Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 3: it's Monday, the day of each week that we read
Speaker 3: back messages that you have sent in to the Stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow Your Mind email address, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: you should give a try if you never have before.
Speaker 3: We always appreciate feedback to recent episodes, especially if you
Speaker 3: have something interesting you would like to add to a
Speaker 3: topic we've talked about. You can reach us at contact
Speaker 3: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see
Speaker 3: rob do you mind if I kick things off today?
Speaker 3: With this message from Daniel in response to our series Well,
Speaker 3: this was in response to our series on stickiness, but
Speaker 3: specifically the episode where we talked about sticky memories. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's do it, okay, and for context. In the Sticky
Speaker 3: Memories episode, we talked about the idea of flash bulb memories,
Speaker 3: these memories that have a subjectively highly sticky quality to them.
Speaker 3: People many years later will report these types of experiences
Speaker 3: with confidence that they have very detailed, accurate memories, and
Speaker 3: specifically flash bold memories are about the moment that a
Speaker 3: person learned about a public event, often like a tragedy
Speaker 3: of some kind, like the moment somebody learned about the
Speaker 3: Kennedy assassination or the moment somebody learned about nine to eleven.
Speaker 3: People very often report that they have detailed and very consistent,
Speaker 3: accurate memories about what was going on when they found
Speaker 3: out where they were and all that, and studies have
Speaker 3: shown Nope, they don't. They just think that they do. We,
Speaker 3: for some reason, are especially convinced that these memories are
Speaker 3: authentic and unchanging. But you can show that they're not.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: Daniel says Hi in regard to your episode about sticky memories.
Speaker 3: The unreliability of some of the details of these memories
Speaker 3: was of extreme interest for me, as I have recorded
Speaker 3: proof of some of these in my personal life, that is,
Speaker 3: family events recorded on video and then years later compared
Speaker 3: to my memory of this event, having never seen the
Speaker 3: video until now, and noting the profound differences parentheses. I
Speaker 3: apologize for my possible poor writing skills, as I have
Speaker 3: autism and do not express myself well. It takes extreme
Speaker 3: effort to generate even this well. We appreciate the effort Daniel,
Speaker 3: think you're doing great, Daniel says. One event I will
Speaker 3: describe now. The memory I have is this. It's two
Speaker 3: thousand and four. I'm playing with the first solid state
Speaker 3: memory based video camera I ever had. I met my
Speaker 3: grandmother's place. My Auntie and I pressure cleaning the back
Speaker 3: pavement of her house. It's a crisp, cool, coldish, late
Speaker 3: winter's breezy day. The splashing water from the pressure cleaner
Speaker 3: feels lovely on my legs. I'm a person who hates
Speaker 3: hot weather, and so this is a particularly nice memory
Speaker 3: for this reason. All this time I am recording the
Speaker 3: event on the camera. This memory persisted for years and
Speaker 3: still does. However, how shocked I was two years later
Speaker 3: come across the original camera footage actual event as recorded.
Speaker 3: I was pressure cleaning with my auntie at my grandmother's place,
Speaker 3: washing the back pavement. But it was a stinking hot
Speaker 3: summer's day, and in the video I was wishing it
Speaker 3: was a much cooler winter's day. I was imagining how
Speaker 3: much nicer it would be to feel the cold splashes
Speaker 3: along with the coldish late winter breeze. The original event,
Speaker 3: plus my wishful alteration to the event, was fused into
Speaker 3: one memory event. How many of our memories actually appear
Speaker 3: more favorable than they actually were because we included any
Speaker 3: wishful changes in the memory. Eg. At a wedding a
Speaker 3: lovely time, but wish Uncle John could be here. In
Speaker 3: our memory Uncle John is there, but proven wrong by
Speaker 3: the wedding video. This has happened a lot in my life,
Speaker 3: as I have recorded heaps of it since I was
Speaker 3: in primary school. Maybe this is one of the reasons
Speaker 3: the past can seem so much better than the present.
Speaker 3: The past has been edited by our minds in post
Speaker 3: production to be better, and is only picked up if
Speaker 3: we record it with technology as well and compare it.
Speaker 3: I would never have realized the inaccuracy of the pressure
Speaker 3: cleaner event if I hadn't recorded it as well. Cheers Daniel.
