A lot of the other sounds are fine and pleasing to me. They don't give me the tingle, but they're relaxing. But I don't like someone whispering in my ear. I don't like that. Well, that is I've determined that that is basically what you're going to get with ASMR videos, is somebody whispering in what seems like your year. Yeah, I have personal triggers for that from my childhood, I think. Pleasant ones, no, unpleasant ones, which is why I'd have an aversion to it now. So I might be an outline. Like, no, I don't want to talk about it, but I think I might be an outlier. I don't know. I definitely don't get the tingles. I don't give the tingles either, and I don't want to say, like, it's well, it's not a huge aversion to it, but I don't like it. I'm not big into it. How about that? When I was watching and that lady was whispering too much, I literally had to rip the earbuds out of my ears. Oh, wow. That's a real version. Yeah. But some of the sounds like the tinking of a glass or it's another one, stuff like that was okay. It was specifically the whispering. That doesn't jive with my ears. Understood. Yeah. So if you're still kind of sitting there going, huh. Put it another way, some sounds and possibly some sites actually trigger a really unusual sensation in people where they feel like, as one woman described it, kind of like sparkles or fireworks going off in your head on your scalp. The strongest one, and this is really significant, too, the strongest version of an ASMR experience will leave you feeling exhausted and pleasantly tired, satisfied, she said, like you just had some sort of climax of sorts. Right? Yeah. But we want to point out and we'll get into it more later, this is not for the vast majority of people who experience this, this is not sexual in any way. It's sensual, but it's not sexual. It's something entirely different. And it's also not what's called freeze on, which is getting the chills when you hear like an amazing piece of music or something really incredible is happening. It's called aesthetic chills, any kind of like, art that will give you the chill bumps. So it's not that. No. And it's not sexual. It's its own thing that we're just now starting to realize is its own thing. Yeah. And it's pretty new as far as people talking about it and trying to define it. Obviously, if this is a real thing that has been around forever, most likely, but no one ever knew. Maybe someone in the 17th century was like whenever they got whispered to, they got a head tingle. Sure. And maybe back then their response might have been to turn around and, like, bludgeon somebody with a you know, if it was you, if you have ASMR, thank you for that. Back then, they may not have wanted to relax. Like, this is making me feel relaxed. I must kill. I see. You got to stay on the edge. Like Al Pacino and heat. Sure, why not? That grouping of words is very recent. A woman named Jennifer Allen, she coined the term. She is the person that made up those words. Yeah. After about a decade of looking for other people who experienced ASMR what would come to be called ASMR, I guess not for the Internet, people would still be walking around absolutely. Either assuming that everybody experiences this and not talking about it or thinking that they were the only one and not talking about it. And were it not for Jennifer Allen, we still might not be talking about it. But she sought out some other people who are experiencing this because she recognized it as unusual. And she found a thread on a forum called Steady Health. And there were people talking about she said, hey, let's move this to Facebook. That's what people do these days because that's a nonjudgmental place where everybody can get along, so let's just create a Facebook page. So she did in 2010, and I think that year, the next year, came up with this term autonomous sensory meridian response. Sounds good. Totally made up. Yeah, completely made up. But every scientific term is made up at one point by somebody normally by scientists. Yeah. She is a cybersecurity expert. Yes. Which is fine. She did it to basically give it credence so that people could start talking about it without it being like just some weird fringey thing. She was trying to start a legitimate conversation. So it worked like a charm. It's a good name. I mean, that's what scientists call it now, right? They're like, Totally. All right. It's good enough. Yeah. She definitely secured her places in history. Is the person who coined the term autonomous sensory meridian response all right? I guess let's talk about it. It's a very personal experience for people. No two people will experience the same feeling or from the same triggers. I love this one guy from the BBC. They were talking about, how are we hearing about this now? And you're exactly right. It's because of the Internet. Even a very small percentage of the population that might experience something like this collected on a Facebook site or on YouTube seems all of a sudden like a lot of folks. And it is a lot of folks. Yeah, but not compared to the population at large. Right. So proportionately speaking, it seems to be just a very small proportion of people in general who experience ASMR. Like. I don't. You experienced anti ASMR. Apparently. Jerry you jerry ASMR. No, she did the head cut off thing, too. But there are people out there, I guarantee there are people out there listening right now who are like, I've heard of this, but I've never tried it. Who will go try it and find out that they actually do experience ASMR and will probably email us and be like, thank you so much for introducing me to that Jerry's reaction, though. Does it seem more like, don't bother me with this right now, unless, like, no, I have tried it and not experienced it? Yeah, please just keep podcasting. Right, guys? I mean, God knows what sign continue. So the writer of this article got it a little bit wrong here and that they said it's not something that just randomly happens in your daily life, these sounds. That is not true at all. They absolutely happen in everyday life, and that's how people know that they get this response, right? And then the ASM artists, the people on YouTube that actually perform, is that what you would say? Oh, yeah. They replicate these sounds that you do hear in everyday life that give you these triggers so you don't have to go to the barber and get a scalp massage every day. You can just go on to YouTube and get the same effect. Yeah. You may be in your break room and you hear someone tapping on a glass bottle, and all of a sudden your scalp maybe tingles goes down your neck, into your shoulders, down your spine, and you are met with a feeling of euphoric, meditation, and relief. And then everyone in the break room is like, jeez, Gary, you got a little drilling out of your mouth. Where did you go? Right? And then Gary can go home and just watch videos of Zoe Kravitz doing it in a Super Bowl commercial. So let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk about YouTube and how it's completely opened up the ASMR community. Okay, let's do it. All right, Chuck. So like we said, without the Internet, we might not have a name for this. We might not be talking about it right now. And definitely well, we wouldn't even have a podcast for sure. That's true. We'd be out on the street corner being like, Here, read this. Without YouTube, though, ASMR would not be anywhere like, where it is right now, for sure, because it allows anybody to make an ASMR video. And honestly, anybody with decent type mics and a mind to do it can make ASMR videos. And they have I saw somewhere that there's something like 17 million ASMR videos on YouTube right now. Yeah, but I mean, I would disagree, though. There is some skill involved, right? Like, if I went to go make one, it would be terrible and not elicit any tingles. I didn't mean to diminish the skill involved. I meant to say, like, because YouTube democratizing entry to performance to people you've never even met. I got you. That's opened the door for ASMR. Yeah. Anyone with a skill for doing so can do yeah. Or a desire to. Yeah. But it does take skill. I think so, yeah. You can't just be like you can't just shout all of a sudden or like, lunge at people at the camera. What are you wearing? No, that's not ASMR. Like maybe, like, sharpening a knife on a stone while you're staring into the camera. That would probably not help. No, that's a different YouTube channel. Right? It is, but I'll bet it's out there. And it's not just YouTube, obviously. If you go to any of the audio, they're probably ASMR podcasts. I'm sure there are a ton of them, but SoundCloud and all these other places to aggregate sound files, there are tens of thousands of them. Yes. And they are extraordinarily varied in what they are. What you're going to see, what you're going to hear. I saw one that was pretty great. It was a woman eating Taco Bell. No talking. Just strictly eating. Taco Bell. But it was cute. She comes along and she's like and makes this face like, oh, a table full of Taco Bell. And this starts proceeding to unwrap it and eat it. And then the real kicker, and this is what made it Asmre. As heck, her throat was miked, so not only did you hear the crunch of the taco, you heard the chewing like there was a mic in her mouth and then you heard the gulping from the swallow. Every bite. That's a weird ASMR video, though. Usually they're not like that. This was ASMR because there is another what's the disorder? But what's the condition? People can mesophonia. Yeah. Like that's a phonia nightmare off a mesophoniac. Yeah. Not for them, because usually it's some sort of a soothing sound, not the gullet washing down cheap beef, but no, I've seen rainforest fed beef. I've seen other ones where it's like it was a girl drinking, like, from a half gallon bottle of water with a lav mic up against her throat and it was just gold like that. Is a thing on ASMR. No, but it might be a niche on YouTube. Does that mean with the real ASMR? I guess you could call them experts. Would they say? Yeah, that's ASMR. Or would they say, no, that's someone that just threw that tag up there? That has nothing to do with I think what they would say is, from what we understand about ASMR now, who knows? That is probably something that could trigger an ASMR experience in somebody ergo it's ASMR. It's that wide and varied, which will get to an explanation for that at the end, the big reveal. Okay. But if you go on to YouTube, there's a bunch of different variety to it. There's also some through lines that you're going to see or hear in just about any ASMR video, though. Yeah. Whispers like we've talked about binaural recording, which is that's the one part of it I do like. I enjoy Binaural recordings and being able to hear. And they always recommend headphones. Oh, yes, better. The best headphones you can afford. Yeah, but to hear, I mean, it's why I love the Beatles so much. Like to hear sound going from left to right is pleasing to me. Hearing a good slide whistle go all the way through your skull, fingers tapping crisp sounds. That's a big one. Yeah. Like scissors. Yeah. There's a lot of barbershop stuff. This one lady I watched was doing this thing, right, and she would do it in the left and then the right, and I just wanted to throw my computer out the window. Yeah, because that's another thing, too. Like very frequently it's just a person typically a woman also typically wearing like a low cut shirt. Yeah, we'll get into that too. Okay. And the mics and they're not trying to hide that she's playing with the mic, like maybe like tapping it or doing what you were just doing into it or rubbing it or something like that. Creating sounds or talking into it. Soothing whispering words of affirmation, calming words. That part makes a little more sense to me. But the point is that it's a Binaural recording, so it's like 3D stereo. So it sounds like you're right there, like it's being spoken right into your ear. And there'll some very frequently be a mike for each ear and she will go or he there are some guy ASMR channels sure go from mike to mike and ear to ear. So it's pretty interesting to watch because it's like you get to see how the sausage is made. Yeah. Which is unusual. You'd think it would just be just podcasting sound, but I think from what I understand, that's part of it seeing like, the fingers move, like that kind of tapping in a certain way is kind of meditative and relaxing. Well. As I mentioned before the break. Zoe Kravitz. It was a very big deal with Super Bowl commercial. Put it on the map more than ever before. Because all of a sudden. I don't know however many hundred or million people watch the Super Bowl. But a lot of people that have no idea what this is were exposed to it for the first time with Zoe Kravitz at a desk on a mountaintop. Tapping on a beer bottle and pouring a beer and speaking into the left and right mics. And I think the reaction by a lot of folks that know what the deal is, is like, oh, interesting, they put ASMR on the Super Bowl or the big game and then 90% of the people were like, what in the heck is that girl doing? I wonder if anyone was triggered by it. Well, I assume so. There are probably a lot of dudes in their recliners that were like, I don't know what's happening. Right. It's kind of like finding out you get seizures by watching that one episode of Pokemon. Right. It's a good time to realize that. There's a couple of other things you'll find too, especially, like, role playing. You'll see role playing a lot in these videos. Well, the one lady I saw looked like she was sort of performing as a nurse might. So I don't know if that counts as role playing. Was that Maria from Gentle whispering? Maybe. They kind of all ran together for me. So she is the most popular ASMR artist or ASMR artist around, I think she has 1.6 million subscribers. That's great. Good for her. And she does a lot of role playing where she will pretend and it's not just her. There are others that do this too. But rather than just sitting there messing with a mic or something, she's got like a whole little set where it looks like you are getting an eye exam in an optometrist's office. Yeah. But the optometrist is whispering to you the whole time and is telling you how great you're doing at this high exam. You're doing so good. So strange to me. Let's see how they fit. And here's another thing about role playing too. Is it's meant to be POV. So the camera is your eyes. So the ASMR will be messing, like, around the camera, like, putting the glasses like they're putting them on you. So they're whispering and they're touching you lightly and they're speaking words of, like, encouragement and affirmation to you. And this supposedly is, like, the big one. This is the ones that make it feel like it's fireworks and make people feel, like, satisfied afterward from this wave of euphoria wash over them. See, I see that and listen to it and I think I'm running out of that optometrist office as fast as my little legs can carry. That's the hilarious thing. Like, if you step back and imagine, like, an actual real world experience like this, you'd be like, Is there something wrong with you? Yeah, it's like, Why are you whispering, dude? But apparently, if you experience ASMR, that would be your dream. Like, oh, my God. Whisper and tell me how good these glasses look on me while they're just kind of messing with my sideburns a little bit. So interesting. It is very interesting. It is all generally intended to relax someone and introduce what's known as a state of flow, which is you've heard about artists and musicians and later on yeah, sure. Athletes getting in that state of flow where it's almost like it's really just LeBron. Kind of like a runner's high, maybe. Yeah. Or if you're creative, things are just you've opened yourself up and you're channeling creative energy. The cross hatching is just coming right out of your pencil. And I'm not making fun of that. I've gotten into states of flow, for sure. Kind of. It'd be so neat to be able to just trigger that or bring it on, like automatically without thinking. Well, I think that's why a lot of artists, like, they try to get that through drugs and alcohol. Yeah, but that's a blind alley, friends. Yeah, it is. I get you through for a little while, but head in the street and really it's not going to bring on the flow. It's going to mislead you because you'll think you're in the zone playing amazingly and all anybody's hearing is like and you're not supposed to be playing like that, so stay off the drugs. I guess we should talk a little bit more about the when you said they might be wearing low cut shirts and the whole sex thing. Well, a lot of people see that and see the whispering and the touching and they're like, oh, well, this is porn of some sort, obviously. Yeah. I watched a few of the videos and again, it's not like anyone like you said, anyone can put something up there. So I'm sure there are some ASM artists that maybe to get more views might try and be more sexually tantalizing, but there are all kinds of videos out there and all kinds of people watching them. Some people may not feel anything sexual at all, and it's only central. Some people may masturbate to an ASMR video. Apparently 5% of them do. Well, I guess so. But for the vast majority of them, the vast majority of people who experience ASMR, they say, no, it's not for sex, has nothing to do with sex. It's something totally different and it's just not sexual, it's intimate. There's no getting around that. Yeah, that's a huge part of the whole experience, is that it's super intimate and that may be what triggers the whole thing, is that a threshold of intimacy is met and then crossed and then there goes your fireworks in your skull. Right. I wonder how this affects a relationship, though. Like, I don't know if someone came home and their husband had an ongoing every day thing with this woman on YouTube where she was stroking the camera lens and whispering in his ear, right. I don't know. I could see someone turning to their spouse or loved one and being like, hey, that's not too cool. Yeah, you want someone to whisper in your I'll do it. I'm supposed to do the whispering. Maybe I could see it causing problems. I would guess it would have this fall along the same lines of, like, whatever problems pornography would cause, maybe even not because it is intimate. I could see somebody being like, I'm okay with the porn, but not the POV intimacy of the ASMR. I don't know what kind of things I could see it causing problems here and there. I mean, I didn't even see that raised in any article I read. I was just kind of curious. You just raised it. Yeah. But for the most part, I guess, what we're trying to say is, if you're an outsider looking in and you think this is just porn or some sort of weird sexual fetish thing, that's not the case for almost all people who are watching these videos. It's not what it is. Yeah. Those are the same people who think, like, every massage is that kind of massage, right? Well, no, massage is to relax your body, to heal your body. I think also, one of the reasons why there is great misunderstanding is because of the use of terms like brain orgasm or some people call it whisper porn. And so people are just kind of misunderstanding the lingo a little bit. That doesn't automatically mean sex. It's Internet lingo. Well, yeah. And there are all kinds of either articles or YouTube collections where it's like, Top Five Hottest ASMR chicks. Right. That certainly doesn't help their case. Also, the other thing is a lot of the comments will be like, oh, yeah, it's YouTube super. Yeah, exactly. But it's possible and even likely that these aren't actually people experiencing ASMR. They're just going through YouTube looking for videos of women with low cut shirts looking into the camera. Yeah. And it's YouTube, and they objectify women in every way possible because you can post a video of a talented young woman playing the violin. Right. And half the comments will be about her appearance. YouTube does have a reputation for that and rightly earned. Should we take another break? Let's take another break, ma'am. All right, Chuck. Should we talk about science? Yeah, let's do a little science talk. There's not much on it. No. The first actual peer reviewed study of ASMR was published as recently as 2015 from Swansea University or Swansea. Do you know how to say that? I don't know. I've always said Swansea, but I just realized I could be wrong. Where is that? I believe it's in the UK. Okay. So let's just say Dorchester. Sure. They did a couple of researchers, Bart and Davis, did a survey of ASMR experiencers and just tried to at least do the most basic foundational groundwork of describing where they're at. Right. And they did a pretty good job, too. You see, this referenced a lot, not a lot of criticisms of it, but they found, I think, like a few hundred. I can't find the number right now, but it was a decent population size of people who experience ASMR, and they said, well, why do you do this? What do you get out of this? Is probably the question they asked first, and then, what's your problem? What triggers this? Right. Yeah. And they found that 98% of people who watch ASMR videos seek out these experiences on YouTube do it for relaxation. That's almost everybody. Yeah. Which says a lot, because, again, when you think of this from an outsider's view, you're like, oh, it's arousing. It's titillating. It puts you on edge. Like when you hear a music crescendo or something like that. Apparently it doesn't do that. It gives you tingles. But it also is meditative and relaxing, which is I've never experienced anything like that. You know what I mean? So it's really its own thing. So it's very relaxing afterwards. What are you doing during massage? Do you relax? I don't get massages at all. I'm too high strung for that. Okay. I don't get them much at all, either, and I find that I can generally kind of go there and just, like, super relaxed. But there's always a bit of shame and embarrassment for me, which is just dumb. Yeah. Hold over stuff from my churchy upbringing. Sure. But you can't even go there. I don't even open the door. They're like, sir, the heavy wire cable running down your spine is pretty much I can't seem to tweak it. Yeah, but what was the point of that question? Well, I was just kind of curious because hearing how you feel about ASMR, I was just wondering if you have trouble with any kind of relaxing experience. I have trouble with all of the relaxing experiences. All right. Yeah. I'm a little high strung. Oh, no. I know that. You wanted me to admit it on Mike. No, I wondered if there was anything if you were like, yeah, but I do like a good foot massage. Those are nice. Like, trip your feet. Okay. There you go. I am in for those. But every once in a while you'll get one, and it's the real deal, where they dig in to the arch of your foot and their thumb basically goes up to your knee. It feels like and it hurts, and it's like a suffering kind of hurt, like your fingernail being bent back. Like, bad hurt. Yeah. And so I haven't been back since. Okay. So, yeah, no, I don't relax, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Hot tubs. They're kind of Germany, really, so no. What about just floating in a pool? Have you ever been in a relaxation tank? No. That's what I was wondering. I've done that a couple of times. I can see that being really neat because it's dark and it's private. There was one experience, I guess I've done it twice. Both times, you just completely lose track of time. Yeah. I want to do this. It's really neat. Chuck and the first time, I lost sensation in my body down to my central nervous system. So in the water, all I could feel floating was my brain, my spinal cord wow. And some of the major peripheral nerves coming off of my spinal cord. That was all of my body that I could feel at that point. Everything else had just melted into the water and into the darkness. Because the darkness is complete. There's no light, not even a chance for light to come in. It. Just doesn't exist there. And the sounds are just you're just in your own world. It's amazing. Yeah. See there? Yeah. All right. I guess I need to get one of those at the house. Buy one? Sure. Just take out a HELOC and throw down some money. Right. How much are those, do you know? Probably a few thousand dollars. Probably. I was thinking over ten. A million dollars? It might as well be. So let's get back to the study. That's a long side track. So 98% for relaxation, 82% to help them sleep, 70% to deal with stress. So you see a through line here. And then they looked at the most common triggers. Analysis of responses found four prominent categories. Experience each one by over 50%. Right. So whispering at 75%, personal attention at 69. That's a big deal, it seems like. Yeah. And we'll get to that in a second because there are a lot of people that think that has a lot to do with this. People that may not get the kind of intimacy and attention they need. Like there's a separate track of people. Yeah. What else? Crisp sounds. Have you ever had a coffee crisp candy bar? I don't think so. Oh, man. Good. Yes. They have them in Canada. I think you can get them at World Market. Okay. Get one. I'm going to get you one. You're going to love it. All right. Okay. I like coffee stuff. You're going to love it. Chuck and then slow movement. So that would be a visual queue. 53%, like folding towels. Repetitive stuff. That's so funny to me. Yeah. I like repetitive things because I love those. I've talked a lot about how it's made shows and show the repetitive industrial processes. I think that's like an ASMR show. All right, maybe. But I don't get the tingle. It just relaxes me. Right. And some people do. There's a lot of people who report feeling relaxed from ASMR videos, even though they don't have the full experience, where they get like, the brain orgasm or anything like that. Right. But it still is potentially relaxing. And part of it is because they're designed to be relaxing. The whispering, the gentle movements, like all of that stuff. It's designed to relax you. Yeah. I found another study from the University of Sheffield that's the worst, for sure. Yeah. They got people that were verified ASMR experiencers and then people that were not. They did a bunch of studies mainly about their heart rate, and they found that people who did experience ASMR, they did have a reduced heartbeat by about 3.2 beats per minute. But then they said it was no more than other stress reduction techniques like mindfulness or music. I could see that. Yeah. I mean, they're still getting the experience of being relaxed out of it without listening to music or being mindful or anything like that. Right, so great. But it still doesn't explain the brain orgasm. Right. If that's not cool to call it that anymore, I apologize, everybody. Some people might have thought early on that it might be comorbid, I guess, with synesthesia, which we've talked about. But then they found that that's probably not the case. Well, I saw that they think it's because people in these surveys don't report synesthesia anywhere beyond the normal amount that you'd expect to find in a population that size. Right. But they think it's still possible. It's a different type of synesthesia, really, rather than the kind where you taste colors or hear numbers. They think this is sound, emotion, synesthesia, possibly. So the sound makes you feel an emotion. In this case, it's still a little weak. One guy named he's a neurologist at Yale, Steven Novella, back in 2012, he suggested that maybe it was little seizures or not little Caesars, which, by the way, they're pretzel crust pieces back, everybody. Or it's just a way of activating. The pleasure response seems to be more than that. And also the fact that it only works with some people also makes the whole thing pretty remarkable, too. So, of course, because this is clearly happening in the brain, they stuck people in the wonder machine. Press Start and look to see what happened. Yes. And this one was interesting because one of the big findings, you know, you're starting out with a new sort of scientific study when your big first finding from an fMRI machine is, well, people can experience it while in this machine. Right. Like, it's not so distracting. This machine isn't so distracting. That messes up their experience entirely. Well, that's funny. That's the second one. The first study didn't even try. They're like. Well, you can experience ASMR let's just have a look at your brain without even yeah, because they're like, this will be too distracting. So that second study was kind of in a way that's the level that they're at now is they're like, just here's this finding. Like you can find almost literally anything new. And it's a contribution to the field at this point. The science on it is so incomplete now. Yeah. The other finding they found was that the brain region similar to those we talked about. What is it? Friesaw. Freeze. Freeze. Is it French? I don't know. It doesn't look French. It looks made up. French. I know. I wanted to say frozen. So did I. I'm a dummy. No, I did too, but I went extra mile. Press the little microphone speaker thing on Google and it went free. Song so the brain regions similar to those activated during Freeson were also activated with ASMR. But ASMR triggered activity in the prefrontal cortex during freezing is suppressed. I didn't see that. Was suppressed in Freeson. Really? Yeah. So is this bogus? I think the prefrontal cortex thing being suppressed as bogus, but they're not the same thing. I think that was the point of that study, is they're like, this isn't the same thing. Got you. It's similar, but it's not the same thing. All right. And the Free Song explanation I saw we know a lot more about Free San because we've known about it longer. But it activates a bunch of different parts of your reward pathways that are involved in assessing the rewards and stuff like that. And releasing dopamine. Right. It also activates the electroconductivity in your skin, which accounts for the chills. Sure. But the explanation for Free Song that I saw is that your brain's pattern recognition is interrupted. Like it's predicting what's coming next and then all of a sudden the music crescendos or it changes tempo or some big emotion happens and your brain wasn't expecting it. That's the opposite of ASMR, almost. Pretty much. And then the other part of it is that you are empathetically connecting with the musician or the filmmaker, whoever, who encapsulated the emotion that you're interacting with through the movie or the music or whatever. Yeah. This seems really different because this seems to be almost unemotional in a lot of ways and super repetitive. Not like there is no crescendo. I think the whole point is that sort of low drone, a repetitive thing. Right. Like with Free Song, it's like Jennifer Gray running up and being picked up by Patrick Swazey in that part. In Dirty dancing. That's just on. Yeah. Whereas ASMR is just being knocked over with a feather. I think that's the difference. One of the ASMRs was. Her name was Heather Feather. Oh, that's a great name. Yeah. I don't think it's her given name. That would be a good maybe. So when she was born to do it, maybe her parents couldn't have cared less how she was going to turn out. So the final thing they did find out from the fMRI study that was pretty interesting. I don't want to make it seem like I was making fun of it, but they did find a strong connection there from the study. Similar brain regions being activated as during close personal bonding experiences with mammalian grooming behavior. This, to me, is the explanation. Yes. It all goes back to that childhood. Soothing, like soothing the baby. Right. That seems to be the explanation for it. That people have figured out a way to mimic affiliative behaviors that we are innately wired to respond to and that in some people it can be triggered just by video and sound. Yeah. I mean, we have played Brown Noise in my daughter's room since she was born. And they say that because noises like that make them feel like they're in the womb still and it can be comforting and relaxing and we've always done it. We use a sound machine in our room. Right. It's usually waves or Brown Noise, like one of those two things. I like a nice creek every now and then, a rainstorm, a guitar. But these are called affiliated behaviors and that is very important when in infancy, in young adulthood or any point? Well, yeah, it helps you form those bonds, which obviously when you're a baby are going to be happening all over the place. Yeah. So they think that somehow these videos through the calmness, the whisperingness, but also the intimacy of it and the appearance that you're being touched lightly and you're being kind of cooled at and affirmative words and encouragement and all that stuff, that it's triggering that reaction right in the brain. And that is what ASMR is. It's an extreme reaction to a mimicked affiliate behavior. Yeah. And when I read that, it sort of clicked. And then I wanted to see more studies on like different from a more varied types of people that are categorized. I would like to see people take these tests that were not nurtured as children, maybe. And maybe that means they would have a really strong response to ASMR or maybe not at all. Right. That's the thing. Why just a segment of the population does this work in? Right? That's a big arrow pointing at we need further research here. It does exist, we've established that. But why wouldn't it exist for everybody? And then why does it exist in the people who it does exist in? And then also, why are some people just completely turned off by it to the point where you just want to pull your earbuds out and maybe also pull off your ears for good measure? And then why some people might be thinking why even put a lot of work into studying this? It's because it could be like a good therapy for some people. It could be therapy for anxiety, PTSD, anxiety, depression. Well, that's the thing. A lot of people self report overcoming insomnia. Sure. Chronic pain, depression, anxiety. Like you said, it literally alters their mood. Yeah. Not like, oh, that was kind of neat. Like, oh, I don't feel anywhere near as depressed any longer, or I'm not anxious anymore. And so say what you will about it. If it's doing that for even one person, keep it up. But if it's doing that for a whole segment of people, well, that's great. Let's figure that out and then we can figure out a way to hijack it and use it to treat other people. Yeah, I think part of my aversion too, besides the whispering, was I felt kind of silly sitting in the office. Yeah, I think it's supposed to be more private than that, probably. So maybe I'll give it a shot later in a dark room. There you go. If you want to know more about ASMR friends, go out on the Internet right in ASMR to the search bar of your favorite search engine and it will introduce you to a brand new world. And since I said that, it's time for this new mail. All right, I'm going to call this tahoe. Tessie. Oh, yeah. Hey guys. I was listening to a Loch ness Monster episode and was reminded a lot of Lake Tahoe. Thought you'd be interested in some of the similarities. I grew up in the Carson Valley area in Nevada. Yeah. Right next to Tahoe. Tahoe actually has its own legend. Tahoe Tessie. Really original, guys. There used to be a museum, but it closed now. And Tessie isn't much more than a silly little local legend. Surprise, surprise. It brought in $13 in tourist income last year. I think the lake itself is more interesting, though. Chuck shuddered at the thought of a 900 foot deep lake. The deepest parts of Tahoe, though, are over 1600ft deep. I've heard about this. Are you crazy? I can't wait to fill in the blanks that this guy leaves open. The lake in the Sierra Nevada sits at 6225ft in elevation, while the elevation of my hometown is 47 24. Wow. That means that the lake has spots that are 145ft deeper than the valley next to it. Wow. Thanks for all you guys do. I've seen you the past three years in a row in Seattle. I always have a great time. Awesome. Yeah. That is from Evan Hughes. Thanks, Evan, for making that trip, my friend. Yeah, we'll see you next year. We love going to Seattle every January. Be there. Keep it up. Right? So if this is the same lake that I'm thinking of, and I believe it is, it is also very cold. So if you die in this lake, it can preserve you for a long time. So much so that they found a diver who had been missing for twelve years who drowned in that lake. Twelve years later, they were still able to give him an autopsy and determine his cause of death because the lake had preserved them that much. And there's rumors that there's like, old gangsters from the 30s who are still wearing their clothes and cement shoes at the bottom of the lake. Railroad workers from China who had died in the lake are still preserved in there. This is a local legend, but that divers documented. They definitely were able to give them an autopsy after twelve years underwater. That's how cold and oxygen depleted it is because of the depth they said, it turns out he drowned, right? Yeah, that's it. Awesome. Tahoe. We should do a show in that Lake Tahoe. Let's do it. Or at Lake Tahoe. Okay. In Lake Tahoe. I don't know. I've thought about doing random shows at, like, weird places. Okay, that'd be fun. Thanks a lot, Evan. If you want to get in touch with us, please do. Go onto the Internet and search STUFFYou know.com, check out our social links. And you can also send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housedupworks.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music. That's so good. It's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only. Amazon Music download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sysk-knights.mp3	How Knights Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-knights-work	In medieval times, knights were warriors with specialized skills, extensive training and their own code. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the rise and fall of medieval knights and finish up with a look at the modern institution of knighthood.	In medieval times, knights were warriors with specialized skills, extensive training and their own code. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the rise and fall of medieval knights and finish up with a look at the modern institution of knighthood.	Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:52:01 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=7, tm_hour=20, tm_min=52, tm_sec=1, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=280, tm_isdst=0)	46250329	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, my Favorite Murder from exactly right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilguera and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today sharks. The most famous and majestic apex predators on earth. Introducing Shark Week. The podcast. I'm Luke Tipple, the marine biologist and shark expert with over 20 years experience in the field. I'm going to take you on a dive with me. You are going to learn a lot about sharks, and you'll also hear exclusive interviews with the stars of Shark Week. To get a behind the scenes look. Listen to Shark Week, the podcast on Apple Podcasts spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Charles W. Chuck Bryan is rubbing his hair out across from me that makes this Stuff You Should Know, featuring Chuck rubbing his hair. I thought he said rubbing his hair out. How do you do that? What does that mean? It was removing the blade against your skull, and now it's standing. Okay, sure. Our colloquialism causes problems sometimes. Every now and then, yes. You're all right? Yeah, I'm good. You've done vomiting? Yeah. 24 hours, dude. To the minute, almost. I'm glad this table keeps us as far apart as I couldn't. I don't think I could. Projectile over here. Oh, I thought you meant to get you sick. You mean vomit on you both? I'm kind of afraid of both. Neither one will happen. I'm good. So, Chuck, I'm glad you're good. Thank you. I was looking all over for something to lead in with this. I considered talking about the Paladin class character I created when I played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. Okay. I don't remember his name, so it's kind of stupid, right? I search news for Nights, and I found that in Crestview, Florida, the Night Overpowered, the hobos and volleyball. Oh, really? Yeah, but it's made for a pretty good title. Nights Overpower Hobos. Sure. And that was about it. That's the best I got. There's nothing going on with Nights, really, these days. Except the occasional CBS News article about somebody getting an honorary title. Yes. Some musician or actor, I guess. There's other people, but they get all the press. Yeah, definitely. So there's not a lot going on with Nights, but I can tell you something. If this were the 13th or 14th century we wouldn't be recording a podcast. No. But there would be news about Nights all over the place, everywhere in Wood. Yes. So let's go back to this. Let's talk about Nights. What happened to them? Where did they go? Where did they come from? What do they do in between? Let's get to the meat of this, shall we? Yeah, sure. Take it, Chuck. Oh, Josh. I'm going to go ahead and start with what was going on back then after the fall of the Roman Empire. So chronologically, it is eh we'll start at the beginning. Okay. As far as Nights are concerned, we're talking about Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. It was sort of sort of a lawless mess with chaos of an area. No defined countries, no defined governments, no laws that anyone was abiding by. Right. But awful people were still managing an existence. It was just often threatened by violence. Yeah. Like, if I see something that I want, I will take it by force. Including your dog. These are the good old days. Or that keg of beer. Right. And because of this, it was a little bit hard to control. So if you were, let's say, Charlemagne, and you had a lot of this land, you might want to do something. You might want to impose some sort of restriction or a body to kind of rule or take care of things. Perhaps a geopolitical system. Yeah. Without it being a government. Well, it was a government. It's a form of government. It's also a form of economics, too. Feudalism, right? Yeah, feudalism. Right. So Charlemagism or Charlemagne, sort of charlotte, that was the original name, right. And then he's like, oh, that's just too vain. Let's call it charlemagne was a Frankish king, right? Yeah. And he had just a bunch of land, I guess, that he conquered. Or he just said, hey, this is mine. This land is my land, not, this land is your land. Right, exactly. And since he lacked the central government, he said, hey, you're a buddy of mine, you're an ally, I trust you. Your dad and I fought in the war together. Here's some land, it's yours, but you owe me big time for that land. Oh, yes. And this is the basis of feudalism. One person doles outland the king, the ruler doles outland to the secondary ruling class, nobility. And that's their land. And in return, they pay for the land through military service, generally. Protection, basically. And then one rung down below. Nobility is the surf or peasant class, and they're attached to the land. They're essentially slaves. Yeah, they got the short end of the stick. They definitely did. So they pay for their land that the nobility is doled out to them. So it's subdivided even further by giving the noblemen that they serve, or vassal, I believe they're also called food or crops or goods. Right? Yeah. So that's how they paid for their land, but they didn't have much of a choice. No, right. And the feudalism worked because Charlemagne, he's able to keep all of this land by giving it to his friends, the feast. Yeah, that's the land right. Who are going to protect it against foreign invaders because it's theirs. But really it's Charlie as well. Yeah. And then the vassals, the knights, they wanted to protect the surface because the knights made most of their dough, from what I could see, by their land ownership and farming. And we'll get into the other way. They made money too, but they wanted to protect their dudes so they could prosper. Well, not only that, a knight could make money by serving in the stead or the service of the noble person that is paying them, because you paid for your land through military service, either directly by yourself or by paying somebody else to do it for you or by producing land. And the feudal system did away with the middle class and common, the commons common land. It just did away with it because Charlotte Ma'am is like, this is mine, right? And you work for me now, and it's sort of yours, but it's really kind of mine. But in return, there was that social contract which led to basically trading freedom for protection, which is the basis of government today. Think about it. So the knights were born out of that, right, Chuck? Yes, sir, pretty much. Well, what it did to us with feudalism in a time of chaos, it gave you a path, like a career path, almost in a way that you could advance in life if you wanted to. Yeah, because part of feudalism was the land grant was bestowed, it was passed down through the family line and they just decided to do that. There was never any part of feudalism where it's like, well, we're going to set it up like this kind of evolved so a landowner could pass it to his oldest son, but he may have more than one son, and the other son is like, I want to be rich too, so I'm going to go become a knight. Yes, exactly right. And knights were not you weren't born into knighthood, you were born into being ultimately a page, and then later on, a squire. But you had to earn your knighthood for sure, right? Yeah. If your dad was a night, you are automatically a page. But poor people could also conceivably become pages themselves, right? Yes, apparently. I didn't even see a night's tale. You didn't now, did you? It was just weird. Anachronism well, yeah, because it was weird. But it was a pretty cool movie. Paul. Betty was in it. I like that guy. Some other guy who you'd recognize who was Steve the Pirate in Dodgeball. Yes, I know that guy. He was in it. And then this other dude. And then that's another guy. Yeah. And that girl rip HeathLedger by the way. Oh, yeah. Really? That's a big one. So, like we said, you're automatically a page. And basically up until the age of about seven, you were just sort of doted on by the women at the castle, taken care of. Your cheeks were pinched. Exactly. And then when you became seven, they moved you to another house with another lord and you were all of a sudden a page and you were taught how to hunt and sort of the beginnings of being taught how to fight. You were schooled by the monks and schooled, as in reading and writing, not they schooled you. Right. Although they may have done that, too. Sure. And that's basically where they got their start in this whole quest to become a knight. Yeah. And you were saying that at about age seven, you were conscripted or given to another house, and usually it was a friend of the family or a relative who was a knight. Yes, sure. And that was about age seven. So that's where the word knight comes from. It's an old Anglosaxon word. Nicked. I believe for boy. Yes. I didn't know how to pronounce it. There's a lot of letters in there that aren't it's being said C-N-I-H-T. Knit. Yes. Weird. Knit. That's chaucer. Sure. And also, Chuck, I found out in researching this article that the German word for night is Ritter, which is literally rider. So the name of the TV show Night Rider was redundant. Interesting. Rider. Rider, yeah. Or Sunday Night. And the Germans love hasselhoff it all. Makes sense. Oh, wow. That's crazy. All right. So after age seven, the kids became a page, and basically the page was the little gopher for the night's house. Right. In addition to being trained, he also just basically did whatever he was supposed to do. And then around the time he turned 14, he was eligible to become an esquire or squire, and his responsibilities and training became much more specific. Right. Yeah. I mean, you were really a house boy at this point. There was a lot of work that went into like, 14 years of work or I get the feeling from page to square was a little more learning. Right. But then from square to night was when the rubber meets the road. Yes. And it was time to get serious. That was not rubber or roads, but you know what I mean. There were trails. Trails. That's where the hoof met the trail. So they became a squire at 14 and they had a little ceremony, a religious ceremony, where you get your sword, which is pretty big deal at the time, I'm sure. And you basically become a house boy. Each squire had a different job specific to the castle. Can you guess which squire I would have wanted to be? Well, here, let's go through them and let's see if maybe I wish we could do instant voting, but stay in your head people out there listening. What you think Josh would have been? You have a squire of the body, and that was the personal servant, I get the feeling. They were probably the most trusted squire of the chamber, and they attended to the rooms. That was sort of like, I guess, the maid. That's the worst square. The housekeeper, the carving square or table squire, carved the meat at the banquet tables, which at catering companies nowadays, like, the most stoned dude is the table squire. Also known as the protector of the roast beef. Yes, protector of the roast beef. The squire of the wines manage the wine cellar. That'd be a good gig. Square of the pantry took care of the food and make sure the pantry was stocked with canned goods and peanut butter and all that good stuff at nights. Love to eat. Yes. Square of the arms, of course. Maintain the armament and swords and all that kind of stuff. And the square of honor assisted the lord and ceremonies and feasts. Right. Which one are you? I think that anybody who's listening to us more than once or twice could tell you I would like to be the squire of the wine. Square of the wine. I'd probably be the square of the pantry because I'm into cooking and stuff, like you and I would be like, hey, man, I'll slide you one of these. If you decide, give me a bottle of that wine, I'll give you some roast beef. Or maybe I'd be the carving dude that's cool. At the carving station. Or if they had an omelette station, I'd like to do that. Nice chuck. So from hanging out at these feasts and carving the roast beef and making the omelets and tending the wine, the squire was also being indoctrinated into a higher lifestyle. Learn how to carry himself in situations like feasts and festivals and all this stuff. Right. They learned how to be really awful and drink too much to excess and pillage, basically. Pretty much. It wasn't as lofty as it seems, I would imagine. No, it's been nighthood, I guess we should probably say has been romanticized almost entirely through literature that big time actually originated in the 13th century, I believe. Oh, really? While this is going on, they started to romanticize. Sure. Kind of like Billy the Kid stories that were read by youngsters back east in the 19th century in the little serial books. Sure. All right. So what you're doing is you're learning all these things, like you said, learning how to be a bad person. Actually, that's not true. You don't want to offend the nights. You don't want to offend the night. Elton John will have your head. But they also learned they started to do a little bit more training in the martial arts of nightdom, like how to handle and ride horses. How to strike someone over the head. With a heavy hammer. Yeah, with a heavy hammer. They started wearing the chainmail to get used to walking around and that kind of stuff and all the weight. And I looked this up. Chuck chain mail and plate mail weighed about the same 40 to \u00a350, which seems like a lot, but it's about half of what the average foot soldier in the US army today carries. Really? An average rifleman carries about \u00a391 of gear. Yeah. But did the knights carry stuff in addition to just no, they tournament. They had squires. Another duty of the squire was when the night went into battle or tournament. Right. But in battle specifically, he went with them, and if the night fell, he was expected to basically aid and protect the night as he got up. Yeah. And actually, since he mentioned that, we should go and point out that you could become an instant night on the battlefield, and I get the impression that if you saved your night's bacon, you might have a good chance of just being united right there on the battlefield. Right. A knight was bestowed with the ability to invest knighthood into a squire under circumstances like that. But for the most part, they followed a process, right. Where once you turned about 21, if you'd proven yourself a decent squire, if you weren't just completely fat from being a squire of the pantry, you liver given out from being the squire of the wine. Right. You could become a night. Right. And usually this took place during an event like a larger event, like the Christmas or Easter feast or wedding. Yeah. Nobleman's wedding or festival or something like that. Yeah. And you could be bestowed knighthood by other knights, kings, nobles, clergy. And I get the impression that the most favorite way, if your father was a knight, he might do the double tap. Sure. Not the double tap of the SWAT teams and the Delta Force, but the sword on either side of the head, tap on the shoulder. So the squire would sit up for a night praying. Right. And when he was finally knighted, he would take an oath that usually included several points. Right. Yeah. Defending a lady, that's a big one. Speaking only the truth, being loyal to his lord, that's a huge part of the feudal system. Yes. Being devoted to the church, that came to be a huge part of being a knight. Yes. With the Crusades. Yeah. Defending the poor, being charitable, defending the helpless, being brave. And then getting into more specific rules, too. Right. These crack me up a little bit. Like fighting only one person at a time. Yeah. Never avoiding a dangerous path out of fear. See, I would have failed that one. I would have been like, that path looks a lot safer to me. So let's go that way. Yes. That seems like a smart thing to do. Not a cowardly thing. Right. That's just me. But if you framed it like that, you could be like, wow. I didn't avoid that path out of fear. I avoided it because out of intelligence. Yes, exactly. Never taking off your armor during a quest except to sleep. That'd be such a drag. It would be. Can you imagine, like, you get back after the battle and you're kicking it around the campfire and all you want to do is take off your armor and relax. Yeah. But then the guy who does next to you takes an arrow in his back and you're like, man, I'm glad I kept my armor on while you're beating someone's head in with the ward hammer. Yeah, that's what you're thinking. This one kind of got me, because I would just want to go to sleep, and if I didn't feel like talking, I wouldn't want to talk. But apparently one of the oaths that a knight took was to, upon returning from a quest or a journey or a battle or something, he would entertain the person he was conscripted to with his stories. So I'd be great at that part. You definitely would. I'd just be like, I don't feel like doing this. I'm not going to do this. We should call this one why? Chuck and Josh would be horrible nights. I think you'd be a good night. Oh, really? Sure. I'd be a good pantry tender and that's about it. What was the last one there? If he was taken prisoner, he would give up arms and horse to the opponent and never fight the opponent again without the opponent's consent. Yeah, I wouldn't want to fight that opponent again if they beat me down. You wouldn't want, like, revenge? No way. See, that's why I'd be a bad night, Chuck. Revenge makes the world go round. Yeah, you're right. Who are you to buck that trend? That's true. And once you were indoctrinated, you would get your sword, like I said, and then you would also finally get your armor and your horse, and right away they would kind of throw you into things in the form of demonstrating your abilities. Right. Not on the battlefield. No. You kind of hop on a horse. I imagine this to be like some hormones up kid. Sure. Like, yeah, man, watch this. And start beating up on other little kids who are still squires. Like the wooden sword in front of everybody, except now he's got a real sword. And also, Chuck, we should say those oaths that the knight took basically made up the code of chivalry, which was established basically because knights were the only ones who were armed, who were capable of battling on horseback and could just completely wreak havoc anywhere they wanted to. So the code of chivalry, especially defending the poor in the week, so they didn't kill the poor in the week right. Or take their stuff or whatever. So this code of chivalry was intended to keep these comparatively powerful people from just doing whatever they wanted. Right. That was ideal. It didn't always work out. Like, nights also generally pillaged and plundered and took whatever they wanted. Ignored the Chevrolet code. Yes. Which it comes from the French word josh chevalry, which means chivalry in French skills to handle a horse is actually what it means. Yeah. And originally that's what nights were. Just like. Remember the samurai? They were originally horsemen. A lot of commonalities between these two, actually. Very. Yeah. They both went the way of the dinosaur because of gunpowder, which we did, too. That's a spoiler. But you can make the case that the fall of the Roman Empire, feudalism and the invention of the stirrup all allowed knighthood to develop. The stirrup showed up in the 8th century and it allowed stability while you're staying on a horse and Lansing somebody. Well, I imagine with all the armor and everything too, it probably helped to get up on the horse to begin with. But that was pretty much like if you could fight somebody on a horse, you're a knight. Before all of this tradition was dressed alongside of knighthood mounted soldiers. Essentially. What a night was. Yes. Can we talk about weapons? Well, yeah, I just mentioned the lance. Right? Yeah. The lance was basically like a spear earlier on. Right. And then later on it developed the handguard and a metal tip on the end of it. And that was if you were on a mounted horse, you wanted something long so you could engage in battle without getting down from the horse. Sure. Then they had their sword double edged carbon. What kind of carbon? Steel. Yeah, but usually light on the carbon steel. Oh, light on the carbon steel. Heavy on the ketchup. Right. And they had the cross guard hilt and the pommel, which you've all seen excalibur. It's that classic looking sword. Very large, I would imagine. Pretty heavy. I never picked one up. And depending on how much money you had determined how fancy your sword was. Yeah. It could have, like a prayer inscribed in it or your name, it sounds he's returned to Josh Clark. Can't you see it, like, pinned to your plate? Mail. Right. Your gauntlet. Exactly. So the sword and the lance were the two main weapons, right? Yeah. You've talked about the warhammer a couple of times. I imagine that's probably what you would have liked. Did you look at the warhammer on Google Images? Yeah, so they're not as big. It's not like Thor's war hammer. No, it's like a tack hammer with the rounded curve, pointed end on one side and then a hammer on the other. And I just imagine, like, some guy in some sort of male just beating somebody's head in with this. I doubt if it was pretty that's what the European martial arts amounted to. Like death through blunt instruments. Yeah, pretty much. They had axes, which also could slice you up. And the mace, the metal was in the mace. The metal ball on the end of the chain. I think a mace isn't on a chain. The Morning Star is on the chain. Right. If my paladin training serves me, I think the Morning Star is on the chain. Mace's pointed ball just into a stick, though. That although they did use archers in war, the knights, a lot of them thought that was a little bit cowardly to shoot something from a distance. Yeah. Because there was no hand to hand combat. Yeah. Get down here and fight me like a man. Exactly. One at a time. One at a time. And that's about it. On the weapons front, you would get some privileges, though, once you became a knight that not everyone got, like owning land and being called sir and that was it. No, because you own land. And I don't think it was necessarily because you're a knight, but because you own land. You dispense justice locally. Right. Somebody stole someone's dog. Sure. You'd be like, I'm going to cut this dog in half and you can both have it. And the true owner would be like, no, don't cut the dog in half. He can have the whole dog. And you'd be like, It's your dog. And I always right. Yeah. And then you just beat the other guy's head in with the war hammer. You could pack heat in church. You were allowed to carry your sword to church. Yeah. Apparently not everyone could do that. No, you would get a seat at the high table at feasts with the lords and royals, and you could wear your armor in battle because you could afford it. Right. And you also were expected to lead soldiers into battle like an officer today. Sure. Chuck, let's talk about wartime for a second. OK. One of the things that shaped the European nights were the Crusades, right? Yeah. I don't know a ton about the Crusades, but we're going to do probably a full podcast on that at some point. I agree. But just very briefly, the First Crusade took place in 1096, and it was based on a sermon by the Pope in 1095 that basically said, the Muslims have Jerusalem and we need to go get it back. Right. And I think the Europeans are considered to have won or been successful on the First Crusade and then the Muslims overran Jerusalem again. Right. Took it back because it was an equally holy land. Right. Right. After that. So for the next 200 years, there were Crusades, crusades, crusades. I think there were several, yes. Right. It's more than two. Definitely. And over time, orders of knights developed out of these crusades. Right. So this is the time when religiousness was attached to knighthood. So swinging an oath of the Church, being a Christian, defender of Christianity, all of this became attached to knighthood about this time. And it was about this time, also, not coincidentally, that knighthood became romanticized as well. Sure. So that they had popular support. Yes, they were pious. They were defending your freedom. Exactly. Defending God. I think the stirrup feudalism and the Crusades are what really shaped knighthood in Europe, I would say. Isn't it crazy how Christians and Muslims all this time, all this time. Have been going at each other? Yeah. I don't see that changing anytime soon. That's why we have to do one of Crusades. Yeah. Josh, let's talk about peacetime. Okay. You want to? Yeah. During peacetime, they would have tournaments much like you would see at Medieval Times restaurants these days. Have you ever been to one of those? No. I haven't either. In fact, the only time thing I know about them is from the cable Guy movie. Same here, actually. Yeah. Jeanine Grofflo is the waitress. The medieval waitress. I don't remember that part. She was really funny. What was her line about they asked for a fork or something? And she said, there were no forks in Medieval Times, so there are no forks at Medieval Times. And so Matthew Broderick had to eat his hands. That sounds familiar. That's because you've seen the movie. During peace time, joshua would have these tournaments, and it was like the NFL football of the day. It was like the NFL and World Cup put together. Imagine how boring your life would be during this time. And then all of a sudden, there's some Knights beating the Tar out of each other in the castle keep. Yes. That's huge. In a melee, that's, like, life changing. You'd probably tell your grandchildren about that, and they'd be like, Shut up. We've heard the story 800 times. You're 32 years old. Just go ahead and die. I mentioned melee's 32. You're an ancient human being. Have you ever seen the Mr. Show little clip where it's like, questions, question. Modern man can think of three questions instead in, like, a medieval village. So classic. I briefly mentioned the word melee, and that was actually a real thing. It wasn't just like a free for all. Well, it was a free for all, but that's where the word came from. The knights would gather out in the middle of the keep and sort of reenact what a real battle would be like, and Judge or Marshall would say, Let it begin. And you would start fighting each other one at a time until there was only one of you left standing. Right. And that's why it was popular blood sport. Sure. And these things were for spectators. You could also make some cash off of them if you won, especially in the joust. If you want a joust, you got the other guy's armor. Extremely expensive and horse. Extremely expensive and horse's armor, perhaps. Sure. And the guy would be like, well, here you go. I'm a knight, so you're a knight, too, and you just beat me in the joust. Here's my stuff. And the guy who was taking it would say, great, I have a really good. Idea. I've got some extra armor I'm never going to use here. I need to unlock. You are virtually naked. Let me just sell it back to you. But that's my armor. And it'd be like, tsp. You have to buy it back because I'll kill you if you don't. Yeah. So if you did that a few times, you just made a bunch of money in one tournament. Unless you're losing. You could also lose your fortune if you were a bad jouster. Sure. I would try to improve my jousting skills. For sure. You could also lose your life if you were King Henry II of France. Yeah, he died, but he got a spear through the little visor, right? Like, right through the eye hole. Yeah. And during a joust, Josh, it's hard to say you would charge each other on a horse. Obviously, you've probably seen this before with your joust out. What I did not know is what you're trying to do. I always thought you were just trying to knock them off. You're trying to break your lance on their body. Well, you won if you knocked them off, but you could also win through points by breaking a lance or just even making contact. I'm under the impression you got more points if you broke your lance. Well, and you get more points according to which body part you break it on. Like, if you break it on a dude's head, I would say that's probably more points. Yes. Although back then, maybe that was in poor form. Maybe that was penalized. Who knows? I don't know. This is a culture where, again, the martial arts consist of beating other people to death with blunt instruments, and you're talking about making a ton of money. There was a famous knight called Woolwrin Liechtenstein, and he's the one who Heath Ledger's character imposters pretended to be yes, yes. In that movie. And he's a legendary knight who apparently was pretty good at jousting. He actually wrote an autobiography. Really? Yeah. It's in the source in middle English. Yeah. That must have been a fun read. Yeah. I think it's translated into late English. Old English with an E. 800 oldie. Yeah. Emily's parents used to live in one of those neighborhoods where it's all Nottingham forest. Forest. Their street was Crownpoint, but we called it crowny Pointy because it was obviously at ease. Yeah. And I always call Avondale Estates E-L-D. Avondale Estates. Yeah. But, you know, there is no word yee y e is still pronounced the. Really? Yeah. So when I say ye old, I'm just a moron. There's no such thing. But again, Chuck, I think one of the things that we've done with the show is prove that if you can get your point across that's correct. Okay, got you. Let's talk about armor. Okay. Chain mail. Well, first they had leather. Yes. Which is borrowed from the Romans. Yes. And leather was pretty good for, like, a sword swipe. Yeah. It protected against cutting blows, but if you were going to be run through, you're in trouble. Exactly. And the same with chain mail. Chainmail was good and would protect you even more from a slice, but still a big joust or a lance jousting. You puncturing, you a big sword. Your chain mail is probably not going to work out that well either. And it says in this article that was also borrowed from the Romans. Untrue chainmail was developed by Celts in Eastern Europe as far back as the third century. Does it say that in here? No. Okay. And then if you had some serious dough, you would get the plate armor, which if you've ever seen, like, the Night standing in the corner, not the real nice suit of armor. Yeah, the suit of armor. That's exactly what it is. They protected you a lot more from a puncture wound, but still wasn't 100%. And where you're really vulnerable was in the gussets in your armpits and the places where your joints would meet, where you had chainmail underneath. That's what I was going to ask you. They were chain mail and the plated armor. So does that equal what a modern day soldier would be? I read that chainmail and plate mail weighed about the same 40 to \u00a350. So then I guess if you were wearing both, it would be 80 to \u00a3100 of armor. Right, yeah. And apparently they could move around pretty well in these. It's not like in the funny movies when you see them on the ground riding about because they can't get up. Right. Apparently you can move. Okay. Not like if you were wearing nothing at all, because that's when you can really move when you're naked. Right. But you could get up off the ground. You could mount a horse. But that doesn't do anything if you got a gun pointing at you, does it? No, it doesn't. And actually, I can't remember the show, but it's one of the shows where one ancient warrior battles another ancient warrior. Yeah. They call battles of the ancient warriors something. There's like five of them in there. Yeah, there's a few. I saw Pirate versus Night. Right. I would say Night would win. No. Because they had gunpowder. Yes, that's exactly right. If that pirate had just had a sword, he would have been totally screwed. But he had gunpowder. Yeah. And this is a really good point, that gunpowder made Nights obsolete. Sure. Actually, by the way, in the Pirate versus Night battle, at the end, the pirate gets the Night down, pulls his visor up and shoots them in the face. And that's that. Yeah, it's really graphic. Did they reenact these? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, they battle. I got to see that. But the gunpowder brought about the end of the military Marshall Knights, because, number one, there was no more like you couldn't make armor that was going to defend against firearms. Right. And that was a huge hallmark, a characteristic of a knight, the ability to wear armor and fight on a horse. Not everybody could do that. Right. And that same specialization became obsolete by gunpowder. Because I can just shoot you with the gun. Right. You go ahead and study for 14 years your little sword play and protect the wine, and I'll just shoot you in the face because I'm a pirate. Sure. So that was the end of nighthood. Much the same way that firearms brought about the end of the samurai in Japan as well. They were just sort of like Asian nights in a way. Yes. Chuck. Yes. Do you want to talk about a few orders of Knights Templar? Do you know how many emails we would get if we just hadn't talked about the knights templar? I'm so sick of the knights Templar. I am too. This whole dan brown stuff. I know. Yes. There was a whole group of knights and they were associated with the devil, but they actually have, like, this plundered, this treasure. Yeah. I hate it. It's so played out. So that's the knights Templar, that was also the knights hospitals and also called the knights of St. John of the hospital. And they cared for the sick pilgrims, which is what they do today. Right. The templar and the knights of St. John of the hospital both and two tonic nights all developed to protect pilgrims on the way to the holy land during the crusades. Remember we said the crusades really shape nights? Yeah. Order of the garter. King Edward III of England established this in the they were an elite group of knights that are still around today and their royalty and appointed by the sovereign of Great Britain. Yes. And originally there were women in the order of the garter and that went away for many centuries. And then in 1987, queen Elizabeth said, we're going to get the gals back in this. Bring in the ladies. Exactly. And order of the garter weren't the only female knights, right? Yeah. What was the other one? There was a bunch from, let's see, 1350, 814, 88. There were women in the order of the garter in the order of the star of India. That was another order of nights. We saw that in the masons, didn't we? Oh, no, that's the order of the eastern star. God will get those confused. Well, they're pretty close. In 1861, a woman with one of the coolest names of all time, nawabam sounds like Barbara Walters is pronouncing it. Nawab Begum was inducted in order of the hatchet. Yes. It sounds like probably the meanest female knights would be the order of the hatchet. Yes. And they protected the defended the Spanish town of Tortoiser from the moors. And so they said, you know what? You did a pretty good job. We're going to make you the order of the hatchet. And unfortunately, that original group was the only order of the Hatchet. They didn't survive beyond that. And then the Order of St. John's. The hospital also had female knights known as nuns. Warrior nuns. Warrior nuns. You don't see that in the movies. And there wasn't a lot going on with knights for a couple of centuries until a little guy with stubby fingers stopped doing cocaine and straightened up his life. A man named Elton John was knighted in 1998. Right. As we like to say here in Atlanta sometime. Atlanta resident or part time Atlanta resident. Right. Boy, when he moved here, just Southern, he was the toast of the town on he he still is. I've never seen him around. I don't know. Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger. Bono. Are we calling him Bono? Is that not his name? I thought it was Bono. Is it one of the two? Just kidding. Bono is it, I think what's his real name? Paul Houston, I think. I think that's right. Is it? I think so. I don't think they call them Sir Bonno. I imagined him with a real name yeah. Named Paul Bono. Vox was what he was. Full name and it means good voice. Okay. Yeah. He was a little full of himself back when he was a kid in Ireland. In Ireland. And the Edge. What's his name? Tommy Edge. He has a real name, too. He wasn't born to edge. He was married as the Edge, though. Was he really? Yeah. I remember when he got married. I don't know if, like, in the ceremony, but in all of the spread, it was like the Edge and Mrs. Edge. I think his name is Dave something. But I wonder if those guys ever feel silly now. It's Dave Cooler. That's his name. I wonder if they ever feel silly if Edge ever goes, like, 60. He called the Edge. I thought of that when I was 18. It was kind of cool back then. That would be the equivalent of those stupid Jersey Shore kids with all their dumb names. I can't believe the Jersey Shore. I've never seen it. I can't believe that in 2010 the Jersey Shore is one of the most popular shows on television. I've never seen it. Just take like a minute and watch a clip on YouTube. You'll get everything you need to know. They won't be knighted anytime soon. And who else? Well, if you're a female knight, you're a dame. Yes. Like Dame Judy Dench. You want to hear some more? Sure. Surprising ones. Oh, yeah. Steven Spielberg. Really? Bill Gates. Scottie Pippen. No, he's an honorary member of the Eastern Star. Okay. Bill Gates. Ted Kennedy got one right before he died. Right. Rudy Giuliani. Really? Who, by the way, I learned, has a blackwater esque company now. That's how he's making his money. They're fighting the drug war down in Mexico. Really? Yes. Wow. I didn't realize that, but yeah. Pale. Colin Powell. Really? Robert Mugabe. Really? The President of Zimbabwe whose knighthood was rescinded in 2008, just being a horrible dictator. And then Mussolini was also a Night starting in 1923, and his was rescinded in 1940. And then Bob Hope. Yeah, that makes sense. Honorary night. Wow. So we could actually be Knights. I thought you had to be not American. If you're American, you can be knighted, but you're not titled sir. So it wasn't Sir Bob Hope. No, just Bob. Yeah, Bob got you. Just Bob. Or what he wanted. Anyway, chuck, this is a long one. Do we have any listener mail? Anything like that? Let's do a quick announcement for our trivia event and then we have a few Facebook questions. Okay, well, I guess let's get the trivia announcement. You can get started, Chuck. On October 13, 2010, ad, there will be an event unlike any other, except for one that we held in New York in June. This is the quick version. October, doors open. We finally have a time, dude. Yeah. It was likely surmised at Five Season Brewery. We're having our trivia event. Doors open at six. West Side. Yeah. Where? Marietta and Howell Mill. Sort of near there for sure. It's like right there from 06:00 p.m.. The door is open. 07:00 p.m.. We're starting trivia. John Hodgman, the editor of The Onion, Joe Randazzo and the creator of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Dave Willis will all be playing with us. Playing triv with us. That's going to be awesome. Anybody who wants to come can play, I believe scout Mob, right? They're going to have some sort of coupon or like half off drink something. Yeah. They jumped on the bandwagon here and we're promoting each other. And that's going down October 13, the night before at the Drunken Unicorn on pantsA, Dalian Avenue, the kind of unofficial house band for stuff. You should know the Henry Clay people will be playing starting at what time? It's a later show. I would get there by like nine. They probably won't go on about eleven. Hopefully John and Joe will be there too. Hopefully we can't promise that. Two huge days in the Southeast. October 12, tuesday. Henry Clay, people. October 13 wednesday our Triva vet thursday. Who knows, we'll all be in Guadalajara by then. I just saw the guys too, this past weekend. Cool. We came through town not playing a gig, but we cooked out and played music and it was awesome. It was a good time. Did you use your guitar pick? No, I didn't, actually. I just kind of watched while they played. How many can we get to? I don't know. I didn't know we were doing this is Facebook stuff. So we have a Facebook page. Facebook. comStuff. You should know, by the way. Yes, please. Like it because that is good for us around here. Yeah. Get a penny for every person that likes us. I was going to say nickel. Daniel S says, why doesn't Jerry ever talk? Daniel jerry talks all the time. You have no idea. Endlessly. She just doesn't do it on the show. Aaron Hagen says, do you mean Emily ever hang out together? Yes, they do. When Chuck and I hang out together. But we're seeing each other. Unless we don't want them talking or coming up with anything to use again. Right. Emily loves Yumi. Well, Yummy loves Emily. Really? Yeah. That's good. Like you would tell me. Actually, she thinks Emily is a real jerk. Yeah. Human can't stand. I'm aware. Katrina Franklin, Sweetie says, what was your best Halloween costume ever? I was a Harry Krishna one year, and that went over pretty well. I, like, shaved my head and had the ponytail. No way. Little tambourine and literature and everything. Real literature. Did you get your hands on some Harry Christian literature? No, I just printed some out. What about you? When I was in elementary school, my mom made an upside down clown costume. So my shoulders were the legs sticking up in between my legs. My actual legs was the head. And then it looked like a clown walking on his hands. It was pretty awesome, actually. That is awesome. Yeah. Kristin Keilar says you cover a lot of topics that are outside your area of expertise. What do you personally know a lot about? I know a lot about music and movies and filmmaking and camping and hiking and personal defense systems. Excellent. What about you? I didn't hear the question. I was reading. What do you know a lot about personally, expertise wise? Oh, weird. You know a lot about politics, I guess. But, I mean, what do you know? A lot of expertise. What am I an expert in? I guess throwing stars. Throwing stars. The Joe Moore says I saw pavement last night in Central Park. It was truly memorable. Guys, what is your best concert experience ever? I've got a top five. Wow. Public Enemy in 1991 at the Masquerade. Unbelievable. Cross cultural experience. The London Philharmonic did Beethoven? Carnegie hall. Okay. The full choir with Ode to Joy. Wow. Unbelievable. Two La. Lapalooza experiences. The first one was James addiction. Oh, yeah. That was immense. And then the second one, The Beastie Boys, was just out of control. It was so good. Bonnie Prince Billy last year, which I know you hate. Yeah. And Levon Helm. I saw Levon Helm last year. I don't know. He was the drummer and part time singer for The Band. My favorite group. Oh, The Band. The Band. Yeah. I got you. What about you? What's your favorite show I ever saw in my entire life was Peter Gabriel. Oh, I bet in the, I guess, early 90s. That wasn't good. I guess all around best show I ever saw would have been alternate down in Florida when I was a little brave kid. And then let's see. There has to be at least one other. Did you have a pacifier? Yes. It had Mickey Mouse on it. Yeah, I was definitely one of those rave kids. I'm so glad I'm just old enough to have been too old for the rave culture. I saw the big leg jeans and the pacifiers and just didn't get it. Oh, and probably my first concert ever. Holland oats with till Tuesday opening for him. Poor till Tuesday. Got booed off stage. Really? Yeah. But Holland notes came out and they were backed by G. Smith and started out live band, including the guy who wears, like, the floor length mink coats and plays the sacks. They were the band and they played everything, so that was a good one, too. I was like, hey, I like concerts. I'm going to start going to them. Yeah. Amy Mann is still terrific. Sure. And she's buddies with Paul Tokins. I did not know. I believe so. Part of the whole largo. Scene. Is there anything else? You got anything else? All right, that's it. That's it. If you want to ask us a question, chuck asks for them intermittently on Facebook. That's facebook. Comstuffyshnnow. Or you can just send us a plain old fashioned email at stuffpodcast@housetofworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseoffworks.com. Want more housetofworks? Check out our blog on the housedefworks.com homepage brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from exactly right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilguera and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder One week. Speak early on Amazon Music, download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ky-final-001.mp3	How Slinky Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-slinky-works	It has been called a "glorified spring", but Slinky is one of the best selling toys of all time. From accidental origins to an unlikely resurrection, Slinky has a pretty great back story.	It has been called a "glorified spring", but Slinky is one of the best selling toys of all time. From accidental origins to an unlikely resurrection, Slinky has a pretty great back story.	Tue, 14 Apr 2015 13:18:18 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=14, tm_hour=13, tm_min=18, tm_sec=18, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=104, tm_isdst=0)	48408518	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet at Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com.com this July. Don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and the Disney nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Welcome to Stuff You should Know from House ofworkscom hey. And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck, Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know. Projecting from Studio One. A just us. Not us on stage in front of hundreds of adoring fans. No, I feel all listless. We just got back from our tour. Yeah. There's a paper Ikea lamp with a dimmer that makes it turn into a strobe light even though it's not supposed to. Yeah, there's a toolbox over there. That's it. It's a lot more fun to do this on stage in front of people, it turns out. I think we should do it again because the West Coast tour was pretty fun. Yeah. So keep your eyes peeled. Perhaps Philly, DC. New York and Boston don't literally peel your eyes. Perhaps Chapel Hill. We can't announce anything yet, but we're just teasing with those cities. That will be in June. Yes. We're actually going to Providence. Are we? No, just kidding. There are like ten people in Providence going, yeah. Oh, man, I got to go to Boston again. So how are you doing? You still jet lagged? I have recovered somewhat. I have to say that the city of Seattle is a place I could live. It's beautiful except for the weather. Like, we had it good. And it's easy to fall in love with a place if you're there for, like, a great weekend. Right. Because it was beautiful. Whenever I was out, it was gorgeous. But I told Emily she was all fired up, too. Nine months out of the year. It's pretty depressing with the weather bleak, and I think you're just used to it. If you look out there, I guess you're hardy. Everybody seemed to have their spirits up, though. Maybe it was the weather. I assumed it was because we were in town, but now that I think about it, it could have definitely been the weather. Well, Portland fans stood in line in the rain and I felt all bad, but then I was like, they stand in line in the rain all the time for everything, gas, donuts, what have you. Yeah. Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out. It was so fun. Yes. La. San Francisco, Portland, seattle. From both of us. From Jerry, too. Yeah, from everybody. Heartfelt. Hearty. Thank you. Jerry was a regular hotshot with w's. Chuck. Yes. Did you ever have a slinky when you were a kid? Sure. I feel like I played with them. I definitely played with them. I don't remember actually owning a slinky. At any point you leased yours? It was just kind of one of those things that was always around. There was always a slinky. You could get your hands on a slinky, but you don't remember getting a slinky and saying, this is my slinky, or going to the toy store and saying, like, I want a slinky. Right. But I did love Slinky. Whenever I played with them, it turns out I was just one of many children over the last 60, 70 years that have loved slinky. I was frustrated by my slinky a bit because I never had stairs that it worked well on. I never had stairs like, yeah, I bet you're frustrated with slinky. No, I had stairs going up to my room. But if you don't have the right height and depth of stairs, it just stops, and then you got to do it again. Were they for, like, really long feet? Were they wide stairs, or were they really tall or what was the deal? I don't know. I felt like they were standard stairs. I just didn't like them. Well, I had the metal ones that would get all how they would tend to get tangled. Yeah, that was sort of the hallmark of the metal slinky. And again, people's hair would get caught in and now that I'm an adult and looking back, I'm like, how did anybody's hair get caught in a slinky? What was the deal? But when it happened, it hurt. I think kids would, like, wrap slinkies around each other. I remember using slinky like a rope, like handcuffs. Like, you'd wrap it around your friend and then sort of just latch it. And you'd be like, I'm in a slinky. Or, like, attaching a knife to one end and like, yeah, just jamming it towards somebody. That was fun. There's this guy on YouTube while there's a YouTube video of a guy called Slinky Master. Oh, boy. And he is good. He's just, like, basically, like, moving it from one hand to another, making it do all this awesome stuff in the middle. And it's a rainbow slinky. And I think it might be, like, glow in the dark, too. Holy cow. But he is pretty good. I say go check it out. I got it. I definitely want to check that out. Oh, and actually, we have a new thing on our website, on our podcast pages. So, like, the page where you can go listen to any podcast on our site. There's now, like, an additional links section where it has stuff that we talk about. It links out to articles that we use for extra research. They'll be on the Slinky Episode podcast page. Link to that slinky master. You don't even need to Google that. You just basically make stuff. You should know your homepage, and we can take care of it for you. Yeah. And we're bringing back transcriptions, right? Yes. Which we are super happy about because we used to have transcriptions for our friends in the deaf and hard of hearing community, and then we didn't do it for a while, and they were like, what gives works? And so we've been working to get those back, and I think they're going to be back now. Yeah. So that's Slinky. Good night, evil. Oh, wait, we didn't start yet. So I had no idea why I was watching people get their hair caught in slinkies or playing with them in general, that they had a kind of a pretty neat history. Until I ran across this article from Price nomics. Written by a dude named Zachary Crockett. Yeah, big thanks. This is a good article. It is. It's called the invention of slinky. And in it, Crockett starts at a pretty reasonable place, the birth of the inventor slinky, richard Thompson James. Rick James. And then in the slinky I don't think he went by Rick. No, he went by Mr. James. Right. Inventor slinky. Yes. He was born in 1914 in Delaware, and apparently his brother Samuel said that he was always a pretty enterprising, mechanically oriented type of kid because he had this one story about when he was, like, 13, he found an old car and literally fix the car up well enough to sell it. Yes. I had, like, mice running around, living in it, and he sold it for $25, which I went to West Egg and converted that $337 in 2014. Money not bad for a 13 year old. No way. Yes, but it was a car. Whoever bought it got a good deal, that's for sure. But, I mean, he probably didn't get rid of the mice. He just got the thing to run again. Plus, it wasn't his car anyway. He just took it. Exactly. Fix it up. Yeah, it was the mice's car. So in the 1930s, he went to Penn State and did study mechanical engineering. Yeah, he was just a tinkerer, so it made a lot of sense. Yeah. I find that often when people like you research the people who invented a circuit board for an amp or something, it seems like that starts when you're very young, just interested in that kind of thing. Yeah. You don't get into mechanical engineering in your 20s. No. Like you ditch psychology for a mechanical engineering degree. Yeah, my brother went the other way. He's an aerospace engineering major, and he switched to psychology. Did he really? I didn't know that. Yes, he wanted to be an astronaut. It's awesome. But not like a six year old. He was like he was an adult. Right. He wanted to be a cowboy, too. Cowboys who grew up to actually be a cowboy. So anyway, he got a mechanical engineering degree and then started work as a naval engineer. Yeah, because it makes sense. It was World War II. So that's what you did. Yeah. You had to go fight Hitler. So he did. He fought it from behind a desk. Because they're like, you're a mechanical engineer. You just sit here and figure out how you can make our weapons of war better. Exactly. And he was actually working on something that used springs, something that basically kept some sort of electronics on battleships. I think it had to do with the measuring horsepower. Yeah, it was a horsepower meter that I guess if you're in rough waves, it would mess with the meter. Yeah. And you didn't want it rocking all over the place. You would use springs to keep it intact or keep it from moving around too much. Right, yeah. So while he was tinkering around with one of this, he quite by accident knocked over some stuff. I don't think it was in a fit of rage. It was accidental. And one of the things he knocked over included a spring, and he watched the spring fall off of the shelf in a nice graceful arc, hit a book, go over from the book onto the desk, and then from the desk onto the floor in this nice arching manor. Yeah, exactly. He said, let's try that again. Apparently captivated by it. It's pretty neat. Like, this is literally one of those toys you can trace back to one of those silly fluke moments. Like the microwave. Was that the same thing? Yeah. What was it again? Oh, man, I can't remember. What the actual thing that makes the microwave? The microwave was discovered by accident that it was that it had these properties that, like, a guy had a chocolate bar in his shirt that's expensive and melted. Melted? Like, wait a minute. So of course, he logically ran and grabbed some popcorn and saw that that happened. And then the microwave is porn. Yes. I think slinky is actually the only place that's on our website is one of those top ten accidental inventions or something. Yeah. And I'll bet microwaves are in there, too. I'm sure it is. So basically, you're right. The light bulb went off over his head, and he went home and told his lovely wife betty, Betty, betty, I think I've got something here, and I just need to figure out how to make it to where it keeps doing this thing. I'm going to try. Because you can't just get any spring and throw it on a step. No, you can. There's all sorts of different kinds of springs, it turns out. Like, there's a tension spring sure. That they use on mousetraps and then there's the Slinky spring. But no, the slinky spring is this super refined type of spring that was designed over the course of a year through trial and error, to have just the right tension, just the right shape, just the right size of the coil, just the right everything, so that it really accentuated that graceful flow, that arcing flow that it has. It makes it the slinky. And it took them like a year of tinkering with all these different tensions and types of materials before he finally hit upon it. Yeah, and I think he settled on a point in diameter, high carbon steel. The original slinkies were black metal, which was kind of cool looking by the time when we were kids. I think they just had the shiny silver ones. And then, of course, we'll get to the plastic that came along later, too, but the first ones were black. And it demonstrates a property in physics called hooks law. So I ran across this, like, super hardcore physics forum where somebody posted that they were talking about the physics of slinky, and somebody's like, it seems like hook's law is a good place to start. And they got piled on. Oh, really? They said that hook's law has to do with the amount of force a spring exerts on something it's attached to. So I think with Hook's law, if it does apply, what you're talking about is the force being transferred from one end of the slinky to the other, and that as the momentum at the front of the slinky goes downward, that same amount is transferred to the back and it's pulled forward and it just keeps going and over end. So I don't know if folks law does apply or not, but if it does, that's my understanding of how it would apply. Yeah, the one definition I saw was that it basically means the spring will return to its original shape once the load is removed. So that makes sense. Yeah, right. But there's another thing, at least one other thing going on with the slinky, and that is that it goes along a longitudinal wave. So just like a sound wave, basically a slinky is a sound wave slowed down, or the same type of wave as a sound wave, and it slowed down. And as the slinky is moving on a molecular level molecule, the molecule is pushing the ones in front of it forward, and then the whole thing starts over again once it reaches equilibrium. That sounds like a great explanation to me. Yes. No, that's all right. It avoids equilibrium. Once it hits equilibrium, it stops. Oh, okay. Yeah. But the whole thing starts with the sink. You're just sitting there at the top of the step. And what it has there is potential energy. It's stored. Yeah, you got to move it to get that kinetic energy going. When I was a kid, I just remember staring at it. It's like it's not doing nothing. This is where Slinky and our ESP episodes collide. How's that? You're just staring at Slinky, willing it to move. Oh, got you. All right. So he comes up with this little slinky. It works like a charm, his little prototype. He does the smart thing, which is if you want to find out if kids actually will enjoy it, he got the neighborhood together and came to some kids, and they went nuts. They were like, this thing is amazing. Yeah, so you respond to something. Stop hitting that other kid with those sticks and come over and play with this toy that I came up with. Let me know what you think. And they wrapped up that kid in the spring, got it caught in that kid's hair. This is perfect. He's like, this is gangbusters. He saw from that very early back of the envelope market research that he did with the neighborhood kids. It made him a believer. Oh, yeah. Like, he saw that kids really were into this thing, and I got the impression that at no point was he like, this thing is amazing. It's supernatural. He's like, it's really cool. It's a spring. It's physics, but it just looks really neat, and it is somehow weirdly captivating. Yeah. I think they say that one in 1000 toys hits it big. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So, I mean, there are toy inventors that labor for their entire lives and never hit on something like the slinky. I mean, it's one of the top ten toys in history. When they get frustrated, the little spring, they go like it. So Betty, his wife, wasn't super well, she was a little skeptical at first, which we'll learn later is pretty ironic. Very ironic. And he actually tasked her with naming it, though. And she is the one that found the word slinky in the dictionary. Yeah. Apparently, she spent, like, several weeks looking for just the right word. What else is she doing? Six kids, right? Exactly. She had a lot of downtime. So right after this break, we will talk a little bit about how it went from just a garage neighborhood idea to one of the biggest selling toys ever. Hey, everybody. 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And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code, SYSK, and you'll get off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com. SYSK. Squarespace. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about Summer. I mean, what's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where true Crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you to download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. All right, so he's got his Slinky, he's got the prototype. He gets a $500 loan to start from a friend to start. James Spring and Wire Company, LLC. Yeah. Pretty good name. Yeah. Well, you got the $500, apparently pretty easy from the friend by just showing him the Slinky. Yeah. And he was like, how much do you need? I didn't look up how much $500 is in 1945, but we can guess that it's about 40 million. No, because I think it was about let's see, it was about, I think, $6,500 probably roughly today. Okay. Which, I mean, that's substantial to give a friend. Oh, yeah. And it was enough to get things going. I think he really had the prototype. He just needed an official company banner, basically. Right. So he has his machine shop and he has this prototype, and he gets a bunch of wire and he makes a bunch of Slinkies. Well, he goes to his local machine shop first. Right. So he's at his local machine shop, and he makes 400 Slinkies. They were two and a half inches tall, contained 80ft of wire, which that's pretty impressive. I didn't know it was nearly that much. Yes, but it makes sense, I guess, because I think every kid has tried to uncoil theirs fully. Yeah. And apparently Slinky starts out as, like, normal round wire, but then they smush it to make it flat. Yeah. Because it's got to be flat to perform and sit on itself. Yeah. I didn't realize, though, that it makes sense, but I didn't realize it started out as, like, a round diameter type wire. Yeah. But what kind of metal did he start out at? Swedish steel. High grade blue, black Swedish steel. I guess that was the wire of the day. And it was in 98 coils. And at first they just wrapped it in parchment paper. Later on, I think they packaged it in just a box. Like it's in today. Right. Actually, today I think it's in that awful plastic stuff that you can't open. Is it now? Well, they have a throwback you can get in the box. Yeah. That is still, like, modeled after the original box, which is kind of neat. I don't see why you wouldn't get that one personally. So with the original metal Slinky and the whole history from the time he walked into that metal shop the first time, once he had the prototype figured out throughout today, there was only one design change in the whole time, and that was to crimp the ends after it was produced. To keep it from tangling is easy and for safety. So it didn't cut some kids eye out. Right. So after a bunch of kids eyes were cut out, they trimmed the end. I don't know if they had foresight or if it wasn't response to eyes being gouged out, but that's crazy. That was the original design. Yeah. And I mean, still today, I went on Amazon to double check, and the Slinky is still two and a half inches tall. Wow. It didn't say how many coils it was because they didn't get that descriptive. But it's the same thing as it was back in 1009. Four what, five. Yeah. I'm surprised they didn't have, like, the Mega X Stream linking that powered by Mountain Dew or something like that. They probably do have that, actually. I love that, though. The original Slinky is still, like, exact same. Yeah. The original metal one is new, for sure. Why change something that's perfect? Right? Right. James knew that this thing was perfect. Had a great name, worked really well. The neighborhood kids loved it. Sure. So, of course, this thing's going to become like, a hit right out of the gate, right. No, you're being toy, my friend. He took it to toy stores, and there was one storekeeper who said, this is the atomic age. Kids want big, bright, fancy things with lots of colors and lights. We couldn't give this thing away if it played God Bless America and picked up the Daily Double as it walked down the steps. That's very cynical. It is very cynical. He's exclamation points and stuff, but James, Rick James was like, I'm Rick James, and you don't tell me what to do with my toys. No. And he got in touch with Gimbals, who is very famous as the Macy's competitor from 34th street. The only reason most of us have ever heard of Gimbals. And Gimbals in Philadelphia apparently said, you know what? I like you. I like the way you smell. I'm going to put your toys in our Christmas display and we'll just see where it goes from there. Yeah. He was local at that, living outside of Philly. Right. I wonder if that they eventually moved outside of Philly, but I'm not sure exactly where they were at this point. It would make sense. Although it's entirely possible he was hustling hard enough that he was just hitting department stores all over the Northeast. Well, in Delaware, it's not too far anyway. Yeah, they may have still been in Delaware, but they did talk to Philadelphia Gimbals into putting this on their Christmas display. So in Christmas 1945, november 1945, the Slinky debut to public, and it immediately takes off like a rocket, right? No, again, that was double coy. No, it for weeks just sat there because of course it's just this thing that kids have never seen before, the spring and parchment paper sitting between like, really awesome toys. Yeah. It's nothing but potential energy at that point. There's like a spring sitting between those atomic age toys that that one shopkeeper was using exclamation points about, right? Yeah. I mean, if there was ever a toy that needed a demonstration to delight and amaze, it was the Slinky. So very frustrated with this. Richard James apparently said to his wife, like, I'm going down to Gimbals and I'm going to deal with this head on. Yeah. And he said, Meet me there in like 90 minutes, or something like that. So he went down there, took a couple of Slinkies out of their parchment paper, and started flicky. Dummies. Yeah, you stupid kids, keep your hair away. But check this out. And he started playing with them, and apparently by the time Betty got down there 90 minutes later, he had sold all 400 slinkys and there was apparently a line around the block asking for more. Yeah, that sounds like such a trumped up story. But I love it, though. It's like within 90 minutes it's great. The world was slinky crazy. Yeah. The Santa from Miracle on 34th street comes through and does like a little twirl and goes out of frame again. But he did sell those 400 units that day, supposedly, and by Christmas they had sold 20,000. So it really did take off super fast once kids understood what the heck it was. And that's a significant amount of money, Chuck. I used West Egg this time. Oh, yeah. One dollars. They sold them for a dollar a piece. So he sold 400 units and 20,000 by the end of Christmas. That translates to like $13 in today's money. Oh, wow. So imagine being a parent today and being like, you want me to pay $13 for a spring? Are you crazy? But they still managed to capture the public imagination just right. And the thing just spread like wildfire. Not just in Christmas of 1945. By Christmas of 1947, there was a New York Times article in the fashion section talking about how they must have a dormant of the year was a Slinky dipped in gold with glitter. It sounds like something Edward Bernays might have cooked up, right? Yeah, I think so. I think another cool thing is they remained a dollar for a lot of their life. And it said in this article here that in the mid 90s they're only a dollar 89. Now they're like four or $5, it looks like. I saw again on Amazon. Amazon? Amazon.com. Amazon. It was like 229. It was the lowest I saw. Hey, that's a good deal for a Slinky. But even still yeah, if you want a great deal on anything, go to Amazon.com. I saw others at other nameless online toy store retailers. Oh, is that what we're supposed to do? Four or $5? No, Amazon. I could see that though. Four or $5. It makes sense. But the point is for a very long time still pretty cheap. Yeah, it stayed the same even as the cost of living increased. So it's relative price went down tremendously. And they did that on purpose. Well, yeah, exactly. That was one of the things that, as we'll see here shortly, Betty, is one of her favorite things that kids could have a cheap toy. Yeah. And she wanted even poor kids to be able to buy something. Right. And here's my spring, here's this link. Just give me a dollar. And by this time they were in pretty much partnership. From what I understand, at the very least, Betty was playing some sort of supporting role, at least as an advisor, possibly. Sure. But again, they had like six kids and she was raising them. So it was really mostly Richard running the company. But they took this linkage to the American Toy Fair in New York, which is the same one that Barbie debuted at in the Think. Oh yeah, barbie registered trademark. And they took Slinky there in 1947 and they did it all themselves. They pitched the thing and they had people from toy stores and department stores from around the country just signing up. And Slinky was huge. Apparently they made the equivalent of a billion dollars in the first two years. Yeah, he sold more than 100 million in the first two years of production. That's crazy. 100 million. 100 million. And this is the population of the mid forty s, right? Yeah. It's not like nowadays that would be a little more believable. I think so. Well, think about it. I wish I would have thought of that. There probably weren't too terribly much more than 100 million people in the US. At the time. So that's like a Slinky for every person in the US. Slinky in every pot. Right. So things were going so well, he realized that my machine shop here in Delaware, delaware or suburban Pennsylvania, whichever it was, is not up to snuff and I need to set up my own shop. So he did that in. Albany, New York, and was like, I'm an adventure. I'm just going to make my own machine that can make our own slinkies at a rate of 5 seconds a pop. Yeah. The old machine shop was making them in a couple of minutes per slinky, which was faster back then, I think. Yeah. So Richard James said, I'm going to make my own machine. That's really cool. Absolutely. I think it's pretty neat. Not only did he make his own machine, he made a machine that can do one in 5 seconds. Like you said, it took the round wire, smushed it, and then coiled it in seconds, crimped the ends, I guess. That's crazy. Yeah. And then, bam, you got a slinky. You got a dollar in your pocket right there. This is when it came in the black box. And they ditched the parchment. It was labeled slinky colon, the famous walking spring toy. And it was gangbusters. And it was again, they sold 100 million in the first two years. To put that in perspective, I did find out how many people there were in America. In 1947, there was 144,000,000 people in the US. And he sold 100 million slinky. So for every 1.4 people, one of them had a slinky. So that means adults were buying slinkies, too. Yeah. So in the 1950s, they started to do what all great inventors do. They start to expand the line a bit. Yeah. They came up with courtesy of a woman named Helen malzad came up with the Slinky Dog and the Slinky Train. Because she was a fan, they would, like, solicit ideas, and she wrote them in and said, hey, I think it would be pretty neat if you made, like, a dog that walked. But the middle of them was a slinky. Right. So like the rear end. Yeah. Like in Toy Story. Exactly. Which they got some nice kickback money on that. They didn't steal people's ideas either. No. I was waiting for that to read that when I was reading this, I was all nervous. Malse died bitter and penniless in New York. No. She actually ended up creating 26 toys and games in her career. Wow. The slinky dog and Slinky train were her biggest successes, but they basically paid her 65 grand a year for 17 years on that royalty. That's awesome. Which is a ton of money. Yeah. So that's up to you. Helen Mall said, did you get the idea of whether she was already a toy inventor or that this kind of gave her the boost she needed to become a toy inventor for a career? I think she was. I read her New York Times a bit, and we talked about some other games that she had tried to create. I'm I don't think she had burst onto the scene there or anything. Yeah. But that's a pretty comfortable living back then. Oh, heck. Yeah. So they all said the Susie, the slinky worm and slinky crazy eyes. Yeah. You know those I remember those. Yes. Those glasses that have, like, the Slinkies attached to the big bloodshot eyeballs. Yeah, those are Slinky brand. Hysterical. And it turns out that it wasn't just toys. This Linky patent that Richard James originally got back in the 40s was also licensed out for other stuff. Like it was used in antennas. It ended up being used on battleships or other kinds of ships as a stabilizing thing. Like he was originally after gutter protectors. Yeah, I saw that, too. Light fixtures. Total sense. So they also made a ton of cash sub licensing this whole, like, the Slinky patent out for other uses besides just the toys and the Slinky hippo and all that stuff. Yeah. And they gave soldiers in Vietnam slinkies didn't license it. Like just straight up gave them Slinkies to use in the field as antennas. So they would throw the Slinky, like, over a tree branch and then pull it down and connect it to their radio to boost their antenna signal. That is pretty smart. Very neat. You know it's being used today in space. Oh, really? They're using the same, I think the same patent originally to deploy solar sales in space. Oh, wow. Yeah. Pretty cool. I wonder if they're licensing the actual I mean, NASA was using this linking name all over the article I was reading. Well, then they're paying. And there's another one, too. There's a paper Slinky that it's coated with a metal on one side, and so when you make it go springy to non springy, I think it's the physics terms that I'm searching for. Sure. It creates static electricity and it creates enough that that can be captured and used to generate power. No way. Yeah way. And if people at Georgia Tech who are doing it, well, that makes sense. All right, so where are we? He has sold 100 million of these. He's expanding the line. And right after this break, we are going to talk about a very interesting turn in this story that has to do with well, you'll see. Hey, everybody. 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And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code S YSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace. Comsysk. Squarespace. Hey, Chuck, it's summer, which means school is out, sun is shining, the daylight lasts longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story, isn't there? There sure is. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, you can tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, my Favorite Murder from Exactly Right Media. That's right. Part true crime and part comedy, My Favorite Murder takes you on a journey through small town mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. That's Right hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark Banter with each other, sharing their favorite true crime tales, and explore unique hometown stories from friends and fans alike. And they're both great and it's a fun show and you should listen. So listen to new episodes of my favorite murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. So, we're back. Chuck Slinky is doing well. It's the 50s. There's a ton of different Slinky stuff. Slinky eyeballs, everybody's freaking out their teachers. Yeah. And things are going great for the James'right, I think. Teachers desk drawers are loaded with Swinky products and chattering teeth and rotten apples. I wonder where that came from. Giving the teacher an apple? Yeah, I don't know, but I'll bet somebody out there will let us know. All right, so it's the mid 1950s. They are loaded at this point. Loaded, making tons of money at this point. They had moved to a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia with a 31 bedroom estate on twelve acres. Super rich people. Yeah. Good for them. They're in Brinmar, which is like the wealthiest of the Philadelphia suburbs. I bet it still is. Brinmar. It doesn't sound like a place has gone down the tubes. No, looks pretty Welsh. B-R-Y-N-M-A-W-R. It's definitely something UK I'm going to say wells. All right. So Betty, things were going well with the business, but within the family, things weren't so great because Betty found out that Rick James was stepping out. He was a super freak and he was fooling around on her quite a bit from the sounds of it. Right. And she was like, okay, let's see. Am I going to ditch this zero and go find a hero or what am I going to do? And she said, well, I have six kids and I'm going to stick with this dude for the benefit of the kids. And she did. But apparently things were never the same after that, I'm sure. And as a result, Richard James started going to church a lot more. And it really got to him. He really spoke to him a lot, going to church and became something of a I guess I took it. Although it didn't say he became something of a born again. Yeah, that's exactly what it became. Yes. But he started out, obviously, as a Catholic, because he used to go to confession all the time, which seems like, okay, well, that guy felt really bad about things and he wanted to get stuff off of his chest. Not so says Betty, his ex wife. Betty said that he liked the attention that he would get from confessing in confession. Yeah, he was sort of a hot shot, and I think he like to just be revered, maybe. I don't know. Or just for people to listen to him or who knows? That's a weird thing. That's a weird little thing to do, is go to confession to get attention. I thought it was very strange. So as he's going to confession, as he's going to church more and more and more, he's just his family. Even though yeah. He's still at home and he's living with his family, he's becoming isolated. Not just from society at large. He's becoming pretty isolated from his family as well. I got the impression that they didn't go down the church path quite the same degree he did. Right. And so that was causing him to feel more and more isolated, causing him to withdraw more and more. And there was, at some point a moment where he revealed that they didn't have much money anymore. Not only that, they were in debt. Like seven figure debt. Yes. About a million dollars in debt. Yeah. Because he started funneling all their millions to dogmatic evangelical religious groups. Donating all their money. Not only donating some. Yeah, exactly. He was, like, not paying creditors for the LLC that owns Slinky. He was diverting that revenue from the business to religious groups that he was a member of. Yeah. And this article said straight up, like, if you bought a Slinky before 1960, your money went exactly there. Right. So it's kind of a big deal. This is a big revelation that was started in the mid fifty s, and really things just got weird in the James family from the mid 50s till 1960. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, in 1960, richard James said, have you guys ever heard of Bolivia? No. Well, it's too bad, because I just bought a one way ticket there, and I'm going now. Don't ask me why. I'm just going to join a religious group in the wilds of Bolivia. Yeah. And I've seen it characterized as a cult. That is not quite the deal. They were called the White Cliff Bible Translators, and they're still around, but it was basically their mission is to translate the Bible into as many languages and get it into as many hands right around the world as possible. And he felt that call and straight up left his family, said, Smell you later, and never got back in touch with him again. No. As far as I could tell, that was February of 1960, and I think it was Betty who called it a cult, an evangelical Christian cult. Yeah. Which she was upset and she read up about them and said, this seems really weird to me. Right. But, yeah, it wasn't quite a cult, but I get it. She was scorned. So that was February 1960. That Richard leaves for Bolivia. And before he left, he sat Betty down and said, as you know, we're a million dollars in debt. I'm leaving. You have a choice here. We can either liquidate the company or you can take over. Your choice. I really don't care. I'm going to Bolivia and I'm probably never coming back. Yeah. I was kind of surprised that she got that opportunity to decide at least what to do with her future. Yeah. I was glad to know that it was within her power. Right. It took me a couple of times of reading this before I finally caught on to that. At first, I thought he just laughed and she slid into that position, but, yeah, he gave her the choice. Like, you can liquidate. You're raising six kids, right. You'll probably make some money off of it after the creditors are paid off. So do you want to do that? She said. You know what? No, I'm going to try taking over the company. I'm going all in on Slinky. So she took over this company, Chuck, that was in really dire straits. Yeah. I don't think we even mentioned that Slinky had started to wane in popularity. Right. So not only were they in debt, but toward the end of the 1950s, everyone had, like, the Slinky craze that sort of passed. Yeah. So we said that it sold 100 million units in the first two years since they've sold 300 million total. Oh, wow. So a full one third of all this link is sold were sold in the first two years. So, yeah, it's star crested and then started to fall. And so this lady took over a company that was saddled with debt. Its star product was not so much of a star any longer. She had six kids. She had six kids. And she decided, rather than to liquidate the company, to say, no, I'm going to see what I can do with this, I'm going to try to bring it back. And she did. Yeah. I mean, reading this, she's truly one of the great women in American history. I think she's definitely the hero of this story, too, and revered by toy enthusiasts. But I don't think a lot of people even know her name, you know? No. It's Betty James, everybody. So her first plan was, I have all these creditors. At least let me try and get this deferred for now. And was somehow able to talk him into deferring some of these payments. Yeah, thank God. And then in 1962, she hired three dudes from Columbia, south carolina. Johnny McCullough and Homer Festerman wrote the music, and Charles Weegley wrote the lyrics to what would later become the longest running, dare I say, most successful commercial jingle of all time. Yes, I would say it's possibly the most well known, at least. So let's play a little bit of that right now. Everyone's heard it. And here it is. Who walks the stairs without the care and makes the happiest sound bounce up and down just like a cloud? Everyone else is making the best presenter to give. I get the favorite all over town. That surely sounds familiar. Apparently there was a 1990 survey that was conducted that found that 89.8% of Americans either know what a slinky is or are familiar with that jingle. So that's definitely it's got to be the most successful jingle of all time. What else is there? I can't think of anything else to put up against it. Have a coconut smile. Whatever. I don't even know how that goes. No, I think that was just a slogan. That wasn't a song. Oh, yeah. No, you're totally right. And you and I, of course, all day have been singing it's, Log. And I was like, that was obviously based on the slinky jingle. And I went back and listed. I was like, no, it is the slinky jingle. They replaced the lyrics. I didn't get the joke. Well, Ren and Stimpy fans obviously know what I just did. But if you were like, I don't get it. What does Log have to do anything? Just look up, I guess. Log jingle, maybe. Yeah. So this was a huge hit. And it's funny. I was looking on the Internet to see if I could find anything on these guys that wrote this thing. And Homer Festerman has a Facebook page. It's got to be him. Wow. Yeah. I just clicked on it, and the first thing I saw was South Carolina gamecocks. I was like, Well, Columbia, South Carolina, and it looks like he's making video scrapbooks for people. Well, that's Facebook page is wide open, and I wanted to get in touch and say, are you the Homer Fest? Maybe we could just get a little quick interview or something. But I didn't know. So look him up. Homer Festerman. He's on the Internet. Yeah. Everybody friend him. He'll be like, what is going on? I've been spammed by the friendliest people on Facebook who are fans. Yeah, most of them. So Betty's got this jingle out there. This is a master stroke. Oh, yeah. She also did some the advertising. She really put a lot of money into advertising. But apparently I get the impression that she got some good deals. She went to hemorrhaging money on advertising. It was all very smart. Yeah. And Slinky's Star started to rise once again. Well, she moved the facility closer to Philadelphia, too. I think it saved some money and allowed her to be with her kids more. Although she had a caretaker. So the kids, I think they said like Sunday through Thursday, they had a lot of attention from nannies and things. Right. But I get the idea she was a good mom. She was trying to do right by her family. Right. And not only her family, this article on Price Nomics points out that she was also helping out the families of, I think, the 120 person team that she put together. And it says they were close knit, which definitely kind of jibes with the impression that I've gotten of her. Totally. So she's got this jingle down. Slinky is starting to come back a little bit. And also I think the tech that she's taking is an inexpensive toy that everybody can enjoy. Right. But it's still I don't know if all of it would have been quite so possible had a bit of serendipity that happened in the mid 1970s. Plastic? Was that the thing? Yeah. There was a dude in Minnesota who was a plastic worker who figured out basically a way to make a plastic Slinky and went directly to Betty James and her company and said, what do you think about this? She said, you know what, I don't steal ideas. I pay for him. How much do you want me to make the check out for? Yeah, his name was Donald James Room, and he was a master mark plastics. And he was trying to make a garden hose that coiled like they have now, like a plastic garden hose that self coiled. And he failed. And his kids apparently were like, that looks like it's Linky. And he was like, oh, well, let me send you stupid kids, I'm trying to concentrate. Trying to make a garden hose. So, like you said, they made a great deal and he ended up with tons of money too. And it made Slinky super popular again. And it became the slinky rainbow. The Rainbow Slinky. And yeah, all of a sudden, not just original Slinky. Now you have this, what they call the less tangle prone alternative to Slinky, which is pretty bold because you're saying your original product is tangle prone. Still worked. I think maybe they just knew that. Everybody knew that the Slinky is tangle prone. And now they had a couple of products again that were really salable. And the Slinky star rose once more. Yeah. And like I said, the Toy Story, they did make a great deal with, I guess it was pixar and sold a ton more Slinkies when Toy Story came out. Because of the dog. Right, exactly. And in Betty Heard received news that her husband Rick James had passed away. He died within a few months of going to Bolivia. Like she hadn't heard anything from them. That's just unbelievable. But she was doing fine, so she was probably like, thanks for letting me know. Who cares? It might have been a little sad, I'm not going to say that. But she then sold to Poof Products in 1998 for what she called a quote, a boatload of money. And good for her. Yeah. And she lived on for another ten years to the ripe old age of 90. And I think before then she was recognized by the Toy Industry Association's Hall of Fame. I think Slinky was inducted in 2000. So she would have been alive for that. Pretty neat. Yeah. So that's Slinky. Yeah. You know what the only other thing I had was you can make the Star Wars blaster sound with a slinky. Oh, really? Yeah, you can do with the microphone or you put a cup, a paper cup in the end of the slinky and you hold that in the air just like the height of your head. And the rest of this link, he falls to the ground and then you just start basically, there are all kinds of noises you can make, but if you want to make that sound, you can pick up the bottom off the floor and then just let it drop on the floor and catch it real quick. And it does that. Nice. Makes a neat sound. That's a chuck tip right there. Yeah. You go to YouTube and look up Star Wars slinky sound, and there's a couple of dudes, of course, that will show you just how to do it. That's one of the reasons, too, why Betty James chose the word Slinky is not only because it was sleek and attractive, but also she thought that that was a good description of what the sound it made as it went downstairs blaster. Or she would have called it exactly the blaster. And there's one last thing about slinky physics that are pretty amazing. Let's hear it. So if you dangle a slinky out to where it's completely stretched out as much as it's going to without putting any pressure on, just letting the force of gravity stretch out this link until it reaches out a window, let's say. Okay, but without this bottom touching the ground out of four story window. Awesome. And actually if there's like 80 something feet, it has to be higher than that because it's like you would go right down to the ground, man. Well, I mean, you have to wait at the bottom of it. Okay, so let's say four stories. You're right then. And if you're holding it steady, it's not moving. And then you release the top, the top will start to fall. But if you pay close attention, the bottom stays where it is. Sleepy actually have this amazing property of managing to levitate momentarily when the top is released. And some very smart scientists studied this and they measured it and they found, yes, indeed, the top is moving and the bottom is remaining. It's floating in mid air. And they figured out that the reason why is because the tension is still acting against the force of gravity, which has reached the equilibrium on the lower part of the coil and basically the information that tension is released and gravity is about to win hasn't reached that bottom part yet. Each coil stacks upon the next one and the next one and the next one. So as it's happening up top, down below, it's all hunky dory still. It's like you're still holding on to me. As far as I know, it's literally floating in midair. Wow. It's ceaselessly. Amazing. Basically, the slinkiest. Well, those are two pretty boss slinky tricks. And what a great way to finish, I think. So if you want to know more about slinkies, you can go to the podcast page on housestepyshow.com and check out our slinky episode. And there should be links to this prison Amics article and the YouTube slinky Master all that jam. Just go check that out. And I didn't say search bar, but you can imagine that I would have under normal circumstances. Which means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this Sage from Portland. Remember Sage? Yeah. We do a little Q and A at the end of these live shows and where people can get up and ask us questions. Sage was great, so I told her to send it in. Hey, guys. Just got back from your live show in Portland. Chuck said to ride in to my amazing fact. I was super nervous to go up there. We'll save you to great, by the way. My fact is that you can actually tell how old a humpback whale is by looking at their ear wax because it forms rings like a tree. Oh, yeah. Remember that? Yeah. Humpback whales migrate from Alaska to Hawaii each year for mating. The temperature shift of the ocean water causes the rings to form. Researchers will examine the ear wax of deceased whales or beach to find out their age and a lot of other facts about them. Gross and fascinating. Just like the actual earwax podcast. Guys, I found out this while snorkeling on a cruise in Hawaii last week for spring break. Thanks for everything. And thanks for the live show especially. It was totally awesome with four exclamation points. Four? That's pretty good rating me and the life. I had so much fun. And I think I got my mom hooked on your show, too. Oh, cool. So thanks to Sage and her mom for bringing her, and it's good to meet you. You did a great job. You didn't seem nervous at all. No, totally large and in charge. Like you do audience QA stuff every night. That's right. Thanks to everybody in Portland. I think Chuck, every single person that we met before and after said, welcome to Portland. Like, we were literally welcomed by every single person. It was really neat that they're proud of their city, as they should be. Yes. If you want to get in touch with us about anything to do with whales or slinkies or live shows or any of that jazz, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffyshno. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast athowstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our luxurious home on the web stuffyoushenoe.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetoftworks.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural, science based nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. Find Halo elevate at Pepco Pet Supplies plus and select Neighborhood Pet stores."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ysk-lobbying.mp3	How Lobbying Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-lobbying-works	Lobbying is an entrenched part of American politics and one that many people think is breaking government. But petitioning the government is protected in the Constitution. How can this system be fixed?	Lobbying is an entrenched part of American politics and one that many people think is breaking government. But petitioning the government is protected in the Constitution. How can this system be fixed?	Tue, 06 Oct 2015 13:13:59 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=6, tm_hour=13, tm_min=13, tm_sec=59, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=279, tm_isdst=0)	51828680	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there is Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Crickets. So weird. Yeah, we're we do in this ghost style. Yeah. So what happened was and you explained to me, but I don't know, maybe my mind was elsewhere and I didn't fully understand. But what happened is guest producer Noel got the record. He put the mouse on the hamster wheel, got the computer running and left. And now you're a little freaked out, aren't you? Right. Well, this is out of close to 800 shows. This is literally the first time it's ever just been you and me in a room. Yes. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it really is, isn't it? I don't know. I feel like with no one in here, even though no one ever guides us, that we should just I don't know that we're going to cut up and curse. And it's like when the teacher has left the room, it feels like there's a vast field, a portal to another dimension to my right where I had no idea what that extra silent human 3ft from this myth. I think now this means that we've been put out to pasture. Wow. This is disconcerting. All right. I feel like you're going to, like, knife me or something. I could right now. No one would ever know until we publish the episode. No one would ever know. Wow, man, that's gruesome. All right, this is just weird. Let's do it. You ready? Yeah. Good choice, by the way. Yeah. I don't remember what episode we picked this and we were talking about something and lobbying came up. We were like, we should just do one on lobbying. Well, here it is. Yeah. I'm glad we're doing this because we'll clear up some misconceptions. It's not always evil. Just 75% of the time, maybe more. Yeah. I remember when we said we were going to do a lobbying when we got a lot of emails from lobbyists who are like, please don't just trash our profession like we ever would. They were like, lobbying. Actually, it can be a really good thing. So we got a lot of feedback before this thing even came out. Yeah, which hopefully will help us. Well, they're understandably a very defensive group. Everyone thinks it's just rotten and corrupt across all channels. And again, not true. 75% is rotten to the core. And the reason I and just about everyone else walking the planet thinks that lobbyists are rotten, it's because of some very high profile cases like member Jack Abramoff, who can forget what a and I usually don't publicly trash people, but that guy was a pile of garbage. There's really no I was trying to find some other way around it. It's like, no, he was awful. And just ripped people off unabashedly, ripped off Indian tribes, bribed officials, bribed people, pocketed money. And he was a highly successful lobbyist. Turned on people he was working for. Yeah. He's not a good fellow. No. But again, he was a successful lobbyist. He was at the top of his field for many years, actually. And it wasn't until 2006 when he was convicted of, I believe, like, bribery and corruption and all sorts of stuff. Tax evasion, all kinds of stuff. Yeah. And ended up serving three years, I think he did three years in the pokey. Yeah. And supposedly had to pay a lot of restitution and tax fines. But who knows how this stuff works out? No one ever follows up right. To see we'd say, oh, he's supposed to pay all these people back. Sure. It happens. Yeah. Who knows? He probably found a loophole to work around. He's probably working on a lawsuit against us right this moment. Chuck, can you not publicly call someone garbage? I think you can. Okay. Can we read this opening statement from 1869? Yeah. Because I think it makes a pretty good point that Jack Abramoff wasn't the first despised lobbyist. No. This is written by Emily Edson Briggs, who is a Washington, DC newspaper correspondent at a time where there weren't a lot of women doing that, which is kind of cool. I think she was the first allowed into the Congressional press room. Yeah. They said, let her in. She'll never say anything bad because we gave her this job and she's like, you fell for my baked cookies plan. She wrote a column called The Dragons of the Lobby. So you probably know where this is headed. And the opening line of the column said, winding in and out through the long devious basement passage, crawling through the corridors, trailing its slimy link from gallery to committee room, at last it lies stretched at full length on the floor of the Congress, this dazzling reptile, this huge, scaly serpent of the lobby. That could have been our Halloween episode. It really could have. Maybe we should gussy that up. I think we should. With horror. A little bit of sound effect. Yeah. That was in 1869. Yeah. Not very flattering. And it was actually it did come at a time when lobbying and lobbyists were really getting a chokehold on Congress, on legislation, on sweetheart deals from the federal government. But lobbying goes further back than that. And lobbyists have been despised even further back than that, as a matter of fact. Yeah. And again, it's something this article makes, I thought this is a really well written article, actually. Yeah. This is Dave Ru's article. Andrews he did a good job. He points out that the knee jerk reaction for your average person might be to say, just make it all illegal. Get rid of the lobby. It's awful. Yeah. But he makes a good point that it is necessary. The First Amendment in our own Constitution says, the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances is necessary and constitutional and mandatory. Yeah. And that's what lobbyists do. It's not always a huge corporation. A lot of times, they'll speak for the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts or all kinds of special interest groups, and we all have them. So you, me, everyone listening in America has a constitutional right to go and petition Congress to say, hey, guys, you guys aren't paying enough attention to government waste, or NASA deserves way more funding than you're giving it. Whatever. You can go do that. That's lobbying, technically, but unfortunately, almost from the beginning, corporate and big business special interest groups figured out a way to basically exploit that to their own benefit. Yeah. And Rus also points out and we'll get to this later, which is one of the big problems. It's necessary because Congress and their staff don't have time to well, again, we'll get to that later. Okay? Yeah. I don't want to spoil it, all right? But they don't have time to go through the myriad requests and information, deluge of information that's necessary to make an educated decision. Right. And so much so that Senator John F. Kennedy in 1956 said that we are, in many cases, expert technicians capable of not we are I'm sorry, lobbyists. He wasn't a lobbyist. I'm sorry. In many cases, expert technicians capable of examining complex and difficult subjects in a clear, understandable fashion. So that's the reason we need them in many cases, is to literally explain stuff to Congress, people and staff strapped for time and resources. It should be said, though, that when Kennedy wrote that in the mid 50s, lobbying was not much of a thing. It was established. It had been established for a couple of hundred years. People hated lobbyists. There were huge lobbyists scandals in the Gilded Age, from the Civil War to the 19th century. But in the mid 50s, lobbying was not a huge thing. It wasn't. So what he said, though, was accurate, and it still is accurate today. If you are an incoming Congress person, you make your name both to your constituency and in your party by getting bills passed, by coming up with bills and passing them. Right? Yeah. Look at all the work I accomplished. Right? And then if you get enough, you may end up on a nice committee, maybe even a committee chair, and then eventually a party leader. And all that is because you introduced legislation that was favored and got passed. The thing is, you don't have the time or the staff to research and write legislation. So you have to turn to lobbyists lobbying groups and say, hey, you guys are literally experts on this topic. I need your help. Educate me. Help me write this, and then we'll be friends. The problem is, there's not a special interest group like you said, whether it's the Girl Scouts or whether it's the Chamber of Commerce that doesn't have a slant, that isn't going to try to slant the legislation in their favor. So that means that the laws that are written in this country today are the legislative equivalents of evertorials. Yeah. Kind of thin on actual content and really heavy on stuff that benefits the corporations running the show. You know who would make good lobbyists? Who? They're in this room right now. Oh, you think so? I was just thinking, like, generally unbiased research presented so someone can make a decision. That's kind of what we do. Except we're not paid like lobbyists. No, we're not. Lobbyists make a lot of dough. In fact, in 2014, lobbyists and these are people that are officially registered as lobbyists, which we'll get to. There are a lot more people doing lobbyesque work that aren't officially registered. But official registered lobbyists were paid out $3.24 billion in 2014. And that is only divided among how many people was it about 10,600 people. What? Are you kidding? That's how many registered lobbyists there were this year. But again, just the registered one from a high of about 14 and change in when was that? 2006 or seven? Yeah, the 2007 changes came along. And it's not because there are fewer lobbyists that just gave rise to people or give people the ability to be like, oh, I'm not a lobbyist anymore. Because here's the thing. If you are a registered lobbyist, you are subject to some very strict ethical guidelines, legal guidelines, scrutiny of your business practices, and there's a lot of stuff you can't do. You're just completely outlawed from doing certain things. If you can just skirt the definition of a lobbyist, it's like open season and it's the wild west on Capitol Hill for you, and you can make as much money as you possibly can while doing the same things, just not having to register as a lobbyist. All right, but that's a lot of teasing. This is the current state of the American legislative process. Our legislators rely on special interest groups almost entirely to tell them what they need to know from their slant and then actually writing the legislation for them to go take the Congress and be like, what I got? Yeah, I'm going to make my name with this. All right. There's one other thing, too, that we should say. Yeah. And this is one reason why lobbying is so pernicious. Lobbyists also serve as major fundraisers for the very politicians that they are lobbying. Yeah, I didn't give them money. I just held a fundraiser that raised four and a half million dollars at $3,000 a plate. But hey, they gave them the money, right? They don't owe me anything. Right? I'm just doing this because I'm a patriotic citizen of the United States, and I'll see you Monday, Senator. And I like to overcharge for salmon. Yes. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. So that's the current state. Everybody, let's go back to the beginning, because lobbyists have been around basically as long as America has. Yeah. Let's take a little break and then we'll get to the tease stuff and start off with a little bit of history. All right. There's some misconceptions about the history of the word itself. Yes. Laura says that it was invented in the Willard Hotel in Washington, D. C. In that lobby when Ulysses Grant would kick back and have a drink like he so like to do and would get disgusted by what he called those damn lobbyists that were hanging out there. Yeah. Asking them for stuff that may have given rise to the term popularity wise here, but you can trace it back to England in the 1640s when they talked about the lobby in the House of Commons where you could go right up to your representatives and your cute little wig and say, here's what I think you should do. Right. And here's some good old fashioned English pounds in your pocket. Yes. That's always just gone with it. Part and parcel. Yeah. If not outright bribery, at least favors or quid pro quo or tip for tad or football tickets, the Jekyll and Hyde, Beyonce tickets, all sorts of stuff. Yeah. First class. No one flights first class. Talking about the Learjet, the true first class, the private jet. Didn't they do away with first class? And now it's just called business class because of class resentment in the United States. Yeah. And now they've well, depends on the airline. There's all sorts of new rules and special things you can pay for. All right. So in the United States, from the very first session of Congress, there were lobbying efforts in people treating Congress. I'm going to say Congressmen for this one because this was in 1789. Yes. We're going to say Congressperson for later on. The women were at home brewing beer in their households, but they were playing Congressmen with treats and dinners. And that was a direct quote from Pennsylvania Senator William McLay. From the very first session of Congress, he was saying, yeah, their lobbyists here, they're basically trying to bribe people. They're trying to install the Terrifac of 1789, which established Congress's ability to basically extract duties and taxes on goods in the United States in order to support the government. Let's go out to dinner instead. And the New York merchants were like, you don't want to do that. Let me get you hammered three ways from Sunday. What are you doing later? I'll tell you what you're doing. You're going to finish a casket. Rome in one sitting, then. Apparently, the bank of the United States was one of the first big corrupt organizations as far as literally having politicians in their pocket paying them money. Yeah. Like, the United States used to have things like an actual centralized bank, and Andrew Jackson came along. It's like, this thing is just way too corrupt. We need to get rid of it. And put me on your money. Yes. But the scandals associated with it were things like the National Bank had on its board as board members who were being paid by the bank sitting congressmen who were writing legislation in favor of the bank. Yes. This quote is the best. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster sent a letter to the bank of the United States that said this, among other things, since I arrived here, I have had an application to be concerned professionally against the bank, which I've declined, of course, although I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the bank should be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainer. In other words, I've noticed that you're not paying me. Now people are telling me to write legislation against you. I'm turning them down for now. You may want to send that money again if you would like this. Love, Daniel. Yes. Like, he flat out said the bribes have sort of dried up, I've noticed. Right. So why don't you start sending those again? Unbelievable. Yeah. History. So you talked about the Gilded Age, post Civil War until the close of the 19th century. We like to think that America's railroads were built on grit and determination, but in fact, it was rife with insider deals and scandal. What was it called? The Credit Mobilize scandal. Yeah, I looked into this a little bit. It's mind boggling, basically. Union Pacific. Mind boggling how overt it was. Yeah. But even just like it was not just crooked in one way, it was crooked in a number of ways. It formed one big, huge crooked thing that Congress was involved in. The Union Pacific Railroad started a company that served as the sole agent of building and managing the Union Pacific Railroad. Okay. And then they issued stock in this stuff, and they used Credit Mobilier and Union Pacific itself to basically overcharge and overpay one another so that the value of the stock went through the roof. Okay. So it's a stock massaging scheme to begin with. It's like an insider deal with yourself right. To raise the value artificially of your stock. Right. Yes. And then they took these shares in this company and started handing them out to Congress at a discounted price. So all Congress had to do was go sell them on the market for their face value, which was, again, artificially inflated, and they made a bunch of cash. And they were taking these as bribes for giving, like, land grants or breaking treaties with Native Americans so that the Union Pacific Railroad could build their railroad across the western states. Yeah. And they did this because, believe it or not, at the time, there wasn't a lot of private investors ponying up money for this railroad because it was sort of a new thing and it was risky. Yeah. They didn't know. Although it was a great idea, they didn't know. Like all investors, what they care about is getting their money back in quick fashion. Right. And they just didn't know if that was going to be possible. Yeah, and I mean, there's definitely something to be said for the federal government to step in and be like, look, we think that this is really going to help things out. We really want to fund it, but does it have to be totally fault with corruption while that happens? Yeah. No, it's the answer. Not yet. And then there was the famous gilded age lobbyist, Sam Ward, who he basically invented the social lobby. So while he wouldn't we'll get into direct lobby versus social lobby, but social lobby is basically in Sam Ward's case, he was a great chef, and he was like, I'm going to throw these great parties. I'm going to have great food and fine wine. I'm going to invite special interest groups and corporation heads and politicians and get them in the same room. But we're not going to talk about that stuff directly. We're just all going to get hammered together and have a great time, become friends. That was his job. Friends do things for one another, right? Yeah. I don't think we ever even said what K Street was. By the way, K Street is literally K, the letter K Street, where just about every lobby in the country has an office. Yeah. So that explains that if people are going, what the heck is K Street? Yeah, you're right, but it's like saying Madison Avenue when you refer to advertising or Wall Street. So lobbying just kind of after the gilded age, america was sick to death of lobbying and lobbyists and didn't want to have anything to do with it. So lobbying didn't go away, but it fell to the wayside a little bit. It was still a thing throughout the 20th century. It just kind of waxed and waned in the mid forty s, I believe congress was like, we actually kind of need these guys, so let's set up some rules for dealing with them, because at this time already, what John Kennedy was writing about was true. You had a brain drain going on from Capitol Hill to K Street where people would go and become an aide to a senator or a congressperson and make contacts, get a little bit of experience, and then after a couple of years, they would move on over to K Street, to a lobbying firm, make anywhere between five to ten times what they were as the congressional aide. And K Street was sucking the talent away from Congress. And so these congress people in the 40s said, hey, we need to work with these people because we need them, so let's make up some rules. Even still, lobbying was nothing like you would recognize it today. It wasn't until the when business did in about face of dealing with the government up to that point, it was like government to stay out of our business that's the lobbying we want to do is to keep you off of our backs, keep you from regulating our stuff, just stay out of our business. And then at some point, and I'm not exactly sure who figured this out, but some lobbyists convinced corporations like, hey, guys, you're doing this all wrong. You guys could get mind boggling amounts of money from the government in the form of subsidies or great contracts or sweetheart deals just by using our services. And lobbying exploded. We'll just take comparatively a tiny bit of that. Right. Even though it's a ton of money for individual lobbyists, it's nothing to these corporations. Right, exactly. Yeah. The Dave Ruse gave a really great example of Northrop Grumman in 2012 or something like that, I believe. Thunder, Mifflin, yeah. They spent $176,000,000 from Lotting in 14 years, from 1998 to 2012, which that's nothing to them because in that time, in 2012 itself, northrop Grumman got $189,000,000 contract for a cyber security system for the DoD. So that one contract paid for 14 years of lobbying expenses. Right, yeah. And then they got a $1.7 billion contract to build five drones. Right. And that's just north. Growment. I can't really pick on them. The reason why we called them out is because during 19 98, 20 12, they were the 9th biggest spender on lobbying, not just corporations, but industry as well. General Electric was the single entity that spent the most. Yeah. As far as the corporation goes, there's a great website if you want just good information and stats, called Opensecret.org. And this past year, 2014, the top ten spenders were the US chamber of Commerce, which is always number one by a long shot because they represent a lot of businesses. The National Association of Realtors was number two. Blue Cross. Blue Shield was number three. American Hospital Association, four. American Medical Association, five. Seeing a trend here, I wonder why. National association of Broadcasters, national Cable and Telecom comcast again, you can literally look at the years where there's the most spending and what's going on in those industries. And then Google and Boeing round out the top ten at just 16 million each. The amount of money spent has, I believe, tripled in the last few years. Right? Yeah, I think so. This is fairly new, but it's not new. It's basically a return to the lobbying of the Gilded Age. The amount of money, attention, time, questionable stuff that's been going on is just a replay of what happened 100 something years ago. Right. Yeah. And one of the reasons that it's become so rampant, it's been ratcheted up so much, you can actually lay it at the feet of Newt Gingrich. So Newt Gingrich. Chuckers was speaker of the House in the 90s when Clinton was president, if you'll remember. Sure. And he decided that Congress was doing too much, right? Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. So he cut staffs, which means that lawmakers that were able to they did have enough of a staff or enough resources to write their own legislation. Definitely could. Not any longer. He also cut staff at some resources that are dedicated to providing research for Congress, like the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service. All of these things that have been built up in response to dealing with lobbyists from the 40s on were cut by Gingrich. And all of a sudden, our lawmakers are relying strictly on lobbyists for money. Yeah. And there's a direct correlation. I know people, you hear about government spending, let's cut government spending. Which in theory sounds great, sure, let's cut government spending. But what that means is now you don't have staff to do unbiased research and get the facts. And like you said, you've got lobbyists to do that. Right, exactly. And the idea behind that tactic by Gingrich, if it was just based on, I'm cutting government spending by cutting jobs, or I think government's doing too much, there's actually a misstep because another senator from Oklahoma his name escapes me right now. He had the Congressional Budget Office do an annual report starting in 2011, and they found that the Congressional Budget Office found that for every dollar spent on the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Budget Office managed to come up with $90 of recommended cuts to government waste. Wow. So for every dollar you spent, you saved $89 just from the Congressional Budget Office. So cutting their staff is the opposite of what you want to do if you're against bloated wasteful government. Yeah, it's pretty interesting how it works out. It specifically is interesting as far as Newt Gingrich goes, too, because cutting Congress ability to not rely on lobbyists really left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths during the 2012 primaries. Yeah, because he refused to admit that he was a lobbyist. Well, yeah, and he's not registered as a lobbyist. What he has is one of the things he does. He has a healthcare consulting firm where you can pay $200,000 to become a member, quote unquote. Which you're not a client, you're a member. It's a membership group. Right. And he's not the only one. I mean, I think they have in here, they call it the revolving door. Basically, when you leave your position as a Congressperson or senator, you go directly to the lobby. The New York Times says there are more than 400 former legislators who worked as lobbyists in the past decade. Let me go make some real money now. Not just legislators, either. Like, there was, very famously a guy who was running the Pentagon, I believe, Ed Aldridge, and he was a longtime critic of Boeing, and then Boeing hired him, and on his way out, he approved a $3 billion contract to Boeing. That's the revolving door at work. There was a Massachusetts representative named William Dellahunt, and he took a job lobbying for a wind project that he had just earmarked a bunch of money for right before he left. Yeah. So, I mean, this revolving door, people say, like, well, let's just shut the revolving door, and it's a proposal. But at the same time, if you do that, then you're anti job, and you can't even appear anti job. So there's other solutions that I think are better for dealing with the lobbying crisis, I guess you could call it. Yeah, well, we'll get to that later. That great article you sent. You know what? She actually does a really great job, realistically, with this is veep. I haven't seen a second of that. It's fantastic, man. I mean, it really shows. Emmy for Best Actress. Yeah, she won. And Veep one, and I think the writing team won. Good. I think it's the best written show on TV right now. Or the best written comedy. Oh, have you seen Narcos yet? No. Check that out. Okay. But Vipers, really, even though it's a comedy, really shows that everything in DC. Is just about deals being made. Right. Like, well, you do this for me, and I'll give you support on this bill. And they're pulling that bill, and what did that lobby say? Because they were my friend, and it's such an insider's game, it's staggering. And that's a comedy written by English people, which is that right. Yeah, the producers got there, and they're all from England. Wow. I don't know. For some reason, that's so interesting. And they even in their Emmy speech said, it's kind of funny to be able to make fun of the American political system being English folks, but thank you for this award, for that. All right, so let's talk a little bit about, we keep saying registered lobbyists. Since 1876, Congress has required that all professional lobbyists register with the office of the Clerk of the House. And since 1995, with the Lobbying Disclosure Act in 2007, honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, they narrowly defined a lobbyist as someone who has one paid by client, two services include more than one lobbying contact, and three whose lobbying activities constitute or more of their time on behalf of that client during any three month period. So it seems broad. That's actually a really narrow definition of a lobbyist. Yeah. And it's so narrow, as it turns out, that it's really easy to skirt those rules and not register, because there are many ways you can say you can really budget your time and say, no, I worked 20.9% in this three month period for this firm, or, I have so many people I work for, I only spend about 15% of my time. Right. Or if you're on any one group right. Or if you're like Newt Gingrich, you're not working for a client. It says client. I got members, so I'm doing all this. But it's for members, not clients. Or if it's educational, it's not called lobbying. So, hey, let me just hire this former senator, pay him a lot of money to go around and. Give speeches on education that are really trying to generate interest in legislation or to educate the government on why the $37.5 billion in fossil fuel subsidies that shelled out in 2014 is a good thing to redo and then double. But that's just education. That's not lobbying. So those are just some of the ways you can skirt officially registering as a lobbyist. And actually, Chuck so you said that was from the 2007 act total. It was 95 and 2007, right? Yeah, two different acts. And in 2007, when they added I guess they added that third one about the 20% the time measure, like 3000 lobbyists deregistered. Yeah, it's registered loophole. Good. Oh, really? All I have to do is account for my time in this way and all the rules don't apply to me. It's pretty amazing. As a matter of fact. The American Bar Association said if you just get rid of that third one, the time thing, that would help a lot. Yeah. And actually, when Congress first started to deal with lobbying well, I shouldn't say first because it was the 19th century, but in 1945 or six, when they passed an act about lobbying rules, they said that someone who had to register as a lobbyist was anyone who AIDS in the passage or defeat of legislation. That's it. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm sure there are loopholes in there and ways around that, too, but it was much more vague, which in fact, it's counterintuitive. But that's actually better to be more vague in the description. Yeah. Because you can't skirt it as easy. So let's take a break and then we'll talk about all of the stuff that lobbyists do, including some good stuff, too. All right. Lobbyists, who are lobbyists? What do they do? They are full time, as Dave puts it, full time advocates for their clients. Yeah, it's a good way to put it. There's no job description you're going to get, but you better be a people person. You better have great you better have a stuffed roll of decks. You better be good at networking, be super good at networking. Smooth talker. Yeah, you should throw a good party. Be good at fundraising. Yes. And like we said, you got to know a lot of good people. You got to be a great communicator and persuasive. One might say slick. Slick, I think, is probably right, but I imagine that those are good qualities to have, just about any. But I also have the impression that there are lobbyists who are just strictly grinding out research and stuff like that. Yeah, I think there's different types of lobbyists. Some are probably like there's the Gladhanders. Yeah. Like the front person, maybe. And then there's like, wonks people who are literally technical policy experts on a certain topic. They know the ins and outs. They know both sides of it. They know what senators care about it. They know what congress people could be persuaded, maybe they know everything about this particular issue. Yeah. And, like, up to the minute, they have to be really up on the very latest policies and laws. They have to be experts, like you said, like, inside and out, because they get paid a ton of money to do that. Yeah. And there's typically three kinds of lobbying that people undertake. Again, whether it's the Girl Scouts or Greenpeace or the Chamber of Commerce or whoever, there's direct lobbying, indirect lobbying, and then grassroots lobbying. And probably any lobbying group takes part in all a combination of all these. Yeah. Direct lobbying is when you can get a meeting with the Congressperson or senator or their aides yes. And you sit down with their staff or them and say, I'm experienced clearly, because I'm in the room with you. And here's what we think is a good piece of legislation. Right. It's good for the country. Yeah. So that's direct lobbying. Indirect is if you well, what's the difference between indirect and social? Aren't they kind of the same? Yeah, it's the same. All right. So that's, like we said, sam Ward would throw parties the king of lobbying. Yeah. He invented the king of the lobby social lobbying. And that's still true today. You throw a big swanky DC cocktail hour and get people in the same room, just connecting folks that's in direct lobby, goofing them up with a little Scotch, maybe, and all of a sudden you're like you just sit back and you're like, yeah, this is working. Look at them talking to each other. I love myself. And then there's grassroots lobbying, which is kind of misleading, actually, because it can be employed by deeply entrenched deep pocketed interests, but it still appears grassroots. And folksy, things like paying somebody who's an expert in a field or a recognized figure may be a former congressperson or whatever to write an op ed. Yeah. Name recognition counts for just about anything. So even op eds. And if somebody's saying, if a former Treasury Secretary is like, this is a really bad idea, we shouldn't pass this legislation that's going to inform voters minds. It also is a huge message to the legislators who are also reading it that Washington Post published this, so a lot of people just read it. You may want to listen to what I just said. Yeah. Or grassroots in the purest sense of the word, in the more traditional sense, could be a small, little NGO that's all they can afford is grassroots campaigns. And sadly, the dog that barks the loudest is the one that's going to get the most attention, and you're barking the loudest if you have the resources to, I guess, get a bunch of dogs barking at once. Which is a really good point, Chuck, because this article goes to great pains to make it clear that not all lobbying is bad, that lobbying in and of itself isn't necessarily bad, and that there are plenty of public interest groups that are dedicated to serving the common good that engage in lobbying. So it shouldn't be outlawed. It shouldn't be cut off. We should figure out how to fix it. The thing is, they found that for every dollar that a union and public interest group combined spends, corporations or big business spend $34. Wow. 95 of the top 100 spenders were all corporate interests. So the field is very much skewed toward whoever has the most money or whoever is willing to spend the most. So to register as a lobbyist, which is required, like I said, since 1876, and then a few years after that, they require that members of the press register with the House and Senate because they had lobbyists posing as journalists. Right. So they had to take care of that pretty early on. But if you are registered, there are some things that you have to do according to the law. Well, first of all, you can't give gifts. Blatantly give gifts? Yeah, it's one of the things that got Abramoff in trouble all sorts of ways around this, of course, but you can't blatantly give gifts. You have to file quarterly reports that detail the contacts you've made with elected officials. You have to disclose how much money you were paid. You have to file semiannual reports that list contributions made to political campaigns. See that I have a question about that, because from what I understand on the federal level, if you're a registered lobbyist, you cannot contribute to a political campaign. Yeah. Maybe it has to do with, like, these $3,000 plate dinners or something. I don't know. Yes, I wasn't sure about that either, actually. But you mentioned the American Bar Association. A lot of attorneys are lobbyists off and on during their career. My uncle is actually a lobbyist. Is that right? Yeah, congressman. My congressman uncle. Really? He went through the revolving door, huh? Yeah. I don't know much about it. Oh, man, you got to ask him. Yeah, I should. And I will say this, even though we're not on the same side of the political spectrum, which I won't even say who's who, he's a Democrat, but he's a good dude and an honest person. So even though we don't agree on things, I always felt like he's not taking kickbacks. He's not one of those guys, and I really believe that. Right. He's a man pure of heart. In no way disparaging your uncle for going through the revolving door. One of the problems with that revolving door is not just that it causes this brain drain from Capitol Hill to the lobbying companies or the law firms, but it also makes Congress not really interested in passing any kind of lobbying reform or revolving door reform because pretty soon their term is going to be up and they can go get that job. Exactly. Yeah. Because as a public servant, I mean, you don't make a lot of money. No, you don't, and especially well, we'll get to this in a second. Okay. All right. But finishing on the Aba, the American Bar Association has a real interest in trying to keep lobbying as above board as possible because a lot of them want to be lobbyists and they don't want to be tarnished. Right. So like you said earlier, they think the biggest thing you can do is to separate and have really strict lines drawn between fundraising and lobbying. That's where it's the most corrupt. Yes. So get rid of the time requirement, the 20% of your time to be a registered lobbyist. Yeah. And just separate fundraising from lobbying. Yeah. I get the idea that that's where most of the hinky stuff is going on. So the thing is that makes sense, but it's also kind of like trying to remove a hornet's nest by picking the hornets out one by one. Not the best idea. You need to smash it and set it on fire. Pretty much. Then pee on the ashes. Actually, you should leave a hornet's nest. You should never destroy hornets nest. Apex predators and all. I get you. So the other idea to just shut the revolving door or to just outlaw lobbying altogether. Again, not only is that a bad idea, especially if you just did it wholesale out of the gate. You can't do that, but it's also unconstitutional. Right. So we read this really great article that was good in Washington Monthly. So who wrote this thing? Lee, Drewman or Dropman? Probably dropman. And Steven tell us. They wrote it in Washington Monthly. It's called a new agenda for political reform. It was a great article, Link V, but it made really good sense to me. Yeah. And it's not too wonky, but, I mean, these guys clearly know what they're talking about. Yes. People the long and short of it and what they think is the problem is what we touched on earlier, which is staffing of Congressional offices has been cut and slashed so much, and there's so much more information now to ingest than there used to be. They just can't do it. There are not the resources to do it. So we have no choice but to turn to lobbyists to act as the experts and to write legislation. Right. So they propose and we have some stats in here, actually, that I thought were pretty striking in the 80s, around 1980s, is when they started cutting everything. The Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Services. What they do is they provide nonpartisan policy and program analysis to lawmakers. Right. There are 20% fewer now than in 1979. And those are the very experts that were dedicated to serving Congress in a nonpartisan way so that they had all the information they needed to create legislation to actually make the government operate. 20% fewer than the 1970s. Yeah. So, gone starting in the then again in the mid 90s, gingrich cut congressional staff. Yeah. And while this is going on, it's a two way street. Lobbying is increasing. It's staggering how much lobbying has increased in money and just human power. And then one of the things about lobbying is that lobbying begets lobbying. The more a lobbyist can get legislation pushed through, the larger the Federal Register grows, the less ability any given Congressperson has to read and ingest and understand federal law, the more they need lobbyists who do understand it. Yeah. And so what you get is what we talked about, the revolving door. Well, actually, that's politicians themselves going to lobby. Well, but there is a brain drain because their aides are being sucked away by K Street as well. There's another cycle where there's no incentive to be a congressional staffer for very long because you're not going to make much money. I think they said the top 90th percentile of a congressional staff makes $100,000 a year. That's the top 90th percentile, which sounds like six figures. That's good. DC. Is not cheap now. And take out taxes and everything, that the median income was 50 grand. Right. So you're making what, like 35 after taxes. Right. You can't live on $35,000 in DC. And they found that the median income for a lobbyist in Washington DC median is $300,000. And that's pretty attractive, especially if you're in your twenty s and all of a sudden can go double or triple your income, like right out of the gate. Well, it's the career path, right. It's laid out there for everyone. Here's what you do. Go working on the staff for a little while, make contacts, which is invaluable that's why you do it for not a whole lot of money, right. And then boom, you can get rich, make a lot of money as a lobbyist. So Dropman and Telus suggest first and foremost that the solution to the lobbying conundrum that we have now is basically equip Congress with the information, research, and policy experts that they need and that they can get the stuff that they're currently getting from lobbyists. And the way you do that start is just increased salaries. And they make a really good point that you don't have to necessarily increase the salaries to be completely on par with what K Street is offering. Yeah, of course, because K Street would probably just start to outspend and just raise salaries. But if you can do it so that a person could make a pretty decent living, they would possibly choose congressional work over K Street, because with congressional work, they're in there. They're like part of this machine that's really making decisions and policies and laws that are affecting the country, rather than working for a law firm that's trying to get some legislation passed that will benefit this one corporate client. Yeah. So if you just factor in idealism along with a really good salary, these guys say you could attract the right talent that you need. So their recommendation simply. I mean, it's multifold, but they say double committee staff, triple the money that they make, and you might be stepping in the right direction. Yeah. And again, if you're like, whoa, whoa. That's a lot of taxpayer money. Well, again, if you look at what the CBO alone, spending a dollar on the CBO, comes up with $90 worth of places to cut government waste. These are good things to spend money on. Yeah. And you may have a cleaner, more legitimate government as a result, too. And that's priceless. Yeah. I mean. They made some excellent case that in the 70s. When the government had a lot of staff that was smart. That had a lot of institutional memory and knowledge. That they got things done. Like the Church Committee and the Pike Committee. Both of which revealed massive horrible stuff that the CIA was doing. Like dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD that came out of congressional investigations that you do not see any longer. No. If you had committee staff that were well paid, they would hang around and you would have a lot more laws being passed, a lot more deliberations being passed right now. It's all fundraising going on. That's what your legislators do. They get elected, they come to Washington, have their picture taken there, and then they go back out and start raising money for re election. Right. Yeah. And they're raising money from the very people who are working as lobbyists. So, yeah, all you have to do is create good jobs instead of congressional researchers, and you've got your lobbying problem largely licked. Yeah, I agree, man. I don't see any problem with this idea. It's sad. Whenever we dig into stuff like this, like, I talked about the Insiders Club, I don't know, it just seems like it's such a broken, messed up system. It is. There was another thing I read about something called rent seeking, which is where, through lobbyists, the corporation will go and just try to get a piece of the pie, not for doing anything, not even necessarily a contract, but just say, like a subsidy. And like, the fossil fuel subsidies amounted to 37 and a half billion dollars in 2014. That was just stuff that the government gave, just money the government gave oil and other fossil fuel companies just for existing. Right. And that's called rent seeking. It doesn't do anything. They're not producing anything to generate that income. They're spending a bunch of income to go suck it out of the federal budget. Right. And, I mean, if you want to talk about wealth redistribution, that's, like, the clearest version of it you can possibly imagine. Yeah. And that's through lobbying. Yeah. And this is just lobbying. Like, don't get me started on things like campaign finance and all the other ways. That's another one we should do. Yeah, I actually wrote that article, man. How was it? I bet it was depressing. It was depressing and tough. And it's probably way out of date. We will update it. Yeah, it would need a lot of, like, auditing. Let's do it. Campaign finance reform. Big thing. Remember our presidential debates? One that was eye opening? Remember there's like a whole commission that has a stranglehold on presidential debates? Yes. I have no record. Got to go back. Unless it was a good one. Most of them are likely. Yes, I remember that soon. All right, well, if you want to know more about lobbying, you can type that word in the search bar, how stuff works and it will bring up this fine article. And since I said search bar is time for listener mail. All right, I'm going to call this binge listening colon. Newest to oldest dudes and Jerry. By the way, I labored over that subject line like a publicist and it's still awful. Is what Colin said pretty bad? Colin, dudes and Jerry. I've been slowly making my way through the catalogue of episodes, and for any new listeners, I'd like to advocate for listening through them from newest to oldest. In other words, reverse order rather than oldest to newest, which is how I assume most would listen. While the references to old episodes might be a little confusing, they also build a sense of anticipation once you get there. I can see that. For example, I finally listened to the infamous episode on The Sun. You made so many references over the years to how bad that episode was that by the time I got to it, I was literally laughing from beginning to end. So it becomes like a comedy episode at that point. Yeah, that's kind of cool. You could almost hear Chuck's brain sizzling and melting as the episode went on. True. Mine did too. If I didn't have that sense of anticipation, your agony wouldn't have been as sweet. I like this idea. I think he makes a lot of sense. I dread the day that I run out of episodes and experience withdrawals. The shakes, the jimmy legs that will inevitably come when I'm jonesing for new stuff. That is Colin in Orlando. All right, Colin. Great email. Terrible subject line, but totally forgivable because of the body. I didn't think it was that bad. It's poopy binge listening. Newest to oldest succinct. I guess you better Colin, but great email, Collins. Oh, but if he's listening, he hasn't made it all the way back. Well, if he's listening to us, the oldest, though, does he just make time each week to listen to the newest one and then go back to wherever he lives? I don't know. Will he even hear this? We need to hear a follow up. God knows when he'll hear this, Chuck. We need to contact them directly. I'm feeling a great sense of regret. I feel bad for him because he's just heading straight for Disappointment land as he goes further and further back in the cattle. No, man, there's some episodes I just like to just redo, which we have done. They were like, five minutes and they were cool topics. We should just remove those from the Internet. I would like to redo the trolley problem. One you and I didn't do, I do with Chris Paulette, and it deserves, like, its own big current modern incarnation and stuff. You should know what to say. We should probably redo all the ones I wasn't on. How about that? That's fine with me. Let's do it. We'll call it the Summer of Chuck. Yeah. If you want to be, like, calling and get in touch with us and let us scrutinize your words, you can tweet to us at fyskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyshno. You can send us an email to stuff podcast at the houseworks.com. And as always, join us at our home, on the web stuffysheanow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com."