Speaker 3: Oh well, yeah, thank you for the excellent message, Daniel.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I think it's amazing when people have experiences
Speaker 3: like this. I know my family didn't do a lot
Speaker 3: of home movies, but my wife's family did some home movies,
Speaker 3: and I think she's talked about experiences like this, like
Speaker 3: remembering something one way but then seeing it on video
Speaker 3: and oh, it happened a different way and being so
Speaker 3: surprised by that. But I think there's something very perceptive
Speaker 3: to what you're saying about the idea of you think
Speaker 3: that the day you were out there with the pressure cleaner,
Speaker 3: feeling the water on your legs and wishing it was
Speaker 3: a cool day may have contaminated your memory in such
Speaker 3: a way that you remembered it as being a cool day.
Speaker 3: I think that could very well be a mechanism in play.
Speaker 3: And there is evidence I've read about before of the
Speaker 3: ability of the imagination to contaminate memories of events. So,
Speaker 3: for example, if you intentionally imagine yourself doing something, there
Speaker 3: is often a good chance you will later remember actually
Speaker 3: doing that thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course you have to keep in mind
Speaker 2: that you know it need not be a beneficial enhancer
Speaker 2: of memory. I mean, you can certainly have cases where
Speaker 2: a memory is made more traumatic through recollection. You know it,
Speaker 2: you know it's ultimately Again, it comes back to the
Speaker 2: fact that anytime we draw that memory out of the vault,
Speaker 2: we augment it in small ways, and that can go
Speaker 2: in either direction subjectively.
Speaker 3: Right, So maybe if instead of sitting there thinking about
Speaker 3: how nice it would be if it were a cool day,
Speaker 3: you had been thinking about how much worse it would
Speaker 3: be if it were like one hundred and fifteen degrees outside.
Speaker 3: Maybe you would actually remember it that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again, this is another great insight into just
Speaker 2: how curious memory is and how susceptible to change it is.
Speaker 3: Obviously, when I said one fifteen, I'm operating on the
Speaker 3: inferior fahrenheit scale, I don't think it would be one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifteen celsius out.
Speaker 2: All right, here's another listener male for us. This one
Speaker 2: has to do with our series of episodes on strange
Speaker 2: underwater photos and other images that are of questionable quality.
Speaker 2: This one comes to us from Wait, Hi, Rob, Joe,
Speaker 2: and JJ. Thanks for the episodes on mysterious underwater photographs
Speaker 2: and the psychological explanations involving low resolution information, where the
Speaker 2: lack of detail seems to encourage the human mind to
Speaker 2: come up with more fanciful explanations, while a higher resolution
Speaker 2: image would have the opposite effect no gaps to fill in.
Speaker 2: This made me think of HFR, or high frame rate
Speaker 2: video content aka soap opera effect, which is higher than
Speaker 2: the traditional twenty four frames per second. I've always wondered
Speaker 2: why this feature is universally hated in movies and TV.
Speaker 2: I think the low resolution principle may be working here
Speaker 2: in reverse. We want there to be some mystery and
Speaker 2: gaps to fill in when we are engaging with fiction,
Speaker 2: so we can feel more like an active participant, even
Speaker 2: though there may not be anything substantial we are actually
Speaker 2: missing with normal film speed. Maybe our brains are translating
Speaker 2: the lower bandwidth into a sense of mystery, which is
Speaker 2: more enjoyable and engaging than the sterile, seeming high bandwidth
Speaker 2: HFR version. Keep up the great work way.
Speaker 3: Wayne, That is a really interesting idea. I don't know
Speaker 3: if I think that that's correct or not, but I
Speaker 3: can certainly agree that the high frame rate experience is
Speaker 3: not one that feels very magical to me. And even worse,
Speaker 3: I think, are the I don't even know technically what's
Speaker 3: going on here, but the sort of you know, the
Speaker 3: digital simulations of it with like the it's called different
Speaker 3: things on different TVs, but the cursed motion smoothing effect
Speaker 3: that comes as turned on by default, and a lot
Speaker 3: of new televisions just looks abysmal. Awful movies look terrible
Speaker 3: with this thing on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it can be quite an experience I was.
Speaker 2: I was with my family and we were staying with
Speaker 2: my wife's uncle and aunt, and you know, we were
Speaker 2: staying at somebody's house. You don't want to go necessarily
Speaker 2: messing around with other people's TV settings. Some folks don't
Speaker 2: like that, and they don't mind showing you. Sorry it
Speaker 2: laughs into a Texas chainsaw mESC A quote there, But
Speaker 2: the point is still the same. It's it may be
Speaker 2: impolite to mess around with someone's TV settings. So Uncle
Speaker 2: and Ann had gone to bed. We decided to watch
Speaker 2: Black Panther, of you know, spectacular special effects laden film
Speaker 2: with some great performances in it as well some high drama.
Speaker 2: But we had to face the fact are we going
Speaker 2: to keep watching it in this strange format or are
Speaker 2: we going to just go to bed early? We decided
Speaker 2: to watch the whole film and it was still It
Speaker 2: was still great. You know, a film like that I
Speaker 2: think can take the visual ding. But it was weird.
Speaker 2: It was like watching like an old school Doctor Who
Speaker 2: episode instead of like the sleek Marvel Cinematic Universe film
Speaker 2: that it is.
Speaker 3: I don't know if i've I may have told the
Speaker 3: story on the podcast before. If so, apologies, but one
Speaker 3: time my wife and I started watching a significant chunk
Speaker 3: of the first Lord of the Rings film with the
Speaker 3: motions moothing on and a TV in a different place,
Speaker 3: and wooh boy, I mean, how to really suck the
Speaker 3: mystery and magic out of that prologue site with the
Speaker 3: seal door and the you know, the Wargan saur on
Speaker 3: and all that. It takes like the swirling mist and
Speaker 3: haze of mythology and turns it into just kind of
Speaker 3: like a hokey smudge. Everything looks so cheap and fake.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean, this is why you see some filmmakers
Speaker 2: and actors railing against it. You know, it's it kind
Speaker 2: of you know, it disrupts the way that the art
Speaker 2: is supposed to be immuted and appreciated.
Speaker 3: Now, to be fair, I think we have somewhat strayed
Speaker 3: from because Wayne was talking about high frame rate video
Speaker 3: content or high frame rate film. I don't know what
Speaker 3: the exact technical relationship of that to the motion smoothing
Speaker 3: effect on the TVs is, but I will say it
Speaker 3: feels similar whatever is going on in these cases. I
Speaker 3: don't know if there is significant overlap technically.
Speaker 2: But the basic point about enhanced detail, taking away from immersion.
Speaker 2: You do see that at times. You see it in
Speaker 2: cases we've talked about in Weird House cinema before, where
Speaker 2: there may be a wire visible, or a velcro a
Speaker 2: velcros strap, or a zipper visible on a monster that
Speaker 2: would not have been visible, and say the VHS age.
Speaker 2: But now and with restore, you know, some of these
Speaker 2: glorious restored editions we have, sometimes you get to see
Speaker 2: the seams a little more than was intended. And I
Speaker 2: understand it makes some of those old effects folks kind
Speaker 2: of WinCE at times because they're like, I was never
Speaker 2: meant to be seen like this, and yet now it is. Well.
Speaker 3: But when I see a wire or a zipper today,
Speaker 3: I find that charming. I mean, that's just lovely. I
Speaker 3: do not feel that about the act of taking a
Speaker 3: Grand tolkienesque battle scene and turning it into a soap opera.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Another example that comes to mind is sometimes
Speaker 2: you'll be watching a period piece, you know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: a medieval saga, and one of the heroes or villains
Speaker 2: you know, gets a nice close up and they yell
Speaker 2: something and when their mouth is open, you get to
Speaker 2: see all of their dental work. All of their modern
Speaker 2: don't work, and you know that might there might be
Speaker 2: a case to be made there. It's like we were
Speaker 2: never meant to see everything inside this actor's mouth with
Speaker 2: perfect clarity. And you know, I'm not saying it ruins
Speaker 2: a film or anything, but you know, for a split
Speaker 2: second you're like, oh, oh, I see those feelings there,
Speaker 2: medieval Warrior.