c41042ae-5460-11e8-b38c-5f5faf9dd0c5	SYSK Selects: How Gold Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-gold-works	As of early 2013, only 161,00 metric tons of gold had been mined in the entire history of the world. Considering about 85 percent of it is recycled, decent chance your jewelry may once have been part of an Incan headdress or Mycenaean face mask. Dive in to gold in this classic episode.	As of early 2013, only 161,00 metric tons of gold had been mined in the entire history of the world. Considering about 85 percent of it is recycled, decent chance your jewelry may once have been part of an Incan headdress or Mycenaean face mask. Dive in to gold in this classic episode.	Sat, 07 Mar 2020 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=7, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=67, tm_isdst=0)	44723384	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. What if you were a global energy company with customers in different places on different systems? So you call an IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now data is available anywhere, securely. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change an industry. IBM let's create learn more@ibm.com. Good afternoon, folks. Happy weekend. You ever wanted to know how gold works? You're thinking, how does gold work? It's just gold. It just is. Well, there's a lot more that goes into it. And we talk about all the history of gold. Very fascinating stuff from February 1, 2013. How Gold works. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. We're doing this again. It's been a little while. Been a little while, but it's still stuff you should know. I thought the name had changed since we took our little Christmas break. Don't you remember our race to the Patent office trademark again at the 11th hour? Yeah, that was a good one. Boom. And they stamped it. Yeah. S-Y-S-K. Actually, they said S-N-S-K-S-S-N is what we get from people a lot sometimes. And I'm like, no, it starts with a K. One of them does, yes. It's not stuff you should know as I know. It doesn't make any sense. How are you doing? Oh, I'm great, man. Are you okay? Good. You want to do this one? We're talking about gold. Yeah, man. I've got a little bit of an intro. It might be a stretch. We'll find out. Okay, let's hear. Today is January 15. Okay. Tomorrow is January 16. Fig Newton day. It is Fig Newton Day. And also on this day in history, in 378, the Mayan general fire is born, conquered the Mayan city Takal, which was recently rediscovered well, not recently. It's been rediscovered. They rediscovered a new one. And what this did was it enlarged the kingdom of King spear thrower owl. The Mayans have the best name. That's a great name. And all of this was going on in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula. If you went just a little to the north, you would run into another group of people called the Aztecs, which were actually the Triple Federation. Is what they're really called. But if you were to stumble northward and run into the Aztec empire and ask for gold, what they would give you is what they would call excrement of the gods. Do you want to try to pronounce it? Yeah, I'm going to go with Teoku. I think that's pretty close. I think you may have done it. Chuckle the last part is Lattel. I love that language. It's similar to some of the native languages we heard in Guatemala. That's because they're Mayan. Yeah, exactly. But it's got that same, like I don't know, it's very staccato. It's kind of cool to hear, I think. Right. Like the Mayan city, the heart of King Spear thrower owl's empire is TEOCO Ektan. Right. Which sounds pretty close to that word, teocolato, which means excrement of the gods. And that's what the Aztecs considered gold. It was a holy medal, a very precious metal in every sense of the word. And by 378 Ad, they weren't the only ones to have loved gold for a very long time. No. Egyptians were all over it. They thought it was also divine. Wait, hold on. How would you rate that intro? I would say that was on a scale of what, one to ten? I would say one to 20. Okay, one to 20. I would give it a solid like 16. Wow. Thanks, Chuck. Higher than you thought? Way higher. I thought I was going to get a ten. That's why I extended it 20. No, so the Egyptians, like I said, they also thought it was divine of the gods, indestructible. And they called it, I guess, nube. Nub. And if you know of the African region in northeast Africa, Nubia, or if you're a fan of the Rap group Brand Newbiens. Sure. You would have heard of this. I was, actually. Yeah, they were. Yeah, they were. And that name sold today because of the original Egyptian word for gold. And Africa, of course, has always been a major supplier of this stuff. Yeah, one of the first well, Nubia was, I guess, like the first heavily mined area for gold. And then on the periodic table, the shorthand for gold is Au, which I've never understood until I realized that it's Latin. Right. Which makes a lot of sense. I thought it would be gogd. Right? Something like that. No, we had to go with the Latin Aurum, which means shining dawn. That's nice. Yeah. And we sell this to say that people have loved gold for a very long time. Can I drop one of the stats of the show for me? Right. When I saw it, I was like, chuck's going to say, this is the fact that I think it's pretty good. I told Emily this last night and she was not as impressed as I would hope she would have been forever and ever. All the gold we've ever mined from the beginning of time is only 161,000 tons. Yeah. Which sounds like a lot. Yeah, that's a lot of gold, right? For all of time. That's not a lot of gold. They compare it to something like aluminum. We get a 5.6 million tons a year in the United States alone of aluminum, and again, 161,000 tons of gold is all that's ever been mined. Yeah. And the secondary stat that comes later, which I'll go ahead and ruin now, is that 85% of all the gold we've ever found is still around. We've only lost or cannot account for 15% of the gold since the beginning of time. It's pretty good. That is pretty good. And it suggests two things that William Harris points out. One, that means that if you are wearing a piece of gold jewelry, it may belong to somebody else a very, very long time ago. And two, where exactly did they get that? Where are they getting these, like, gold masks and headpieces and stuff, ancient time, and then melting down and reselling them? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's efficient and it's good because gold is really bad for the environment, as we'll see later on. Sure. But it's really recyclable, though. Yes. It makes me wonder, like, how are they acquiring that? Yeah. What is your wedding ring, sir? My wedding ring is platinum. Platinum. It's lovely, isn't it? It's very nice. What is yours? Oh, mine is, I think, titanium. It's very cheap. It's like $50. You could take it tooth out with that. I could. And this is actually my second one. I lost my first one inside of a turtle. Inside of a turtle? I have no idea where it is. Maybe it's inside of a turtle. But luckily I had the old email and I just sent the same order for the same ring, and boom, I'm married all over again for the second time. Did you guys have another mini ceremony? No, emily is just like, you need to buy another damn ring. Right? Yeah. All right. So that's a lot of gold stats. And as I've been trying to hammer out people like gold for a really long time, let's talk about the history of gold, shall we? Speaking of hammering out, though, I knew it. One more cool little fact. Gold. 1oz of gold. 1oz of gold can be drawn out into a 50 miles wire or hammered into a sheet five millionths of an inch thick. So we'll get to all this, but it's not only a beautiful thing for jewelry, but it's super handy and malleable and chemically inert and all these great things you can do with gold. Yes. Because of its property. It also makes it kind of ironic that the Egyptian is considered indestructible, because it's one of the more malleable metals around, and so malleable that it has almost no practical purposes as far as hammering things go. Like, you make a gold hammer, you're dummy. All right, so element number 79, let's get in it. Okay, so gold again. People go back to the Egyptians because they were the first ones to have, like, gold fever. But we've actually found evidence of gold being smith, I guess. Yeah. During the transition from the Stone Age, the Neolithic Age, to the Bronze Age, which is the first Metal Age before bronze, even. Right. Some places that had easy access to gold, like Bulgaria, I believe, in 4000 BC, were already working with gold long before the Egyptians ever got their hands on it. Yeah. And the Egyptians, like you said, they really had an appetite for the stuff. Hieroglyphs as early as 2600 showed gold, and by 1500 BC, it was like currency, basically, in Egypt. Yeah, very much so. I don't know. Do they actually meant it as currency, the Egyptians? Yeah. I don't know if they minted it. I don't think the minting came until the Greeks and Romans actually King Crosius, the ruler of ancient Lydia, which is a lost civilization, really? He was the first to mint gold currencies gold coins in widespread use in 640 BC. Wow. Okay. But it was the Greeks and then the Romans that really started to mint about 100 years later, though. Yeah. So that's a pretty nice jump on things he got. Yeah, he was like, hey, I like to look at this stuff. I'm going to put my face on it. Exactly. And you guys are going to use it. Yeah. By 550, the Greeks were doing it, and then the Romans, of course, with their more sophisticated ways, followed suit. The Aureus coins, is that what they were called? Yeah, they produced millions of them. Those are the ones that they find to some farmer in Devonshire. In England, we'll still find one we'll dig up, like, a chest filled with these things. Wow. Yeah. Because the Romans were everywhere. They were. And they minted a lot of these coins. So as they're doing this, the same thing is going on about the same time in South America because they have a lot of gold there as well. And what's it called, the Middle Sikon era. Yeah. I couldn't tell if it was Sikhan or CISAN. I bet it's CISAN. Sicon. I bet it's not Sicon. Ad 900 to 1100, and this is modern day Peru. There have been a lot of gold artifacts found in that region, so they were using crazy, for sure. The Peruvians were crazy about the Inca, like masks, ornaments, chalices, all that good stuff. And their specialty was hammering gold into sheets and, like, wrapping stuff in it. Oh, really? Like creating gold leaf. Interesting. Yeah, they were pretty good at that kind of thing. And then there was already a certain amount of gold fever over in Europe. I think the English minted their first gold coin in the mid 13th century. The same with the Florentine duket. Yeah, those were both about the middle of the 13th century. That was a popular coin. It was still is it among collectors. Sure, I bet. So there's people in Europe were exposed to gold. They like gold. They wanted gold over in central and south America, over in Asia. They also had a thing for gold. But the Europeans were one of the first to say, hey, let's see where the edge of the earth is and if there's gold there. And one of the first people to do that was Marco polo. And strangely, a lot of people hate Christopher Columbus or think he was one of the more evil characters in history, possibly rightfully so. But you can actually trace the infection that Columbus released, literally and metaphorically, back to Marco polo, because apparently there's evidence that Marco polo directly inspired Christopher Columbus to set sail in search of gold. Yeah. Growing up in history class, you always learned about the great explorers, and the more you learn about it, like, the real histories, as you get older, the more you learn that many times they weren't just sailing upon the shore with, like, a bouquet of flowers to deliver. Most of the time, I would say it was usually they were in conquer mode yeah. For one reason to spread Christianity as the Spaniards really wanted to do. Yeah. That was the cover story. The cover story. But king Ferdinand in 1511 also sent word, quote, while you're there oh, I added that part. While you're there, then start, quote, get gold humanely if you can, but at all hazards, get the gold. Right. So, I mean, that was definitely a charge. And thanks to the travels of Marco polo, the book that he wrote where he talked about palaces of silver and gold, people thought it was just like the streets were lined with this stuff, right, in the new world. And, I mean, imagine, though, if you were one of the conquistadors who started sailing west and you ran into the maya or the aztecs or the inca, and you saw that they had all this gold, you would think, well, this is all very much true in this place. Gold city. Sure. So let's kill all these people and take their gold. And there was actually a famed gold city, eldorado. That's what they're all looking for. Exactly. Like, everyone was looking for eldorado. And apparently, every time a conquistador would find a significant seam of gold, they found eldorado, and everybody else would come, and it becomes a boom area. But of course, it was a mythical city, right? Yeah. It was just like, legend. Yeah. And probably the closest thing to it, obviously not a city built of gold. Right. The closest thing to it is in Brazil, in the region. Okay. Minas jireis. That looks good. Freaky jires. Oh, we've been doing this, like, five years in. Our pronunciation is maybe even worse rather than better. Actually, we have a listener mail today where someone lodged us just for taking a chance and being willing to be created, corrected. Thank you. I'm glad to hear that. I'll read that one at the end of this one. Yeah, that was in 1700 in Brazil, and there was a lot of gold there. And they were the largest gold producer by 1720. Yeah. 20 years. They became the world's largest gold producer because of this area, using, of course, slave labor, painting for gold in sort of rudimentary ways. Yeah. Not good. No, we're not too far removed from that now. No, we're not. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss, then there's nowhere else to look at in Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah. Don't just take our word for it. Head to squarespace. Comssk and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code SYSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace. Comcysk. Squarespace. The world doesn't need just another chardonnay. What it needs is Martha Shard. The Martha Stewart chardonnay. That's the newest addition to the 19 Crimes family of wines. Martha Shard is a contemporary lens on 19 Crimes. It's the wine that disrupts the chardonnay category. Brought to you by Martha Stewart, the original influencer. Martha Shard is light and drinkable with a medium straw color, satisfying the palette with bright notes of citrus and round stone fruit with a crisp, clean finish framed by a distinctly sweet oat character. Martha stard is exactly what the world needed. And what you need is to make this refreshing crowd pleaser the star of your next party or gathering, because Martha Shard just might be the perfect summer wine. So come on, let's work hard, play hard and drink. Martha's Shard, available at a wine aisle near you. And on 19 Crimes.com, that's one. Nine Crimes.com. Please drink responsibly. So on to America. Yes. North America. California. The gold rush. Like, the point here is, is that gold has rewritten history and how we form societies because of the search for gold. Yeah. It's like, spread people out over the world and intermixed and intermarried and inner did it. We have entire groups of people, ethnicities, who are the result of gold. Yeah, the gold rushes. Yeah. California gets a lot of press, obviously, because by the end of the first year of the gold rush afterwards discovered in 18, 48, 50, 00 people were mining there. By the end of the second year, 40,000 people were mining there. But North Carolina actually was the first American gold rush. Yeah. And like you're saying, California gets all the attention. San Francisco 49 ers are named after the gold rush. There was that great scuba due episode with the minor 49 er. Remember him? Yes, I do. A scary guy. Yeah. When you think of gold rush, you think of California. Or I also think of Delaniga. He was in Georgia. Yeah. The mayor of Delanaga was the one who said there's gold and then the hills. Oh, really? Yes, it was the mayor of Delanaga. I had no idea. His name was Todd something, I think. Have you ever panned up there in DeLonga? I did that when I was a kid. Yeah. And it's fun if you're a little kid, right. You think you're going to find a little gold fleck and be rich. You just might find a little gold fleck. And if you do, you won't be rich. Yeah. You're going to find doesn't buy you virtually anything. But you were saying North Carolina doesn't usually get much attention. And that was the first gold rush. Yeah, up until the 1830s. In fact, they supplied all of the domestic gold that was coined here in the US, meant in Philly, came from North Carolina or at North Kakaaki is what we like to call it. Who calls it that? You never called it that. Have you ever heard it called that? I have. There's A Tribe Called Quest song. Oh, really? I can't remember what it is, but somebody calls it North Cackleac and Compton. Check it. Check it out. No, I didn't make that up. I just wrapped you. Did you're? J Tip so we talked about the gold rushes in the US. There was also a big one in Oz. Yeah. We can't leave out our Aussie mates. No. Hello, Australia. Yeah, they're like, we got tons of gold. They're like it's so hot. I watched Mad Max the other day, by the way, all the way through the original. Yes. That was good. It was. And it was I don't know, Road Warrior got most of the attention because it was bigger and more of an action adventure. But Mad Max was a really dark kind of revenge exploitation movie. Yeah, it's really good. Ozploitation Osploitation. So was that the one where the guys in the personal helicopter is that Road Warrior or Mad Max? That's Road Warrior. I don't think I've seen Mad Max then. It was when Mel Gibson was still a cop and there was this biker gang led by the tow cutter. And, you know, something cool. You know Justin, my friend. Yeah. His uncle was the toe cutter in Mad Max. Wow, man, I can't remember his name now. Uncle Toe Cutter. No, I didn't call him that's. What it says in his christmas stocking? No, he just sends toes every year and a little card. Oh, man, I can't remember his name now. Uncle Dougutter. I think that's the better day. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah. So Australia has this huge gold rush in the, what, 1850s? Yes. Edward Hammond Hargraves found gold in New South Wales. Bam. Gold rush. A few years later, South Africa steps onto the scene. 1868, george harrison. He uncovered gold in south Africa. And how many contributions has that man made to humanity in 160 years? I mean, he wrote Here Comes the sun. He discovered gold, like, 100 years before he was born. Not 100, but 100 years before he was famous. Right about the same time. About a full century. But down. South Africa is the leading gold producer in the world. Oh, today it is. Oh, wow. Followed by the United States. It surprises me. In the United States, nevada is the number one gold producer these days. You mean Nevada? Nevada. Okay. All right. So let's talk about how you get gold onto your finger. It's not as easy as you would think. Yeah. Well, it's at times rudimentary and at times a little more sophisticated, the whole process. Yeah. And complex, to say the least. Yeah. I mean, it really shows how much we want gold. Yes. It's sort of like fracking in a way, too. The one method. Yeah. All right, so what you got to do, you got to start by prospecting, which is the act of looking for gold. Right. And that's what you would call an old grizzled dude with a pack mule up in the hills in California. A prospector. Yeah. That's what you call a geologist who finds gold today, too. They're still called prospectors. And I guess the idea is that what are the prospects for finding gold? I'm sure that's where it came from. Right. Maybe to their prospect. That makes a lot of sense. I never thought about that. So, back in the day, there was a lot of luck involved, looking around for it basically where you think it might be. These days, it is way more precise. They have equipment that can tell you if there is likely gold there, and then well, here's the thing. There's gold everywhere, but it's just not concentrated enough to be worth mining. Yeah, that's an excellent point. In most cases, it's invisible, but it's still present in the soil. Isn't that crazy? Invisible gold and dirt and rocks. Yes. Or it's in gold slogger. That's crazy, too. It's like they're just throwing it away. Yes. Throwing away. You're drinking it for a premium price. That's crazy. That's just gross. That was like a college thing. Oh, yeah. Give me a gold slogger. Goldslage jagermeister. Anything that sounded like, vaguely Germanic. Yeah, that was a college thing. Meister brow. Right. So where they find gold in heaviest concentration is when they will say, all right, you know what? It's worth setting up a mining operation here. There may be other metals there, like silver, which is great. Yes. A lot of times gold is combined with silver in an ore, which I'm sure you're just like, okay, great, that's fine with me. That's twice the value, right? Well, not twice the value, but one and three quarters times the value. No. We could figure it out. So they drilled down to obtain samples, analyze it, see if there's enough gold. If there is, they're going to set up a mining operation there. If not, they're going to move on and look at another place that they think they might have a lot of gold. Yeah. And then depending on how the gold is present in the area, there's basically two ways. One is the load deposit, which is combined with rocker ore, and it can be at the surface or underground. Yes. And with a load deposit, basically, you just want to blow things up. When you find gold like that, if it's at the surface, you're going to use what's called an open pit method, which is basically just drill a bunch of holes into the ore, the gold ore, put some explosives in there and blow it up and then haul the ore out. Yeah. Your goal here is just to make if they could load up that huge boulder and take it and do it neater somewhere else, they might. Right. But they're just trying to make smaller rocks. Excellent point. For transport. Yeah. And then if it's underground, if the load is underground, they'll dig a shaft down to it and add it. They go down to it. And this is a big shaft. I'm sure they go down to it and drill holes all the way through that or rock. And those holes are called stoves, and they pack those full of explosives and blow it up. So it's basically like the open pit method, but underground, because then they just truck that door out and off to the extractor. That's right. If you're in Delhi, in Georgia, or maybe at a river in Utah, why not? Why not give a Utah shout out? You might look for something called a placer deposit. And that is when you find the loose gold in a stream bed, the little flakes or the little chunks of little nuggets in a mountain stream or a beach. And this is where you would pan, and you scoop it up in a pan and you shake it. A lot of water. Yeah, a lot of water. Because gold is more dense, so it's going to sink and collect at the bottom of your little screen that separates everything. And then you got a little bit of gold, and then the 6th graders are all very happy. That's right. Or I imagine if you were a prospector in California back in the day, you could do quite well as a panel. Yeah. You'd look around and be like, it's mine. It's my gold. All right. So then you have to extract it. That's the next step. Right. So you've got all these big rocks that you've blown up. Yeah, I guess this is mostly the first couple of steps are from load deposits. You have a bunch of rocks, you put them on a conveyor belt, and they go into a machine that's appropriately called the crusher, which breaks the ore into gravel. Then you take that gravel and you put them into drums with a bunch of little steel balls, spin it around real quick. And the steel balls collide with that gravel and they turn it into basically like a powder. And you add water to that powder. You form a slurry, add cyanide to that slurry and expose it to oxygen. And all of a sudden, you're starting to extract gold from ore. Yeah. The pulp. Basically the gold in the pulp dissolves with that chemical reaction, the cyanide and o two. And the little carbon in there. Like tiny little carbon greens. Sure. And the gold is going to adhere to it. They like each other very much, so they're going to get together and party for a little while. Then you filter that and you have gold bearing carbon. At this point, still not pure gold. Right. So it's gold with carbon. Then you move that to something called a stripping vessel. They put another solution, a caustic solution to separate the gold from the carbon, have more filters to filter out the carbon. And so now you have actually a gold bearing solution. But you're still not done. No, this is my favorite part. Yeah, this is pretty cool. It's called Electro winning, which, thank God, Charlie, she never heard of this because this whole thing would be even more annoying. But you put gold into a cell with positive and negative terminals, pass an electrical current over it, and the gold separates from the carbon solution or the gold bearing solution, and is attracted to the negative terminal. So much so that I get the impression that it basically becomes embedded in the negative terminal. Yeah. I kind of wondered because the next step is to actually melt that negative terminal along with the gold. Right. And then you begin to separate the two. Basically, you pour off the negative terminal metal, maybe steel or something like that. It's called smelting, by the way. Right, exactly. So when you smell and I thought smelt was just melting. Yeah. Why did they add the s? Because it's not melting, it's smelting. Exactly. So when you pour off the steel, I guess maybe that comes off first, and then what you have left is relatively impure gold. But as close as you're going to get in the extracting process, you pour that into bars called dora bars, and then you ship them off to the refiner. Yeah. And that's not the bar that you will see in Diehard three. Oh, man. This is a more impure dorit bar. Right, sure. Still nice to have one. Yeah, I'm sure you can be like, look at me. That's right. Okay. And then you need to refine gold from that point once you have it in its purest impure form. Right. So imagine the process that we just went through. It was like, add this, subtract this, remove that, but add this, and then, like, the gold adhere to this, and let's burn the whole thing up until it gets melty. It's still impure. It still has to be refined. So when refineries get gold dory bars, they also frequently, when you sell your gold to JD. Wentworth or whoever, they take all this gold scrap and send that off also to these refineries, which also serve as recycling centers, too. Basically. That's like the saddest shipment. Yeah. Just full of people's lost hopes and dreams and memories, wedding rings and gold bracelets, anniversary bracelets, all just sent back to be melted down because of the economy. Yeah. So when they throw all this into the same pot, they add a little bit of soda ash, a little bit of Borax, and honestly, what Camp Borax do, and the sodashian borax basically filters out impurities, and then what you have left most of the time, and they use essay tests to figure out the purity. But you have about 99.9% pure gold, and that's usually what they stamp on the bar that they pour. And those bars are called ingots. Yeah. Those are the ones you'll see in Heist movies. Yes. And if you have ever seen Die Hard Three and you see them loading up these ingots into big gym bags and then throwing them over their shoulder and running out, that is not possible because each one of those bars weighs \u00a327. So if you have 50 of those in a bag, like, Jeremy Irons might jeremy Iron is not a strong man. Now, you're not going to throw that on your back, like, \u00a3300 of gold and go running up a bunch of stairs out of the New York where is it? The New York? The Federal Reserve Bank. Reserve bank, yeah. Supposedly there in Fort Knox is where they have all the gold. Yes. Emily was talking last night about that. She's like, well, that doesn't sound very safe to have all this gold in one place. I was like, well, that's why they say it's built like Fort Knox. It's, like, super secure. She's like, yeah, but what if some terrorists just bombed it? She was like, you could just bomb it and then sneak out of there with the gold. And I went, you just wrote Die Hard three. She was like, Is that what happened? That's exactly what happened. But I think she makes a good point. I was thinking last night, too, like, if we have all this gold, and if it is all there, just keeping it in two places. I don't know, it seems unusually, like, tempting fake. I think I agree with emily? Yes. $6 billion worth of gold at Fort Knox. No, my friend. Is that more now? Dude, so when Harris wrote this one, gold was 42.42 point 22. Right. Now it's $1,667.49 an ounce. What? So that means that if Fort Knox holds 147.3 millionOz of gold, the gold is worth $245.6 billion. Wow. Just sitting there in Fort Knox. When did he write this article? Like, 1935? No, I think gold went up really much in the last couple of years because of the economy. Everybody flocked to gold, demand increased, and so the price did so amazing to me, after all these years, gold is still, like people hoard it. Yeah, man. When gold prices are low, you are very smart to invest in gold because there's always going to be another economic downturn, and the prices are always just going to skyrocket. You got a couple of ingots in your closet. I have them strapped on my leg. That's why I have a limp. Is that why you walk funny? Yeah. All right. So during the refining stage, we should point out that a lot of times, because gold is so soft, pure gold is they will combine it with other metals to form alloys. And that's why you will get something like white gold, which is gold combined with nickel or silver or platium. Red gold is golden copper. That's pretty. And I've never seen red gold on this. You see rose gold, surely. Am, I sure, at all my fancy. I mean, it has, like, just a slight pink hue to it. Very pretty stuff. Yeah. I'm not big into gold, like, as far as jewelry. Yeah. No, I'm with you. And then, of course, you have to talk about carrots carriage, and that is how much gold is in the object compared to, like, silver, nickel or whatever else is in that alloy. And interestingly, different countries have different preferences here. You always hear about 14 carat gold in the United States, which is only 58.5% gold. Apparently. In India, they're partial to the 22 carat, which is 91.75% gold. And the Europeans like to take that middle road and hit 18 carats. Yeah. That's very strange. I don't understand what it is. I can understand price being a factor, but maybe it's very odd to me that, like, cultures prefer it. So 24 carats is 100% gold, obviously. Yeah. Twelve carat is 50% gold. Yes. And about two thirds of all the gold is. Yeah. Which makes sense. Sure. And what's interesting about the jewelry is that it's still basically produced, as it has been for hundreds or thousands of years, using the same techniques. Virtually the same tools. I mean, I'm sure they're manufactured much differently, but they are kind of the same thing. Yeah. And while jewelry accounts for, what did you say, two thirds of all the gold and use yeah, nearly two thirds. There's a lot of other pretty interesting uses for gold, too. Electronics use a lot of gold and a lot of other rare earth minerals. Apparently gold is very conductive. It's more conductive than any metal except for copper and silver. But it has a leg up on copper and silver. And that it corrodes. It's very difficult for gold to corrode. Yes. So that means that if you want something that's going to last a very long time and be conductive, you might as well use some gold. So they do, and things like processors and hard drives and that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, you might see gold on your headphone. Plug your headphone, jack might be gold plated. Because if it's higher end, they might use gold, conducts electricity and therefore sound better. I have seen that. I just thought it was like fancy high end or something. Here's a cool stat. Because they use it so much in electronics and microelectronics, NASA used more than 40 gold in the construction of the space shuttle Columbia. Right. That's a pretty cool fact, electronics. And they used it as a reflective surface. They use gold film. Remember, you can pound gold into like a zero thin sheet. It's amazing. So it's light at that point, highly reflective, effective against radiation. Yeah. So that's pretty awesome. You also use it for crowns? Yeah. They still use gold crowns, don't they? I guess, I imagine, because it's not reactive. Because when things are reactive, especially with cooking, it will make things taste terribly. Yeah, that's true. Like there was something called a fish fork, and it was made of silver. And apparently if you had this thing, it was like a status symbol or whatever in the Victorian era. But it also did have a practical use in that silver didn't react with lemon juice, which is often used to serve the fish, so it didn't affect the taste. I imagine that's probably one of the reasons why they use gold and crowns, right. So that everything doesn't just taste better because it's not reacting with anything, because it's chemically inert. That's a good point. Yeah. Because you don't want to be eating something and think, oh, man, my new gold tooth makes this tilapia tastes like squid. Or poop tastes like squid. I don't know. That's not so bad. No, I like squid. But if you eat tilapia, you don't eat squid. Do you eat squid? Will you eat octopus? I mean, I'll eat all that stuff to a certain degree. Emily, when it comes to calamari, she will only eat, like, the things that look like little onion rings. Right. As soon as it looks like the little miniature creature, she's like, that's for you. And I popped that in my mouth. I will eat both. I'll especially eat squid. You and me won't eat octopus because remember, one of our friends had a friend, they told us the story that their friend was a cook for some couple down in the Caribbean, and the couple caught an octopus and was going to cook it, or they gave it to their cook to cook, and the cook was going to put it in the pot alive. And the octopus was wrapping its tentacles around the woman, like, please don't kill me. Oh, my God. And she said it was one of the worst things that ever happened to her because she did it anyway when you literally have to fight to put the animal to their desk. So that combined with, I think, being inspired to go research Occupy and finding that they are very intelligent yeah. I just can't eat those anymore, which is they pop up. It's a pretty delicious dishes, I imagine. But they're a very smart animal, too. Just stupid ones, right? Yeah. I could see that I would be traumatized. Oh, my God. Yeah. Because it was like, no. Yes. I would just walk slowly into the ocean until it released itself and swam away. Yeah. You'd be like the woodsman in Snow White. I don't know what happened to it. But then you start to walk back and the octopus reaches up with one hand and holds your hand like, I want to be your pet. I don't want to go back to the sea. Just don't cook me. Don't cook me. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss, then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yes. Don't just take our word for it. Head to Squarespace.com SYSK and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code, SYSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain that's squarespace. Comsyskquarespace. The world doesn't need just another chardonnay. What it needs is Martha Shard. The Martha Stewart chardonnay. That's the newest addition to the 19 Crimes family of wines. Martha Shard is a contemporary lens on 19 Crimes. It's the wine that disrupts the chardonnay category. Brought to you by Martha Stewart. The original influencer, martha Shard is light and drinkable with a medium straw color, satisfying the palette with bright notes of citrus and round stone fruit with a crisp, clean finish framed by a distinctly sweet oak character. Martha stard is exactly what the world needed. And what you need is to make this refreshing crowdpleaser the star of your next party or gathering, because Martha Shard just might be the perfect summer wine. So come on, let's work hard, play hard, and drink. Martha's Shard, available at a wine aisle near you. And on 19 crimescom. That's one. Nine crimescom. Please drink responsibly. All right, where do we leave off food and beverage? You can get it in goldsagger in certain jellies. Gold, by the way, not octopus. Yeah. And that's all just for marketing and making things look fancy. It really is. They have, like, the world's most expensive Sunday or the world's most expensive salary gold flakes. It does. So much so that I think we've talked about this. They have another category for World's most expensive non gold, because it's like any smoke can spit out a hot dog and relish and then put gold flakes on and be like, world expense of hot dogs. Yeah. And that doesn't really count. Yeah. So then that means some of the gold that we've lost, that 15% has been pooped out. Yeah, I guess so. That's sad. Is it? I think so, since it's so limited in supply and bad for the environment to get. Well, I guess we should talk about that. Yeah, we probably should, because I was very surprised. I had heard that gold was bad for the environment, but I didn't realize this. You want to tell one of the facts of the podcast? Yes. It is like most mining operations, not great for the environment. In order to get just 1oz of gold, you have to get out 250 tons of the rock and oar. And a lot of times well, of course, there's the cyanide, which is never great when you're introducing those kind of chemicals. No. And apparently they take this affluent, right? Yeah, we're affluent. And they dump it out in the ocean. Oh, really? Which probably affects octopi. Yeah. It's like, hey, here's a bunch of cyanide water. I'm sure the ocean will eventually even things out, but for that local area where it gets dumped, that can't be good. Of course not. And that's why there's a group, a nonprofit called Earthworks that runs a campaign called no Dirty Gold. Yeah. So I imagine if you have a gold wedding band and a blood diamond on your finger, then you're just like that's a double whammy against well, no. Hat trick would be three. Not in this case. Okay. That's as good as you can get. Or as bad as it gets. So we should talk a little bit about gold. Although I think we should do a full podcast and the gold standard at some point. I know we touched. I agree. At some point. Let's do it. But the gold standard was, wasn't it, like, every dollar amount that you could print, there was a certain amount of gold that had to be in reserve that match. That what it was. Yes, exactly. And if you had enough money, you could go up to the federal reserve and say, I want to cash this money out for gold. And they had to give it to you by federal law. And that was from 1900 to 1971. When didn't we just start putting more money than gold and said we should abandon the gold standard? Yeah, and I think when you detach your currency from gold, it becomes a fiat currency right to the whims of the market. I seem to remember discussing this in one of our econ podcasts way back when, maybe even audiobook. Man. How the economy works. The superstar and to the Economy. That's what it's called. It was a good one. So 236 tons of gold are being so called hoarded by people and governments. Is that all 236 tons? Yeah, it seems like if there was still 85% of the 161,000 tons, that doesn't seem like much. But it doesn't. It's a lot of jewelry being worn. Yeah, but they think there is actually gold out in outer space, and some of these big asteroids flying by that are chock full of minerals and other metals. There was a 1998 the near earth asteroid rendezvous spacecraft passed close enough to the asteroid aeros to actually send back data, and they think the arrows might have as much as 20 billion tons of gold, which would probably really drop the value of gold here on earth if anyone ever got their hands on that. How do you go about capturing an asteroid, I wonder? We did a podcast on asteroid mining, remember? Is that the same thing? Okay, that's what they would do. Well, I retreat, then. We should just do that. I could do that. I thought Bruce Willis up with a lasso, a golden lasso riding a jackalope. Yeah, and attach it to the Jackalope's tail and ride it back to earth. You got anything else? No, I don't. Well, I have one more thing I want to recommend. Harris didn't mention this. One of the other really bad environmental impacts of gold is illegal gold mining. Apparently, Guiana has a lot of illegal gold mining. Oh, really? And one of the things that if you're an illegal underground gold miner, you're not going through this elaborate extraction and refining process. You are basically taking your order and you're refining or extracting onsite using mercury. Mercury is what they use. So there's not only a lot of illegal, horrible for the environment gold mining going on, there's also a lot of mercury mining and a lot of mercury runoff. So there's mercury poisoning all over Guiana right now. Wow. And there's a really great article. It may have won a Pulitzer. I found it on Pulitzer.org, but it was originally in Harper's. That's where I read it. Gold guns and garimpieros. That is garimpeiros. And it's by Damon Tabor. Good stuff. Awesome article. Is so Engrossing one of those that makes you want to not ever use gold for anything. It has that effect a little bit, but it's more just completely fascinating. Like, you can't believe that people are doing this. Wow. Yeah. And child labor, too. Right. Isn't that a big problem? I think that was part of it, but more, it's just you really risk death in these, like, they're called wildcat camps, these illegal gold mining operations, because, I mean, if some cyanide and the explosives in the mercury mercury and the guns and people staking other people's claims, bad news. Wow. So there you go. If you want to learn more about gold, you can type that word into the handy search bar@houseupworks.com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. Josh. I'm going to call this the ten commandments of Chuck and Josh, although there's only eight, and this is from Professor Tom. Okay, guys, I teach a communications course at an area community college and universities. I often recommend your podcast in my classes, especially to students that seem to love learning but may have not been encouraged by family or friends. I'm hoping that they may pick up a few important life lessons from you guys, as well as interesting facts. Here are a few life lesson highlights that I think you guys display. Number one, normal guys can talk about something other than sports. True. I know. I like sports. Number two, good presentations begin with an attention getting introduction. Josh will tell you this is sometimes easier said than done. Yes, that's absolutely correct. If you don't know something, look it up. And if you were looking it up on the Internet, check more than one source life lessons. This guy is really paying attention to what we're doing. Yeah. Learning involves mistakes. Number four, take a shot at pronouncing the word. If you get it wrong, venture a guest, share a new hypothesis, then invite feedback, which is the important part. Jeremy Pierros. Number five, you don't have to make fun of people to be funny. If you absolutely must mock someone, mock yourself. And you're good at that. Number six, it's okay for guys to have a variety of emotions. There's nothing unmanly with being sensitive or expressing emotions other than anger. It's even healthy for guys to talk about their emotions. You're like the new rosy crew. Yeah. Number seven, it's worth the effort to be respectful of others. Sometimes you have to stop yourself before you make an off hand joke, which we do. Sometimes you have to use a term that is more accurate or up to date, which we try and do. Sometimes you have to remember what it feels like to be seen as different and see if your language can be more inclusive or encouraging. Even if only one person in your audience notices the efforts, it's worth it, man. This is my conscience writing it. Number eight, curiosity can last a lifetime. And that was the last one. And he said, guys, there's a lot to be said for teaching by example, whether you realize it or not. You're doing it every week. And he goes on with an interesting PS from Professor Tom. PS. A few of my gay male friends and I got talking about your show. We tried to figure out which type you would be if you had been born gay. It was unanimous. Chuck is clearly a bear. If you have a gay brother, Chuck, I have a few friends who would like to meet him. I do have a brother, but he's not gay and he would not be a bear. He's prettier than me. He is very pretty. He would actually love my brother. Yeah, he's got great hair. I thought you guys would like knowing that you were being stereotyped by a bunch of gay guys standing around drinking beer at a bar called The Hole. Performing stuff you should know. Podcast analysis. What a world. Thanks, Professor Tom. Yeah, that's a great email. That was a great email. We got to print that one out. Frame it. If you ever do analysis of Stuff You Should Know, we want to hear what you've concluded. You can tweet to us. If it's a short conclusion at Syskpodcast, you can join us@facebook.com. Stuffyheano. You can send us an email to stuff podcast@howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyshowcom STUFFYou knows is production of Iheartradios how stuff works. For more podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio App, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Summer School's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them Halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at Chewy, amazon and Halo pets.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ysk-the-tomb.mp3	The Tomb	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-tomb	In this spooky episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck get you ready for Halloween as they narrate H.P. Lovecraft's creepy tale "The Tomb." Tune in to learn more...if you dare!	In this spooky episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck get you ready for Halloween as they narrate H.P. Lovecraft's creepy tale "The Tomb." Tune in to learn more...if you dare!	Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:34:30 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=17, tm_min=34, tm_sec=30, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=301, tm_isdst=0)	29362262	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry it's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from housetoporkscom. Hey and welcome to the podcast. A very special podcast right now, Chuck, a spectacular, if you will. Happy Halloween to all of you out there. This should come out a couple of days before it before but we wanted to make sure that we weren't going to miss it and so we're releasing a special Halloween podcast that's right. For this year. Something new? Yes. And what we're doing is not in any way, shape or form scientific. It is in fact pure fiction. Or is it? It is. Okay, we're going to read just to make sure we scare you guys good and proper this Halloween, an HP. Lovecraft short story that was published in 1922 and it's entitled The Tomb. Right? That's right. Did you like this? It was good. I think it's a great short story. It's one of my favorites. Awesome. Okay. I should probably preface this with chuck is uncertain about how this is going to go. So if it goes good, that means you're hearing it. If not, it'll be locked away forever in a vault of some sort. Possibly a tomb. Right? Tomb, yeah. So, Chuck, are you ready? I am. I'm spooky, I'm loose. I'm a little nervous myself. Yeah. All right, I'm going to start. Okay. Okay. All right. Are you ready? I'm ready. The Tomb by HP. Lovecraft. In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal that all things reappear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them. But the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns madness the flashes of Supersight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism. So I should probably say right here, Chuck, that it gets a lot better. Okay. Okay. My name is Jervis Dudley and from earliest childhood I've been a dreamer and a visionary wealthy beyond the necessity of a commercial life and temperamentally unfitted for the formal studies and social recreations of my acquaintances. I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little known books and enrolling the fields and groves of the region near my ancestral home. I do not think that what I read in these books or saw in these fields and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there but of this I must say little since detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect which I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me. It is sufficient for me to relate events without analyzing causes. I have said that I dwelt apart from the visible world, but I have not said that I dwelt alone. This no human creature may do, for lacking the fellowship of the living, he inevitably draws upon companionship of things that are not or are no longer living. Close by my home there lies a singular wooded hollow in whose twilight deeps I spent most of my time reading, thinking and dreaming. Down its moss covered slopes my first steps of infancy were taken. And around its grotesquely gnarled oaks my first fancies of boyhood were woven. Where did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees? And often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of waning moon. But of these things I must not now speak. I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets the deserted Tomb of the Hides an old and exalted family whose last direct descendant had been laid within the black recesses many decades before my birth. Take it, Chuck. So there's a family called the Hides? Yeah. And there's a tomb? Yeah. Okay. That's where the hides are. Got you. Okay. The vault to which I refer is an ancient granite, weathered and discolored by the mists and dampness of generations. Excavated back into the hillside, the structure is visible only at the entrance. The door, a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone, hangs upon rusted iron hinges and is fastened a jar in a clearly sinister way by means of heavy iron chains and padlocks according to a gruesome fashion of a half a century ago. The abode of the race who scions are in earned had once crowned the declivity which holds the tomb, but had long since fallen victims to the flames which sprang up from a disastrous stroke of lightning of the midnight storm which destroyed this gloomy mansion. The older inhabitants of the region sometimes speak in hushed and uneasy voices, alluding to what they call divine wrath in a manner that in later years vaguely increased the always strong fascination which I felt for the forest darkened sepulchre. One man only had perished in the fire when the last of the Hides was buried. In this place of shade and stillness, the sad earn full of ashes had come from a distant land to which the family had repaired when the mansion burned down. No one remains to lay flowers before the granite portal and few care to brave the depressing shadows which seem to linger strangely about the water worn stones. I shall never forget the afternoon when I first stumbled upon the half hidden House of the Dead. It was in midsummer when the alchemy of nature transmutes the sylvan landscape to one vivid and almost homogeneous mass of green. When the senses are well nigh intoxicated with the surging seas of moist verdur and the subtly indefinable odors of the soil and the vegetation. In such surroundings the mind loses its perspective. Time and space become trivial and unreal, and echoes of a forgotten prehistoric pass beat insistently upon the enthralled consciousness. All day I'd been wandering through the mystic groves of the hollow, thinking thoughts I need not discuss and conversing with things I need not name. In years, a child of ten, I had seen and heard many wonders unknown to the throng and was oddly aged in certain respects when, upon forcing my way between two savage clumps of briars, I suddenly encountered the entrance of the vault, I had no knowledge of what I had discovered. The dark blocks of granite, the door so curiously ajar and the funeral carvings above the arch aroused in me no associations of mournful or terrible character of graves and tombs. I knew and imagined much, but had, on account of my peculiar temperament, been kept from all personal contact with churchyards and cemeteries. The strange stone house on the woodland slope was to me only a source of interest and speculation, and its cold, damp interior into which I vainly peered through the aperture so tantalizingly left contained for me no hint of death or decay, but in that instant of curiosity it was born the madly unreasoning desire which has brought me to this hell of confinement. Spurred on by a voice which must have come from the hideous soul of the forest, I resolved to enter the beckoning gloom in spite of the ponderous change which barred my passage. In the waning light of day I alternately rattled the rusty impediments with a view to throwing wide the stone door, an essay to squeeze my slight form through the space already provided. But neither plan met with success. At first curious, I was not frantic, and when in the thickening twilight I returned to my home, I had sworn to the hundred gods of the grove that at any cost I would someday force an entrance to the black, chilly depths that seemed calling out to me. The physician with the iron gray beard, who comes each day to my room, once told a visitor that this decision marked the beginnings of a pitiful monomania, but I will leave final judgment to my readers when they shall have learnt all. So basically, where we're at, right, Chuck? Is that we have a little weirdo kid who discovered a family tomb that's been abandoned in a grove, tried to get in and he realized that he can't because he's too puny, yet he's drawn to it so much like his excalibur. Getting into this tomb is like something he's sworn to do eventually, right? Sounds like it. But we find that he is in an asylum. Well, little Jervisudly, I'm going to take over now, okay? Okay. The months following my discovery were spent in futile attempts to force the complicated padlock of the slightly open vault, and in carefully guarded inquiries regarding the nature and history of the structure with the traditionally receptive ears of the small boy. I learned much, though an habitual secretiveness caused me to tell no one of my information or my resolve. It is perhaps worth mentioning that I was not at all surprised or terrified on learning the nature of the vault. My rather original ideas regarding life and death had caused me to associate the cold clay with the breathing body in a vague fashion, and I felt that the sinister family of the burn down mansion was in some way represented within the stone space I sought to explore. Mumbled tales of the weird rites and godless revels of bygone years in the ancient hall gave to me a new and potent interest in the tomb before whose doors I would sit for long hours at a time each day. Once I thrust a candle within the nearly closed entrance, but could see nothing save a flight of damp stone steps leading downward. The odor of the place repelled yet bewitched me. I felt I had known it before and had passed remote beyond all recollection, beyond even my tendency of the body I now possess. The year after I first beheld the tomb, I stumbled upon a worm eaten translation of plutarchs Lives in the book filled attic of my home. Reading the life of Theseus, I was much impressed by that passage telling of the great stone beneath which the boyish hero was defined as tokens of destiny whenever he should become old enough to lift its enormous weight. This legend had the effect of dispelling my keenest impatience to enter the vault, for it made me feel that the time was not yet ripe. Later I told myself I should grow to a strength and ingenuity which might enable me to unfasten the heavily chained door with ease, but until then I would do better by conforming to what seemed the will of fate. Accordingly, my watches by the dank portal became less persistent, and much of my time was spent in other, though equally strange pursuits. I would sometimes rise very quietly in the night, stealing out to walk in those churchyards and places of burial from which I have been kept by my parents. What I did there I may not say, for I am not now sure of the reality of certain things, but I know that on the day after such a nocturnal ramble I would often astonish those about me with my knowledge of topics almost forgotten for many generations. It was after a night like this that I shocked the community with a queer conceit about the burial of the rich and celebrated Squire Brewster, a maker of local history, who was interred in 1711 and whose slate headstone bearing a graven skull and crossbones was slowly crumbling to powder. In a moment of childish imagination, I vowed not only that the undertaker Goodman Simpson had stolen the silver buckled shoes, silken hose and sat in small clothes of the deceased before burial but that the squire himself, not fully inanimate had turned twice in his mouth covered coffin on the day of internment. So, what's going on here? So basically, the kid is resolved like theseus that his destiny is still awake and he's not ready for it yet. So instead, he's kind of going around hanging around churchyards burial places and he's coming back the next day with weird knowledge, chuck like knowledge no living human should have. Knowledge that Jervis Dudley surely should not have. Right, Chuck? You're taking over again? I'd like to. Okay. Okay. But the idea of entering the tomb never left my thoughts, Josh. Being indeed simulated by the unexpected genealogical discovery that my own maternal ancestry possessed at least a slight link with the supposedly extinct family of the hides last of my paternal race I was likewise the last of this older and more mysterious line. I began to feel that the tomb was mine and to look forward with hot eagerness to the time when I might pass within the stone door and down those slimy stone steps into the dark. I now form the habit of listening very intently at the slightly open portal choosing my favorite hours of midnight stillness for the odd vigil. By the time I came of age I had made a small clearing in the thicket before the mold stained facade of the hillside allowing the surrounding vegetation to encircle and overhang the space like the walls and roof of silver bower. This bower was my temple, Josh. The fast endure my shrine. And here I would lie outstretched on the mossy ground thinking strange thoughts and dreaming of strange dreams. The night of the first revelation was a sultry one. I must have fallen asleep from fatigue for it was with a distinct sense of awakening that I heard the voices of those tones and accents. I hesitate to speak of their quality. I will not speak. But I may say that they presented certain uncanny differences in vocabulary, pronunciation of mode and utterance. Every shade of the New England dialect from the uncouth syllables of the Puritan colonists to the precise rhetoric of 50 years ago seemed represented in that shadowy colloqui. Though it was only later that I noticed the fact at the time. Indeed, my attention was distracted from this matter by another phenomenon a phenomenon so fleeting that I could not take oath upon its reality. I barely fancied that as I awoke a light had been hurriedly extinguished within the sunken sepulchre. I do not think I was either astounded or panic stricken but I know that I was greatly and permanently changed. That night, upon returning home, I went with much directness to a rotting chest in the attic wherein I found the key which next day unlocked with ease the barrier I had so long stormed in vain. The dude has a key in his attic to this tomb and he went directly to it after this big night. This is heating up. It was in the soft glow of the late afternoon that I first entered the vault. On the abandoned slope a spell was upon me and my heart leaped with an exultation I can but Ill describe. As I closed the door behind me and descended the dripping steps by the light of my lone candle I seemed to know the way. And though the candle sputtered with the stifling reek of the place I felt singularly at home in the musty charnel house air. Looking about me I beheld many marble slabs bearing coffins or the remains of coffins. Some of these were sealed and intact but others had nearly vanished leaving the silver handles and plates isolated amid certain curious heaps of whitish dust. Upon one plate I read the name Sir Jeffrey Hyde who had come from Sussex in 1640 and died here a few years later. And a conspicuous alcove was one fairly well preserved and untenanted casket adorned with a single name which brought to me both a smile and a shudder. An odd impulse caused me to climb upon the broad slab, extinguish my candle and lie down within the vacant box. This guy is totally off his nut at this point. He's lying down in a coffin in the tomb. In the gray light of dawn, I staggered from the vault and locked the chain of the door behind me. I was no longer a young man, though, but 21 winters had chilled my bodily frame. Early rising villagers who observed my homeward progress looked at me strangely and marveled at the signs of rebald revelry which they saw and one whose life was known to be a sober and solitary one. I did not appear before my parents till after a long and refreshing sleep. You're good at this, Chuck. Thanks. You're good. So you get what's going on here, right? Yeah, I think Audible.com was going to be calling us any minute now and say, please stop. Terrifying. We'll sue you. All right, Chuck, you ready? So what's going on is this kid is lying down in this tomb. He leaves the tomb. Is he older now? He's 21 now. Remember, he first found the tomb at age ten. Couldn't open it. Resolved to figure out basically just turned into a weirdo in other ways. And then finally, when he's 21, he sees a light in this place. One night is changed. When he wakes up, he goes directly to his own attic. His own attic. Finds the key. Finds a key. Get in. Lays down in the coffin. Pretty new coffin. Wakes up the next day, stumbles back home in the morning and it looks like he's been partying all night. Yeah, and people are looking at him like he's weird, which I can't figure out. This all seems very normal to me. Are you ready? May I? Please do. Hence forward, I haunted the tomb each night, seeing, hearing and doing things I must never reveal. My speech, always susceptible to environmental influences, was the first thing to succumb to the change. He must have a thick tongue, too. And my suddenly acquired archaeism of diction was soon remarked upon. Later, a queer, boldness and recklessness came into my demeanor till I unconsciously grew to possess the bearing of a man of the world. Despite my lifelong seclusion, my former silent tongue wax voluble with the easy grace of a Chesterfield with a godless cynicism of a Rochester. I know you get that Chuck? I displayed a peculiar airudition, utterly unlike the fantastic monkish lore over which I had poured in my youth and covered the fly leaves of my books with basil and promptu epigrams, which brought up suggestions of gay prior and the sprightliest of Augustine wits and rhymesters. One morning at breakfast, I came close to disaster by declaiming in palpably licorice accents and a fusion of 18th century bacchanalian mirth, a bit of Georgian playfulness never recorded in a book. So basically what he's saying is he sounds like he's drunk in the mornings, even though he's, like, a very sober kind of a reclusive kid, but he's starting to kind of change into a party boy. Nice. Now, here, there's a few passages that we're not going to read. We're going to skip over these, okay? Yeah. The poetry. We're actually editing Lovecraft right now. Yeah. About this time, I conceived my present fear of fire and thunderstorms. Previously indifferent to such things, I had now an unspeakable horror of them and would retire to the innermost recesses of the house whenever the heavens threaten an electrical display. Okay. Yes. A favorite haunt of mine during the day was the ruined cellar of the mansion that had burned down. Remember that? Yeah. That's above the tomb and in fancy, I would picture the structure as it had been in its prime. On one occasion, I startled a villager by leading him confidently to a shallow subseller of whose existence I seem to know, in spite of the fact that it had been unseen and forgotten for many generations. At last came that which I had long feared. My parents, alarmed at the altered manner in appearance of their only son, commenced to exert over my movements a kindly espionage which threatened to result in disaster. I had told no one of my visits to the tomb, having guarded my secret purpose with religious zeal since childhood. But now I was forced to exercise care and threading the mazes of the wooded hollow that I might throw off a possible pursuer. My key to the vault I kept suspended from a court about my neck is presence known only to me. I never carried out of the sepulchre any of the things I came upon whilst within its walls. I like that word, sepulchre. You've got it twice. That was my first one. So, what's going on here? Kids? Afraid of lightning and thunder? Remember that house? This seller of which he's visiting was struck by lightning and burned down and one person perished in it. And this was in the 18th century, I think. Yeah, long before this kid's running around. Because this was supposed to be contemporary in the 19th. Jerry's in there laughing. You ready? My turn. I'm ready, bud. One morning, as I emerged from the damp tomb and fastened the chain of the portal with no too steady hand I beheld an adjacent ticket the dreaded face of a watcher. See that's? Creepy. Surely the inn was near, for my bower was discovered and the objective of my nocturnal journeys revealed. The man did not accost me, so I hastened home in an effort to overhear what he might report to my careworn father. Were my sojourns beyond the chain door about to be proclaimed to the world imagine my delighted astonishment on hearing the spy inform my parents and cautious whisper that I had spent the night in the bower. Outside the tomb, my sleep filmed eyes fixed upon the crevice where the padlocked portal stood ajar. By what miracle had the watcher thus deluded? I was now convinced that a supernatural agency protected me. Made bold by this heavensent circumstance, I began to resume perfect openness in going to the vault. Confident that no one would witness my entrance for a week I tasted to the full the joys of that churnal conviviality which I must not describe when the thing happened and I was born away to this accursed abode of sorrow and monotony. Did you hear what just happened? Yeah. Basically the guy said this kid hasn't been going in there. He's just been sleeping outside of it. Yeah, but he feels like he's going in there. Sure. He's losing it. Or he lost it. Or is he? Or will he find out right now? I should not have ventured out that night for the taint of thunder was in the clouds and hellish phosphorescence rose from the rank swamp at the bottom of the hollow. The call of the dead, too, was different. Instead of the hillside tomb it was the charred cellar on the crest of the slope whose presiding Damon beckoned me with unseen fingers as I emerged from the intervening grove. Upon the plain before the ruin I beheld in the misty moonlight a thing I had always vaguely expected. The mansion, gone for a century, once more reared its stately height to the raptured vision. Every window ablaze with a splendor of many candles. Up the long drive rolled the beaches of the Boston gentry whilst on foot came a numerous assemblage of powdered exquisites from the neighboring mansions. With this throng I mingled though I knew I belong with the hosts rather than the guests. Inside the hall were music, laughter and wine on every hand, several faces I recognize, though I should have known them better had they been shriveled or eaten away by death and decomposition amidst a wild and reckless throng. I was the wildest and most abandoned. Gay blasphemy poured in torrents from my lips and in my shocking sallies I heeded no law of God, man or nature. Suddenly, appeal of thunder resonant even above the din of the swanish revelry claved the very roof and laid a hush fear upon the boisterous company. Red tongues of flame and searing gust of heat engulfed the house and the Royster were struck with terror at the descent of a calamity which seemed to transcend the bounds of unguided nature lead shrieking into the night. I alone remained, josh riveted to my seat by a groveling fear which I had never felt before. And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds I might never lie in the tomb of the hides. Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde, I i would claim my heritage of death, even though my soul will go seeking through the ages for another corporal tenement to represent it on that vacant slab in the alcove of the vault. Jervis Hyde should never share the sad fate of Paladin. He's Scottish all of a sudden, or whatever that was. You ready? Well, what's going on here is he clearly saw the mansion and went and partied in it. Yeah, I mean, it was rebuilt. They were guest, ghostly guest. And he went and partied as a host, he felt like. As a hide? Yeah, as a hide. And then what? Lightning came and took care of business all over again? Yeah. He was at the party on the night that it went down. That whole sad gasoline business went down. Is he mad? Let's find out. All right. You ready? Yeah. May I take it home? Yeah. The exciting conclusion of the tomb. As the phantom of the burning house faded, I found myself screaming and struggling madly in the arms of two men, one of whom was the spy who had followed me to the tomb. Rain was pouring down in torrents, and upon the southern horizon were flashes of the lightning that had so lately passed over our heads. My father, his face lined with sorrow, stood by as I shouted. My demands to be laid within the tomb frequently admonishing my cattle to treat me as gently as they could. A blackened circle on the floor of the ruined cellar told of a violent stroke from the heavens. And from this spot, a group of curious villagers with lanterns were prying a small box of antique workmanship which the thunderbolt had brought to light. Ceasing my feudal and now objectless. Writhing, I watched the spectators as they viewed the treasure trove and was permitted to share in their discoveries. The box whose fastenings were broken by the stroke which unearthed it contained many papers and objects of value. But I had eyes for one thing alone. It was the porcelain miniature of a young man in a smartly curled bagwig and bore the initials J. H. The face was such that as I gazed I might as well have been studying my mirror. You got that? That's messed up. On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows. But I have been kept informed of certain things through an aged and simple minded servitor for whom I bore a fondness in infancy and who, like me, loves the churchyard. What I have dared relate of my experiences within the vault has brought me only pitying smiles. My father, who visits me frequently, declares that at no time did I pass the chained portal and swears that the rusted padlock had not been touched for 50 years when he examined it. He even says that all the village knew of my journeys to the tomb and that I was often watched as I slept in the bower outside the grim facade, my half open eyes fixed on the crevice that leads to the interior. Against these insertions I have no tangible proof to offer since my key to the padlock was lost in the struggle on that night of horrors. The strange things of the past which I learnt during those nocturnal meetings with the dead, he dismisses as the fruits of my lifelong and omnivorous browsing amongst the ancient volumes of the family library. Had it not been for my old servant Hyrum, I should have by this time become quite convinced of my madness. But Hyrum, loyal to the last, has held faith in me and has done that which impels me to make public at least part of my story. A week ago he burst open the lock which changed the door of the tomb perpetually ajar and descended with a lantern into the murky depths. On a slab in an alcove he found an old but empty coffin whose tarnished plate bears the single word Jervis. In that coffin and in that vault, they have promised me I shall be buried. The end and seen wow. The tomb. HP. Lovecraft. Pretty good. Very creepy. Yeah, absolutely. Different time back then. Well, much creepier, obviously. Yeah. I think this might have been an amazing stories at first. Or weird stories. One of the two in the TV show. Amazing Stories? No, the old pulp comic book. Okay. Yeah. So hopefully that creeped everybody out. Right? Chuck, I'm creeped out. I'm creeped out too. What are you going to be for Halloween? I don't know. The band is playing a gig and we're all going to dress alike, so something I'm lobbying for something with mustaches. Okay. Or maybe the taint of the thundercloud. Yes. Which took what are you going to be? Eight times eight takes for me to read that. Yeah. Are. You laughing or Jerry laughing? Yeah, something messed that up. We should release the outtakes of this. I guess that's it. I got nothing. Happy Halloween to everybody. Thank you very much. Yes. Be safe out there. Remember, if you're wearing an all black costume, don't be stupid. Put some sort of reflective material on it. Be careful of kids if you're driving. Be careful of cars if you're a kid. And have a happy Halloween. And to Linus sitting in the Great Pumpkin Patch, there's always next to your pal. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Want more houseStep works? Check out our blog on the Housestepworks.com homepage, brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes earlier. Download the app today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2009/1233609739080hsw-sysk-moon-landing-hoax.mp3	Why do some people believe the moon landings were a hoax?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-do-some-people-believe-the-moon-landings-were	Three decades after the first reported manned lunar landing, some theorists still believe the landing was faked. Check in as Chuck and Josh take a look at the evidence on both sides of the debate in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.	Three decades after the first reported manned lunar landing, some theorists still believe the landing was faked. Check in as Chuck and Josh take a look at the evidence on both sides of the debate in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.	Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=34, tm_isdst=0)	17435352	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from houseopeworkscom. This episode is sponsored by GoDaddy.com, the world's largest web host and domain name registration registrar, with domains as low as a dollar 99 and hosting for less than $5 a month. Enter promo code Stuff Ten at checkout and save 10% off your entire order. Get your piece of the Internet@godaddy.com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There is Chuck Bryant. Why are you tickled, Josh? You know exactly why things take place and transpire before the stuff starts recording. True. Yes. And we just bring it. Exactly. And sometimes we bring it laughing. It's a rainbow kind of world out there. It is. So, Chuck, let's talk about whether or not we landed on the moon. I have no intro for this one. Let's just get into it. Okay? Yeah. Take the gloves off. Let's go to town. There are people that think that we did not land on the moon in 1969. That is true. And actually, there was a guy who worked for oh, I don't remember, maybe the Rocket Dine Systems. Okay. Rocket Dine Systems. I believe it's a private aerospace contractor. A guy named Bill Casing. He wrote technical publications for that company. Wow. And in 959, he calculated that there is a point 14% chance of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely home. He was wrong. Ten years later, we had men on the moon, returned them safely home. Right. So we think yeah. Or did we? I don't think we should take a conspiratorial tone. I also don't think we should take potshots at the crackpots who think this. So what are we going to talk about? Well, I think we can discuss the merits of this stuff, report the news. In my opinion, skepticism goes both ways. Right. Skepticism is always focused on the people who question reality, and I think that's BS. I think there's plenty of times where you can question what's being fed to you. I'm big on that, actually. And if I was around in 1969, I probably would have not properly. You would have been Woodstock, the whole shebang. Maybe. So, yeah. All right, let's get down to it. Right? Let's do it. Do you want to tee off? Yeah. Like we said, a lot of people I don't know how many, but there was a conspiracy theory going around, still is today, that we never landed on the moon. And there are quite a few points that people make to try and back this up from the footage of the moon landing. And they basically think it was staged for the purposes of making the Russians so disheveled at the fact that we got to the moon before they did, that they would scrap their program and just say, the Americans are so far ahead of us because they're already on the moon, and we can't do that. Well, let's just say national pride as well. Sure. Back in the 60s, this is like at the height of the Cold War, and basically the Soviet Union and the United States spent much in political and actual financial capital to make one another look bad. It was pretty much the role of each of these nations. Right. The world was polarized, and what better way to make the other one look like a jackass than by beating them to the moon? This is a space race. Yeah. So I see the theory behind this whole thing. Yeah. But Kennedy said in, what, 1060, we're going to put a man on the moon? And by 1969, we had that is enormous. Like, we had no moon landing program by then. We've been shooting satellites into space, and we had men who had orbited by then. Right. But within nine years, we actually landed somebody on the moon. Right. And this is 1960 technology, too. So today it would seem like that wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to do. But back then, it was just unheard of. Right. Okay. So like you said, most of the bones of contention that people use to pick this idea apart are based on the footage. Correct. There's actual evidence here saying, what's going on? What does this explain? That right, there's five main points that are generally brought up in this discussion. There's actually a few more, but yeah, in this article, there's five. Our esteemed colleague John Fuller waited through the muck and picked out the best ones. Right? Polished them off, set them up. There you go. Let's talk about them. Okay. What's the first one? Well, the first one that I'd like to mention is actually not the first one. The first one I'd like to mention is the quote unquote, sea rock. As in the letter C. Yeah. Have you seen the sea rock? Yeah, I looked up a picture today, and basically there's a rock in the foreground of a photo, and the shot is of one of the astronauts walking away from camera toward the lunar rover. And there's a big moon rock in the foreground that looks like it's got a very clear letter C on it. It is clearly A-C-I mean, it doesn't look like some sort of aberration or anything like that. It looks like the letter C carved into it or maybe like, stamped with, like, metal and a chisel, perhaps, something like that. But it definitely looks like A-C-I would agree with you. And so, of course, theorists we're not going to call them conspiracy theorists. We'll just call them theorists. Yeah. Theorists think that this could be a prop, like a stage prop that was marked moon rock, C put it here, moon rock, B put it there. And then it just kind of got by the camera department, who was filming this big hoax. And I like that you put that one first because this one, in my opinion, has the weakest explanation from the scientific community in NASA for that sea on that rock, spill it. And that is basically that there was a hair on the lens or something like that that had to do with when the photo was taken. It's not really a C. It's like a hair or scratch. Right. It doesn't look anything like a hair or a scratch. No, clearly it looks like a C. All right. There's one that is definitely one that I like. Is the different shadow lengths. Correct. Have you seen pictures of them with the different shadows? I have not. They're wildly varying in length, and they're guys standing next to one another on the moon. And then one shadow is 10ft long, the other is 40. Right. So I guess the basic idea behind this is evidence that the moon landing was faked is that there was some sort of faulty studio. Right. They didn't light it properly. Yes. The basic idea is that this is all done on a sound stage. Right. Now, in my opinion, this one is actually the weakest argument for the moon landing being faked. Agreed. First of all, the moon is not a flat, smooth surface. It's very rocky and dusty, and it has all sorts of features to it. And anybody who has ever stood along a desert or something similar to the moon and seen their shadow, they've noticed that the shadows don't always act the same way. Right. And what's more, in my opinion, if NASA was actually going to go to the trouble of faking a moon landing, they would have noticed this. Right. And they wouldn't have released it with the shadows like that badly off skewed. That's my big point. As a matter of fact. They probably would have gone the other way. Sure. And the shadows would have looked uniform or something like that. Right, exactly. That's my point. This is 1969. This wasn't like 1925. They were actually making I looked up films that were released in 1969 and some really good movies. You got French Connection. Was that 69? No. Like Pitch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That kind of thing. Got you. But anyway, some really good movies and filmmaking had advanced to the point where they could have easily gotten someone to make this shadows match and light it properly, and that they wouldn't have had some cracked team of, like, interns out there filming the moon landing. So that didn't hold water with me. What's your next best argument or against? Well, I'm going to go ahead and skip over to the American flag. A lot of people seem to notice that when they're putting the flag up that it appears to flap in the breeze. Of course, this is on the moon. There's no atmosphere, so there would be no breeze. But what they say, what the government says is this was a special flag. And actually, I didn't know this. I felt like a dummy. It's got a wire running across the top of it, which is why it hangs square. Otherwise it would just hang motionless, basically. Right. So when you have a flag with, like, a taut wire and you're putting it up, it's going to move around a little bit more and it's not going to look like a regular flag. So it's not, in fact, the breeze blowing. It's just by virtue of the fact that it had a wire running through it. Right. And as Fuller points out, if they had created a sound stage and filmed it like this and the wire wasn't in there, they would have had to have created a vacuum correct in it, which would have been really difficult. Yeah. Another part of that that has to do with that vacuum sound stage that would have been virtually impossible to do is the dust that's being kicked up. Right. When they walk. When they walk or when the lunar rover is the tires are spinning. This is not so much a piece of evidence, but an explanation or something that people have noticed, is that supposedly it's kind of clouding, and apparently it hasn't it doesn't cloud at all. The dust is kicked up and it runs its course in that thin atmosphere and then falls back down. Right. And so that kind of actually proves that this thing either was filmed in a sound stage within a vacuumize sound stage or on the moon. Occam's razor would actually kind of suggest the vacuumized sound stage, I think, at that point, but still. Well, they can create an entire vacuum, a sound stage, but they can't light it properly. That's a great point, Chuck. Come on. That's a great point. And that kind of reveals what's going on with this. This is never going to be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, I think. I think people enjoy kind of poking at one another on this. I don't think so. Like making NASA scientists respond, right. But they don't have anything else to do. Yeah. The fact that they could never have pulled this off, though. They couldn't have duped the entire scientific community all over the world. Not only that. Yes. Russia as well. Like, you would think if they try to phone calls in it, russia would go public with this faster than you could say lickety split. Somebody has actually explained that as well. Supposedly, right after the moon landing, a guy named Ralph Renee points out that the US started sending very secret humanitarian aid, massive amounts of grain, to the Soviet Union, very quietly. And basically, we wouldn't normally do that through our normal policy. Right. We had no reason to send them humanitarian aid. They were our greatest enemy. Right. We're doing it secretly. And if we were doing it, wouldn't we have said, hey, we're helping out our enemy because we're all humans, that kind of thing? It wouldn't have been more public. It's kind of a tenuous argument, but it's something to chew over, right? True. That could have kept the Russians quiet. I say not to that, Josh. You're starting to win me over, Chuck. But you said one reason that this whole thing would have been fake, the Moon landing would have been faked was because of the space race, the Cold War. What about money? Well, true. It would have cost a lot of money. In fact, did cost a lot of money to put someone on the Moon. Yeah. From 1958 or 2008. By my calculations, NASA has gotten about $750,000,000,000 in change in funding over the 50 year period. That's a big slush fund, if you think about it. It is. It's just like you have no money to account for any longer. It's in space. True. That's our bailout right there. Why isn't this settled? Think about this. We're going into space all the time. True. The reason why is that we went to the Moon. Another explanation is that it serves as a distraction for the Vietnam War. America was like, whoo, we're going to the Moon. Forget about the American soldiers that are dying over there. Right. And actually, suspiciously, the last time we landed on the Moon was 1972, towards the end of the Vietnam War. Interesting. And then all of a sudden, if you look at NASA's funding, year by year, it drops in half for about a decade, until it started up again in the 80s, when you and I were very interested in it as youngsters. Right, right. So does the tail wag the dog, Josh? Or does the dog wag the tail? I can't answer that. But speaking of wag the dog, if it was faked, think about how many people were greased by the CIA right after they played their role as a production assistant or a director or something like that. You mean greased isn't paid off or isn't killed? I mean killed. Okay. Waxed. Right? Yeah. But again, why isn't it solved? So we stopped going to the Moon, or we stopped landing on the Moon after 1972. We haven't been back, but we have sent some lunar orbiters around the Moon with really great cameras. So why don't we just say, here is the lunar lander, dummy, and here are the footprints, dummy? Right. Why aren't we doing that? You know why? Because it's not worth the money to do that. Right. No, they're actually going around the Moon and they're taking photos of the Moon's surface. They're going over it. The problem is the camera resolution, which are these incredible cameras, are still not picking up. They don't have the resolution to pick up these objects on the realtor. Yeah. Sounds shady to me. It does sound a little shady. So we'll see. There's a few out there right now. India has the Chandrayaan, I believe, is the pronunciation, orbiter. Japan has the Kaguya orbiter. My Japanese is rusty. That sounds good to me. And then the US. Is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. They are all orbiting the moon right now, and they all possibly have good enough cameras to send back photos of the Apollo moon landings. Well, hopefully that happens one day. Yeah. And just put this to bed once a week again. I still think people just say, well, they fake those. True. Yeah, it's a good point. We've got India in our pockets. So that's it. Well, not quite. Oh, no. You have reader mail. Yes. You want to let the moon landing conspiracy one just kind of peter out? Sure. Fade. But a moment of silence. Okay. All right. Listener mail time. Listener mail time. Josh, I'm going to call this one exceptional fan mail, as I like to do. Nice. Now, this isn't stuff we should have known. No. This is an actual, really kind of a cool story from Ben in Ontario, Canada. And you're going to remember this one, Josh. This is a good one. This guy listened to our exorcism podcast and was talking about a positive possession, a beneficial possession. And he has a story about himself. And I'm going to summarize this. Oh, yeah. Ben. Ben said eleven years ago he was in a bad bicycle accident and came between two buses and was hit by a car. In high school, he says a bad bicycle ex. He said he was fully conscious afterwards, even though I went over my handlebars and hit my head on the hood of the car, I was fully aware of the situation and what happened. But he was told he was completely coherent in the ambulance and in the Er, with the nurses, even okay. With his parents. When he brought him home several hours later, they put him to bed, and 30 minutes later, he woke back up and didn't remember any of it. And it took him a full hour to even find out what had happened to him. So Ben says, I believe during this short time that I was actually possessed by the Egyptian god Horus. H-O-R-U-S-I think that's the one with the dog's head, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, really? I think so. Okay. So he was possessed by Horus, or an ancient priest from the temple of Horace. This took control of him and kept his brain from shutting down and having more damage than it did. I know there are other medical explanations as to what happened. Heavy impacts can cause a short term memory to wipe out, et cetera. However, this is the belief that I have about it, and it's backed up to me by the fact this is where it gets good. About two years later, he went to an optometrist and he found marks on the lower outer edge of his eyes. And there are similar marks and paintings of the eyes of Horus. And the doctor could not explain this. He'd never seen it before and could not explain how it happened. So maybe I'm just crazy. And I know some people will think that, but it's what I believe happen to me. And then I wrote you back already. We don't think you're crazy, right? We think that anyone that thinks they have this whole big cosmic soup figured out doesn't know what they're talking about. And that who knows? You could have very well been possessed by Horace, as far as I know. Here. Chuck, thanks for sharing your story. Yeah, thanks for opening up for us, Ben, and anybody else who'd like to do the same. Whether or not you believe yourself to have been possessed by a benevolent spirit or such, or if you just want to say hi, either one, you can send an email to stuff podcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
c41549b6-5460-11e8-b38c-d7216295876b	SYSK Selects: How Monopoly Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-monopoly-works	Since more than 1 billion people have played it, you’re probably familiar with the board game Monopoly, but we bet you don’t know its secret origins as a left-wing socialist teaching tool. Join Josh and Chuck as they chase it down in this classic episode.	Since more than 1 billion people have played it, you’re probably familiar with the board game Monopoly, but we bet you don’t know its secret origins as a left-wing socialist teaching tool. Join Josh and Chuck as they chase it down in this classic episode.	Sat, 14 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=14, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=74, tm_isdst=0)	61434232	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey there, everybody. It's me, Josh, your old pal. And for this week's, SYSK Selects. I've chosen our classic 2014 episode on the game of Monopoly. It's a really thorough episode where we explained everything about the game of Monopoly, and I was apparently on Qua eludes throughout the whole thing. Go figure. Anyway, enjoy this episode. I think you will. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland, which makes this stuff you should know. That's right. Got on my top pat and my cane. Your monocle? Does he have monocle? I thought it was Mr. Peanut. Oh, yeah, not Mr. Monopoly. And I think Mr. Pringle has a monocle too, doesn't he? No, he just has an Outstairs. Yeah, Mr. Monopoly doesn't have a monocle. I don't think so. Huh? You'd think we'd know? We do not. But I do know this. Mr. Monopoly is a nickname for that man. That's right. His born name is given name by his parents, is Rich, Uncle Pennybags. Three names. So uncle would be his middle name. Yeah. Well, he even has a regular name, too. Oh, not that I saw. Yeah, it is. Milburn Penny Bags. No. Yeah, there was a book published, and this is one of those after the fact deals called The Monopoly Companion. And they named all the characters on the board. Milburn Penny Bags, and then the jail guys. Jake the Jailbird. Okay. And the police officer and go to Jail is Albed A. Cyrus, isn't it? Officer Edgar Mallory. I knew it. Really? You just guess that? Yeah. That's pretty funny. We're talking about Monopoly, by the way. Oh, yeah. This is not about anything else but Monopoly. No. And I was just remarking to you, sir, how I've never seen one of our this had more supplemental information than most shows that we research. Yeah, I can explain why, because this was written. There was a whole suite of game articles written, like, just how to play certain games. Sure. So it kind of came out in this mentality of, this is the game, and here's how we explain how to play it. This article is done, whereas Monopoly, this is more like McDonald's or Twinkies or something like that. It's like a cultural cog. Yeah. There's so much extra junk history. And, I mean, you talk about the different versions. It's ridiculous. Milburn Penny Bank. Yeah, and like I said, that was a post that he wasn't originally called that. I think Monopoly probably wanted to sell a little book or two. I'm sure they did, because if one thing we've learned about Parker Brothers and now Hasbro is they love selling different versions of this game. Yeah, they do. They like licensing it off a lot of money doing it. They like making some changes here, there and releasing a brand new game. But it's all still the same game. And all of it came from a left wing Quaker intellectual at the turn of last century. The Finnish vehicle. Yeah, I'm saying that right. Yeah, sure. Okay. I think it sounds right. And it's interesting to me that the game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism and bankrupting our neighbor, was stolen. The game was stolen from a leftist intellectual Quaker. In the original version of the game, it was to teach against monopolies and how they're bad. Right. So let's talk about this Monopoly. Actually, if you trace it back to about the literal beginning of the 20th century, it's what's considered a folk game. There are a lot of people playing versions like this in cities all over the country. But again, they all shared some pretty common viewpoints. I guess today you would kind of call them socialist, but for the most part they were followers of a guy named Henry George. Yeah, georgiam. Yeah. He came up with this thing called Georgiam, which is based on some other philosophies. But the idea of it is that if you produce something through your own labor work, you own that that should not be taxed. Right. What should be taxed is things that everybody owns. If somebody is taking something that belongs to everybody, say a parcel of land, technically the land belongs to everybody. Well, that was his notion, was that you shouldn't even be a landowner. Like whole concept of owning land to him was ridiculous. And that's based on this idea, the law of the commons, which is around for centuries, if not millennia. And then once people started taking land, he's like, okay, well, if you're going to own land, it belongs to everybody. So that should be taxed, and then that tax will be given back to the community for the greater good. So that's Georgia. And that was kind of the philosophy that formed the basis of Monopoly, what was originally called the Landlord's game, which was created by a lady named Lizzie Maggie almost magpie without the P. Right? Yeah. And she basically that was on her card. And she came up with this, like you said, to kind of teach so you could go and be a rich landowner and bankrupt other people and exploit the poor who need your help, who need a decent place to stay. And you could see yourself, like, the evils of capitalism. But she actually came up with two sets of rules for the same game. One was where you got as rich as you could at the expense of everybody else. The other was basically the community benefited. And you can kind of see that today in these weird things like community chest, why would I want to pay into this pot? I don't care about the community now. It's a bad thing. In her original version, it was a good thing, like the community one. Right. And that was the basis of the whole thing, which is really ironic it is. Yeah. Like you said, she created two versions. And she said one of the quotes from her is it is a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences. So it's kind of to teach people lessons. And she had it stolen from her. She did. Luckily, Lizzie Maggie was smart enough to patent this game. It became just kind of a trendy thing again. Like, if you were into socialism at the time and you were on the East Coast, you probably hung out at a friend's house and played this game at some point in some incarnation or another. Yeah, it was really popular. Like you said, people made up some of their own rules. But if you look at the original Landlord's game board, it looks a lot like the current Monopoly. I mean, similar, at least. Yeah. And apparently a lot of the rules that make the game a lot more enjoyable today came from Lizzie's Quicker Friends. Like, for example, the original plots of land were up for auction for bid. Yeah. Quakers prefer silence, so they just put a fixed price on a piece of land so there wouldn't be a loud, obnoxious bidding war. They also instituted tokens, fund tokens. Before they were just boring ponds. Yeah. Like household objects, which that's why the thimble is in there. And originally the iron, we'll get to those in a minute, but I know it's pretty exciting. And then so this thing's being played, and Lizzy Maggie holds the patent, but she's not exactly, like, cracking down on any kind of infringement, really. No. Well, she pitched it to Parker Brothers and they said no. Yeah. So she just kind of went on doing her own thing. So there's another lady, actually, that figures into this, a lady named Ruth Hoskins. And she was one of the ones who caught on in this, like, Philadelphia Atlantic City area with her Quaker friends, two of them in particular, Jesse and Eugene Rayford. And they are the ones who change some of the rules to make it look more like the Monopoly we know. They taught it to a friend named Todd, and Todd taught it to his friend named Charles Darrow. And that's where the story takes kind of a CD turn. Well, actually, that's where the Parker Brothers official version begins. Ironically. Yes, things turn seedy. You go to the Parker Brothers is like, hey, this is where our story begins. Yeah. The inventor of Monopoly. Charles Darrow. Right. So he was like a radiator salesman during the Depression. This is the mean. It was ironically, again during the Depression. This game really caught hold. Well, supposedly that's what caught the Parker Brothers'attention was that this guy came to him, came to them to sell him this game, which he had stolen. Yeah. Apparently he didn't innovate it at all. He kind of just copied it and packaged it right. And said, hey, what do you think of this? And the Parker brothers said, we don't think too much of it. Like, how does the game end? We don't know what's going on here, so let's just go your own way. So Charles Darrow went off and started selling it at this one Makers department store in Philadelphia without patenting it. Right. And the Parker brothers said, you know what? It's the Depression. Can you believe it? We're not going to have any kind of economic woes like this for another 70, 80 years. And this guy selling these things like hotcakes. You know what, sir? We will buy your idea from you. And Charles Darrow apparently said, well, that's great. Yeah. Give me the money first, and then I'll tell you the second part of the story. And they gave him a bag of money with a dollar sign on it, much like the ones that rich Uncle Penny Bags likes. Yeah. And he said, okay, we also need to buy the patent off from this lady named Lizzie Maggie. Yeah. Which they did. The game was still stolen, I say, even though they eventually did pay her money. But part of the deal was they said they agreed to buy her patent and said, you know what? We'll sell a few of your other game ideas, too. None of those ever went anywhere. And she was sort of lost to history except for people who do a little bit of digging. Yeah. And we actually have a guy named Ralph to thank for doing that digging initially. We'll talk about him later. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, because he's the one who came up with the unofficial history and really tracked it down. Well, there's a lot of teases in this one so far. So the Parker brothers now in the game, and it becomes a huge hit, virtually off the bat in the 30s is when they bought it and started really printing it. Yeah. And the game is based on Atlantic City. Those are the properties. And that's because that was the area where it became popular. Right, but this excellent New York Times article you sent, what was the name of it? Monopoly Goes Corporate. Yeah. It was written by what's the lady's name? Mary Pillan. She is a monopoly expert. There's a lot of those out there, I've learned. Well, she wrote a lot of the articles you'll find. Oh, really? Yeah, she's good. Well, she pointed out that it's interesting that it mirrored sort of the cartography of the day in Atlantic City. Like, Boardwalk was clearly like a rich area, the Baltic and Mediterranean. The cheapest properties were in African American neighborhoods. There was a reading railroad that transferred people between Philly and Atlantic City. And little known fact for our friends in the gay community, new York Avenue was one of the earliest gay scenes in the country. Yeah. So buy that one up. Support the LBGT community. That's right. If you're playing Monopoly. Yeah, that's what I would do. And maybe just don't charge anybody when they land on it. Just be like, this is the party place, everyone. Exactly. And Marvin gardens apparently, is misspelled. Yeah. E instead of an I or I instead of an E. Yeah. On the board it's an I and it's supposed to be an E. Yes. There's a lot of Monopoly facts dropping all around us right now. I know it's raining symbols. Well, now when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. All right. All right. So we were just talking about Atlantic City. I guess we can go ahead and point out now that's there are hundreds of versions of Monopoly out there now. One for your hometown, probably one for your favorite sports team. Personally. My version is a Star Wars Monopoly. Nice. Which is pretty fun. Nice. Yeah, I guess hesbro is. Like, you got some money. Sure. You can license this, make your own Monopoly game. Go ahead. There's a Simpsons Monopoly. I haven't played it, though. And in addition to the licensed versions that you can find, like, everywhere, they also have official versions, too. Like, there's a US version, there's a UK version, there's a new version that's called Monopoly here and now. What does that even mean? Super corporate. Oh, is this the corporate one? Yeah. Okay. Everything is multiplied by I think $1,000 are way higher. Is this one where they replaced the railroads are replaced by airports. Is this one where they replaced corporations for all the properties, though? Yes. Like McDonald's and Sony. God, who would want to play that? Some people do. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a purist because I have the Star Wars version, but it's no fun to me to play as Paramount Pictures and to buy the McDonald's property. Yeah, it's just me. So there are a bunch of different versions. But the one we're going to talk about, we'll just talk about the normal version with the 2008 rules. Yeah. And there's actually coming soon, later this year, you can go online at my Monopoly and you can design your own board. Is that right? And do like, your own neighborhood. Wow. And then they will make it for you. And I think it's like $150 or something. Wow. Money bag. I'm not going to do it to the east lake. No, I was talking to whoever went and got it. Oh, sure, yeah. Uncle Rich Penny bags. That's what you should have said. Rich Uncle Penny bags. Penny bags just sounds not that wealthy. Well, actually, I have a bag of pennies on me right now. Forbes has their silly fictional 15 list of fictional characters. Wealth in 2013 was number 13. Jeez, his stars declined him. Huh. Guess who the richest fictional character is? The Incredible Hulk. No, he was not rich scrooge McDuck. Oh, yeah. Well, dude, he has that gold vault, apparently 65 billion. Number two was Smaug, which I thought was kind of silly. Smaug from like one of the rings. It's a dragon, I think. I had like a bunch of gold. Got you. Carlyle Cullen, number three. Tony Stark, four. Charles Foster Cain. Number five. Who's number three? Carlyle Cullen from Twilight. Who is that? He was the vampire dad, the vampire family. And he's been alive forever, so I guess he just keeps accumulating. Well, bruce Wayne richie Rich christian Gray, ritchie Rich. I forgot about him. He's number seven. He had a robot made and a crazy weird scientist friend, didn't he? Sure. Like a richie rich robot of himself. I think he had that too. But no, it was made was a robot, wasn't it? That was the Jetsons. No, he had a robot made too. I thought Monty Burns at number ten was pretty good. Oh yeah, it's good. Although I would guess Mr. Monopoly would be wealthier than Monty Burns. Yeah, 13 and they put it out each year and it's dumb. Can we just admit that I was thrilled by it? Okay? We just spent 3 minutes on it. Yeah, well, that's true. Okay, so Chuckers, you want to talk about the rules of the game again? 2008 rules. If you are a Monopoly purist and I'm sorry, that's just what we're going with. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the game board itself. Just so if you haven't played it, I'm surprised because I think like a billion people have played the game. But if you haven't, when you get your Monopoly game, you're going to open it up and you're going to have a board with all these different properties. In a square. You have two dice. Twelve. They call them tokens. That's not the right amount either, is it? No. I don't understand where they got twelve from, unless they're counting ones that maybe were retired or something like that. But when you open the box, there's only eight there. Can we go over them? Sure. There's a wheelbarrow, a scouty dog. Yeah. Top hat, a cat, which replaced the Iron in 2013. Yeah, there was a big to do because Parker Bros. Hasbro is like we haven't made a lot of money off of this for a couple of months, so let's just do something. Well, they let people vote at least, which is kind of cool. Right. But it was also did you see the other ones that they were voting for? Like a robot's main guitar. A guitar. They didn't make the cut, though. No, they got voted out and the cat got voted in. But the iron got booted. Yeah, only got 8% of the vote. There's the classic shoe, of course, or boot, which is modeled after a 1930s working shoe. And I think they've kept it the same. Yeah, that's one of the original ones. The Scottie Dog was not one of the originals that came in. The Think that was supposed to be the companion of Milburn Money. Is that right? Penny bags. Penny bags. I know not to be cash bags. Fast Stacks bag. There was a cannon, which has since been retired. Yeah. And they thought it was two Militarists. Well, it was the canon and the battleship. Yes. They were from a failed game called Conflict. And they were like, well, we got all these pieces, let's just throw them in Monopoly for now. Right. It's pretty smart. But they face the cannon out because it's just too overtly violent. It just says without any fanfare or vote or campaign. So probably yeah, that would be my guess. If it's hush hush yeah. It's probably because of violence. There's a conspiracy afoot. There's the race car. Yeah. Every little kid's favorite, which apparently had a number three on the side for a little while. Yeah. I didn't know that. Dale learn hard, I guess. Purse has been retired. Yeah. The rocking horse was retired. Yes. The lantern was retired. Oh, yeah. I'm doing my best Benbole impression. Did you get wheelbarrow in there yet? No. Yes, I did. It was the first one I said. Did we say top hat? Yeah, that was always my favorite. Actually. I don't remember what my favorite was. It said on my pinky and I used to draw faces all yeah. The horse and rider, which is retired, which I didn't know. That's one of the best pieces to me. What you didn't know was retired. No. It's kind of sad. Yeah. And the sack of money was retired as well. The sack of money and a purse. Those are a little similar. Yeah. The cat. Come on. Cat people. That's exactly right. I guarantee that's why they got cat voted in. And I am a cat person, and even you think it's stupid. Exactly. So those are the tokens, some of those tokens that we mention you're going to find in the 2008 set. Yeah. And that is your piece. That is what represents you in the game again for the three people who have never played Monopoly. Right. Yeah. Because supposedly, at least as far as Hasbro calculates, over 1 billion people have played Monopoly. And frankly, I'm surprised it's that low. Sounds like an old number. Yeah. Okay. So you've got the box open, you got the board, you got two dice, you got the tokens, 32 houses and twelve hotels. 16 chance cards, 16 community chest cards, a title deed card for each property. It's got the information on it, like how much it costs to purchase, how much rent is depending on how many houses or hotels you have on it. Yeah. What the mortgage value is worth. That's right. And then you've got your play money, your Monopoly money, which hand I think that's where it grabs kids because and they even pointed out in this article that's kind of the first time a lot of kids have money to play with. Yeah. Especially the $500 bill. One. Oh, man. That gold. Bill is orange. Is it gold? Yeah. Okay. One is definitely golden. Rod like yellow. When I remember the 500, it was yeah. I guess gold is the way to go. Yeah. See, I was a cash order, which is no way to win a Monopoly. No, I thought it was can't save. No, that just figures for me, though. You got to spend money to make money. Yeah. I was like, look at all this cash that I will soon be paying to everyone else. You just keep wandering off on the table and try to buy stuff with it. Did not work. So, Chuck, you got the board laid out, and if you count them, if you're that kind of person, you're going to find that there are 40 squares. That's right, I believe. 22 of which are no, 28 of which can be purchased. Yeah. 22 are properties. You've got your electric company and waterworks. Yeah. Suckers bet. And then you got the four Railroads. Four Railroads, yes. So that's 28. That's right. There are others that you can't buy. So, for example, there's a luxury tax square. Yeah. You got to pay about $100 when you lend on that, I believe. So just right out of your pocket, there's an income tax square. Yeah. No good. There's the Go square, which is where you start, and then when you come back around, you collect $200, which is a Monopoly called your salary. That's right. I never knew that. I didn't either. And there's a lot of rules in here. I guess it's a good time to point out monopoly is one of those games where house rules are highly encouraged and a lot of the fun of the game, and in fact, to make more money, monopoly this year incorporating the top house rules as voted on by fans as official rules for this one version in a $70 hard back book. I don't see why a lot of people were in sense, they were like, no one plays by the real rules anyway, so why bother packaging it and selling it? Right. And they went, I think you just said the word sell. Did someone say sell? Therein lies the answer. So there's 40 squares, but there's actually 41 places you can go to on the board, because jail is divided into two squares. That's right. You got the jail with the jailbird. What's his name? I can't remember. Jani Jailbird or something. Jake the Jailbird. Right, okay. Which is where Jake the jailbird is. And then you've got the lower part of it. It's just visiting. Yeah. If you want to visit Jake, give him a Bunt cake. Put the nail file in. It would be very old school. Or Monopoly set with maybe a map with an escape route embedded in it. Hey, that sounds familiar. Yeah. POWs in World War II are given such Monopoly sets, which is strange to me. It's like where the Nazis allowing monopoly sets to be delivered to POWs. Is that what I'm seeing here? Maybe it's the Burmese. You've seen The Great Escape on the prison camps in World War II? It seemed like a lot of them, they let them, like, garden and they were kind of chummy with him. You saw Hogan's Heroes? Heroes? I didn't put a lot of stock into it. Yeah. But yeah, I just figured they played soccer. Maybe the Japanese or the Burmese or the Italians, I could see, saying, yeah, bring some Monopoly and who cares? But the Nazis, I would think, would I just don't see that. Yeah. I'm not saying it was a walk in the park, but I think from the depiction and like I said, The Great Escape, it's not like Vietnam prison camp. Oh, yeah. You know, like they weren't playing soccer or Monopoly. They're playing. Survive another day. That game. I'm not making one of them, by the way. Oh, I didn't think you were. And I'm basing everything on more movies, so I'm probably wrong. I've seen Uncommon Valor. That was a good movie. It was a great movie. It doesn't age well, though. Really? No. Remember that menu with the gun silhouettes on it? And when you're twelve, you're like, oh, my God. Yeah, it's like I would buy that one and that one. Yeah. All right, so where were we? We were talking about the board itself and the different squares. Yes. There are the cards that you can draw as well. Community Chest and Chance Squares. You land on these, you draw a card from one of those two piles. And there are various things in there, like you want a fashion modeling contest, you get $10. Is there a dog show one in there, too? I think there's probably a dog show. And there's also street repairs. Those are big time general repairs. And that's based on your properties that you own. That's right. Big percentage. They can hit you pretty hard. Like in real life. That's right. And that's funny because the Monopoly what was her name? Lizzie. Maggie. Yeah. In an interview with some leftist magazine at the time, she said she basically called the thing the Game of Life. Yeah, that was already taken out. I don't know. Was it? Yeah, that's around since the mid 1800. Okay. I thought she was being prescient. Now she's being glib. She was making a pop culture reference for the time. Yeah, exactly. But did you know apparently there used to be a square on the Game of Life board for suicide? Really? It was a way that you could go I never really played that. I think I played it a couple of times. I never did either. I always thought it was kind of like you get the whole family in the car and it's like, whatever. Yeah. We weren't the biggest game players as families, but we did Monopoly some. And Yahtzee was a big one. Yahtzee is great. That I still enjoyed today. I love Yahoo. Sure. Yeah. We also played this game called Bull, and it was like a stock trading game with cards. And it's just now occurring to me that all these games are just teaching you about life. Yeah. Monopoly is nothing but real estate. The game of life is everything. Right. This game goal was about the stock market. Yeah. Sorry. It was about sarcastic. Sorry. Because you had to say it like a jerk. Right. Candy Land. We know what that's all about. Yeah. Drugs, right? Probably. Shoots and Ladders tell you to stay away from snakes. Yeah. Operation taught you how to be a doctor. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's where I got my MD. And then, of course, Battleship taught you how to be a warmonger. That's right. So did Risk and take great pride. Risk taught you to be the Antichrist. Yeah, risk we should do. There is an article on Risk. I saw. I looked it over. It didn't seem as interesting as this one, though. Yeah, I don't know if the history is as interesting, for sure. And I mean, isn't that what's interesting about any game? The history of it? Yeah, I think so. Let's talk about the rules, dude. Okay. Let's start at the beginning. We'll start at Go. Go is where you start, and that's where you like you said, you collect the 200 every time you land on it or pass it. Sometimes, house rules, you get 400 for actually landing on it. Oh, yeah. And only 200 for passing it. We never oh, that makes sense. It's good. But free parking is where we had house rules. That is a space on the corner of the board where you supposedly, for the official rules, don't do anything. Yeah, there's nothing. It's just a space. But what we did was we donated all the collected taxes and fees and put it under free parking. And if you land on that, that was like a lottery win. Oh, yeah. And a lot of people play that way. I think I've heard of that one before. I liked it because it allowed you more money, which is my favorite thing. Catch it's a lot of yes, exactly. We got ahead of ourselves. Let's just start at the real beginning. Okay. So everybody sits down at the table. Somebody gets a drink. Maybe you have to wait because somebody has to go to the bathroom. So you're all sitting there quietly. And then when everybody's finally at the table, you guys select a banker and the banker distributes the Monopoly money. One $500 to each player, 2502. Goal of the game that we are getting to here at 30 minutes in is to bankrupt all of your family and friends. That's the whole point, pretty much. Some people put a time limit because this game can go on forever. And other people say, no, you got to finish it by bankrupting everyone or until everybody the. Last person is like, I give jeez, I've got $8. I hate this game. Yeah, that's usually me. Right. And Emily usually has her foot on my throat. Yes. We play two person Monopoly, which is just not fun. Yeah, because you know one of you is going to lose. No, that's not why. It's a game that's more fun with more people, I think. Yeah. I got you. So everybody's got one. $500. You roll the dice to see who goes first. Whoever rolls the highest goes first. Classic move. Then you roll, both die, and you start moving from the Go square and you go clockwise around the board. Yeah. And when you land on a property, this I didn't know, which is kind of a basic rule, I guess, but I never played it this way. When you land on a property, you have the option to buy it. I knew that part. But if you decline to buy it, then the property goes up for auction. Not only have I never played it that way, I've never heard of anyone playing it that way. Okay, so it's not just me. Not just you. All right. So I guess during an auction, not only everybody else, but the banker and the person who declined to buy it can bid on it, which didn't make sense. Unless you're trying to get it for lower, because can't you start the bidding at wherever? Yes, you can start the bidding anywhere you want, so you could consumably get it for lower. And if you're playing against somebody who declines to buy something and then starts bidding on it at a lower price, keep an eye on that person. That's a sharp out to win. Yeah. I hate that rule, because to me, it's just like, what's the point in rolling and landing on something, I guess, right. Of first refusal. But I don't know. I don't like it now. And plus, the Quakers were like, we specifically put a price on these things so there wouldn't be a lot of yelling. We don't like yelling. They had another game to follow called the Quiet Roof Raising Ceremony. Those are not Quakers. It was fun. That was the Amish. They're different. Oh. Don't you think Quakers raise some roofs? Yeah, they do. Ain't no party like a Quaker party. That's right. All right, so let's say you buy all of the properties. They're divided into different colors. Like, there's three green around green ones, orange ones, blue ones, light blue. If you buy all of the properties that are tied together by a single color, then you have what's called a monopoly. And that means you can then charge double rent, although we never do that. We just keep it single rent. And you now have the option to buy houses. And then once you have enough houses, I think three, you can then buy a hotel. Right. And that's called improvements. You're improving your land. Supposedly, once you start to do improvements. Things change a little bit. Not only can you start making more money, but it's actually harder to mortgage your properties if you find yourself in debt. Right. Because this is how crazy complicated it is. I don't think I was ever paying that much attention to monopoly that I ever mortgaged a piece of land. Oh, really? I think what I started to get into debt or whatever, I was just like, I'm done, I'm done. But apparently so if you find yourself indebted and let's say you have a monopoly and you want a mortgage, you can mortgage just one of the spots, right? Yes. But to do so, let's say you have a hotel on that piece of land that you're mortgaging. You first have to sell the hotel back to the bank at half price. Yeah. And then you can mortgage the land. Are you collecting rent on that land or does it go right to the bank? No, that's where you just turn the card over and you still technically own it. Right. But you can't collect any rents on it. But you can't collect rent and everything on the other two pieces of property or the other one, depending on which one you own. I don't know. Really? You can I looked it up. So that doesn't bust up the monopoly? No, it doesn't. Okay, so you're still in the monopoly. That one is mortgaged, and then to get it back, you have to pay the bank the mortgage plus 10%. Right. And this is where you can get silly with your house rules if you want, as far as mortgaging and stuff like that, because supposedly it's a rule too, where you can't the only thing that is not allowed is a personal loan. And I did all kinds of personal loaning because I was Mr. Cash. What were your interest rates? I don't remember. Did you break any Usury laws? No, I was a kid, so it was probably just like just paying back whenever 10% or something. I got you. I'm not the right I'm not enough of a you're not the shark capital now. You're not the one who declines to buy something so you can bid on at a lower price. I'm playing Candy Land. I loved Candy Land. Actually, I never played that. It was a great game. Was it because of the art? That's crazy. It was beautiful stuff. And then nowadays you look at the Candy Landboard and you're like, poor kids, they don't know what they're missing. I just got a Ticket to Ride game that I haven't played yet. Have you heard of that one? No. It was a German game. That's like one game of the year. It's a train game. Like you establish train routes between cities, but it's supposedly like it sounds like really? That's fun, but it's supposedly great. I just bled a tear. Did you have the thought of it? Yeah, it does sound pretty bad, but no, it's one game of the year, right, that's German. And watch people ticket to ride enthusiasts will be like, dude, it's the best ever. I'm sure I've heard, like, German game night is, like, a thing now. Yeah, I think they're a little more heady. Is that what it is? I think so. This seems like I read over the rules the other night just so I would know what to do. Because the purchaser of the game has to be the game explainer as well. Right. You have to listen to craft work while you play. Yeah. Well, you don't have to, but it helps. House rules. Yeah. And we said you can do anything but give personal loans. Right. That's what the official rule states. So, like, I can buy from you on the side or something like that. Or you can hold something up for auction, whatever anybody's doing. Yeah. And we always played where you had to do that when it was your turn, if that makes sense. And then that would take your turn as well. Right? Yeah. But again, the whole point is to be the person who owns the most stuff so that you can bankrupt all of your family and friends. That's right. And those are the rules. But there's actually strategy to it, and people pay a lot of attention. You know, there's a Monopoly World Championship roughly every four years, although it's been the last one in 2009. Yes. So we're due an American lawyer one, right. In 2009. No, I think it was a Swede or a north man. Okay. Maybe he was the North American. That's what he was. The North American Channel. Yeah. And he represented the US. And the World Championships. It sounds so silly. Weird. Yeah. Well, he used the iron. Yeah. Yeah. I think the American used the thimble. Got you. Terry just laughed. She was like, really? That's a fact that people need. Well, we're trying to really appeal to the purists here, too. We want everybody to be engaged. Well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. Okay, Tucker, so again, the point bankrupt everybody, but there's, like, techniques that you can use to more efficiently bankrupt people overall. The best strategy, the basic strategy is to buy everything every chance you have. Yeah. I looked up there's a lot of different people's strategies and opinions online. I did find this one from a guy, and that was his strategy, is buy everything. It doesn't matter what it is. Even the suckers bet, the electric company and the water works. Yeah. Which I don't pay off. Really? He said buy it all and never have more than $100 in cash as his rule. Wow. He says the number one mistake people make is hoarding cash, like I did. Yeah, you're making the number one mistake. That's right. And he says that buy everything and do whatever it takes to get a monopoly, even a bad one. He will trade to get a bad monopoly and give someone a good monopoly even as long as he gets the monopoly. Got you. And he says it's fine because then you two will probably take out everyone else. The point is just to get a monopoly and improve it as fast as you can. So supposedly though, a general rule of thumb among hardcore monopoly players is that while you're improving your monopoly, your properties by adding houses or whatever, you want to stop at three houses because the jump from the third house to the hotel is financially it doesn't pay off. Usually it's over improvement. Yeah. Just like in your home, don't build that $80,000 kitchen because you're not going to get your money back on that. Right. So three houses, this guy doesn't subscribe to that. He buys everything and puts hotels on it. Yeah. He says as soon as he gets his first monopoly he mortgages everything else to get cash back. Right. And then uses that cash to improve. Wow. Which I thought was a little risky. A couple of bad roles. I mean it's a game of strategy. At the end of the day you're rolling dice and so it is very much a game of chance. Although that guy feels like he's on the back of a Pegasus through the whole game. Like he's just thrilled. He claims to have beaten there on the edge. He claims to have won a game in 12 minutes one time, which I thought was tooting his own horn a bit. Yeah, sure. But real regular strategy. You're right. They say three houses is the max you should go. And then there's also some that you should avoid even though they seem like very tempting. We already said the electric company and the water company, the utilities. Yeah. The most you can get for rent from landing on them is ten times the roll of the dice, which is $120. It's a max roll. It could be as low as $20. Yeah. This guy would probably say, well, hey, it was worth it. I still own them and I'm still making money if somebody lands on them. But again, the monopoly purists say just stay away from them. Yeah. And you also may want to stay away from the most expensive ones. Boardwalk and Park Place. Yeah. There are only two of them and they just don't get landed on very much. Yes. So think about it right out of the gate when you're thinking of probabilities. The fact that there's two of these properties rather than three means that another player is less likely to land on your monopoly because there's three or two instead of three. So that's one problem. Yes. The other problem is placement. Where they are they're right after Go. Right before Go, yeah. So it's at the end of the board, essentially. No, I'm sorry, they're right before jail? No, they're right before go. They're right before go. Okay. So that means that most players are going to while they're going to pass them for sure, whenever they hit that go directly to go. Exactly. Yeah. So that means that your Monopoly is going to be passed over the likelihood of making your money back recouping it, especially if they're improved to the hilt, like a really fancy hotel. Sure means that's a lot of money. Yeah, you've probably sunk a lot of money unwisely into those. You want to go for some other ones? Yeah, supposedly. And there are people that have done this one guy, if you really want to get into Monopoly, this dude, I don't even know his name, but just look up probabilities in the game of Monopoly. And Scientific American in the mid 90s did an article that talked about probabilities of landing on different spaces, but they excluded Community Chest and Chances and being sent to jail. So this guy said, I took all of that and included everything, and he has statistical charts long term probabilities for ending up on each square, expected income per opponent role, average income per role, expected number of opponent role to recoup, incremental costs to recoup mortgages. The name of his website, by the way, is Monopolywasfun.com. It totally should be. But if you just want to do some basic probabilities, the orange properties are landed on more than anyone else. Yes. And why, Chuck? Because they are after jail. Yes. So six, eight and nine spaces after jail. Yeah. So if you get sent to jail, which is going to happen at some point, and actually we didn't talk about jail, we'll talk about that, then chances are you're going to hit one of those orange squares on your way out of jail. Yeah. Because you're rolling with two dice, so you're much more likely to roll like a six, eight or a nine. Then you are like a two or three or a one. Yeah. It's not even possible to roll a one. Try it. You can't. You can't. Unless you eat one of the dice, in which case, unless it's a house rule, everybody's going to yell at you and have to wait around until you poop it out to keep playing. Actually, our rule was you had to roll the child then. The what? The child who ate the dice. Oh, yeah. Shake them up. All right. So jail is on the corner of the board, and there are a few different ways you can go there. You can draw a go to jail card. Right. You can throw three doubles in a row and go to jail. Yes. Which I never understood because that's a good thing, I guess. But it's also the sign of the devil. So that's why you have to go to jail for a little while to be cleansed. That's right. Or there is a square march to go to jail, and you can land on that and go to jail. You can also get out in three ways. You can have that get out of jail free card. If you draw that, you can hold on to it. We could sell it. Although I think that's a house rule. You can sell it to a friend or enemy, whoever had the most cash. Right, exactly. And then the other way is to roll to either pay your way out with $50 or to roll your way out. The way we played it was each turn you had one chance to roll your way out of jail by rolling doubles. Rolling doubles, right. Yeah. And then under official rules, if you don't roll doubles for three consecutive turns, like you get three consecutive chances, you roll doubles. And if you don't on any of those turns, then you have to pay $50 to get out of jail. We just played where you just got out and you didn't have to pay. Well, then you guys weren't following the rules. I told you. The house rules. The house rules. So there's actually a strategy to jail? Yeah. If you go to jail early on in the game, you want to pay your $50 to get out immediately. Yeah, just pay the $50, because then you can keep going around the board and there's more stuff available to buy, but later in the game, you want to just kind of hang out in jail. Yeah. Like Josh, all the orange spaces, and you've got hotels on each one. So I'm thinking it might be good to sit in jail for a few rounds. Yeah, because you can still collect rent on your properties, but the fact that you're in jail keeps you off of my property. Yeah. And another Brian rule we played where when you were in jail, you could not collect any rents. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. But according to official rules that's right. You just make as much money as you want there. And apparently in jail, officially, you can also buy and sell properties and improve your inclinator and build hotels and houses, which I thought, I don't know, if you're in jail, you can lose that right. Seems like in real jail, that's the way it is now. It's not. You can own a house and be in jail. I guess that's true. And technically, you could probably charge rent to someone. You could sublet it like, I'm going to be gone for three to six. No, it's true. But what happens when dishwasher breaks? Try to get let out of jail to go fix it? They're not going to let you do that. That's very funny, but it's true, too. Probability experts also say you get a good return on buying all of the railroads because they're pretty cheap. There's one on each side, and once you own all of them, they're $200 in rent. So that's not too bad. Not too shabby. But to me, a monopoly is the reason monopolies are valuable, but it's because they're in a row, whereas the railroads are spaced out. Right. And our friend the strategist who thinks he invented the game says, but what you have to remember is none of these strategies matter because you're playing it's a game of people and personalities. So he said, you got to sit back and watch the different personalities emerge and then use manipulate that got you, like, the cash order versus the shark. And he's like, you're really playing against people, man. That's interesting. I thought so. Okay, so let's talk about another friend, an economist friend. His name is Ralph Antsbach. Yes. And he, back in the 70s had a game called Antimonopoly. Yeah. He was an econ professor at San Francisco State. That's right. And, like, made his own real game. Like, he didn't just, like, draw it up on paper. Like, he started a little small business right. And manufactured it, apparently. Sold about 200,000 copies of it right out of the gate. It just hit a nerve again, it was called Anti Monopoly. And the whole point of it was to break up monopolies rather than build monopolies. Yeah. The beginning of the game is essentially the end of a regular game. Like, everyone starts off with monopolies, and instead of real estate and utilities and anti Monopoly, they had their individual businesses that have been brought under single ownership. And you take the role of federal caseworker and bring indictments against monopolized businesses. That's right. In order to return the board to a free market system, you have to wear sensible shoes. It sounds awesome. Yeah. Well, and he came up with this because he was trying to apparently explain to his son what was wrong and bad about monopolies. Right. And I suspect capitalism to a certain extent. And he came up with this game instead, like I said, sold a substantial amount, 200,000 copies of a game, especially back in the 70s. That was pretty good as a startup. Yeah. And it caught Parker Brothers attention enough that they sent him a cease and desist letter, took him to court, got a court order for him to hand over his 37,000 copies that he had in his warehouse, and Parker Brothers went and unceremoniously buried them in a landfill in Minnesota. Ralph didn't cotton to this very much. He doesn't like to be pushed around, I get the impression. No, I mean, the guy who makes Anti Monopoly is not going to cave into the courts initially. And he did so, like, very much at his own financial detriment. He had a very expensive team of lawyers at first and spent quite a bit of money fighting Parker Brothers for the right to use Anti Monopoly. And it wasn't really going anywhere, and he was losing a lot of money. So he started to do legwork himself. Found a lawyer friend who worked on the cheap for him, and that's when things started taking off. Yeah. I mean, he basically uncovered the lie that it was invented by Charles Darrow. He found out that the game was essentially in the public domain or should have been, and went all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Yeah, he won at the Supreme Court. This econ professor who came up with a game called Anti Monopoly one in the Supreme Court won the right to name his game Anti Monopoly. Yeah. He deposed the two Quakers that were Friends of Hoskins, that were old at that point. They took the stand. He deposed the CEO of Parker Brothers, and he took the stand and had to admit under oath, like, yeah, we did kind of steal it, the idea from that lady, after all. And so, as Ralph says, the whole point to him was for this true story, the true origins of Monopoly and how it came about. The whole point of it originally could still be told openly what he said couldn't be bought at any price, in his opinion. That's right. So. Way to go, Ralph. Yeah. He wrote a book awkwardly titled the Billion Dollar Monopoly in Swindle Colon during a David and Goliath battle. Anti Monopoly. Uncovers the secret history of Monopoly. That's a little clunky. A little clunky, but it's still around. In 1984, there was a new version called Anti Monopoly Two where you could actually be a monopolist or a competitor. So you get to choose, which I thought was interesting. And if you chose the competitor, you charge lower rents and you can improve property at any time. But if you're a monopolist, you have to own at least two properties in a group before building houses and charge a lot higher rent. So I think you're like playing against the two systems within the same game. That's really interesting. Yeah. I might grab one of these and see what it's like. Yeah. Maybe tell everybody's. German, you got anything else? I got nothing else. I do. The longest Monopoly game of all time, 70 days. I played a game of Risk that seemed like it lasted that long once. It may have. It didn't last that long, but it lasted a weekend. Okay. And Monopoly, I don't have the patience for that. I'll just give up. I'll take my cash and go home. You're heard of it? Yeah. You're like, oh, this saved all this money. That's right. And I own the utilities. If you want to learn more about Monopoly, including how to play, if you don't like house rules, but you also don't feel like looking at the official rule book, you can just go on to how stuff works and check out the rules that is in this article. Just type Monopoly in the search bar@housetofworks.com. And since there's a search bar, it's time for Chuck Facebook questions. So, people, this is what we do sometimes when we don't have a listener mail prepared, we will go on Facebook, ask for questions. And then over the course of a couple of episodes, we will read those out in rapid fire like fashion. We don't do anything in rapid fire fashion. I couldn't even explain rapid fire fashion. In rapid Fire. No. All right, so I'm going to start this off with Louise. Benjamin says, with as many shows as he recorded, how many would you like to go back and redo? Just a small handful. I would say that I was literally kind of like, I'm really disappointed with that. Yeah, you're a little harder honest than I am, though. What's weird is, like, any time I do say, that was terrible, you're like, yeah, it wasn't bad. And then I'll go back and listen to be like, that is way better than I thought. That's what Jerry says when you leave the room. She says, they're always better than he thinks. Oh, really? I didn't realize Jerry talked about me when I wasn't here or spoke at all when I wasn't around. She was not allowed. All right, you got one? I do. Let's see. Do either of us have a preference as to what type of vacuum cleaner you use? That's from Taylor Gene Warner with the most pedestrian question anyone's ever asked. Not if you were into vacuuming, my friend. Okay, very important. I love vacuuming. I have an electrolux canister vacuum. Oh, really? I call it Luxey. And Emily's not allowed to operate it. Wow. Yeah. You mean I have a Dyson? One of the little not the big one, one of the smaller ones. The yellow ball. Just a regular upright back. Yeah, I got on the canister thing years ago. I love them. Yeah. I don't know why this thing, Chuck. It never loses section. It's very powerful or whatever. I accidentally rolled over the cord to charge my phone. It sucked the rubber off of the cord. Wow. Yeah. I had to put electrical tape back on. Wow. It does suck. All right. That's some buzz marketing. Joseph Campbell, what is your advice on how to have a successful marriage? Joseph Campbell asks a question. Yeah, well, he should know this question. All right. Answer. Mary, your friend is my biggest piece of advice. That's a good one. Because if you don't like your spouse, then you can't love your spouse. Yeah. Marry the person you want to hang out with the most. You should read a self help book. The end. I have another one for you, Chuck. Ready? Yes. Bethany Jackson asks, are you ever going to get another pet goat? No. Well, never say never. Yes. One day I will, when I retire, like, to the country. I would love another goat. Considered the best. That answers that. Josh cary Obamax says, what is your favorite Simpsons episode? That's a tough one, but I'm going to have to go with the old standby of Mr. Sparkle. I'm going to go with monorail. That's a good one, too. Or any of the Halloween, like one through ten or so. Yeah, those are just great. Yeah. Robert Browning. Justice League or Avengers. I don't know what that means. Really? Yeah, you do. As a kid, I was Justice League. I was way more into that. But here as an adult, like, that Avengers movie is great. I'm into that. Justice League is DC. Yeah. Superman, Batman. Although I like the Super Friends. That was all Justice League, wasn't it? Yes. Okay, well, I have a coherent answer then. Okay. For live action animation. Not live action, but for animation. I prefer Justice League. For comic books. I preferred Avengers, Marvel Universe. Well, in the new movie, they're doing the Superman Batman movie, and then a full on Justice League movie is leading up to that. So we'll see juries out. Yeah. On motion pictures. Okay. But it's going to be hard to adopt the Avengers movie. That was pretty not motion pictures. Cartoon only. No, I'm talking about the new movies that are coming out soon. I got you. Billy Schultz says, were there rejected titles for the podcast before you landed on Stuff You should Know since you named it? I think you should answer. I came up with a bunch of ideas. One of them was McNeil lair NewsHour. That was already taken. But stuff you should know is in the original list of ideas. Yeah. What terminator two. Judgment day. That was one. Yeah. All right. You want me to go next? Yeah, let's see. Oh, it's a good one. Christopher Mark Reese says, which of the two are your favorite person for promoting science? Bill Nye or Neil degrasse Tyson. Good one, man. They're both so great. I say N-D-T. Yeah. Cosmos is awesome. It is awesome. He also is totally comfortable, like, rocking a shirt unbuttoned at the top, too. Yeah, he's like the Billy D. Williams lando. Tyson. Yeah. And he was on a TV show, which is really nice. You kind of have to go with him. All right. Naomi Hartman garam oh, this is from her son Jackson, age nine. What was your favorite book when you were kids? My favorite book when I was a kid was like around your age or younger was the Great Christmas Kidnapping caper. It was about a bunch of mice in New York that move into Macy's during Christmas time, and Santa is kidnapped and they solved the case. Wow. It was a great book. What is it called? The great Christmas kidnapping paper. And it wasn't like a little kids book. I mean, it was my first novel. It was long form. That was your favorite book when you were a kid? Yes, my favorite book when I was a little kid was a Christmas book. I think it was a golden book called something like a Visit to Santa's Workshop or something. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It was so cute. And then, strangely, the first series of novels that I ever loved were. Ramona Quimby books. Oh, really? Man, I used to eat those up. And I would take Flak, too, at school. I didn't care. I love those books. Yeah. I loved Encyclopedia Brown. Oh, yeah, he was good. And then when I was younger younger? You can't do better than Dr. Seuss and Chelsea and stuff like that. Yeah, the classics. I've got one. All right, go ahead. This is from Alejandro Sandy. She could live in any era of history. Which time would you live in? Why that's always so hard? I'm going back to what I said before me. Yumi. Cuba, 1920s. Okay. I'm going to say New York in, like, I don't know, maybe the 1930s. Okay. That'd be pretty fun. Cool. Lots of drinking and dancing. Yeah, well, that's Cuba in the 20s, too. Yeah, exactly. You just have the Latin flavor. Kevin Kinsey. Which pickled things do you prefer most? Eggs, cucumbers, peppers or cauliflower or anything else? I don't eat pickled things, so that's you I love pickled everything. It's so good for you, too. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. It helps you digest fats a lot more easily. Nice. It's just really healthy, like eating pickled stuff. You don't like pickles? No, I have one more aslan Ridell. Boy, there are some weird names on Facebook. How do I make a ten year old more responsible? You're getting all the heavy questions, like secret to successful marriage. How do you make your kid good? I think you got to put them to work or give them a pet. You make them responsible for something and that they're interested in. It would be my advice. I agree with both of your pieces of advice. Marry the person that you want spend time with and get your kid a hamster. Yes. Put them to work. Yes. Charge money. You got any more? Yeah, I got too many more. Pick one. Okay. Are you ready? Yes. The one that I pick is as follows, from Mike Reels, arnie or Stallone? It depends on the year. I'm going to have to say I would go Schwarzenegger. Yeah, 80s Schwarzenegger nowadays. Who cares now? But if we're, like, taking the time work back to the Was, kona and the Barbarian, the original Terminator, total Recall, Raw Deal, total Recall. Those are all pretty great. Yeah, I'm a huge First Blood fan. And Rocky fan. Yeah, it's tough not to go with Stallone, although he made some really bad movies, like Tango Assassin type movie. Tango and Cash and the Dolly Parton when he's a country singer. Oh, Rhinestone. Rhinestone cobra. Wait, those were awful movies. What? What? You didn't like Cobra now, did you? Yes. No, not for me. Must have been the age difference. Yeah. So I'm going to go arnie too. Okay. How about that? There you go. Arnold. If you want to ask Chuck or me questions, you can go on to Facebook anytime at facebook. Comstuffysheno. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. That's our Twitter handle, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffieshow.com. Stuff you should know is production of iheartradios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week earlier only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-earthquakes.mp3	How Earthquakes Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-earthquakes-work	What makes the earth quake? Join Josh and Chuck as they explore the science and history of earthquakes in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	What makes the earth quake? Join Josh and Chuck as they explore the science and history of earthquakes in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:23:04 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=14, tm_min=23, tm_sec=4, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=181, tm_isdst=0)	25794916	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from howstuckworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charlie. Charles w chuck. Chuckers. I love you, Bryant. You're saying that or that's my middle name. Who cares? I love everybody. Sure. Okay. I'm in high spirit city, Chuck. Things are moving. Stuff is taking place. Things are coming to fruition. This is out of nowhere because you were not feeling this way, like, literally seconds before we record it. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, let me grab dude, you can turn it on. You know why, Chuck? I can tell. Because you're drinking your little energy drink. Yes. I would call it an energy soda. The Little Dream Sailor. Yes. You really liked that podcast, didn't you? I thought it was good. My favorite part was when we mentioned the doctor in Berkeley, when you said Vivoom or row or something like that. Yeah, it was funny. Yeah. Thanks. I thought I liked all the nose breathing I did in that podcast. For some reason, we just sit around talking about our whole podcast. Hey, Chuck. Hey, Josh. You did some time out in La. Right? Yeah. So I know that you met Matthew McConaughey. You love that story. And keep for Sellerling's driver. Yeah. And him. I saw him in the grocery store, too. With his driver. No. How did you know it was him at Bucks and Blonde Babe actually. Got you. It was Keith for Southern London. It's unmistakable. Got you. He's mouth breathing behind me in line. We're going to get in trouble one day for that. I know. He's a high dad, too. He just got sued. He, like, hit a photographer or somebody. Did he really? Yeah, so watch your back. Plus, he knows his way around a gun. Yes, he does. And he's ruthless, as I understand it. From what I've seen on TV, I know what you're about to ask me about Los Angeles. I know you do because we're doing how earthquakes work. So, Chuck, let's just cut to the chase, shall we? I have never felt an earthquake out there. Nor have I. I was out there for four years, dude, and I was there when earthquakes happen, and I never realized it and felt anything. Friends of mine would be like, dude, did you feel that this morning? No, I have no idea. Do they use a lot of that honey that comes in the little bear? Yes. Did they? That's what they say. Kelly got you, Chuck. I've never experienced an earthquake, either. The closest thing to an earthquake story I have involves earthquake proofing. Let's hear it. Remember my friend Hippie Rob? Yeah. Hippie Rob did a little time out in Sanso. A fan of the honey bear. Yeah. Hippie rob did some time out in San Quentin, actually. Really? Yeah. Here's the thing. He was not looking forward to doing Saint Quentin, I imagine. And he finds out that right when he gets there, that he and all of the other relatively light offenders are going to be moved to Folsom Prison, which is undergoing earthquake proofing construction. Really? Right. So they're going to keep all of the light offenders at Fulsome and then move all the light offenders at St. Quinton over to Folsom. And then they moved all, like, the murderers and rapists and pederasts that were at San Quentin, now at False over to San Quentin. Wow. That's my earthquake story. Good for Falsehood. So Hippie Rob got off easy. He was with light offenders in Fulsome, right? Yeah. Did they actually have to work on the earthquake proofing where they put to work, or was it just no, I don't think so. Okay. Would you trust a guy named Hippie Rob to earthquake your prison? I would not. I wouldn't either. So let's talk about earthquakes. Let's do it. You want a little history? I did some extra research. Let's hear it. So before 1915, we didn't really have much of a conception of what was going on geologically with the continent. Right. Was it just anyone's guess at that point? Yeah. I think you and I could have come up with an adequate theory. We'd be like ghosts or something like that. Right. But ghost was not an acceptable explanation for a guy named Alfred veganer. Okay. He's a German, clearly, because his last name begins with a W, but I pronounced it with a V. Sure. Which is a dead giveaway for a German. It's a German. Right. So Veganr was actually an astronomer by training, but he was fascinated with geology, and he became increasingly fascinated when he found out that there had been fossils, identical plant and animal fossils found on let's see, that would be the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa. And at the time, the predominant theory was that there were land bridges that were now underwater, and that's how these species would have gotten together. Wegner he thought I don't know if that's entirely true. And he also noted that Africa kind of looked like it could fit into South America. Interesting point. So he started thinking about it and thinking about it, and he realized that he possibly about 300 million years ago, all of the continents were hooked together, which he called one big, stinking, massive land. Right. In Greek, that would be Pangia. Yes. So Pangaea starts to break apart, and basically wegner postulated that the continents were, in fact, still drifting. He thought that they were basically plowing along the ocean and it was due to centrifugal force and spinning of the tidal movement. Right. And tidal movement makes sense for the time. Back in 1915. Sure. He was right about the continent drifting. We know that. But not with the centrifugal force for the title movement. One of his rivals calculated that for the tides to move a continent, that kind of force would actually stop the rotation of the Earth in less than twelve months. Right. So that wasn't it. But he was right about the continent shifting. He was pretty much ridiculed during his lifetime. But in the 1950s and 60s, as we got more and more acquainted with the actual ridges along the plates, they figured out that Vegner had been right. The continents were, in fact, drifting. Not in the way he thought. Right. Go, Vegnor. Go Vegner. That's the history lesson. That's good. I didn't know that. I know. I told you it was extra research. I'm impressed. I like that. And that's continental drift theory. Right? Sure. Once we figure this out, that actually what is that the lithosphere, the surface of the Earth, which all these different plates make up, are actually moving along the Athena sphere, which is this layer of rock that actually it is a lubricant. It behaves like a liquid because of the heat and pressure. Right, right. So it's the goop in between the plates that's kind of cushioning everything. Right. I like that. And we figured this out I didn't, but geologists did. Once we figured it out, we realized that explains all sorts of stuff, like volcanoes, trenches yes. Mountains, bridges under the ocean. But most importantly, this podcast. It also explains yeah, volcanoes, plate tectonics, earthquakes. It's good stuff. Earthquakes. No, volcanoes. Okay. Tsunami. So, wait, we're going to switch mid podcast and do how volcanoes work. We should let's just make it up. Yeah, it really does. It explains earthquakes, and it all makes sense. And I love playing Tectonics. Who doesn't? Just the thought of our Earth. I don't know, stuff like this makes me feel insignificant in a good way. We're kind of on this Earth, humans, and we think we're all that, but we're really at the whim of whatever the Earth decided to do. Still, something going on at the core that we didn't know about right now. And all of a sudden, everything started going haywire. We'd be powerless. Oh, yeah. So I kind of like that insignificant feeling occasionally. I mean, we're powerless to baseball sized hail. Yeah, exactly. Let alone the movement of continents. You want some stats? Josh Chuck, I knew you'd bring those up. There are actually many earthquakes all the time. You just don't feel them all. They don't get attention if you don't feel them, and they don't get attention if they're not where people are, which a lot of them are as well. Or away from people. There's one earthquake every 11 seconds. Josh that's 8000 per day. About 3 million per year, actually. The US. Geological Survey maintains the site chuck. That has updated earthquake activity around the world. Let's see, 6 hours ago, there was a 6.7 earthquake in Papua New Guinea. Dude, really? That's big. Yeah, it's a pretty cool site. Anything over seven is a major scale. Big time major. Yeah. We'll get to the richter scale in a few. Don't give it away. Yeah. So, yeah, that many earthquakes is a lot. But you don't feel them if most of them are deep underground. Right. Or in uninhabited areas. Exactly. Unless it's in a major city or something and killing folks, it's not going to make the news. Right. But speaking of killing folks, I got one more stat. I like this one. 1.5 million people have died from earthquake related activity in the last 100 years alone. Earthquakes get a really bad rap, Chuck, because, really, most of those deaths are attributed to collapse structures. Sure. Or tsunamis. Or mudslides generated by the earthquake. Exactly. I mean, everybody's like, the earthquake just opens up. The Earth opens up, swallowed into it, like the movies. Except in Superman. True. Yeah. Remember that? Yeah. He reversed it, though, dude. Yeah. Flying very fast. And he lied to Lex. Luther's girlfriend doing so, too. He did? Jerk cricket. Josh, I think we should get back to Tectonics. Okay. Let's talk about plates under the Earth. Okay. And what can happen basically, when these things meet up? The two plates meet up. Right. Where two plates meet is at fault. Right. You've probably heard of the San Andreas fault line in California. Very famous fault. Faults are where most earthquakes happen. Right. I keep going to say volcanoes. It's so weird. So what happens when plates get together is they can do a couple of things. They can move apart from each other. In that case, the magma comes out, magma turns into lava that cools and hardens, and then it kind of reforms as part of the structure. So and then makes it more solid. Right. And then it cools and you have a new land mass form. Exactly. Right. We should also probably point out here to any people who believe in the Hollow Earth theory that we're discussing this based on the notion that the Earth's core is molten. Okay, yeah, sure. Nice. So go ahead, Chuck. Disclaimer there. What kind of fault was that that you just described? Well, no, that wasn't a fault. That's just what happens when the plates move apart. When the plates push together, oftentimes one will go underneath the other. Like, they'll meet up, and then one will slide under the other one, and it dissolves basically, at that point. And then the final thing, Josh, is the plates can slide against each other, so they just kind of pass in the night, basically. Just kind of moving by each other very slowly. Right. And all these different things that I'm talking about, where these plates meet, that is where we get to the fault. Right. There's four kinds, right? Yes, indeed. There's four kinds that either go vertically or horizontally. As far as the faults are concerned, you got the normal fault and the reverse fault. Those are vertical faults. Right. So the normal fault is where the plates actually move away from one another. The reverse fault is where they move together. Right. And then you have one that move horizontally, which I think the San Andreas fault is a horizontal fault. Is it a thrust fault? I think it's either threshold or a strike slip fault. Okay. It's basically the same thing, except along horizontal lines rather than vertical. Right? Yeah. But no matter which way they're moving, they can be moving apart, moving together horizontally or vertically. All fault lines are basically where plates are still pressing together. Right. Very tightly. Right. And when they press together, they're eventually going to get locked because of friction. Right. But the pressure is still going. They still want to move. So all this potential energy is being built up, and as it builds and builds and builds, the pressure eventually overcomes the resistance. And all of a sudden you have a slip. Yeah. It breaks. It does. And that's actually the epicenter of the focus of the earthquake, where that happens right there. That is the key. That is what an earthquake is. Yes. Is when the initial fault, a break or more that happened later on, occur. So there you have it. We really paid that out in a dramatic fashion, didn't we? Did we? Yeah. It didn't feel that dramatic to me. It will when we listen to it. Maybe it's because I know the ending. So Chuck will die. I can't believe you gave it away. So, fault zones, that's where there's lots of faults together, connected, right? Yeah. So one of those false slipping, one of that a place where the potential energy turns kinetic all of a sudden can actually trigger faults, or it can actually trigger movement along other faults that are connected. Those fault zones you mentioned. Right, right. That's why earthquakes often happen in a series. It's more than one. Right. And they almost always happen along the faults. But I know that one very famous earthquake in 1811 and 1812, did that happen in December 31 and January 1, or what? I don't know. That's a good point. Maybe one long earthquake. Yeah, it would be. We'll find out about that. But that occurred in the middle of a plate, in the middle of the North American continental plate, which is odd at the time, but it was they found out later that deep beneath the earth there was, in fact a 600 million year old fault zone. There you have it. Yeah. Some way or another. Right. There's a fault zone involved. Right. So, Chuck, we actually have a way to measure earthquakes. We measure them through their seismic waves. Right. Seismic waves. Seismic waves are the energy that radiates from their focus, and it acts as a wave, much like a wave in water. Right. Like if you were to throw a sound wave, a rock and a pond, that kind of thing, there's two different types of waves, two major types of waves. You have body waves and you have surface waves. So let's talk about body waves first. Yes. They move through the inside of the Earth, the inner part of the Earth. Right. And, well, there's two different kinds. There's primary and secondary body waves. Yeah. P waves. P waves or S waves? Right. It's easy to remember. Sure. Mnemonic induction and lucid dreaming, et cetera. Right. They travel about one to 5 miles/second faster than I thought the P waves do. Yeah. And actually, they can move through solid, liquid or gas. Yes. They cannot be stopped. No. So they can actually go from one end of the Earth to the other. Well, they do, too, every time. Isn't that correct? I don't know. I think that's what it says. We'll find out. The P waves, actually, they affect the stuff that they're moving, like, say, rock horizontally, so it shakes back and forth on a horizontal plane. Right. Okay. And like you said, they're the fastest, so they get their first. But I got the impression that they caused the least amount of damage. And you have secondary waves, right? Secondary body waves, yeah. That's the problem. Well, they're the first problem because they displace rock perpendicularly to the direction of the wave. Right, right. So you remember the movie Tremors? Oh, yeah, loved it. So you remember the worms going underground and it was displacing dirt up on the Earth's surface? Yeah, same thing. That's like a secondary wave. An S wave. Yeah. I love that you're quoting Trimmers as our scientific backup. I love that one. You're so actually, that was Kevin Bacon. Well, that line was Kevin Bacon. Yeah. That was such a good one. It's probably one of my top five. It's a good one, yeah. So let's talk about surface waves. You want to well, you should actually just say real quick, though, that they don't travel through solid material, the secondary liquid Earth core. Right. Or liquid Earth, if you believe in hollow Earth theory. They would stop when it became hollow because it doesn't travel through gas apparently, either. Right. Yeah. They would stop at the Temple of Doom, according to the hollow theory. Can we talk about surface waves yet? Yes, we're there. Let's do it. They're more like the waves in a body of water, right? They move the Earth up and down. Did you see some of the pictures in this article? This is a really cool article for pictures. There's actually a picture page of nothing but earthquake aftermath pictures. Right. And there are cool interactive things, too, when you talk about the plate shifting, some animations that you can click on. Did you see the one with the railroad tracks? I did. What was that, Peru? I don't remember. There's a picture in this article of railroad tracks that basically just make a perfect S because of the surface waves that hit it during an earthquake. Well, the crops that shifted, too, that was really the crops being in a straight line. They had the wave in them. Yeah. So that's all due to surface waves. Surface waves are the ones that cause the most damage, as far as we're concerned. If you're like a mole man or something, you're probably going to be more afraid of secondary body waves. Right. Up top side, we're afraid of the surface waves. The L waves are long waves is what they're called as well. Top dwellers that we are. Right. So they caused the worst damage because they move the Earth up and down, like you said, a water wave in the ocean. Yeah, exactly. We don't build our buildings generally to withstand wave like motion. No. Well, they've done a lot of work, though, to build buildings that can rock back and forth and move a little bit and have the foundation shift. Sure. It's called earthquake. What we're talking about reinforcement. Sure. Some of my apartments in La actually were reinforced. You could tell, like, in the walls, they would have these bars running up and stuff. Yeah. As far as Japan's, on the cutting edge of earthquake, proofing of everything. Yeah. A lot of earthquakes in Japan. Yeah. And robots and volcanoes. Where are we now? Josh? You want to talk about Richter scale yet? I think that's the inevitable conclusion. So, Josh, the Richter scale is, as most people know, records a magnitude of the earthquake. It's logarithmic. So that means that a whole number jump means it increases ten fold. So a six on the richer scale is actually ten times as powerful as a five. Right. And a nine is 100 times as powerful as a seven. How about that? Yeah, that's serious business. And what the richer scale scale does is it measures the wave amplitude of the seismic energy of a quake. And so that's the one you always hear about. Like I talked about that one in Papua New Guinea was a 6.7. Right. Which is large. Anything below a three generally doesn't get much attention. This is a little trimmer or micro quake. It's kind of hard to say. And that's the vast majority of earthquakes or three or less. Right. Yeah. Anything below a four, you won't see a lot of damage going on. But anything seven and above is a pretty serious business. And I know the record is a 9.5. I looked this up. Did you? Chile. Right. Are you ready for some stats of my own? Look at you. I mean, imagine a 9.5 on the Richter scale. It's immense, devastating. There were 1665 people killed, 3000 injured and 200,000 homeless in Chile alone. Wow. Along with $550,000,000 in damage. Property damage. What year was this? 1960. So that's 19. $60? That's the impression I have. Yeah. Wow. It created a tsunami that killed 61 people and caused $75 million worth of damage all the way in Hawaii. You're kidding. And in Japan, there were 138 deaths and $50 million worth of damage. Wow. Yeah. And it just kind of goes on from there, you know? What they said about that 18 1011 earthquake in Missouri was that the church bells in Boston rang from the reverberation. I know that's nuts. Yeah, I want to verify that, but big old earthquake right there. So what you're talking about though, with assessing the damage that is actually the Mercalli scale, the damage done by the earthquake, which is figured out many days or weeks later. Right. Not like the Richter scale. I call it the Wi US God scale. Right. Yeah. That's not the word it's described in Roman numerals. Up to twelve, which you can also say is XII. Right. And xi is where there is evidence, structural damage, the ground is opened up. Sure. Like in the movies. Yeah. And there's been at least a tsunami or a mudslide or some other disaster. Right. Yeah. My brother felt an earthquake when he was in La. For your brother? Did he look handsome? Much more exciting things happened to him out there. I got you. He said it felt like a buzzing, like a real loud buzzing. And they looked at his closet and the clothes were shaking and it's over. Then as soon as you realize what's going on, it's over. Yeah. I read about the San Francisco earthquake. They said that the sensible duration of the earthquake was a minute. Really? Which I imagine probably felt like an hour. Killed 3000 people. Well, that just goes to show you the kind of devastation if it only takes 60 seconds to wreak, that kind of habit. What's going on? A lot of it was fires that broke out afterward as well. Yeah. Buildings collapsing. Sure. Very scary stuff. So, Chuck. Well, we can't predict earthquakes. We do need to close with that, I think. Okay. They've come a long way in determining the epicenter and they can predict aftershocks pretty well now. And they can say, hey, due to history, you are likely to have an earthquake because we think things are moving in your area. The plates may be moving, but they can't accurately say when it's going to happen. Yeah. I remember being a little kid and I think some scientists came out and said there's going to be a massive earthquake in San Francisco or California that's going to basically cause the state to break off. That's a pretty fun thing, just how kids are. But they couldn't say when it was going to happen. They said within the next X number of decades. Just on scare of student day at your school. Yeah. So if you have any relatives in California, they will likely die. And I do have relatives in California, too. You did at the time. I still do. Hey, Aunt Barb. Okay. Yeah. Aunt Barb, Aunt Barb, cousin Jessamy and cousin Wolf, along With Cousin Peter, cousin John. And I think that's it out there. Oh, and Aunt Donna. Wow. Yeah. Crazy names. They live in California. Wolf, actually. You want to know Wolfe's story? Sure. This may or may not make it in the final version, but I'll tell you, chuck cousin Wolf was born Eric Wolf, right. His first and middle name. When he was like eleven or twelve, he decided he preferred the name Wolf more. So he got his parents permission and went down to the clerk of court and changed his name to Wolf Eric. Really? And he's been Wolfie ever since. It's pretty funny. Yeah. What a guy. And then I guess we already kind of talked about building construction, and 1973 is when Uniform Building Code came about. And it's a set of standards basically that people have to follow now, right? Whether you're in Folsom Prison, St quinton, Japan, you got to follow certain standards. Chile, sure. Oh, yeah. Especially Chile. You name it. That's earthquakes in a nutshell. And we're not doing this one again unless they figure out that the continental drift theory was complete rubbish, right? Yeah, it's Josh. Oh, and also we should probably tell people, chuck, there is an article on how to survive an earthquake at How Stuff Works.com. Right. You can type survive earthquake in the handy search bar. Save yourself a few keystrokes and that'll bring that right up. Good idea. And also you can just type in earthquakes and it'll also bring up How Earthquakes Work article with all those super cool pictures, right? Yeah. Two listener mail, buddy. Okay, Josh, I'm just going to call this sleep paralysis deluge. It was a deluge, wasn't it? Yeah, it would be last week. Now, a couple of weeks ago, probably when this was released, we had a listener bail from Drowsy. Doug in Oregon who had the pigsuit, man. He was awake but couldn't move and very frightened. And apparently everyone on the face of the earth knew that this is sleep paralysis, but us. And I had heard of sleep paralysis. Me too. Never done a whole lot of research on it, but rest assured, we will do an episode on this now. So here's the delusion of paper cup. Chuck. Yeah, well, I also want to say I did not respond to any of those emails and I'm very sorry, but we got literally over 100 of them and I just didn't have time. But I did read them, so no offense, people. And out of all the emails we got about that one from medical and psychological professionals, I went with Madeline, our new 13 year old fan, because hers was so good. Hey, guys, I just listened to your podcast with Drowsy. Doug. It sounds like what happens to me. I would be laying in bed and wake up. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy and tired to get up. But then I would see things out of this world. Like one time I woke up and I was too tired to get up. And I saw it seems to be a common thing. And I saw in my huge half a sofa sized mirror, my sister, half her body was in the mirror frozen while the rest of her was bending and moving around on my dresser. Awesome. Another time I saw army guys getting pulled onto my roof. Please don't give me any cures for this because I like seeing Navy Seal guys climbing to my roof. Yeah, that's from Madeline. And Madeline. Sounds like you might have a little case of sleep paralysis, but as long as there's no pig suited people, don't worry, Faces, we'll follow up with the podcast on this and condition and a lot of people sounds like they have it. Actually, a lot of people run in. Yeah, they're right there with Doug. You keep making these promises, don't you? Yeah, we'll do it all right. Well, if you want to basically boss, chucking me around and get us to do a podcast. Send us your ideas to stuff podcasts@housethoughworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Want more housetofworks? Check out our blog on the housethefworks.com homepage. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Smalltown Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crimes. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
400ea6be-121b-11eb-ba6a-6b8397ace115	Short Stuff: Exploring Irish Monk	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-exploring-irish-monk	There’s a long-standing legend that an Irish monk was the first European to sail to America - in 500 CE! Is there any evidence?	There’s a long-standing legend that an Irish monk was the first European to sail to America - in 500 CE! Is there any evidence?	Wed, 29 Sep 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=272, tm_isdst=0)	13049988	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. Dave's here in spirit. So that's the short stuff quorum, that's all you need. And this is short stuff. That's right. And we're her to dispel the rumor that Christopher Columbus discovered America. That's so old. That is pretty old. Are we really going to talk about that? No, we don't have to do that. That was definitely a 2008 2009 ish kind of thing to say. But what are we going to dispel? Well, I think one of the things we should at least say because not everybody knows this is like the first Europeans definitively to reach North America were the Vikings. I know a lot of people know that but not everybody knows that, Chuck. Not everybody knows that there is a Viking settlement that was discovered. I think they suspected for a long time because I think in the North Sagas they basically said yeah, we made it to Newfoundland. That the Vikings actually had made it to North America and then finally in the think they found a real deal bona fide, totally incontrovertible Viking settlement from about 1000 Ce place called Lanson Meadows which I've always wanted to go to because I've always wanted to go to Newfoundland for one. But to see like a Viking settlement in America, that would be something else. That would be great. We could go berserker right, take a bunch of shrooms, get a battle axe yeah. And then celebrate the fact that they were the very incontrovertedly, the very first Europeans to touch that soil. Or were they? I was going to wrap up short stuff. You're right. There is a chance that the Vikings were even beat. So the Vikings would have beat the age of exploration by about 500 years. There's a theory, and it's got some legs conceivably that somebody else beat the Vikings by 500 years themselves and that sometime in about the 6th century showed up somewhere in North America. And who is that? Chuck. The Irish. And I don't buy this but I think it's a great story. You don't buy it? No, I think it is folklore. Okay. But we'll talk about it anyway because it is a fun story but in the 6th century as the story legend tale goes, saint Brendan was an Irish monk, very good sailor and seafare very what? Sailing saintly saintly and Sally yeah. Supposedly undertook this voyage, a joyous voyage, a Joyce and with some fellow monks and went looking for paradise to land a promise of the saints and after seven years came upon what he thought was this place. An island so vast that they did not reach the forest shore after 40 days of walking that had a river that was too wide to be cross. A forested wooded land with lush fruits and he and the fellows filled their boats full of gyms and returned home. So the Irish found it first. Yeah. And I mean he ain't talking about the Azores. You can definitely walk across them in 40 days. There's not a lot of islands in between Ireland and North America, so it's really not clear what St. Brendan was talking about, where he went. And he wasn't like a dummy. He didn't accidentally stumble onto Europe like he sailed to Europe before. He was, like, a skilled navigator. So he is assumed, is presumed to have known enough that he knew what direction he was traveling in, and that this really was like an all new place that his kind had never set foot in before. That's right. And in the 9th century. So several hundred years later, there was an account of this surface called Travels. St brendan navigacio Sainti Brendani magna carta masterchargo. You take the bus, we all take the bus. It was a big hit. It was translated into a bunch of languages, and it was the account of the journey. There are all sorts of crazy things in here. Oh, yeah. Which maybe we should save that for the second half. Okay. Because that's where it falls apart a bit with me. Okay. But should we talk a little bit about the Vikings maybe lending some support to this idea? Sure. Yeah. So the north have those sagas that I was talking about, right, where it's basically like, we did this. This is neat. This is cool. Here's something else we did. And there's a lot of credulity to it. It's not just like Norse mythology. That's almost like a separate thing. Although it's definitely intertwined. They think that these are actual historical documents in a lot of cases, or at least have a large kernel of historicity in them. And so in those sagas, they talk about arriving in Greenland around 1000 Ce, around the same time they would have set up the place in Newfoundland and finding Irish missions that were already there. That's a little odd. And also, we should say the north were familiar with the Irish already, so they would have known an Irish mission if they came upon an Irish mission. Yeah, sure. So that would suggest that the Irish beat them to Greenland at least, which is pretty significant. Yeah. There was another saga where they talked about meeting some of the Native Americans who already had seen white men. They were like, we know guys like you, and we've encountered guys sort of like you. They were dressed in white, and they came from a land across from their own, or our own, I guess, if I'm in character. And then there was a third saga that talks about the Norse encountering a tribe of Native Americans who spoke a language that even sounded like Irish. Right. A lot of little clues here. Yeah. These are recorded by the north, and they definitely do suggest that there was possibly some Irish who made their way over to the New World before the Vikings even did. But like you said, there is a lot of the is a heaping helping of folklore along with all of this. And for people like you, Chuck, it breaks down everything. I like to hold out hope that this is possible and true and let's talk about it a little more after these commercial breaks. All right, we're in a divided camp. How is divided? This is when the petroglyph comes in. Barry Fell, who is a marine biologist at Harvard University, found some petroglyphs which are rock carved writings in West Virginia in 1983. And he said, you know what these are? This is Ogam script. This is an Irish alphabet and it was used from the 6th to the 8th century. And I even think I know what it's saying. They're talking about the Christian Nativity. Sure. What else are you going to write on a rock? Sure. And that's Irish. Clearly it's not from Native Americans. And Fell sit here, everyone take a look at this stuff. And the academic world said, I don't know about that. I don't even know if this I don't know about your methods. It's definitely not a fact. They said, Aren't you a marine biologist? Exactly. And this could be Ogam script, but it's really not proving anything. No, it's still not definitively been shown. Who wrote that? It's called the Horse Creek Petroglyph near Clear Fork. West Virginia. And they don't know who wrote it. But I think the local archaeological society came out and said it's pretty racist to assume that rather than the local indigenous people leaving these petroglyphs. That it was some mythical Irish monk who made his way over here allegedly. Rather than the people we know were here in this area at that time. But regardless of whether that's the case or not, no one has said, oh, well, it was these people and this is what it says. So there's still definitely room for speculation. But from what I understand, there's virtually no academic who believes that this is in fact augam script. And even if it is an augam, that it doesn't necessarily talk about the Nativity. So we can kind of discard that as evidence. There's certainly not incontrovertible evidence of Irish presence because of those petroglyphs. Yeah. And where it falls apart for me, but I've been thinking about it, maybe not completely, is when you start to look at the account, the Navigacio, the travels of St. Brendan, which was the account of his voyage. It is really out there and wacky. It talks about an island with an Ethiopian devil, an island with monks who celebrated Christmas, who were just there. They fought a griffin at one point and killed a griffin, all kinds of fantastical stuff. They went to one island and set up camp and then it turned out, oh, my goodness, this is not an island. We're actually on a giant whale. So let's hold communion. So let's have convenient I don't know if that was where the communion was. It was a bunch of whale stuff, but they definitely held communion on a whale at some point. It might have been that chapter, but it's kind of crazy stuff, and I started looking into it. What it is, is an Irish Emron, which were the 7th and 8th century seafaring adventure tales written by the Irish, and it fits in with that. And so I immediately dismissed it was like, no, this is just an enron, and it's just made up. But I thought, well, maybe not. Maybe it took the style of that because that was what was popular and maybe it really did happen. But they gussied it up with these fantastical tales. They dressed it up. Yeah. And the navigation was written about two to 300 years after St. Brendan would have lived. Right. So it certainly wasn't his own account of it. But it's almost like, to me, it's almost like Hamilton. Like, if you came along and saw Hamilton the Musical, you're like, this is ridiculous. They didn't rap. Hamilton wasn't a rapper. Right. There's a larger point to it, and that there was a person named Alexander Hamilton. He did do these things, but it was dressed up to make it palatable or understandable to people at the time, and then embellished, I'm sure, although I don't think Alexander Hamilton would have given communion on the back of a whale, but it's still in the same ballpark. And to me, just because somebody came along and dressed it up with folklore, clearly folklore doesn't mean that it doesn't remove the possibility that there is a lot of kernels of truth still in there somewhere. Yeah, I kind of got there during the last eight minutes. I'm glad about that. What is interesting is one of the things that they kind of used to say. No. This probably couldn't have happened. Was the fact that the sailing technology at the time. The boating technology that he would have likely used. Is this little boat called the Curac and Currach. And it's a homemade boat. Basically made out of wood with an oxide and. Like. Tar and stuff to put it together. They're like, there's no way this guy could have made it that far. In one of these kerocks, an author and adventurer named Tim Severin said, you know what? I'm going to see if this is possible. And he built one of those, supposedly in the style that they would have built them back then. And he retraced that route that Brendan is believed to have taken from Ireland to Iceland and Greenland and eventually Newfoundland. And he made it. Yeah, it took me a year. He showed it is entirely possible. And again, this St. Brendan was supposed to be a very skilled navigator, so it's possible, at least, that that happened if St. Brendan actually did exist. Who knows? Many stuff you should know shorties. This ends with a big shoulder shrug, a big shoulder shrug, a puffy question mark with a heart for the Dodd amen. By the way, you can read this article that we found on how stuff works. I wrote it myself back in the day. And with that short, stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of Heart Radio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1218576073087sysk-smart-mobs.mp3	What are smart mobs?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-are-smart-mobs	With the benefit of wireless technologies like cell phones and text messaging, large groups of people are able to coordinate their actions with amazing precision. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn about smart mobs and civil disobedience.	With the benefit of wireless technologies like cell phones and text messaging, large groups of people are able to coordinate their actions with amazing precision. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn about smart mobs and civil disobedience.	Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:00:26 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=12, tm_min=0, tm_sec=26, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=241, tm_isdst=0)	13957552	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things we like to think about. Online fraud shouldn't be one of them, because with every purchase, visa prevents, detects, and resolve online fraud. Safe, secure Visa. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant. Here. Josh and Chuck, staff writers for how stuff workscom. What's up, Chuck? The dynamic duo. That's exactly right, Chuck. Right. Chuck, I was reading the other day, as I do once in a while, I try to keep the brain going, and I came across a really sad article. It turns out July 1 will forever live as a day of infamy. Your birthday or no? July 15 is my birthday. July 1, 2008, was a day when two great underground pop culture icons were killed in one fell swoop. Have you ever heard of a guy named Ron English? No. I don't know Ron. Now, I think there's a coach out there, college football coach, defensive coordinator named Ron English. This is not the one I'm talking about, okay? This guy is this dude who is considered the father of agit pop art. Right? It's like pop art, like Think Warhol, but with a social or political message behind it. This guy created, like, MC Supersize with this gangster parody of Ronald McDonald. Right? I think that did you see the one where he merged Obama's face with Abraham Lincoln's beard and hat? I did see that, yeah. Kind of creepy, but cool. So that's Ron English, okay? And he's underground. He kind of hijacks the sides of buildings. He's putting these billboards, he's works of art up when he's not supposed to. Right. And he's just kind of creating controversy, public protest pop art. Yes. He actually accepted money from the Ray Ban Company to create a building, wrap this work of art, and then Rayban proceeded to pay a Smart Mob, a group of people, to just show up wearing Ray bands and all stare at this building rat for, like, 15 minutes on that day. So in one fell swoop, ray Ban basically killed or at the very least, totally co opted Ron English and Smart Mobs. Right, which is really sad, because the first Smart Mob on record had to be dispersed by the Delta Force right. At the Battle of Seattle. So. I love marketing people. I love them because they're definitely not the apocalyptic horse people of the end of an underground trend ever, are they? No. And far be it from them to turn a really cool underground thing into commercial advertising. They wouldn't do that. They keep it going. So, yeah, money, root of all evil and end of all underground culture. But the Battle of Seattle I mentioned, do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, the protest at the World Trade Organization summit in, I think, 99 in seattle. We should probably tell people what exactly we're talking about when we mentioned smart mobs. Yeah. It's not something that most people don't know about these well, basically what it is is just a group of people, usually protesters, or originally they were protesters who are also called flash mobs based on their ability to assemble and disperse really quickly. Yeah, it's really kind of cool. It's very cool. There's this guy named Alex Stephen, I think is his name. He edited a user's Guide to the 21st century and he wrote a smart mobs that basically any city in the world can be shut down by 10,000 swarming protesters right. Block off streets, police from taking action. And the reason that these mobs are so successful is because they are all linked using readily available technology. Text messages, cell phones, cell phones, that kind of thing. So they're getting directions from some central mastermind, puppet master, somebody in his black turtleneck in the dark room. Exactly, yes. That guy. And he is aware. He's sending them messages saying like, cops are coming, disperse, reassemble at this park. Right. And so they're always one step ahead of the cops. Yeah. And I imagine this looks really neat. I mean, I don't think we've ever seen like a big wide shot of a smart mob, but I think it just goes from what looks like a crowd of people and all of a sudden, instantly they're like they're just minding their own business. They've lost the one common thread, and that was that protest. At that moment. They're no longer protesting. They're just people on the street now and they have nothing in common and as such can't be beaten with riot shields and batons. Right. That's one of the problems with the quote unquote, peaceful protests of the past, is everyone shows up in this one place. Cops usually even know about it beforehand. There's going to be a rally there and they're all just parked there in some, like, city park or street corner, and the cops can effectively just surround them and do whatever they want. Tear gas, mace, you name it. Yeah, they do a lot of that stuff, but with the smart mods, it's neat because they just break up and all of a sudden the cops are like, hey, where they go? Yeah, and then they're two blocks away. Exactly. And the way that the mastermind, Mr. Black Turtleneck, is keeping tabs on the cops is through a method called surveillance. Right. It's the opposite of surveillance. Basically. I think it means looking above, from below, something to that effect. Right. And it's basically the public sector keeping an eye on the government sector or the security sector. It's like the Rodney King beating being videotaped. Perfect example of surveillance. Right. And another example is this group called the European Information Society. Group? Basically, they run around, they're just a loose assembly of people who have camera phones, video phones, and if there's a state run hospital in Britain or something that has really unacceptably, unsanitary conditions. They'll film this and put it on YouTube, and it's with this quick dissemination of information. All of a sudden the British government is acting to clean this hospital up, or clean its act up, depending on what they're just taking the task for. Yeah, it's really kind of cool. A lot of good can come out of these. And I don't think they've had a violent flash mobile. They have actually, the guy who came up with this term, his name is Howard Rein Gold, and he's this futurist. He's one to definitely keep an eye on. Whatever he's talking about is usually going to come about in the next 510, 15 years. Right. So he coined the term smart mob, and he said in an interview later on that he deliberately chose the word mob, I think I quote, because of its dark residences. Right. And there have been instances where flash mobs have broken out for the purpose of violence. Like, I think the what year was it? There was the Miss World Pageant in 2002 in Nigeria. Right there. I guess a local newspaper wrote an article praising the pageant, and it was sent around among the Muslim community and through text messaging, violence basically broke out. 200 people died because of it. That's a loose association with a flash. It can happen. And even if it hasn't fully happened, the potential is, well, sure, anytime you get a bunch of people together in protest, they're probably worked up over something. And even if they have peaceful intentions, cops come around and one thing leads to another, and before, you know, violence could be breaking out. You know, Ryan Gold, actually, he went around the world and started noticing these smart mobs and flash mobs were already in existence before he coined the term. And he realized that for protests or civil disobedience, to be able to survive, it was vital that smart mobs exist. Right. Or else it would just be all surveillance, no surveillance, and we would all just be using cell phones just to call our friends or mom on Mother's Day or that kind of thing, the way that they were intended to. And out of this kind of inspiration, this hacker mentality of like, okay, I've got this device, let's see if I can make it do this. That will keep governments in check, essentially, for as long as we have this technology readily available, right? And as long as we're a consumer driven capitalistic culture in the west, this technology always will be available, which is great. It's not going anywhere. It's like an Urubuh, a snake eating its own tail. Right. But in a really cool way. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So do you know about some of the fun smart mobs? Yeah, the fun, I love they're fun smart mobi. God, yeah. Give me an example there. Well, I know in New York well, it's sort of using the same technology, but they're not in protest of anything. It's just groups of people gathering to do kind of crazy things in front of people. So it's sort of a performance art much more than protest. But I know in New York City, a group of people went to a toy store, maybe FAO shorts. That's where I would go if I was in New York. And they all jumped on the floor and started trembling at this big giant dinosaur bowing before it. Yeah. And then they disassemble and they're gone. And New Yorkers are probably left standing there, or the tourists, probably. New Yorkers aren't even watching. Yes. Lots of Iheart New York T shirts. Just looking around like, what was that? So that was a cool one. And I think in London, they did one where all these people showed up at a furniture store and started laying around on all the couches and things, which I don't know. That's a bit lame if you ask me. It was definitely one of the lamer ones I've run across, but it was cool. One of my favorites was one that took place in Rome where the people were instructed to go to this bookstore and all these people converged on it. And we're told to insist that the people who worked at the bookstore helped them find books that didn't exist. And God knows how much time they wasted doing that. Right. And probably didn't sell a single book. I wouldn't think so, because smart mobbers are notoriously poor. Steve Martin. Actually, technically, you could make a case that he started the first smart mobs. Do you know about his early stand up? Actor, comedian Steve Martin? Yeah, that's Steve Martin. Yeah, I know about his early stand up. I didn't king Tide and the Arrow through the head. Oh, this is even earlier than that. I mean, this is like undiscovered Steve Martin days. Basically, he'd be at, like, a comedy club or whatever, doing his bit, and all of a sudden he'd just stop and be like, who wants fries? I've left the McDonald's. He'd get everybody down to McDonald's. Everyone in the club would follow him down. He's doing his bit the whole time. Then he gets to the counter, and he's ordering for everybody, ends up with an order of 60 cheeseburgers and, like, 80 orders of fries. And he keeps changing it and asking what they want, and then finally ends up just buying an order of small fries and leads everybody back to the club. Yeah. Wow. It sounds like people that suffer from this are the business owners. Exactly. And I think that's part of it. It's kind of nice to say, like, we are the consumers, but we also are more powerful than you'd like to let us believe. Or demanding a little respect, perhaps. Yeah, very much. I missed that. Steve Martin. How could you not? Instead of the one who does the Father Bride. Good Lord. I'm with you. Well, as it turns out, steve Martin is in the same echelon these days as Ron English and Smart Mobs. Now, maybe you could make a case of sold out. So sad to see all three started out great, but it kind of makes you wonder what's next? We'll be keeping an eye out for it, right? Maybe we should go start one up right now. I think we should as well, and stick around while Chuck and I are assembling our own Smart Mob to find out what article on how stuff works.com reminds him of his childhood. After this. Stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things to think about, like, say, what's the best site to buy a new leather jacket? Or whether to buy the three or six megapixel camera? But thankfully, we don't need to think about online fraud, because for every purchase you make, visa keeps an eye out for fraud with real time fraud monitoring and by making sure you're not liable for any unauthorized purchases. How's that for peace of mind? Safe, secure Visa. Okay, so, Chuck, tell us, what is it? What article on the site reminds you of your childhood? Right. You don't even know this. I don't, actually. This is a surprise to me, too. It's actually an article that was featured today written by freelance writer Ed Grabbingowski, who's been with us for a while. Is that how you say Ed's last name? I threw it out there. That's how it spells it sounds right. Yeah. I call him the Grabster. Right on. How jetpacks work? Nice. I saw that on the phone. Yes. That takes me right back to my childhood and the GI. Joe jet pack that I had. You had a jet pack of your own? Well, it was for the doll. I'm a little older than you, but the old Ji Joe's were tall. Twelve inches. Yeah, I came in right after those. I'm a big fan of the shorter, what, four and a half inches? Yeah, those don't exist to me. Yeah, they're good. So I had the little jet pack, I had the submarine, and you attached the jetpack on the string and it was fun for a five year old. That's great. Well, so Chuck revealed what article reminds him of his childhood and that he was apparently born in 1062. You can learn all about jetpacks and all sorts of other wacky childhood adventurous stuff onhouseafworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast@houseworks.com brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1223404009334hsw-sysk-mass-extinction.mp3	Will we soon be extinct?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/will-we-soon-be-extinct	Is Earth due for a mass extinction? Population ecologists think so. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more mass extinctions.	Is Earth due for a mass extinction? Population ecologists think so. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more mass extinctions.	Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=14, tm_hour=12, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=288, tm_isdst=0)	10581548	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. You've got Josh, you've got Chuck here. We're a couple of writers from Housetopworks.com. Right, Chuck? That's right. So, Chuck yes, S? Are you familiar with any Turkish authors? I've heard this one. What's the punchline? There's no punchline. Oh, that's a real question? Yeah. No, I don't know turkish author. I didn't either, until I was reading an article today about a Turkish author who writes in the name Harun Yahaya. I believe that's how it's pronounced. I may be butchering it. My Turkish is a little rusty, but Mr. Yehaya recently offered 10 trillion Turkish Lira, which is about $8 trillion. It's not one of those upside down things. Eight Turkish Lira to the dollar, last time I checked, to anyone who can provide definitive fossil evidence of evolution. Wow. Yes. That's a lot of money. What's his motive? His motive is he's an outspoken creation. Creationist? He's an outspoken creationismist. Wow. That's a new word now. And he is so vehemently opposed to it. Have you heard of Richard Dawkins? Yes. Okay. Dawkins has a website, and he's a zoologist who's a huge evolutionary theorist. He actually believes that we're nothing more than a vehicle for our genes. Right. That's all we are, just big bags of flesh, and our genes are really in control. So he's a huge evolutionist. And Mr. Yehaya got the Dawkins website banned in Turkey. So really, if you go to Turkey, you can't get under Richarddawkins.com Orton co UK or whatever. So he thinks evolutionary theory is false and it's not correct. So he's sort of ingest throwing out this huge sum of money because he claimed he doesn't think anyone can actually prove that. Right. Yeah. I didn't get the impression that he is a trillionaire. Right. I don't know how many trillionaires there are, and it sounds like a smart alec to me. Kind of a smart alec, sure. But he was pretty specific. He said that he wanted an intermediate form fossil. And this is like an animal that is clearly a species, that is the connecting species between one and another, like some fossil that links us humans to frogs. Right. Because on the tree of life, if you go back far enough, are related. Everything, every species on Earth, came from some little strand of RNA in the primordial soup here on Earth billions of years ago. Right. That's what I believe. That's what a lot of people believe. But the fossil record, which is the record of all the fossils, all the sedimentary layers, all this stuff over the last 550,000,000 years is admittedly spotty. Right. The history of our planet. It is. So you go and take an ice sample and you go down far enough and you reach a point where no one is sampled yet that gets added to the fossil record. Right. It paints this whole picture of the evolution of life on Earth, depending on what you believe? Sure. Everything may have been placed there. That's another theory. Right, okay. So we're still trying to figure out if evolution occurs consistently over a long period of time, which is called phylaic gradualism, or it could be in short bursts as the competing theory, which is punctuated equilibrium. So it's still like I said, it's spotty, but it does have its uses. What uses, Josh? I'll give you a use there, Chuck. Last year, October of 2007, some British researchers came up, or they published a study where they used the fossil record and compared it to global climates over a 520,000,000 year period. Right. Because we have climate information in the fossil record as well. And what they found was that in times of warm global temperatures, like we have now, I think the mean global temperature, which is land and ocean average temperatures put together. Right. It's about 54 degree, which is about warm. Historically, it's a greenhouse period, which is what we're in now. Exactly. Traditionally, when the Earth has seen greenhouse periods, mass extinction has taken place. Right. So the question we're forced to explore is, will we soon be extinct? Right. Which, if you look at the history of our planet, there's a case for that. And if we're not extinct, certain organisms on our planet might become extinct, which could lead to the domino effect, and eventually we might be extinct after all. That is very true. There's one case in point, a mass extinction. The worst one, apparently, on the fossil record happened at the end of the Permian period, I believe 251,000,000 years ago, 95% of all the species on Earth died out all at once. When I read that, I was just blown away. Can you imagine if all of a sudden it was like humans, dogs, cats and fish. Yes. Mosquitoes and maybe a cockroach. Right. Something like that. With my all the rest is gone. You didn't see anything when you went outside. Right. Well, humans wouldn't last long if that were the case. No, because we require biodiversity. Exactly. You want to tell them about biodiversity? Yeah, I can speak a little bit about that. The Earth, basically, Josh, is like just a big machine. And if you were compared to, like, a car engine, each little part has its own function. And if one nut on the car engine goes off, that leads to something else to break and something else to break. And the Earth is kind of like that as well. There are no unnecessary parts. Everything is important. Even if, looking at a car engine, you don't really understand what this does or what that does. It's still essential. It was put there for a reason, if you'll excuse the comparison. Right. Excuse. Thanks. So I know one example you used was nitrogen in your article. If you wanted to enlighten some folks. I love enlightening folks. You ready, folks? Let's do this. So nitrogen basically is present in the soil it's an essential food for crops or crops. Right. We've learned to harness wild crops to be produced under conditions we like like big corn, and we can control how many grow and how well it grows and that kind of thing. But really, ultimately, none of this would work if it wasn't for the nitrogen present in the soil. And we can add nitrogen, but it occurs naturally in the soil through worms, digesting all sorts of different microbes, that kind of thing. And the microbes themselves are involved in digesting things. What they put out as a waste product in many cases is nitrogen, which feeds the crops, which feed us. Right. It's a circle of life. Yeah. So, I mean, the lowly worm or the even lowly microbeacteria, things that just seem so unimportant or even threatening to us are essential life on Earth. It kind of goes with that machine you were talking about, the interrelated parts, that each one is very important, even if it doesn't seem like it. So with the loss of biodiversity, so we lose the worms, we lose a lot of the nitrogen in the soil. All of a sudden, our crops fail. So we will be effective one way or another, despite our technology. Right. It's pretty amazing when you think about that. The smallest thing can have the trickle effect, and we may actually be able to survive some sort of mass extinction. I mean, we're pretty smart species, technically. We're subtropical. You know that, right, right. And we've mastered the colder climbs by technology, like clothes or tankless hot water heaters. Right. That kind of thing. So we're supposed to be living kind of near the equator so we could conceivably survive a mass extinction. We have before, actually, supposedly, about 70,000 years ago, humanity faced an evolutionary bottleneck, which is where there's some species is brought to the brink of extinction. So imagine it like a bottle, and then the bottleneck comes and you lose all that life and all those genes, and basically the population squeeze down. They estimate that there is about 15,000 people worldwide on planet Earth at that time. Really? Because of that ball from Low. What number do you know? I don't know the number, but I think a lot more than 15,000. So on the other end, you come out. So really, the evolutionary bottleneck, if the species survives, goes from a bottleneck to an evolutionary hourglass where it becomes robust again and populated. But if you go back to that bottleneck, it took a lot of inbreeding to get past that point. Sure. Which under a theory that I have explained why a lot of people today mouth breathe. Wow. Yeah. Let's hear it. That was it. I think there's mouthbreathers on planet Earth today because 70,000 years ago, it took a lot of inbreeding to get past our evolutionary Bible night. And previously we breathe. I'd probably throw our nose right. Gills. No, I mean, you ever watch 24 I watched the first day. Okay. Well, Keeper Sutherland, he's a good example of a mouth breather. He breathes through his mouth breathes with his mouth open. It's a little slack jawed, you know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. Mr. Southern, no offense, he doesn't listen. So, Chuck, that's pretty much the long and short of whether or not we will face a mass extinction. I think it's entirely possible. I know. I've been storing water ever since I wrote this. Really? In your basement, do you have a bomb shelter? I don't know if I call it a bomb shelter. It's more like an emergency bachelor pad. Right. So you've got your Nintendo and your liquor. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And the water? Well, I got plenty of that. Sleeping bags? Yeah. I'll invite you over. You can learn whether or not you're going to die in the next couple of years by reading. Will we soon be extinct? On Howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast@houseworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2018-01-30-sysk-manson-family-murders-part-two-final.mp3	The Manson Family Murders Part II	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-manson-family-murders-part-ii	Listen in today for the conclusion of the story of the Manson Family Murders.	Listen in today for the conclusion of the story of the Manson Family Murders.	Tue, 30 Jan 2018 13:00:02 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=2, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=30, tm_isdst=0)	38938834	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworkscom? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant there's Jerry Roland over there. And this is stuff you should know about. The Main Family part Two That's right. If you're listening to this one first and you're doing it wrong, so no need to recap, just go listen to part one, and we'll pick up with the Beatles wide album, which was a very big deal, and how this figures in. Great, great album. Obviously, as a Beatles fan, I know you're not super into them, but I love The White Album. It's arguably their weirdest album, and it spoke to Charles Manson for sure, because he really became pretty obsessed with it in diving into deconstructing the album. It's a very dense, long album anyway, and there's a lot to it. So it's no wonder that Charles Manson with a headphone of acid would think that The Beatles are speaking to him. Right, and he definitely did. So he apparently had a history already of deconstructing Beatles lyrics, but before he was deconstructing lyrics like Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which compared to The White Album, is decidedly upbeat and positive. Right. So while he was in prison, he was super into The Beatles. When he gets out the Beatles release, The White Album, he's already obsessed with them, but now he's on tons and tons of acid. The White Album is kind of a downer compared to Sergeant Peppers, and the fact that it's speaking to Charles Manson really made things turn dark, it seems like, as far as him and the people in his orbit are concerned. Yeah. So they're hanging out, they're lighting bonfires, they're doing drugs, they're listening to Charles Manson stomp around with his tiny feet and his redneck voice talking about Helter Skelter, which is a great, great beetle song, and basically sort of renamed his vision for this race war and impending apocalypse, Helter Skelter. He kind of stole that from The Beatles, as Bono would later go on to say. Yeah, he stole it from The Beatles, but he also took it again as like a message that The Beatles were sending him a sign that he needed to prepare his family for this because they were the chosen ones, basically, who should weighed out the race riot in Death Valley. So there's this whole idea that all of the Tate Labian murders took place to further this idea of Helter Skelter to strike the match that would set it off, to get things going, right? And this idea, apparently, is the creation of the prosecutor in the case, a guy named Vincent Boogleyosi, who wrote a book called Helter Skelter, like a 600 page book, basically the definitive true crime book on the Manson family and the Manson family murders. And so most of what we said in part one, and most of what everybody knows about the mansion family murders come through this lens that was established by Vincent Boogleyosi, who is the lead prosecutor in the case, was privy to tons of information, to confessions, to interviews, under questioning, to all this stuff. But he's the one who pieced together the idea that the Manson family committed these murders to start. Helterskelter that was his whole jam. Yeah, well, I mean, some of the Manson family cooperated. It's in there somewhere. Corroborated. That's a dark time with that word, corroborated. Corroborated. I don't have to say it much, luckily, because I'm not in a life of crime. No, but some of them backed that up and saying that at one point he wanted them to throw a wallet of a victim in a black neighborhood so that people would think it was Black Panthers that did this. Yeah, there's some evidence that was probably the case. If you talked to to Manson or if you listen to some of the stuff he says, some of these explanations, because over the years, people have said, what about this part? What about this part? And they've basically presented them with every aspect of the whole case against him. A lot of the stuff he has no explanation for, nothing good. But that wallet is a sterling example of where it becomes obvious that way. We're basically hearing one point of view about this and that's all we've ever heard, which if you're doing any kind of reporting, which you and I are not, but if you were inclined to do any kind of reporting, you never want to just stick to just one source. And with the Manson family case, it's basically one source and it's Vincent Boogleyosi, the prosecutor. But Manson explains it as he told, I think it was Linda Cassavian to just get rid of that wallet, that it wasn't in a predominantly black neighborhood and that he told her to get rid of the wallet because it was hot. And she hid the wallet, actually, in the tank of a toilet in a women's bathroom in a gas station, which is hardly where you'd put it if you wanted a black person to find it, to use the credit cards inside and to tip off the cops that a black person was behind the Tate LaBianca murders. So when you kind of dive into stuff like that, you see that there actually are two competing explanations in some aspects of this case. Yes, but I think Cassavian herself said that too, though, didn't she? Yeah. The thing is, if you are going to believe Charles Manson right. I know that's. The thing is, it's a terrible realization when you're like, actually, wait a minute, I understand what Charles Manson is saying here. With stuff like that. When you look at the testimony, these were people who were on trial for murder who had every incentive to go along with the lead prosecutors theory that it was all Charles Manson's fault. They could have maybe immunity. They could have charges dropped against them by saying, yes, this is the case, or having their testimony jibe with what Vincent Booglyosi's case was. They had an incentive to do that. Whether Charles Mason is right or correct or lying, from an objective perspective, the people on Charles for murder had an incentive to agree with Vincent Boogley hosting. All right. So the way they got caught was actually pretty interesting. Unrelated to these murders, police rated Spawn Ranch because it sort of became known that people were living there that were out on these creepy crawls doing these crimes. And so that's why they were originally fingered, as they say, in the biz. And they went there and they rated Spawn Ranch. And a lot of the family were arrested at that time for, like, car theft and burglary and stuff. They were released on a technicality and then went to Death Valley to that weird ranch. If you ever been to Death Valley, it's not a place you want to hang out. No, it's not. Especially in the summertime. Is that where Joshua Tree is? No, that's a Joshua tree. But it's not in Death Valley. No, those are two different places. But is it close by? Is the same type of terrain kind of thing? Yeah. I mean, I've been to both. Are they similar? Well, I mean, Joshua Tree is the desert, for sure, but is very lovely. Like I don't remember much about Death Valley. I think it was not very hospitable for me. It's appropriately named. Yeah, I think so. Okay. And of course, now people are going to say death Valley is the best. You know what you're talking about. Heavy sweater. So they go to Death Valley. Then there were a bunch of raids at the Death Valley camp between October 10 and 12th of 1969, and eventually they ended up rounding up the people responsible for these murders without knowing that they were responsible for these murders. So they were in jail kind of, luckily already in jail when they sort of decided they could pin on that pin, like legitimately pin these murders on these people. So this being the second time, there's something that I've ran across and research Chuck that never gets talked about, but is, I think, really significant at both of those rates, the Spawn Ranch rate and the Death Valley rate, the state took children from this. Like, there were kids, babies, toddlers, little kids running around growing up, like, at the Spawn Ranch and at the Barker Ranch, which is extraordinarily troubling, and some of them are thought to have possibly been Charles Manson's kids. There's just so much free love going on and so many pregnancies that were the result of this free love. It was difficult to say whose kid was whose, but they think that it's possible at least one or two of those kids was Charles Manson's kids, and they were taken by the state and later adopted by people. But it's one thing to think of a bunch of hippies just out in the desert taking acid, just being idiots, and then eventually it turning dark and murderous. But the idea that there are kids around at any part of this is really I find it very troubling. Yeah, for sure. All those cults had kids roaming around. They just weren't murderous cults. Yeah. So Susan Atkins, for her part, she agreed to testify initially against Charles Manson to avoid the death sentence, which, for a few years more, was still a thing in California, I think, in 1972, they reversed that. But at the time, the death sentence was a threat at the time of the crimes. So she had a grand jury testimony. It basically led to Manson being arraigned for these murders. In December 69, she recanted that testimony. The deal was revoked by the prosecutors. It was kind of too late at that point. Linda Cassavian, who you might remember, was, I think, the getaway driver and then the one who would not knock on the right apartment door to kill the actor. So she actually didn't commit any murders at all, was not in any of the houses. She was granted immunity for testifying. And I think she's the only one granted immunity. Right. Although I think, yeah, they just took the death penalty off, like you said, for Susan Atkins. And I don't know if you said this or not, but Susan Atkins is the reason the case broke open eventually when they rounded up all of the Manson family and had him in jail for the Death Valley raids, for burglary and theft and stuff like that. The way that they found out that the Manson family was responsible for the Tate and Lobbyanca murders was Susan Atkins bragging about it and a couple of her cellmates going and telling the cops. And that's originally how the case began against the Manson family. That's how the authorities originally found out. Big mouth. Yeah, I guess so. All right, so let's take a break, and we'll come back and talk a little bit about one of the weirdest, most sensational trials in American history right after this. All right, Chuck. So on December 11, 1969, charles Manson, who the public had just been acquainted with, I think just in the last few months, was finally arranged for the murders of the Tate LaBianca murders. And I think that did they get him for his role in the Henman murder at that point? I'm not actually sure about that. Definitely the Tate Lab Bianca murders, which was plenty enough. And it's kind of an understatement to say that he did not offer any public contrition. He actually went the opposite way. Yeah, for sure. Well, the whole trial was chaos, and he incited chaos at every turn to make it just a circus, and was quite successful at doing so. Initially wanted to represent himself and did for a little while, but the judge denied that. Judge William Keen and said, you have to work with a lawyer because of the fact that you're just making this into a circus. Basically, we need this to stay on track. And he actually was successful, though. Manson was getting Judge Keane oustered as judge, and Judge Charles Older eventually would oversee the trial. Yeah, I read a 2013 interview with Manson, and the thing that seemed to still get him the most was that he was denied the ability to represent himself in court. Like he felt like he never got to have his say in court. And that was the thing that got him more than anything else, not being locked up for his whole life or anything like that, that he didn't get to open his big mouth in court as much as he wanted to. So I guess we could go over some of these things that happened in court that led to the circus atmosphere. And by the way, if you want to see it yourself, there's a pretty good dramatic recreation in the movie Helter Skelter that was based on Boogleyosi's book. Yeah. Nothing better than dramatic recreations. Yeah. Lots of yelling and screaming, lots of shouting and cursing. Lots of disrespect to the judge and the American flag. They threw a copy of the Constitution in the garbage. At one point, very famously, charles Manson carved an X into his forehead, which later became a swastika, saying that he was X out of the world. And then his family members would do the same, and they would shave their heads and generally just try and disrupt things at every turn. Right. And they did. I mean, they were quite successful, but the trial kept going on and on. Right. I think it went on for a couple of years based on news articles. I was reading about it. So it turns out, though, that Richard Nixon supposedly had the most disruptive effect on the trial by saying, while the trial was going on, quote, here's the man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason, he was the sitting US president, commenting, saying unequivocally that this guy was guilty of a trial that was going on, which is, you just don't do that. It doesn't matter what the case is. Not for any compassion for Charles Manson or anything like that, but just because even on the other side, you could have blown the case and he legitimately could have created a mistrial there just because the President said something and everyone reported on it. I can't imagine that happening today. I totally can. It was a very Trumpy and move. Yeah. So we talked. I think we covered the Helter Skelter thing enough, don't you? We did. But I think there's a big thing that all this hinges on is that the prosecution said, and you said earlier, you even had a quote from Tex Watson that Charles Manson told him to go and just destroy the people in that house as gruesome as you can. And the prosecution said that Charles Manson was trying to spark the Helter Skelter race war that he believed was going to happen. Manson's whole thing was this this is Charles Manson's explanation for what happened and why he's innocent. He said yes. I believed in Helter's shelter. Yes, I believe there's a race for coming. I talked about it at night around bonfires with everybody on acid. I also talked about death of the ego and all sorts of other stuff. And if you ask me, what happened was my friends just took things, and it took it too literally and went too far, and that it all hinged on this Bobby Busole thing, right? And even before that, there's lots of papa thing. So Tex Watson rips off Bernard lots of Papa Crow, and he's got a problem with lots of papa who wants to kill him now. And Manson goes over there to help Tex Watson solve his problem by shooting lots of papa. So now, as far as Manson and Texas are concerned, tex owes Watson a debt, any kind of debt. Well, Manson's tex owes Manson a debt. Now, Manson's friend Bobby Bussele, who is one of his tightest family members, gets arrested for murder, the murder of Gary Hinman. And Manson says, well, you know, you should do something to help my brother Bobby Busole. And text says, well, what should I do? Apparently, Manson flew off the handle and said, don't ask me what you should do. You know what you should do. And that was that. And the next thing Manson knows, watson and Cren, Winkel and Atkins are over at the Tate residence carving up Sharon Tate and the rest of the people in the house. He didn't say anything about going to kill anybody. He didn't direct them anywhere. He didn't say anything like that. He just said they took all the other stuff that he'd said too far, and that really what they were doing, was trying to cover for Bobby Bussele to get him out of prison. That's Manson's explanation for the whole thing. Well, yeah. Well, I guess we should go ahead and say that all of these people went to prison. And Susan Atkins. Patricia Krin. Winkle, Leslie Van Houten, they all were still so under his spell that they were fully ready and did take the blame for these killings. But when it comes to parole, it was in January 1971 that they were all convicted on all the counts murder, conspiracy to commit murder. But years later, as parole hearings would come up for all these women in Tex Watson and Manson himself, the reason why they were continually denied, even like Tex Watson, became a born again Christian and supposedly turned his life around, but none of them would take responsibility. All these years later, they would all still say that it was Manson. It was Manson. And from what I understand, a big part of getting your parole approved is to finally take full responsibility for what you had done. Right. And none of them would do it. And they were all denied over the years. Susan Atkins eventually died of brain cancer in 2009. And then just a few days ago well, Leslie Van Houten, in September of last year, was actually recommended for parole just a few days ago, as of this recording, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, denied that. Oh, really? And said, no, she still isn't taking responsibility. And I think these cases are just so loaded still that it would be really tough, even though parole was recommended, for the governor to approve that. So we'll see. Apparently, they're going to keep pursuing that, and I'm not sure what the next steps are, but they're going to fight that ruling by Jerry Brown, and we'll see where that goes. And then Patricia Krenwinkle is still in prison, and I think now that Susan Atkins died, she is the longest serving female inmate in California prison system. Yeah. Oh, and we should say, too, that Squeaky Firm tried to kill Nixon. That's where she gained later fame. That was Ford. Oh, what did I say? Nixon. Yeah, Gerald Ford. And she's out of prison. She lives in upstate New York, and I think the last I've seen of her was someone took her picture in a Walmart parking lot and she smacked the camera down. Yeah. So she's an interesting case. Squeaky frame was out. She wasn't indicted for any of the murders or any role in the murders, but she was the number two person to join the Manson family, remember? And she still to this day, refuses to denounce Manson. It's still very much all about Charles Manson and just as much as she was before. I'm not sure what she was doing with the gun and Gerald Ford, but she aimed a gun at Gerald Ford. The gun wasn't loaded, but it still had the effect of sending her to prison for decades for an assassination attempt on the president. Right. I'm surprised she ever got out. I am, too. But she was paroled eventually, but she still never denounced Charles Manson. All of the other ones denounced Manson. She's the only one who has it. And supposedly one time she escaped in the 80s because she heard that Charles Manson was sick. So she broke her way out of prison to try to get to him, I guess. Yeah. She was a Manson family member who tried to kill the president and escape from prison, and they earned parole. Yeah. Hard to believe, but I think it's like you said. I think the case, the Tate LaBianca murders were so politically charged and so loaded that, like, it just said, they just weren't going to get out. The people who actually committed the murders. Yeah. Manson had an interesting time in prison, too. He had a guy trying to kill him by lighting him on fire at one point and 20% of his body was badly burned. And he had a string of relationships with people from Pinpal's which will kind of cover at the end to a woman that he did he actually marry that woman recently? I don't know. She was in that 2013 article that I was reading, and I don't know if they got married. I don't know what we would call it, but an episode on generally, women who marry serial killers, we totally should in prison. Let's do that. But first, let's take a break. How about that? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, Chuck, we're back. We're talking about so Manson in prison for a while there. This is just mind blowing to me. For a good decade, he enjoyed actually, more than that. He enjoyed the limelight. He could get interviewed by huge names like you said. Diane Sawyer, charlie Rose, Heraldo. Rivera very famously did an interview with Charles Manson where apparently Manson you were saying how much poise Diane Sawyer showed during her interview. Supposedly Manson just owned Geraldo. During that interview. I just totally took control of the whole thing. But these were things that were televised, like, on national news. And these people were giving these networks we're giving Charles Manson a platform to talk about himself, to talk about his philosophy, to show the world how crazy he he was. Loved it. Oh, yes. To keep him in the public eye, in the public mind until finally, after the Diane Sawyer interview, they not only pulled the plug on his interviews, they said you couldn't televise interviews with any inmates in California because of Charles Manson, basically. So it's just really strange to me, especially these days, looking back, that he had a platform for so long to stay that boogeyman that just scared the bejesus out of America. Yeah, I think those last whatever, like 23, 25 years in prison with no limelight. That had to have been, like, the darkest time of his life because he clearly wanted to be a singing star. And in a weird way, he ended up kind of getting what he wanted because some of his music ended up being recorded by the Guns and Roses and the Lemon Heads. And he became this kind of weird cult figure. And not as in Jim James, like, cult movie type Jones, but, yeah, like a cult figure and revered by some people. Weirdly. It just is so strange that people would look at them that way. So one person who revered him later on in life was a woman I believe he named Star. And she moved from her parents house in Mississippi out to California to be just down the street from where Manson was held. And she was the woman who was supposed to marry him. Right. And she was a follower of his she said she didn't care anything about. So Manson later in life became really interested in preserving the environment. He came up with this thing called atwa air, trees, water. I can't remember the last a air. Yeah, air again, that would be right. So she became very interested in him for his ecological stance. Right. And she moved out to be close to him, and we visited him on weekends, and they became very close, and I guess to kind of demonstrate to the world that he still had it. I still got it. World. He asked her to carve an X in her forehead, and she did. So she was also big time into collecting and selling Manson memorabilia. And Ed points out in this article, I think he's referring to her, that the whole marriage thing may have been a ploy to get at Manson memorabilia, but I don't believe that's the case at all. So she actually ran a website and still does, called MANSONDIRECT.COM, and it's, like, up to date. So I think she had not abandoned him after some big score with memorabilia. She seems to have been the real deal follower, like early mansa, family girl, reincarnated. Weird. So there were a bunch of other I saw an article where there are at least ten other weird deaths related to the Manson family that some people say could have been them or maybe not. I looked into a few of them, at least. This guy was originally going to represent Manson. He was an attorney named Ron Hughes. He ended up representing, I think, Leslie Van Houten. Yeah, but he disappeared while on there was a ten day recess in the trial. So he goes camping with another couple, and a couple left, and he's like, I'm going to stay on here in the woods. He was never seen again. Sounds a little weird. They never found a body or anything, I don't think. It wasn't even though he was one of their defense attorneys, they had a huge grudge against him because, like you said earlier, van Houten, Crenwinkle and Atkins were all or not Atkins. I can't remember who the third one was. We're all going to incriminate themselves. So as Leslie Van Hounton's defense attorney, he said he rested after the prosecution rested. He never presented a defense because he knew that they were going to incriminate themselves, and he refused to take part in it. So they had a grudge against him. So it's possible, possibly there was a spawn ranch worker that disappeared, and they were actually convicted. Some other family members of his murder. His name was Shortichae. Donald Shortishe. There was this one dude, Joel Pew, who was married to Sandra Goode, who was a member, and he was found dead in his London hotel. It was ruled to suicide, but his wrist had been slashed and his throat was slashed twice. And there was something written in blood on the mirror that was erased. It was one of these shoddy jobs, I think, by the London cops, but some say it said Jack and Jill. Other people say they don't remember what it said, but that was definitely one of those that was like, could he have been killed? Right. By Manson family member? Yeah. As this goes on, one of those Manson family members who was convicted of killing Shorty Shea had made a couple of trips to the UK while Joel Pew was there. So it's definitely weird that he died like that. Yeah. Having your throat slashed in a London hotel. It's weird no matter what. And so, like we said, you said at the beginning it was definitely the end of the Peace love movement and sort of put a pin on what people thought about what a lot of people thought about the counterculture and like, hey, these are the hippies. They're not peace and love. They can murder people on drugs, and this is what acid can do to you. So that was mainstream media. You had other alternative media or places like Rolling Stone that was still a pretty young magazine that would not say things like that, would not kind of buy into the mainstream media portrayal. But it captured and still captures a lot of people's imagination. It was a part of the zeitgeist, but it just endured for decades after, you know for sure. And Rolling Stone actually did a tremendous amount of reporting on Charles Manson. That was really good at the time. That 2013 article I read was really good. That was from Rolling Stone. You can get into a Manson rabbit hole. Just going on to Rolling Stone's website and the 2013 article I read, chuck, the author, I think he kind of summed up Charles Manson better than I've seen it anywhere else. But he said this. He said, sometimes he can be so transparent, which makes him look like nothing more than a goofy, clutchy small timer who made some bad decisions that led to more bad decisions that led to murder, and who then got caught up in an ambitious DA's dream about a mastermind saying golly with demonic visions of world domination. Some crook, some outlaw, some gangster, some desperado. Probably the worst ever. But in the end, a tiny redneck? I mean, that definitely falls in there too. Yeah. So as far as these kids go, it's kind of hard to get good information because I read a bunch of different things. But from what I can tell, he had three sons for sure. One with Candy Stevens named Charles Luther Manson. One with Mary Brunner named Valentine or Valentine michael Manson. Those two guys are impossible to find anything on. I'm sure they have probably changed their names. There was a Charles Manson Jr. Who killed himself in the, I think, early 90s. Yeah. Ninety three s. And then there's this dude. Did you see this Matthew Roberts guy? I ran across his name, but I don't know anything about him. Well, he claims that his mother said, you know what? Charles Manson was your dad. We had sex in. An orgy in San Francisco in the late sixty s. And I believe that he is probably your father. Although, given that it's an orgy, those things go. So that's the last thing you ever want to hear your mom tell you. That whole story, the whole story, from beginning to end, is just bad news for you, the kids. Yeah. So just look this guy up, and if he doesn't look like Charles Manson incarnate, then I don't know what to say. But the dude looks exactly like him. Here's the deal, though, is he ended up he tried to get DNA from the prison, tried to smuggle it out, but it got contaminated. The test didn't work. He ended up taking a DNA test to match with who we know was Charles Manson junior son, a dude named Jason Freeman, who was the grandson of Charles Manson. Okay. And there was no match there. But Matthew Roberts says, well, that doesn't prove anything because we've never seen the DNA match from Freeman and Manson. Oh, I see. So he's still claiming to be his son, and the guy looks so much like him, it's a little creepy. So it's hard to not say, why would his mom make up the story? The guy happens to look just like him, but who knows? And in the end, his will and supposedly his estate is worth money. I don't know how much, but they say there could be a lot of dough there. And right now there's a legal battle going on between Jason Freeman, who is the grandson, and then this pinpal that Manson had for like, decades named Michael Channels, who he scribbled out a will to this guy, and he's saying, hey, look, he wrote this will. He wants me to have this money. Jason Freeman saying it's mine. For their part, they're both saying what they want to do. His body's on ice. Still is. They both want to scatter his ashes just where, no one knows, so it doesn't become like some weird shrine. Yeah, but the ongoing legal battle for his will, we'll see what happens there. So In That Star Lady weighed in, saying if anybody who says he has a will is lying, that he purposefully said he was not going to leave a will. Right. But it would be just like Charles Manson to scribble off a will, deny that he ever did it, and just leave a big mess behind afterwards. Yeah, just one more mess for everybody to sort out. So strange. So sad. And sad. Absolutely. In the we talked about the who was that one cult that saw the documentary with Father Zod or whatever? I mean, that was a crazy documentary. Just that whole time was so strange. It really was. People looking for something to belong to or some meaning that wasn't their parents. Meaning. Yeah, well, all right, Chuck, they found it, by the way. They found it. They all became stockbrokers in the 80s. If you want to know more about the Manson Family, well, like I said, there's rabbit holes all over the Internet. And in the meantime, you can also read this great article by Ed Grabanowski by typing the words Manson Family in the search Bar how Stuff Works. And like I said, it will bring up this great Grabster article. And while I said that, it's time for listener. Now, I'm going to call this confederate monuments. Well, not confederate monuments, but removal of monuments. Follow up. Nice. So we got a lot of great email about that podcast. I don't know how many of those you read, but People Roundly said we did a good, fair take on this tricky subject. Yeah, I saw that too, which always makes me feel good. And a shout out, this is not from her, but one of the people who wrote in was an artist named Kara Walker, who just looked up her work. She is amazing. She's, I think the second youngest person ever received a MacArthur genius grant. She does a lot of stuff in a lot of mediums, but what she's known for? I think of these room size silhouette, like black cut out silhouettes depicting statements on race and gender and civil rights. And she's just like a rock star in the New York arts scene. And she went to my high school. Yes, I saw that. Did not know that she introduced herself. She graduated two years ahead of me at Redan. So I wrote back to her and just told her how proud I was to be an alum. So anyway, go check out Carl Walker's work. That's a mouthful. It is, but this is from someone else. Hey guys, thanks so much for the podcast. I'm a big fan. Especially enjoyed the public monument episode. I'm writing to clarify small point about the Georgia state flag that Chuck discussed in that episode. I got this thing wrong. By the way, you pointed out that Georgia, like some other former Confederate states, included the familiar Confederate battle flag with the ex pattern in its state flag from 56 to 2001. However, that flag is not the Stars and Bars. The Stars and Bars was the official national flag of the Confederacy and is the flag after which the current Georgia flag is patterned. It turns out that the flag Georgia used till 1956 was modeled after the national Confederate flag, and the state switched to the Confederate battle flag in 56. In other words, while the most familiar Confederate flag was removed in 2001, it was replaced with another one. That's so Georgia. I thought we did the right thing, so I thought you guys would be interested. By the way, Mississippi is the only state that still uses the Confederate battle flag and its official state flag. Keep up the great work. And I don't have a name on this one. Well, thanks a lot. I don't have a name on this one. That was some good info. We appreciate that. And, Chuck, that was big of you to say. Hey, I got it wrong. You got it wrong. That's all right, man. That's all right. If you want to write in to tell us we got something wrong, lay it on us, that's fine. You can tweet to us. I'm at Josh Clark. I also have a website called Ru series of Clarkcom. There's also an official Twitter for stuff you should know called S yskpodcast Chucks on facebookcom. Charleswchuckbryant and there's also an official Facebook. Comstudnam. You can send us all, including Jerry, an email to stuffpodcast@houseuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. STUFFYou Know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howsupworks.com summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Erkart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…igeons-final.mp3	Pigeons: Homing, Passenger, Carrier and Otherwise	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/pigeons-homing-passenger-carrier-and-otherwise	Pigeons can get a little confusing. Passengers, messengers, carriers, homing - the list goes on. But when it comes down to it, they're all variations of the same smart bird with a knack for getting home to roost. Learn about these clever creatures in toda	Pigeons can get a little confusing. Passengers, messengers, carriers, homing - the list goes on. But when it comes down to it, they're all variations of the same smart bird with a knack for getting home to roost. Learn about these clever creatures in toda	Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=230, tm_isdst=0)	46454174	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Are you looking for? An escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paperboy, or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing. Who's. Ah. Whether you're sworn to Team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on Hulu. So check into your obsessions. Hulu subscription is required. Terms apply. Visit Hulucom for plan details. Welcome to stuff you should know from houserforkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck, Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know. I love that we have a new trend here of starting our animal centric podcast with impressions of that animal, because you did your what I thought was a dolphin, but it was a bat, and I just did a pigeon. That was a pretty good pigeon. Well, come on. Again. You just blew me away with your pigeon. New York pigeon. Cool. I'm cooling here. Yeah, I'm cooling here. How's it going? I feel the same. Dollar stuff. We've gotten a lot of requests for messenger pigeons. We have over the years, and you said, I'm going to heed the call and put together a nice little conglomerate of articles yeah. On it. And I thought it was super interesting and a bit confusing in terminology, because as we will soon divulge, or I guess we're about to yeah. Like messenger pigeons. Homing pigeons. Different. Well, no, not really. Oh, yeah. The same. Like a lot of it is just no, you're right. I'm sorry. You chose the two that are the same. All the others are different. Yeah. Homing pigeons and passenger pigeons. Different. Carrier pigeons. Different than messenger pigeons, which is very confusing. It's all just confusing. Well, let's clear through the Crud and the Meyer and the Muck and get to the differences between types of pigeons, because most people do. When you think of a carrier pigeon, Chuck, you're probably lumping together a bunch of different pigeons into the same category. And you would be right in a certain way in that most of the pigeons that we consider carrier pigeons are descended from rock pigeons. Yeah. We don't want to be pigeon lumpers. No, all pigeons are different and beautiful in their own way. That's right. Rock pigeons. Originally named so from the rock dove, I believe, which they inhabited mountains and sea cliffs, and I think that's why they were called rock. Sure. They love poison. That would be Glam rock pigeons. Hair Rock. Hair rock pigeons. Glam Rock. No, not quite as glam, rock's. Gary Glitter. Yes. And I think a little older. Like Glam rock to me was 70s hair Rock was the 80s kind of bastardisation of Glam rock. Yes. Not nearly as good as the New York dolls, let's say. Sure. Right. We're way better than Gary Glitter, as it turns out in the end. That's right. Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. All right, back to pigeons. We haven't even started yet. They were all descended from rock pigeons, kind of like do you remember a third bred horse heart episode? How can I forget? I love that one. Yeah. I didn't like it that much because it was dense. For me, there's a lot of information there. The difference between thoroughbred horses and pigeons is that there's not that much information on pigeon lineages. Yeah, that's true. Despite the fact that some people show them. Right. And this is where we finally arrive at carrier pigeons. That's right. As this article points out, fancy pigeons, and they're bred to show they are ornamental in very weird ways. Yeah. They have what's on their nose. If you look up a true carrier pigeon, you're going to see a lot of pictures of just homing pigeons. But look until you find one that looks like it has a rotten walnut on its nose, it looks like it's pecked into a teratoma and it's come out and just stuck around the bird's peak. Yeah. That's called a two word waddle, sir. C-E-R-E. Right. And it is a fleshy thing on the bill. And they do say it resembles the texture of a walnut. That's what it starts out as they get big and even more gross looking. Yeah. And it's at the top of the bill, which is when you see one carrier pigeon with just one of these waddles on top of its peak, you're like, that's a little weird looking, but I've seen birds with that little growth right there before. Sure. As they mature, these waters start popping up all around their beak, and it's just grody like they have them beneath around size. It's gross. It's like a bird only passenger lover fancier would love, like they love these things, but most people, when they see them, like, oh, man, look at that. Right? Yeah. And if you're showing carrier pigeons, the pigeons, like, great, amazing waddle is something to be shown off and displayed. It's like a point of pride among the show words. Or not me, but Fancier, I say, cover that thing up. People, by the way, who like pigeons and are into showing and raising and using pigeons for fun are called pigeon fanciers, by the way. Yeah, I just said that. Oh, you did? Yeah, but I didn't explain it. I just slipped it in. Okay. I wanted to explain it. Yeah. People are probably like, why did Chuck just say fancier? Who does he think he is? Did he think he's the king of England? No, but the carrier pigeon is the king of pigeons, according to fanciers. That's not bad. Pigeons were imported to the US. From Europe in 1860, and by 1872, the first racing clubs were formed. Apparently, Philadelphia probably still do or had the largest concentration of fanciers in the late eighteen hundred s. And racing pigeons is a really big deal still. Yeah. The reason you can race pigeons is that rock pigeon descendants, whether they be carrier, although I think carrier is the least strong of all of them, but especially homing and messenger pigeons, they are really fast and they are capable of flying their way over very long distances. That's right. And they find their way home because they return, in general, to their nest, to mate. So this is why they return home. And we'll get to how in a bit later. Like how to train them to do that. Well, how to train them in just how science has figured out that they do this, it's pretty remarkable. So they fly around 40 mph on average, but can reach as high as 60. And apparently 100 to 300 miles is just a walk in the park for these guys. Oh, yeah. And gals, they have a record. I don't know if it's a documented record, but 1986 they verified that a home pigeon named Charlie flew 4550 miles from the UK to Brazil and he wasn't even supposed to. Didn't that crazy. Yeah. Apparently he was in a race, and I guess his nest was in Brazil originally, and he figured it out and made his way there to Brazil, even though he was in a local race at the time in England. It's pretty nuts. So apparently the racing pigeons and we could do there's so much on racing pigeons that we're not even going to get to, aside from mentioning it. But the racing homer is the specific type of pigeon that is bred to race, because the homer is the fastest. Which is ironic if you're a Simpsons fan. Oh, yeah. Because homer is not a fast guy. No, he's really not. So homing pigeons are bred specifically to find their way home. I mean, they're good at it anyway, as I said. But they selectively breed these things if you're going to be a fancier to do so. And when you're racing a homing pigeon or something like that, basically what you're doing is you're taking it to a place away from its home. Yeah. Smack it on the head. All right. With a little tiny hammer. Wake up. Yes and no. Don't do that. No pigeon, if you ever no, just kidding. Don't do that. And then you release it and we'll find its way back home. And you release it at the same time as some other ones. And whichever one finds its way home first is the winter. That's racing pigeons. But as you said, homeing pigeons are really good at finding their way home naturally. But over time, they've been selectively bred by humans to be the best of the best at this. Right. Like compared to their wild ancestors, they make them look like uttered poop. Yeah. Just like your basic rock pitching. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the different theories on how they find their way home. There's some new findings and what they generally think now is it could be a combination of these things. It seems like an everybody wins hypothesis. Yeah. Basically. So the sun could be one way that they find their direction and just a general north south east west sort of way when it's cloudy the Earth's magnetic field. There's basically two different things going at work here. There's a compass and then there's the map. Compass is sort of like just us. It's a general header and the map is actually like where am I now and where do I need to be? Yeah, I'm back in New York. I'm on 57th street and I need to get down to the Lower East Side. Yeah. But the compass part is like I'm right now facing north. Sure. Which means I need to turn around a little bit and go until I'm facing east. That's right. And using my map, I have figured this out. Yeah. This one study I didn't follow up on, it the one from Oxford that said they actually follow established roads at some point. Did you look into that anymore? No, I didn't see that. I wonder if that was just like a speculation that's been overturned or if they really do follow like I 20. So the fact that we didn't run into that anywhere else makes me think like it's probably been abandoned. Yeah. From what I can understand, the two main competing, longstanding competing explanations where like you say, they're following magnetic lines in the Earth's magnetosphere or they're following smells, tiny odor molecules that they use to basically as a trail of breadcrumbs to lead them back toward their roost, their nest. And for a long time it was debated whether this was the case or not. The fact that they have such good compasses really lends a lot of credibility to the idea that they can follow magnetic lines and use those to orient themselves. And there's actually this anecdote from the early eighty s that really lends a lot of support to the magnetic theory. That is there was this one pigeon that was caught around a lake in Yellowstone and by caught it was seen for, I think, a few weeks. Like just flying in circles around this lake. Yes. Which is not what a home in pigeon is supposed to do. No. They fly straight and purposeful toward homes. Sure. Wherever they are. So this naturalist, apparently where did you find this article? I'm not sure which one this was in autobahn society was one. Well, I mean, we've got them all posted on our website, right? Yeah. Okay, so this naturalist who wrote this article that we're talking about got a hold of this pigeon and he took it and cared for it and took it away from the lake and released it and the thing flew due east and it was a north Carolina pigeon and it was out in Yellowstone. So he said, you know what, this lake area has a really weird magnetic field. It's known for making compasses go haywire. Right. So this lends a pretty decent amount of support to the magnetic line theory. Yeah, agreed. But it's been overturned recently, or at least diminished as far as the smell theory. Right. Well, I don't know about overturned. I think again, it's like everyone wins. I think from what I ended up with was that they use all of these things when it's most beneficial. Okay. Like they'll use one if the magnetic field is not as strong, then they'll go to one of the other tried and true methods like smell. Yes, smell was another one. And then recently, sound specifically, infrasound which are sound waves, super low frequency that we can't hear them. There's a geophysicist named John Hagstrom that cooked up this idea and published it in the Journal of Experimental Biology. And he said basically, he thinks that they hear their way home, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And apparently that pigeon back in the early eighty s, that was around Yellowstone, that lake in Yellowstone that was having a hard time. That phenomenon is called a release site bias. In some places in the world, if you release a homing pigeon, they're going to have a hard time finding their way home or else they're going to end up getting stuck flying around in circles. And it's generally unexplained. So it's led to this whole subfield of study of homing pigeon maps and how they do this stuff. And this subsonic sound theory basically says that they follow basically sound maps. Yeah. Sort of like echolocation is what it sounded like to me with bats. Yeah. But they're just hearing they're not like creating sound and listening for the echo. They're just listening out for the sound. But they're almost listening out for sound in much the same way that they would follow, say, odorant molecules, like a trail of breadcrumbs. Right. They're listening for familiar subsonic sounds. Yeah. As low as zero 5. Like you said, he basically created a sound map and he basically compared it to the same thing that we see when we look out with our eyeballs at something. Yeah. But they can hear it. Right. So they would like, see their home the way we see our home when we're driving up to it. They hear their home and they know which way to go toward it. Yeah. If you could see what I hear you ever seen that movie? No. Was that a Lifetime movie? It could have been. If there was a Lifetime back then, it was an 80s movie. The guy who played the Beastmaster, he played a very famous blind man who was a piano player. And it was called if you could see what I hear. So I think blind people use sound in a similar ways. Was it blind tom the savant. Was he a savant? No. I can't remember. He's sort of like a piano player, playboy type. I just remember seeing on cable when I was a kid, and I think Mark singer was the guy. Yes, but I can't remember the real guy. But he was a real guy. Did you see or hear about the lifetime movie that Kristen wig and will ferrell made? Oh, yeah. And no one can figure out if it was, like, a piece of comedic genius or else if they were, like, serious or what? Well, no, they figured it out. I mean, they basically went to make the movie and just said, let's just do this as straight up as we can. But because it's us, it'll just have that edge. Like, will ferrell being serious is one of the funniest things in the world. So it was comedic genius? Well, yeah, because it's them. Okay. But they weren't like, let's try and make this funny. They just said, let's do this as straight as possible. Okay. I didn't know if both of them happened to have a family member who needed surgery at the same time, so they signed on to this project or what? It's pretty weird. Have you seen it? Yeah, I saw it. And it is tough because they are hysterical, but it's so straight. It's like, I don't know how to register this. So it's like the room or something like that. Wow. That was just a bad movie that ended up being hysterical. But this isn't much the same. I got to see this. What, the room or no, the other one. You got to see them both. I've seen the room. Okay. What's the lifetime movie one called? I can't remember. I guess if you just search will ferrell lifetime movie, it will come up. He does a lot of weird things. He did that Spanish language movie, and he did that the mini series. He takes chances. Good for him. He's in a position to do so. I feel like this is a pretty good time to take a break, don't you? Yes. And regather ourselves. Yes. Let's do that. Starting now. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship. Sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts, just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the homepage and enter code stuff. Alright, so we covered basically how they find their way home and the competing theories. And I think they all just live together in one big happy family because they haven't disproved the theories with the pigeons. Yeah, the pigeons do too. They like each other, but I don't think anyone has disproven anything. So at this point I think they're taking all comers as far as the theories go. Yeah. So specific to is it specific to homing pigeons? Although it would include messenger pigeons, wouldn't it? Because and carrier pigeons does it, but not passenger pigeons. Okay, so they're all dead. The only difference between a messenger pigeon and a homing pigeon is that a messenger pigeon has something, either a tube on its leg or a little backpack that contains a message. I think the backpack is the new method and they used to do the tube on the leg. I think the backpack is way cuter. Yeah, it's adorable. A little tiny backpack, are you kidding me? What I can't figure out is the difference between a messenger pigeon and a carrier pigeon. Okay, so here's a carrier pigeon is not bred for flying. It's not bred for its homeing abilities, it's not bred to race. Okay. It's not bread to send. It's basically the pekinese of pigeon. Okay. No, I got it. I'm just picturing them in my head. Got you. So carriers confusing me because they're not actually carrying anything. No, that is why it's so confusing. Yeah. Of all of them, they should not have the word carrier attached. It should be like virtually useless pigeon with a horrible waddle on beak. Right. That's the new name for carrier pin. Tiny pigeon hammer to talk them on the head. No, that's homing pigeon. All right, so carrier pigeons are for show. Got you. They're the best in show of pigeon. So the homing pigeon is the one who carries a message. Generally it's written on little tiny pieces of thin. That's the messenger pigeon, which is a homing pigeon that is carrying a message. Exactly, yeah. That's where we are. Okay. But it can get confusing. I'm sorry to correct you, I don't mean to be pedantic. No, I think I just said messenger pigeon, didn't I don't remember. Okay, let's rewind and listen. At any rate, the messenger pigeon is a homing pigeon that carries a message. Right. And they have been around for a long time. Egypt, the Phoenicians. Romans. Noah. Yeah. Noah in the Bible. Yeah, he was the first dude. Russell crow. I thought those were doves. Apparently I ran across a comment on it that dove and pigeon were interchangeable back then. Oh, really? Back in old timey. Aramaic days. All right. Well, that makes sense. Apparently, in ancient Rome, when they had chariot races, not just like a chariot race in a stadium, but like a long chariot race over distance, they would send I'm sorry, man. Here we go. The messenger pigeons back with the news of who won. Yeah, right. So they're like, attached brutus won this one. Go tell them everybody. And I guess an hour later, they would get there and everyone would be too drunk to realize that they cared. Yeah. At that point, Genghis Khan used them. He had a whole system set up. Oh, yeah. We've never really talked about him, have we? Yeah, we have. Did we do an episode on that? Yeah, we did. Yeah. About whether or not I killed like, a million people or something. I can't find that episode anywhere. I'm pretty sure we covered it. I felt like we did, too. Jerry's nodding yes, or either she's falling asleep and then we can over and over again. So, yeah, genghis Khan had a whole system across Asia and Europe, like a relay system. Pretty impressive. What else? Germans use them, actually attach little cameras to their bellies. That was World War I, the modern use of messenger pigeons. And warfare was actually, it seems, to be started by the French and went all the way up through the Vietnam War. Yeah, the French love using messenger pigeons in a war like setting. Right. Yes. And there was the siege of Paris. The Prussians were attacking Paris, and Paris was finally saved their reinforcements, thanks to a group of carrier pigeons, or messenger pigeons who got word that Paris was under siege and they needed help, and help arrived and Paris was saved. As I said a few times, the Prussians were defeated, and the pigeon was so beloved as a result that the same guy who created the Statue of Liberty also created a tribute to pigeons that stood in Paris up until World War II, when they melted it down because they needed the metal. I think so. Oh, really? So by the time World War I rolled around, pigeons were very much established as a very useful means of communication when all else failed in war. Yeah. Apparently they're so fast that they're hard to shoot down and they get where they want to go. In the case in France how do you pronounce it? M-A-R-N-E. Marne. The Battle of the Marne. There were 72 pigeon lofts, and as they advanced forward, they took the lofts with them. A lot of the pigeons that were out carrying messages were out when they moved the loft. We're out when they moved the loss. And we're still able to find their loss blind, not knowing where these loss ended up. Amazing. Go pigeon. There were laws passed during wartime. This one, regulation 21 A shooting homing pigeons. Killing, wounding or molesting gross. Homing pigeons is punishable on the defense of the realm regulations by six months imprisonment or 100 pound fine. That's just a fine. In France, you could be executed for impeding messenger pigeon. A wartime pigeon. Yeah. And there were also rewards offered. Five pound rewards for any. If you turn in your friend for shooting a homing pigeon, you get \u00a35. \u00a35, exactly. Yeah. So it was a big deal. They were dogs, apparently, too. And pigeons were used heavily in more time to carry messages. Like, very reliably. Yeah. Should we tell the story of share of me? How can we not? I don't see how we could. Yeah, because it's Cher. In World War I, you mentioned that the Germans were using passenger or messenger pigeons yes. With camera strapped to their belly for aerial reconnaissance. Right. It's like the bats with the bombs, kind of. But this is more photography rather than incendiary destruction. Yes, but the French were using this for messages, for getting them from the front to behind the lines, like the HQ. Right. And so are the Americans, too, apparently. The French use, like, 30,000 of them in World War One, americans had something like 600. But one really came through for a New York Company at the Battle of the Argonne, October 1918, toward the end of the war, and they were trapped by the Germans. So this pigeon named Sherami was released by, I think it was New York Company. Right. Which was surrounded in a little low lying I don't even think you can call it a valley. I think the author of this New York Times article that we're getting this from called it like a depression in the ground, and there's a few hundred men who are there. It started out as 500 and they were starting to get whittled down because they were surrounded by Germans. Even worse than that, the American reinforcements had no idea where this New York Company was. They were shelling them, too, because they thought that they were selling the Germans that were surrounding New York Company. They had no idea they were selling New York companies as well. So apparently they released a lot of pigeons. And a lot of pigeons got shot, which means that there are some German sharpshooters there that are really good because it is tough, like you said, to shoot down a homing pigeon because they are fast. Or they were just shooting a lot of bullets into the air. Yes. So they released one of their last ones, took off and got hit at least once, had a quarter sized hole in his breast, and it shot his leg off. Shot the leg that had the tube with the message saying where this New York Company was attached to that leg, it got shot off. But it also got lodged into the hole in Jeremy's chest and the bird flew back to its roost like that. Yeah. Gave the coordinates. I like to think that he chirped them out, even, and said, forget the message. Well, he's deleting them. Follow me. Yeah. I believe in love. And 194 men were saved, and Jeremy was awarded the Quad de Guerre. With Palm? Yeah. With Palm. Yeah. You don't want it without Palm. No way. That's half the award. Sadly, died in 1919 from the wounds. But, man, what a great story. Yeah. Now he's on display. I'm not sure exactly where, but you can find pictures of them stuffed with just one leg, and the other leg with the tube still attached has been preserved as well. Really? That's. Probably at the Pigeon Warp museum. Probably in Providence, Rhode Island. And, Chuck, I have to say, I read this one article, too. It was called Hawks and Doves, and it was about the irony of using rock pigeons, which are related to doves in some ways, or used to be called doves as, like, a wartime symbol. Oh, really? Because they're very peaceful birds. Interesting. It's on the page for this episode. Well, I think it's time for another little respite, and then we'll come back and talk about the very sad story of the passenger pigeon right for this. Hey, everyone, when you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office, then? You could be using Stampscom. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need, right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. All right, Josh, we've talked about rock pigeons, which include homing pigeons, carrier pigeons, messenger pigeons. Same thing as a homing pigeon. But there is something called a passenger pigeon, which is not any of those things now. And it is not a thing anymore. No, it used to be, sadly. I mean, it's a thing as far as pest tense goes. Yes, but there used to be a ton of them. They're a native North American bird. They're about one and a half times the size of a morning dove. They looked a lot like them. And like I said, they were all over. Some say they made up 40% of the North American bird population. 40%? Yeah. That's a. Lot and they like to hang out together. They have the largest documented flock on record in Wisconsin. In 1871, they estimated 136,000,000 breeding passenger pigeons, over 850 sq mi of forest. Yeah, that was Wisconsin. There was supposedly another flock in 1860 that reached 3.7 billion flying over Ontario. They supposedly blacked out the sky. Yeah. And these are credible witnesses who are writing about these things back in the early 19th century. Like John James Otubon, who, number one, knew his birds a little bit, knew what he was talking about, and was a credible scientist. And he wrote about a ride from, I think Lexington to Louisville in Kentucky yeah. In 1813. And he talked about how long the way the sun was blotted out and the sky from horizon to horizon was filled with passenger pigeons. That is the opium. And this wasn't like a thing where it just happened and they flew overhead. And that was amazing. This went on for the whole three day journey from Lexington to Louisville. Yeah. The whole three days. The sun was bought it out by one single flock of passenger pigeons flying overhead. The same flock. Amazing. Like, you just don't see that these days. Well, no. And you definitely don't see that these days because, like we said, they are completely extinct at this point. And you sit along a great article called 100 years after her death, martha the last passenger pigeon still resonates. And what happened was a couple of things. One, they were hunted relentlessly for massive amounts of food. Oh, yeah. When those flocks would fly overhead, you can just close your eyes and start shooting up in the air and all tons of passenger buses are going to fall around you. Yes. If you hunt something that big out of existence, then you're doing a lot of hunting. Yeah. So that combined with the deforestation of the East Coast, they think both those things led to the complete extinction. Yeah. Because they fed on mast, which is one of my favorite words of all time. Mass is like the description of hardwood forest nuts, like acorns and chestnuts and hickory nuts and stuff like that. Combined, those things are called mass. Right. And I think they fed together as well. Right? Yes. In groups. Right. So if you start to build roads or you build like the world's first subdivision in 1815 or something like that, and you cut down a bunch of this forest, you fractured this 850 square mile roof, this nest, and you have a big problem if you're a passenger pigeon. So that, combined with overproduction by humans led to their extinction. So think about this, Chuck. In the 1870s, there were billions of these things. Billions. In 1914, the last one died. So in like 30, 40 years, they went from billions to extinct. Yeah. Like that. Yes. And that was Martha referenced in the article. She was born into captivity, they believe, at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. And then donated later to the Cincinnati Zoo. And they believe in 1900 that these three populations were all that was left. Yeah, the last one ever seen in the wild was in 1899. So they eventually died down and died down. Martha, sadly ended up, like, trembling in a cage because people would throw sand at her to wake her up and have her move. So they eventually had to wall that up, and she tricked her in for her own safety. So sad. So they died out completely. And now she's on display at the Smithsonian until October, october this year. Which is a what? Chuck. Well, a big lesson to mankind on what can happen. That's right. If you hunt too much and if you build too many parking lots. Well, you know, there's a big discussion over the passenger pigeon and bring it back. One of my personal heroes, Charles C. Mann, is caught in the center of this. Oh, is he? Yes, he is. Do not know that. So, you know, he wrote one of my favorite books, 1491. And in 1491, he talks about there's a school of thought about the passenger pigeon that their population exploded just prior to European settlement of North America, but after that first Colombian contact. And the idea is that if you go and look around a bunch of Native American sites, pre Columbian Native American sites, you don't find that many passenger pigeon bones. There's some there, but there's not a lot. And there's certainly not enough to suggest that there were billions of these things at the time. So this idea is that after Colombian contact and disease and violence wiped out and spread through North America and wiped out large like 90% of the Native Americans living there, the passenger pigeon was no longer preyed upon by the Native Americans, and so their population boomed. So in a way, all these white settlers who hunted this thing into extinction are kind of off the hook because it was their fault anyway that led to this booming population, while other scholarship says, like, no, you're ignoring a bunch of sites that's probably not the case. White European settlers of North America probably did destroy to extinction a perennially large population of birds in North America. You know what they call that? What? A cautionary tale. Oh, yeah, that sounds familiar. I've heard that before. So there are some naturalists and scientists and biologists now that they think they can bring back the passenger pigeon. But should we? And there's a bunch of schools of thought. Some conservationists say, well, if we start bringing back extinct species, maybe we won't protect the ones that are near extinction. Because people, as I guess, robustly, because people say, well, you can bring them back anyway. I don't know about that. Well, I mean, what's the problem, though? If you think about it, what does it matter to the passenger pigeon? It doesn't know, right? Well, yes, there are none well, that's the point. Yeah. A lot of people say, leave it b, that's one thing. Yeah. But also, if you bring back a passenger pigeon, you are bringing back something whose heritage has been interrupted, and therefore all of that collective memory that's passed down from one generation to the next has ended already. Right. So who's going to teach that passenger pigeon how to be a passenger pigeon? Yeah. It may not know. It may be a monster. A monster? It may kill entire families of people. Well, thank God we have all those tiny pigeon hammers. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a lot of schools of thought, bring it back. It wouldn't know what to do, or it might just pick up and be fine. Who knows? All right, so we've covered passenger pigeons now. The sad extinction of the passenger pigeon all those other pigeons talked about cameras on the bellies, messages on backpacks and feet. Those are homing messenger pigeons. Yes. I'm going back over everything here. Okay. We've covered. I don't think we mentioned drug traffickers, supposedly. Oh, no. In Afghanistan and Pakistan carry 10 grams of heroin each, and they've been used so people have been misusing and using and abusing these birds for millennia. Supposedly, the average messenger pigeon can carry up to two and a half ounces of something if it's balanced correctly on its backpack. What? Two and a half ounces? That's a lot. So these things are being treated like royalty if all they have to carry is 10 grams of heroin. Yeah, that's nothing. And when they show up, there's, frequently, just 9 grams. You know what I mean? City pigeons, just your average pigeon that everyone seems to detest. Not everyone. Some people love these things and feed them. In France and Paris, I believe it's illegal to feed them because you go to Trafalgar Square and other places like that, and they can be so vast that you can't even walk. So when you feed them, they congregate. Right. And so that's a problem. They've outlawed it in a lot of places. They poop everywhere. They're dirty, they spread disease. It's all very true. Yes. And there have been some cases of legal cases in lawsuits because of pigeons. There was one in France where there was an American woman there feeding like, \u00a325 of feed a day in Paris, and it was already, I think, outlawed in Paris. Yeah. She had been fine 19 times in Niece. So I guess she was like, I'll go to Paris then so I can feed the pigeons. She's like the creepy pigeon feeding lady from Mary Poppins. Remember her? No. Feed the birds, Tupp into the bags. I don't remember since I was, like, five. Man, a lot of that movie was creepy. Not as creepy as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Oh, I love that. Which is, like, one of the most disturbing children's movies of all time. The bad guy is one of the scariest guys ever. Yeah. He was pretty scary. Yeah. And by the way, Gone With the Wind was color, not colorized. Yeah, we goofed that one. What was colorized? And that never was color. Well, Ted Turner colorized some things, but that wasn't one of them. Right, but what was one of them? I don't know. We could go back and look. It just looked phony. That's all I remember. It's probably Citizen Kane. We'll hear about an email, huh? Yeah, it wasn't Citizen Cain. I'm sorry. This American woman feeding all these French pigeons, right? This other lady is on a park bench. She's ticked off because there's all these pigeons everywhere. She gets up, she tries to kick these things. She tears her stockings and scratches her limbs up, her legs up, apparently, and takes this lady to court. And they threw out the case. Or they lost the case because the judge basically said, you don't know how to kick a pigeon without getting hurt, that's your fault. Certainly not the American lady's fault. French. What's the other lawsuit? Oh, there is again in France, french like to sue people for pigeon related stuff. There's a woman who is living in an apartment in a building a couple of floors above a store furniture store, and she would feed pigeons. Apparently the pigeon poop was so bad that the store owner was saying it was driving customers away. Yeah, like all over the window or like on the ground and on the doorknob or whatever keeping people from coming to a store. So he sued the woman. But the woman's lawyer apparently demonstrated that the store owner couldn't prove that the mess came from the pigeons that this lady was feeding. It could have been any pigeon. Yeah, that's a dicey one. I guess we could finish here with a couple of instructional what to do if you find a homing pigeon. Yeah, I have to say my favorite pigeon now is the homing pigeon. Yeah, I think they're great. Sure, I'll carry a message if you want, and then I'll be a messenger pigeon. But at heart, I'm just a homing pigeon. I just want to go home. Yeah, I want to hang out and do my heroine. So here's some advice on what to do if you find a stranded homing pigeon. Number one, give it water. That's the number one thing. And don't force feed it water like I did when I killed that bird. No, you don't want to drown it. Put it in a dish. Like a one inch deep dish. Yeah, and don't overwater it. Like your yard. Right. You could just bring the pigeon to my yard and let it drink from my flooded lawn. So let it drink on its own in a one inch deep container. Offer it some food, say you're hungry. Yeah. And you might say, I don't have pigeon food. Yes, you do. If you have rice. Unpop popcorn. What else? Buckwheat barley. Canary seed. Yes. Boom. Any of that stuff. So you're hungry, you're thirsty, how are you doing? And then again, just put the stuff out for the pigeon to enjoy and choose on his or her own. That's right. Whether he or she wants to do this. Next thing you do, say, how's the temperature hand for you? Are you feeling good? You want a scarf? If it's really cold, then maybe let's warm it up a little. It's really warm. Let me cool it down. Yeah, I think they tend to prefer temperate, slightly on the cooler side of temperate. And then they also like to be able to see. But you want to keep them in a place that's safe away from dogs and cats, but also in like a box or something. So a box with a screen over it, a dog kennel with the kennel door closed, something like that. And with maybe some straw, a blanket, something that it can just hang around in. And again, some seed and some water. And what, you just do this for like two days, right? Yeah. After a day or two, you say, how are you feeling? Are you rested? Are you comfortable? Did you get enough food? And bevy it's time for you to go home. And then you just get your tiny little hammer out. Don't make me use this. You just release the homing pigeon and that little dude or lady should find his or her way home. Like, you can bet on it and say, hey, thanks for the stay, that was great. Well, that's what the pigeon would say to you. Yeah. If that pigeon says that to you, you go catch it again and make some money off of it. Because most pigeons can't do that. Like Michigan J bullfrog. Again, homing pigeons are my favorite. And if you find one and it decides not to leave you, you have yourself a homing pigeon as a pet. That's right. You can also buy them if you're into homing pigeons and raise them yourself. And when you do, you can train them to do all sorts of neat stuff, but mostly you can train them to race and fly very long distances. And there's a really neat tried and true technique for training home and pigeons. And it's basically all just food based. Yeah. So they have their nest, like, training any animal. They have their home base, and this is where they stay. They spend most of the time. This is where they eat. And you can take them elsewhere, hundreds of miles away if you like. But they say you should start off with just like 20 miles time, something like that. Sure. And create like, another roost somewhere at a friend's house or out in a field that you have permission to use. Make sure you have permission to use the field. Sure. And you create a roof and you set up food there too. Let the pigeon hang out, spend some time there. If you want the pigeon to go back home, probably all you have to do is release it from the second roof and it'll want to go back home. But a surefire way of doing that is to remove its food right in that second roost. Sounds mean. Well, it'll be like, Well, I want some food. I'm going to fly home. And it flies home and it gets to eat its food. Any pigeon roofs, any homing pigeon roost has a trap door that the pigeon can get into, but it can't get back out unless you let it out. But they can come home and get in whenever they want, so they always have food. Sure. But if you want them to go to the second roof, point B, you just take their food away at home and they'll say, I know another place to go get food, and I'm going to fly to it. Now, once you get that down a few times, you can keep moving that roof further and further out. They're going to find it. Yeah. And if you, say, tell a friend that if they hang out at the second roof, they'll get a special message. You can attach a little backpack to your home and pigeon and release it, and it'll delight your friend with whatever message you send. This is something I could actually see you doing in retirement. Well, a lot of people do. Did you see that list of famous people who love pigeons? Raised pigeons? No, I didn't. But I know Mike Tyson is one of them. Apparently, he's following a big tradition of boxers who raise pigeons. George Foreman. Marvelous. Marvin hagler. Boxers who raise pigeons. So all these people on this list yeah. Chachi from Chachi in Charge, he raised pigeons. Charles in Charge. Terry Bradshaw. Elvis Presley. Who's that? Just kidding. Charles Darwin. Barney, apparently it says here he's the big purple dinosaur on Sesame Street. That seems a little confused, but I guess Barney raised pigeons. Lee Marvin. You know what we should do is pick out the least likely person to be a pigeon. I think she just said it. Who? Lee Marvin. Yeah, you might be right. Actually. You know, I would like to see the Birdman of Alcatraz again. That was a great movie. Jimmy Smith. Is that what he's been doing? Yeah, I guess so. Some of these makes sense. Like Paul Newman and Joy and Woodward. That seems like a totally thing that they would have done together. There was a riveting moment at the end of the pigeons episode where Chuck and Josh just sit there and read quietly. Joe Brenner and Mike. Tony Curtis. I think Lee Marvin is least likely. You think? Yeah. All right. You got anything else? No, I don't think I do. Well, now that you can tell the difference between a homing pigeon, a messenger pigeon, a carrier pigeon, and a passenger pigeon, you should feel pretty good about yourself. And if you need to brush up on this confusing stuff. You can type the word pigeon into the search bar@howstepworks.com, and it will bring up who knows what. That's right. And since I said who knows what, it's time for listener mail. All right, I'm going to call this Kepler planet follow up. Hey, guys. The one aspect of Kepler planets you did not mention. We can only infer other planets if their orbital plane is aligned with our view of it. If the stars planet system is off tilt with respect to us, we won't be able to infer its existence yet. Consider the North Star polaris. It's kind of perpendicular to the eavesdropper. It's kind of perpendicular to the solar system. Well, not really, but close enough. If Polaris had a planet with intelligent life with Kepler like technology, they could view our sun, but they wouldn't detect any light variations or wobble. Consider how many planets we found. Now consider how many we can't possibly find given current technology because of the tilt. I mean, they say that supposedly remember 40 billion Earth like planets in the Milky Way alone. That's what we suspect. So even more than that, maybe, says Jim from the Garden State. I don't know why I said it. Like Massachusetts, the Garden State. New Jersey. I don't think it's how he's talking New Jersey. I live there, pal. So that was New Jersey. No, that wasn't my jersey. Let's hear it. Come on. Come on. See? Now I'm doing it. Thanks. Jim in New Jersey. If you want to point out something we should have mentioned but didn't, we always love being corrected. It's one of our things. We also love hooking ourselves up to car batteries. You can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyoushouldnow. You can send us an email to stuff podcasthouseforce.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyouknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out. The sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music my Favorite Murder from exactly right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the Freedom Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-07-13-sysk-fever-dreams-final.mp3	How Fever Dreams Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-fever-dreams-work	Fever dreams can be unsettling experiences. These ramped up nightmares are vivid, detailed and only happen when the human body experiences a fever. What is it about the combination of fevers and dreams that make these night terrors so hellish? Learn all t	Fever dreams can be unsettling experiences. These ramped up nightmares are vivid, detailed and only happen when the human body experiences a fever. What is it about the combination of fevers and dreams that make these night terrors so hellish? Learn all t	Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:30:11 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=16, tm_min=30, tm_sec=11, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=194, tm_isdst=0)	35059325	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Picture this, friends. You could be packing a carry on for a trip to Hawaii when you realize you're going to need a bigger bag. But it's cool because you booked your flight with your City Advantage Platinum Select card. So you can check a bag for free on domestic travel and still have room for those souvenirs. And surprise, those souvenirs also earned you advantage miles. Actually, you earned advantage miles and loyalty points with each swipe. So let's start dreaming about your next next adventure. This could be you. And you could be anywhere with the city Advantage Platinum Select card. Learn more at citi comAdventure and travel on with cityadvantage this July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the awardwinning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney Nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Hey, everybody. Stuff You Should Know is going on tour. What are the dates, my friend? OK. So starting August 8 in Toronto. That's in Canada. We're going to be at Danforth Music Hall and then Chicago. We're going to be there the next night, August 9 at the Harris Theater. Yeah, Chicago. We want to see your faces. Step it up. Step it up. Vancouver. The Vogue Theater, September 26. That's going to be a great show, I think, don't you? It's going to be a great one. And then Minneapolis at the Pentagon Theater, where we've been before. It's lovely. September 27. Yeah. And then we're going to swing down to Austin. It's going to be during Austin City Limits, although it has nothing to do with Austin city Limits will be there October 10. Yes. And then we're going to lovely Lawrence, Kansasco. Jayhawks yes. On October 11. And hey, if you're in Kansas City or anywhere in that area, this is your chance. Get in your car. Yes. If you are anywhere near Brooklyn, well, then you should go to the Bellhouse, october 22, 23rd and 24th. We'll be there all three nights. And finally, we're going to wrap it up here in Atlanta at the Bucket Theater on November 4 for a benefit show where we are donating all of the monies to Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta and the National Down Syndrome Society. Yeah. So for all this information, again, visually and for links to tickets, just go to sysklive.com. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. How are you? I'm Josh Clarke. There's. Charles W. Chuck Pryant there's. Jerry. Jerry's got a salad. Everything is normal, which means it's time for stuff you should know. That's right. Jay has got the Shawarma special, she said. Oh, really? Yeah, she loves it. How you doing? I'm good, man. Feeling despite myself. Kind of relaxed. Okay. I'm not feeling feverish, if that's what you're driving at. No, that's not what I was driving it. Yes. No, I'm not. Do you get fevers a lot? No, not anymore. Although I haven't for a long time. I've never been, like, a fever person. I've probably had a handful, maybe. How many fevers have you had? Not a ton since I was a kid. Yeah, not a lot of adult fevers, right? I mean, I've had hip hop fever. I've had rock and roll fever. Yeah. Yellow fever. I've had a fever for a flavor of a Pringle. Oh, man. Me too. What are those? Those aren't even potato chips, are they? They're potato crisps, and those are good. They're mashed together potato parts. I don't think I want to know how those are made. No, it's like Chicken McNuggets. I think a unicorn just poops them out. Have you seen unicorn pizza? It's a little much. There's a restaurant in New York. I'm not quite sure where. Maybe Lower East Side. They have unicorn pizza. It's like dough. Okay, good start. Like, a nice pastel colored frosting instead of sauce. Amount of cotton candy. Nerds or Pop Rocks, maybe. Oh, good Lord. And then some other stuff. Supposedly, it tastes kind of good. I'll eat anything that has enough frosting on it. I like frosting, but I'm not into, like, sugary candies. Really? Oh, like Nerds and Pop Rocks and stuff. You know, I did brain stuff once on Pop Rocks. That was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Your tongue actually warms the Pop Rocks to the point where they melt. And since they have CO2 trapped inside during the manufacturing process, that CO2 suddenly is released in a pop. So it's just a little bubble of CO2. Yeah. That's got to be good for you, I'm sure. It's funny. I had a roommate in college. Not many adults eat candy. People eat chocolate and stuff like that. Candy bars. But candy candy oh, no. For an adult is just a little strange. Yeah. Do you eat candy? Sure. Like what? Mentos. Not mint mentos. Like, candy mentos. I like those. Well, I had a roommate that would go to the convenience store next and this is college, granted. Right. But he still eats this stuff, I think. Okay. And he would go with, like, $15 and buy giant sweet tarts, those big trouble ones, and phone UNDIP and Nerds and just all kinds of candy. Fun. Dip or licomade. It's the same thing, I think. Yeah. Dip in sugar. Right. Like, I don't have a foot, but I've got my liquor made. Oh, man. Can you guys out there in podcast lance over stalling? Because we are big time because we happened upon a topic that no one really knows what's what. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about fever dreams. We know about fevers, kind of know about dreams, but apparently no one's really gotten to work on figuring out what fever dreams themselves are. So it's largely anecdotal. Yeah. So you're going to have to bear with us on that. We'll leave that there for now. Yes. But I guess a good place to start is by talking about both those things separately and starting with fevers. You've always heard 98.6 Fahrenheit is the normal internal body temperature of human. In 92, there was a big study that said it's really 98.2, depending on how old you are, what time of day it is, what you're doing, where you if you put it in your butt or under your armpit or in your mouth or in your ear or all of them at once, that'd be something else. Yeah, it can vary a little bit. So I think there's a bit of a slight sliding scale to that number. Yeah, for sure. But I think the key is it's going to be roughly around there, and even if you have an average body temperature that's not exactly 98.6, let's say you typically tend toward 97.5. You run cooler. Yeah. Your body temperature still, during the average day, going to fluctuate, plus or minus about a degree Fahrenheit either way. Yeah. So I looked a little bit into the 98.6, and the original dude that came up with that was a German physician named Carl Reinhold. August von de Lake. That was good one. When? 1868. He wrote a book while he did his studies where he had this temperature rod. He would stick under the armpits of all these people. He's like, Where do you want exactly? And everyone once said everyone always says positive. Do you know the comedian Rory Scoville? No. You should just check him out. Okay. He does these weird things, like, he'll just do his whole routine with a gem and accent. Okay. For no reason whatsoever. I like the sound of that. And he did one about stealing old people, like kidnapping old people for the German accent. He's from South Carolina, I think, but he's done shows with, like, a severe Southern accent and one just normal accent, and he'll do a German thing. He just likes to mess with people, I guess, so he's great. I will check him out. Thanks. He's one of my favorites. So, anyway, he wrote a book called after these experiments called Dosen de Ericinfama and Kanken Heighten. That is good. And it's funny. The real translation I think of that is on the temperature in diseases, but if you type in Google Translate, it comes out as the behavior of the intrinsically warm and sick units. That's the subtitle. Yes. Cold. Anyway, he's the guy that came up with 98.6, and that stood for a long time, but that was just based on his observations, his study, and it stuck. It was an average it wasn't like, this is what you should be. It was just the average of all these people. Right. And then 130 years later, we finally got around to verifying whether that was actually true or not. Well, I mean, it says in 92 that they said it was 98.2 from another study, but then everything I still read says 98.6. All right, I know what you're talking about though. I had heard in the last few years that they're like that 98.6 jazz is kind of made up. Right. So the point is that your body is going to be roughly somewhere around there, right. That's your normal body temperature. And then depending on the time of day, it's either going to be a little cooler than that or a little warmer than that. Yes. And our body temperatures are regulated by something called the Hypothalamus. And like I said, depending on the time of day, your body temperature is going to fluctuate. And that's tied to sleep, apparently. So as your body temperature is rising, usually in the late afternoon is about where it peaks during the day. That's associated with wakefulness alertness. Not necessarily just having a high body temperature, but an incline in the temperature in your body means you're awake, you're alert, you're ready to go, right? Yeah. Ready for action. Once it starts to decline, that's associated with drowsiness and it hits its trough. Your body temperature is at its lowest right about before you wake up. Right. And that's actually associated with REM sleep. Yeah. So there are some stuff starting to come out. Just bear with us, everybody. We're laying the groundwork. So your body temperature changes. The Hypothalamus is directing the whole thing, and sleep and wakefulness has something to do. It's related to your body temperature changes. Alright, good night. You take it from here. Well, you know what? Let's take a break because I'm not sure where I should go. We'll be right back. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for indemand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K. Twelvecom podcast. That's K twelve.com podcast. And start taking charge of your future today. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflow so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno, sesame and chocolate cover goodness with real time, data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM. Let's create learn more at IBM. Comconsulting. Okay. I was being coy. You set the stage very nicely. Okay. So if your body gets, let's say some bad bacteria gets in it yeah. And your body is alerted, warning. Intruder is coming. Your immune system kicks into gear and starts producing this biochemical material called a pyrogen. Okay. This is my new favorite thing the body does. Oh, yeah. Well, you knew that before, right? Or did you just not know the mechanism? I knew humans get fevers, and I knew the fever was to kind of, like, cook out everything. I didn't understand the mechanism. I can answer your question. Well, take this part, then. Oh, yeah. Can I? Yeah. So these pyrogens, right, they are these biochemical markers that are released by the immune system in the body or and this is why I love this. There are some bacteria, some pathogens that make humans sick that produce pyrogens naturally. So when they show up, they just start releasing them, and they just give themselves away. They're big dummies in that way, right. They're like, hey, where's the party? They kick open the door. They're carrying like a ponytag under one arm, their gut sticking out. That's like that kind of bacteria, right. So the pyrogens enter the bloodstream, and they travel to the hypothalamus because, remember, the hypothalamus controls your body temperature, and this is what they do. Chuck, are you ready for what the pyrogens do? Yes. They go to your hypothalamus, and they dampen the heat sensing neurons in the hypothalamus, and they excite the cold sensing neurons in your hypothalamus, and they trick your hypothalamus into thinking your body suddenly gotten very cold, so that your hypothalamus turns the temperature up and says, don't let any of this heat out. We got to warm back up. It tricks your body, your hypothalamus, into creating a fever. That's right. And they do this because well, they don't do this because what happens from there they do this because they're dumb. But what happens from there is, like you said, the fever, what a fever is and why you want that fever for at least a little while, fever that it does. It's trying to cook and burn and bake that bacteria until it dies. Right. It is. Your body fighting. Like, when you hear, like, your fever broke, that's usually a good sign. That means that your fever did its job and it's cooked all that bacteria up, and you're going to be on the men soon. Yeah. So basically, that's what's happening. And this is the great thing about a fever. But fever makes you feel like crap because it's a lot of hard work to kill all those things. Well, it is. A lot of your sympathetic nervous system is kicked into high gear, which I found out is one reason why they say you want to feed a cold starve a fever, because you don't want to introduce digestion, because it requires the parasympathetic nervous system fight or flight. And you don't want those two things going on while your body has a fever. It's just a lot of extra work for it. Right. But one of the things that is going on when your body has a fever, when the temperature rises, it's hard enough on your organs, but it's also hard on the level. Just the fact that they're operating outside of their normal operating temperature, and that makes it very hard on them and can actually cook some of the ingredients inside your cells. Yeah, I mean, it's like working in a too hot of an environment. It's never fun for anyone. Right. Although I guess some people love that stuff. Yeah, but they might like it, but they still aren't working fast. Yeah, that's true. They might be happy, but they're slow. So if you have a fever, what's considered a fever now, in 2017, if you're an adult and your oral temperature is above 100.4, or if your rectal or air temperature is above 101, then that's considered a fever. If you're a kid, good luck getting anything besides the rectal temperature, because it's just tough. You have basically no. Right. Well, what you have is wiggly. Kids who aren't like, sure, stick something in my ear for 4 seconds. Yeah, but up the kazoo, there's not really anything we can do about that. All they can do is say glaving. Yeah, exactly. So the rectal temperature for a kid above 100.4, and with adults, you don't have to really worry about your fever too much. If it tops 105 for any period of time, you probably want to do something about that. That's what I saw was the 105 degree Fahrenheit height mark was about where you should start to work. Yeah. As an adult. And you're going to feel so awful if your temperature is one of five. You've probably already been to a doctor at that point. Let's hope so. For kids, it's different, though. If you don't want to let your child get up to 105, that's bad. So what is it for kids that you really want to start worrying about, did you say? You know what? I'm not exactly sure. It probably depends on whether you're a first time parent or this is your second. Well, and it varies with the age. It's like zero to 18 months. It's something I got you. What you should do is go consult your doctor. Yes, exactly. But any kind of temperature for a child, you should kind of be a little more alert about. Right. But we're not medical experts here. No, we're not. And everything we're saying assumes that you have health care coverage. That's right. All right. So that's fever in general. You got anything else on that? Yeah, one other thing. The pyrogens pyro by the way. No mistake, man. I did have some coincidence. No, it's not. What is the Latin for fire? Greek word for fire. Yeah. Pyro. Eat def Leppard. Right. Great song. It really is a whole album. Album, yeah, they just mention it in Rock of Ages. It comes up, they should have a song called Pyromania wonderful. But that's pretty cool. It's like the antithesis of your band, your album and your song all being the same name, like Big Country. Oh, I love that song. Sure. But it's pretty uncreative. You're basically saying, like, here's our basket, and we're going to put every egg we have into it. That's the one thing we came up with. Yeah, I saw a David Spade bit once, and he was talking about he's complaining it wasn't even comedy. He was just complaining that he went and saw Big Country and they didn't play the song. Big country? No. Yes. Really? He's like, it's the name of your band. It's the one song everybody came to see it. He's funny, too. Well, the long and short of it is I totally forgot what the other thing I had to say about pyrogen was, so I'll probably think of it oh, I know what it was. Pyrogens. As your immune system grows and ages and you become a grown up, the pyrogens have a little less of an effect on you. So where if you're a kid and your immune system is young and inexperienced, your fever is going to shoot up quick and it's going to get hotter, faster. Right. So you do want to stay on top of a kid's fever because their immune system is not used to pyrogens coming and messing with their hypothalamus like in adults. It is. Yeah. It'll spike much faster. That's a good point. That's what I was trying to think of. Yeah, that's true. You need to take that rectal temperature way more than you're comfortable with. I don't recall that ever having been done to me. Well, because you don't remember being a baby. No, but my parents were pretty strict, pretty stern. Now, by the time a kid is old enough to where you can say, like, hey, put this under your tongue, or Hold still for a minute while I put this in your ear. But pre that when they're not sentient humans and they're just crying, whiny little sacks of flesh I got you. You got to stick it right off the butt. Okay. Jerry's laughing. Jimmy spit out her shawarma salad. Jerry's done plenty of that, so she knows. Okay, so into dreams. I always think we've done a general show on Dreams. I think we did. Finally. I didn't find it. What, still? No. I saw Lucid dreaming. Can you control your dreams? That's the same thing, wasn't it? I think that was the same yeah, we did one on Dreams. I didn't see it. Wow. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Well, this contributes to the little by little, someone will know. Okay, Jill Hurley, where are you when we need you? Our statistician. Minister of Stats. Right. All right. Well, we'll talk about dreams a bit here, then, even though we've explained this in various episodes here and there to some degree. But dreams, if you're a psychologist, you really love to spend time talking and dissecting dreams, interpreting dreams. If you're more into the neurology side of science, you don't really care about that kind of stuff. In fact, for many years, they thought it was called activation synthesis hypothesis, which was you go to sleep, and all these synapses are just randomly firing, and they don't really add up to even a story. You just do that when you wake up because you're human. Yeah, that's complete BS. Well, you almost get the impression that they came up with this and the neurologist came up with it to stake out their territory in response to years of psychoanalysts saying, this is what dreams are. It's like tapping into the collective unconscious or your repressed memories. Neuroscience said, no, nothing. Yes, they're just your stupid wet brain going crazy while you sleep. Yeah, which we all know now is not true. I saw another one, too. What's that? Threat Simulation theory. Have you heard of that one? No, but that's a great band name. Basically, you're training to be a ninja while you sleep. Like, your brain is running threat simulations constantly so that it's, like, working itself out, like, getting more and more agile and quick so you can get better at running from a saber tooth tiger if you actually encounter it. I could see that early on, maybe, sure. And there is an evolutionary advantage to it, so evolutionarily speaking, it would make sense. The point is that one came along and was like, no, there's obviously some reason for dreams. It's not just random. Yeah, well, and then maybe I could have seen that early on, but then at some point, someone around the fire had a dream about tuktuk's wife and woke up and went, Whoa. Right. There was no sabertooth tiger in that tree. I'm not sure what that meant, but I better not tell to and then they went, what? The rectal thermometer? It hasn't even been invented yet. So these days, they've done actual studies with EEG machines and MRI machines. And especially in Italy, these Italian researchers basically put people to sleep, not put them to sleeper holes. They lay them down in a nice Italian bed, feed them some pasta fuzzule, get out the rectal thermometer. Yes. And they hook them up to all these wires and machines, and then they will wake them up at different points in the night and say, hey, what were you dreaming of? We'd like to talk about it and study what was going on with these machines. Right. And actually, what they found supports the current the prevailing theory. I don't think it was their theory. I think it was around, but their research supports it called affect regulation theory, which is basically that we control our emotions or we process our emotions through our dreams. Yeah. And these Italians found support for this, and that when they woke people up and asked them what they were dreaming about. The ones who had the best recall were the ones who had the most theta waves in their frontal lobes. Right. Which are slow moving waves. Right. Yes. And when you look at an EEG machine, if you looked at those dreamers brainwaves, it looked like the brainwaves of somebody who was sitting there forming and recalling memories. Right. So these people said, that's what they're doing. That's what all of us are doing. While we're dreaming, we're forming memories. We're taking emotions that we've experienced through the day, and we're creating memories out of them so we can file them away. So we're processing our emotions and our dreams. That's the point of dreams. That's the current understanding. Yeah. And then, I mean, other parts of the brain that have been active all sort of deal with emotion, whether it's the amygdala and the hippocampus or the lingual gyrus, which I think we just talked about that in another episode. I don't recall. Can't remember. But they're all areas of the brain that relate to emotion and memory right. And some with visual activity, and that kind of makes sense. I like that theory. Yeah. And then under that current theory. So that's like the explanation for regular dreams. And you can't just have a theory for dreams without including nightmares, or else your theory is broken. Right. Right. So the affect regulation theory considers nightmares. Basically, it's an emotion that's being put into the process of creating a memory. A false memory. Right. A dream memory, I guess you'd put it. But it's a real emotion. Right. And it's so big, it breaks the process. And all of a sudden, this process of creating a fake memory, a fake experience goes haywire, and now all of a sudden, you're enduring some terrible horrifying experience because the emotion that was being processed was too big and got out of control. And now you have a nightmare TS for you. Yeah. I think we did one night terrors, right? We did, for sure. And sleep paralysis. We've covered it all, I think. I guess we really haven't done a dreams one. All right, so let's take another break. We're going to come back and finally talk about fever dreams. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride career prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K. Twelvecom podcast. That's K twelve.com podcast. And start taking charge of your future today. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls? Now you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM let's create learn more@ibm.com. You robbed me of a Saturday Night Fever reference. I just want to go on record as saying that I was wrong. So, Chuck, here's where everything just kind of goes totally off the rail. We've talked about fevers. We've talked about nightmares. The problem is really, understanding both doesn't necessarily amount to understanding them together. Right. So knowing what fevers are, knowing what dreams are doesn't mean you know what fever dreams are, but you can make stuff up if you want. Yes. And, boy, I don't even think we even said if you've never had a fever dream, you might even know we're talking about. Oh, yeah. I feel kind of dumb at this point in the podcast, but the fever dream is basically a nightmare on steroids. It's just so vivid and so real and scary. That happens when you are sick with a fever. Yes, obviously. So they're fever dreams, right. So they are a thing. Yeah, but the scientific literature on them is super thin. Typically, nonexistent kids seem to get them, if not more. At least they stand out more to children. And so anecdotally people seem to recall having fever dreams more when they were kids. Right. Whether or not that's true or just a memory or what do you call it? Like a memory bias or whatever. Yeah. No one really knows. Yeah, I mean, we don't really know because I don't remember the last time I had a fever, and if I did, whether or not I had a fever dream. I don't think I've ever had a fever dream. I did when I was a kid. I don't remember having fever dreams. Yeah, I remember being sick as a kid and having, like, nightmares when I was sick. So they're noticeably worse than your average nightmare? Yes. Really? So would you keep waking up from them? That I don't remember. That's a big question to me. Well, let's talk about the anecdotal theory of what is behind fever dreams. Right. Okay. So when your body's undergoing a fever, we said that your body's not functioning at its top performance. No. And that includes the brain. The brain itself is an extremely special organ, if you didn't know already. It's like, I think, 2% of the body's mass, but it requires 20% of the body's energy. Yeah. And the neurons, compared to regular old dumb cells, they burn or they need about between 300 and 2500 times more energy than a regular old dumb cell in your body. Right. And so when all these chemical processes, when all of this energy is being exploited to power cells, it produces the byproduct of heat. So the brain is super sensitive to overheating, right. Already just under normal circumstances. Yeah. And it's generally taken care of by your body. Like it's cooled down and regulated. Right. So if you have a fever and your brain is not operating at optimal conditions, but you're asleep, so it's trying to go through its normal processes. If you have a nightmare, it's entirely possible that that nightmare is going to be far, far worse because the normal processes have broken down. Or it's even further possible. Apparently the amygdala is frequently implicated with nightmares because it has to do with being terrified or angry or fearful. The amygdala might be functioning at an abnormal level and it's just basically going haywire while you have a fever. Yeah. And then the fact that most dreams occur during REM sleep. And I think that's when your body is warmest during sleep anyway. Right. So this is where it all gets kind of hinky during REM sleep. Your hypothalamus says, I'm done, I'm not working right now. So it stops regulating temperature, which is usually why your body temperature is lowest right before you wake up. I thought it was highest right before you wake up. No, it's highest in the afternoon while you're awake. It's lowest right before you wake up. I feel like I always wake up hot. You may be like sleeping with too many blankets. Your room might be a little too warm. Blankets. Or maybe it's my stupid schedule of my AC. It could be. It might have cut off a couple of hours before or something. Right? It could be. Right. So it fires up after I get up. Because supposedly when you are sleeping and you're in REM sleep, your hypothalamus is not regulating temperature during that period. So if you are already hot and remember high body temperature is associated with wakefulness, then maybe you are waking up more frequently than you normally would. And when you wake up in the middle of a dream, you're more prone to remember it. If you wake up in the middle of a nightmare, it's going to seem even worse than one that you had and woke up normally from. Yeah, I mean, I had a series of not nightmares last night, but just sort of anxiety dreams. And I don't have any anxiety about anything right now. I think it was just after reading all this stuff. Oh, yeah. I'm just suggestible you had anxiety dreams. Yes, but not about like nothing specific. No. Usually if I have anxiety dreams because something's going on in my life, I'm anxious. Sure. Yeah. It's just the research, I think. So you're dedicated. But they're also celebrity dreams because I've talked about those before. No. Yes. That I have just celebrity dreams all the time, but they're just very normal and I'm just like, friends with celebrity people. But were they anxiety ridden last night? Yes, I was hanging out with a band. Luna. Okay. Dean Warren of Luna. All right. I can't remember exactly what was going on, but there was anxiety involved. Like I was trying to get somewhere and couldn't get there. Like the typical stupid dream stuff got you. Yeah, but Dean was in there somehow. Yes. Have you talked to him today? I don't know him, but I think I know why they were in there. That's all I'll say. Okay. Wink wink. I guess. So. Here's another thing that was in our own article I thought was interesting and just a little tidbit, was that some recreational drugs like methane, ecstasy, can raise brain temperatures. That is one of the reasons they think that it kills so many brain cells when you do those drugs. Yes, possibly. You're not supposed to take ecstasy and warm climate. Yes. Never have heard that. Yeah, just Norway. There you have it. Only it's Ball bard. What else? Is there anything else in here? No. Man, I can't believe we stretched this one out as far as we did. Alrighty, we never have to talk about fever dreams again, Chuck. Good. If you want to know more about fever dreams, well, you might as well start@housetofworks.com. There's nothing wrong with that. And you can also just go around and look at how sparse the research is on the internet for yourself. And if you are a researcher and you know more stuff about fever dreams that you can point us to, let us know. Yeah. In the meantime, I think I said search bar somewhere in there, which means it's time for listener mail. You know what? I think another reason the anxiety dreams is because I'm barreling through the season of Fargo. The third season. Yeah. And the two episodes I watched last night, which I believe were if there are ten, I think it was eight and nine. We're both just like ratcheted up with chinchin. I'm sure that's what it was. And I think that probably had something to do with it. That happens to me sometimes. I'll be watching something and I won't realize how on top of me it's gotten, and then all of a sudden it goes to an ad and I'm like, really uptight about like the scratch and dent washing machine sale that's going on somewhere and I don't understand why, and I'm like, oh, wow, that TV show really got to me. Yeah, I think Fargo had something to do with it. I think you may have nailed it all right, I'm going to call this one Garden Variety Fan Mail, which we don't read a lot of these, so I'm going to dig in. Hey, guys. That's all this is, fan mail. You guys are doing a great job. Always have. It's clear that with every episode, you take great pains to provide the most accurate information you can in the most thoughtful way possible. How ironic that you would read this on the Fever Dream episode. There's never been more evident to me than in the episodes you did on Puberty. I know it's been a little while since he came out, but just listen to them. And it was touching to see how frequently you tried to reassure young listeners what they're experiencing is normal and that there was nothing wrong about what was happening. To hear two grown men do their best talk to young boys and girls about such sensitive material was a pleasure. Yes, at times I could practically feel you nervously twitching while trying to discuss menstruation in an informative yet reassuring way, but it was absolutely charming. Just reaffirm what we've always known, that you two are just a pair of great dudes. That's nice. Yes. I like this guy. I've only been listening for a few years, but I'm a lifetime fan. Now, if you're keeping count, like to put in a vote for DC for live shows. Edge. Sorry? Edge is Edge. And then add two l Eggel. Agile. Sure, yeah. Josh Edgel or Agile. I like agile or Edgell? I think Agile. Agile. Sounds like a kid next door. Josh Edgel. It's Josh and Josh. You know what, we usually come to DC once a year. I don't think we're coming this year, though. No, we probably will be there early 2018. Yeah. DC is always great to us, so we'll definitely be back soonish. Yeah. And you can always fly somewhere in the continental United States or Canada. Josh, take that Acla Express up to Brooklyn. Exactly. It's a pleasure train. There you go there's rectal thermometers everywhere. If you want to see us on tour, go to S Ysklive.com. For tickets. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at joshuclark or S Yskpodcast. You can join Chuck on facebookcom. Charleswchuckbryantep, you should know you can send us both and Jerry an email to stuffpodcast@howstoughworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushaneo.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon. Music. My favorite murder from exactly right media. My favorite murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at gmail chewy amazonandhalopets.com."

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