Speaker 3: But so, to come back to Wayne's idea, I guess
Speaker 3: the question would be, is that because part of the
Speaker 3: magic of cinema relies on like the el tanna and
Speaker 3: antenna effect, that like you're seeing some kind of something
Speaker 3: is lower resolution, or some kind of information is missing
Speaker 3: and part of the fun of watching cinema is letting
Speaker 3: your mind fill in those gaps, or it is the
Speaker 3: cause something else. Is there a different reason that we
Speaker 3: prefer the look of the you know, traditional lower frame rate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are great questions. All right, Well, you know
Speaker 2: I think up next, Joe, it's time for our favorite
Speaker 2: section of listener mail. It's time for a little more
Speaker 2: tea talk.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I can read this one if you want,
Speaker 3: but you're gonna have to comment on it because you're
Speaker 3: the tea guy. Okay, you're the t man between us.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: This is from Susan on the Facebook discussion module. Susan says,
Speaker 3: how did I not comment on Lapsong souchong before? I
Speaker 3: feel like I did. It's just lost to time. AnyWho
Speaker 3: Lapsong souchong is delicious. I'm not a fan of barbecue,
Speaker 3: so I wouldn't call it that, but it definitely is
Speaker 3: smoky all get out, or at least it should be.
Speaker 3: I had to give it up, though, because my father
Speaker 3: refuses to not make fun of the smell and I
Speaker 3: got tired of it. I finally found a pooerr that
Speaker 3: I've liked, which is exciting because all the others I've
Speaker 3: tried have one percent tasted like boiled leather shoes. I
Speaker 3: remember forcing myself to drink my way through a box
Speaker 3: of it because I don't like to waste things, but
Speaker 3: for some reason, I try again every few years. I
Speaker 3: think the one I tried recently was a chocolate one,
Speaker 3: and I guess my brain went chocolate shoe leather yum.
Speaker 3: And then as a footnote, I guess to the idea
Speaker 3: of not liking to throw things out or waste them.
Speaker 3: Susan says this is also why I drank a box
Speaker 3: of tea that tasted like hot kool aid discovered I
Speaker 3: do not like the taste of hibiscus.
Speaker 2: Hmm. You know, I haven't had a lot of high
Speaker 2: biscus tea, but I do like some cocktail mixes that
Speaker 2: involve high biscuits, like some things of that nature, some
Speaker 2: sweeteners that have hibiscus head to them. But as for
Speaker 2: her larger points here, I totally can relate to needing
Speaker 2: to consume all of the tea that you buy. I
Speaker 2: like trying out new teas and occasionally I get one
Speaker 2: that I'm not crazy about. But I do feel like
Speaker 2: I owe it to the tea to go ahead and
Speaker 2: just go through the entire amount that I ordered, like
Speaker 2: it would be. I'm not just going to leave it
Speaker 2: in there and eventually throw it out. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to compost it. I'm going to consume it, even if
Speaker 2: I'm not crazy about it, you know, sort of in
Speaker 2: a way, sort of give it to the end of
Speaker 2: the package to try and win me over. Now, as
Speaker 2: for the lopsong Sushan, I'm still getting used to it.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be my everyday tea, but I
Speaker 2: do enjoy it. And other members of my household are
Speaker 2: tolerating it's aroma, so that's all well and good. But
Speaker 2: I do love the poo airs. In fact, I'm drinking
Speaker 2: at this very moment an evil snake king poo air
Speaker 2: that I really like. And a number of these do
Speaker 2: have a very kind of earthy, perhaps leathery, even kind
Speaker 2: of barnyard sort of flavor profile. That. Yeah, it can
Speaker 2: take some good news to.
Speaker 3: All right, Rob, I want to take your pick between
Speaker 3: these two weird house messages here.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, sure, Let's say we have one. This one
Speaker 2: relates to Danger Diabolic. This one comes to us from
Speaker 2: Paul Robin Joe. My wife and I watch Danger Diabolic
Speaker 2: on Saturday night and thoroughly enjoyed it. After watching it,
Speaker 2: though I have one observation and one question. First, you
Speaker 2: noted in your review that Diabolic is more anti than
Speaker 2: we may be used to in our anti heroes, in
Speaker 2: that he murders people who don't seemingly deserve it based
Speaker 2: on their actions. He definitely appears to quote unquote shoot first. However,
Speaker 2: in the first heist we see in the film, he's
Speaker 2: entirely nonviolent. The gas he uses to confuse the agents
Speaker 2: guarding the cash as non toxic, and even when he's
Speaker 2: being shot at from the helicopters, he's evasive but non
Speaker 2: violent in response. It's only after the government reinstates the
Speaker 2: death penalty specifically because of him, that we see him
Speaker 2: use violent tactics. Maybe it's the government that shot first. Second,
Speaker 2: where do supervillains hire their contractors? That underground Layer is fantastic, I,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, have a hard time just finding
Speaker 2: a competent plumber. Is there a secret version of Craigslist
Speaker 2: only available to supervillains? Looking forward to the next weird
Speaker 2: house cinema?
Speaker 3: Paul, I do imagine if you are hiring people to
Speaker 3: make modifications to your underground Layer and your Diabolic, you
Speaker 3: will have the problem that you will have to find
Speaker 3: contractors who accept as payment like sweaty, smelly money.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also had some of the same thoughts watching it,
Speaker 2: like who built I mean? And then this is the
Speaker 2: type of film where you can easily jump out of
Speaker 2: that kind of of thinking, But yeah, who would build this?
Speaker 2: Where did this come from? What is the origin story
Speaker 2: of this vast facility underground? And I do love that
Speaker 2: a film like Danger Diabolic does not feel like it
Speaker 2: needs to explain that, whereas plenty of modern films would that.
Speaker 2: Being said, you know, I do have to single out
Speaker 2: the television series Better Call Saul for doing one of
Speaker 2: the better jobs I've ever seen of explaining the origin
Speaker 2: story of a complex underground villain's layer in a in
Speaker 2: a believable sense, like how would this possibly come together?
Speaker 2: And how would you possibly attempt to keep it secret?
Speaker 2: On the subject of danger Diabolic, we also heard from
Speaker 2: listener Matt in discord. He commented, quote Diabolic share some
Speaker 2: DNA with chronicles of Riddick. I guess in that quote
Speaker 2: evil should be fought with a different type of evil.
Speaker 2: Unquote it's a pretty good point. Pretty good point. Yeah. However,
Speaker 2: I will say there are no good guys encouraging Diabolic
Speaker 2: to fight evil in the film. He just gets drawn
Speaker 2: into a prolonged feud with criminals and government. Nobody's saying like, yes,
Speaker 2: finally we can use Diabolic to uh to deliver us
Speaker 2: from the tyranny of the government and or the crime lords.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine in a movie that's Riddick versus Terry Thomas.
Speaker 2: Oh well, it raises a tough quest like who would
Speaker 2: be the modern Terry Thomas, who could do that? Who
Speaker 2: would be the actor for that role? Wait, I think
Speaker 2: I have an idea. I think Hugh Grant could do it.
Speaker 2: Michael Sheen, I think would especially contemporary Michael Sheen could
Speaker 2: do a nice one. Which is interesting because Michael Sheen
Speaker 2: definitely had his sort of action period, his sort of
Speaker 2: like Underworld three era where he would be more of
Speaker 2: like a fitting like physical adversary of Riddick. But but
Speaker 2: current Michael Sheen, he's at a different stage in his
Speaker 2: life and career where he could and of course he's
Speaker 2: a brilliant performer that can p a serious character as
Speaker 2: well as a highly comedic and campy character. And I
Speaker 2: think you would be particularly delicious as that kind of
Speaker 2: adversary for maybe not maybe not for Riddic, but somebody
Speaker 2: like critic.
Speaker 3: Well you know what I was, I was half joking
Speaker 3: about Hugh Grant, but actually he plays a bullseye Terry
Speaker 3: Thomas role in the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's a Terry Thomas character.
Speaker 2: It is, it is, and that is a great, great role,
Speaker 2: great role in that film. I'm enjoying late career Hugh
Speaker 2: Grant here he's playing an oople lumpenex, which I'm excited
Speaker 2: to see.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, it's in the trailer. Looks it looks
Speaker 2: looks fabulous. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and
Speaker 2: close up the mail bag there real quick. You might
Speaker 2: have heard us mention the discussion module. That's the Facebook group.
Speaker 2: If you want to join it, you can just go
Speaker 2: to go onto Facebook, look for it, and then request entry.
Speaker 2: I think you have to answer the easiest question in
Speaker 2: the world, what is the name of the podcast? And
Speaker 2: if you can't get that, then you don't get in.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, you don't belong. You don't belong there. You
Speaker 2: can try again another time. And you may have heard
Speaker 2: us mentioned as well the discord page, the discord server,
Speaker 2: or what have you. If you would like to access that,
Speaker 2: just email us. We'll throw up that email addressed here
Speaker 2: in a minute. And if you just email and say, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to be in the discord, well we'll send
Speaker 2: you the link to access the discord. It's pretty easy.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode, or any other to suggest
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello. You
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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