Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormack.
Speaker 1: In today we're bringing you some of the messages you
Speaker 1: have sent us are loyal mail bot. Carney is right
Speaker 1: here with us. It seems he has developed quite quite
Speaker 1: a card shark habit over the last week or so.
Speaker 1: He's wearing one of those green visors or wait, is
Speaker 1: that what poker players wear? Or is that like accountants
Speaker 1: may have gotten that next time. I think I've seen
Speaker 1: some card sharks wearing those things. Yeah, well they're trying
Speaker 1: to hide their expressions, right, so they wear like a
Speaker 1: hat and sunglasses and who knows what else at the table?
Speaker 1: Did any poker players just full on wear ski mask?
Speaker 1: I think it's frowned upon. I think it's frowned upon.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure that this, this new poker habit for
Speaker 1: Carney has been inspired by the card playing robots of
Speaker 1: Silent Running, one of our favorite films. Oh yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: there's some there's some great card card playing robots in
Speaker 1: that one Hue we do and Louis Um those are
Speaker 1: some wonderful scenes and in large part because they're like
Speaker 1: a little bit they're a little bit clunky, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not They're not smooth. Those robots are the way
Speaker 1: that they interact with humans in their environment, but in
Speaker 1: a way that felt very real, very endearing. I loved it. Well,
Speaker 1: that'll come back up later on Robbert. You ready to
Speaker 1: jump right in? Should I read this message from Cody?
Speaker 1: Go for it? Okay, here is a sort of correction
Speaker 1: slash clarification on the Jupiter episode. At least from Cody's perspective,
Speaker 1: this starts high Joe plus Robert. I'm currently listening to
Speaker 1: part one of the Jupiter episodes, and as a recovering astronomer,
Speaker 1: I had to dash off this message when talking about
Speaker 1: whether our solar system is unusual or abnormal is compared
Speaker 1: to other planetary systems. It is crucial to keep in
Speaker 1: mind that the detection techniques that astronomers used to find
Speaker 1: extra solar planets preferentially biases their detections toward large planets
Speaker 1: close to their parents star. In other words, planets that
Speaker 1: tug a lot on their star or include its light
Speaker 1: on short periods. And to expand on that a little bit.
Speaker 1: So some of the main ways we've had in the
Speaker 1: past of checking whether another star has an exoplanet orbiting
Speaker 1: it is by things like the radial velocity test, which
Speaker 1: checks to see if the host star is wobbling basically
Speaker 1: by the gravitational pull of a large planet orbiting it,
Speaker 1: or by the yeah, as Cody alludes to hear, the
Speaker 1: occlusion of its light. So like, if there is a
Speaker 1: transit where a planet passes in front of a star
Speaker 1: from our perspective, we will proceed that as a brief
Speaker 1: dimming of the star as the planet passes between the
Speaker 1: star and our observation technology. Uh and and there's some
Speaker 1: other methods as well, but those are some of the
Speaker 1: main ones. And you can see why it would be
Speaker 1: easier to detect planets that are larger and have certain
Speaker 1: types of certain types of orbital orientations based on those
Speaker 1: sorts of methods. But Cody continues, in fact, the upper
Speaker 1: limit on the orbital periods for the current detection regime
Speaker 1: is roughly half the period of a typical postdoctoral fellowship
Speaker 1: go figure. So it just isn't accurate to say that
Speaker 1: our Solar system is unusual, since we simply don't know.
Speaker 1: It may in fact be the most common kind of
Speaker 1: planetary system, but we are as yet completely incapable of
Speaker 1: detecting another one like it, Cody. So thanks for that, Cody.
Speaker 1: So I would say, unless it got left out by
Speaker 1: accidents somehow, I'm pretty sure in the episode we did
Speaker 1: talk about the idea that our current detection methods for
Speaker 1: exoplanets could very well be biasing our surveys of what
Speaker 1: types of planets are out there. Though I believe, if
Speaker 1: I understand correctly, Cody is putting it more strongly here,
Speaker 1: saying not just as we did that they could be
Speaker 1: biasing our picture of how common different planetary structures are,
Speaker 1: but that they almost certainly are biasing it. Fair enough,
Speaker 1: all right, here's another one. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Joshua Joshua rides Hi, Robert and Joe, longtime listener,
Speaker 1: first time writing. Really love the show and the symbiosis
Speaker 1: you create between all the best subjects. I was listening
Speaker 1: to the Jupiter episodes and heard you both questioning how
Speaker 1: big the stone Chronus uranus swallowed in place of the
Speaker 1: baby Zeus. Well, I knew I heard about it before,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, there is a historical sculpture held as
Speaker 1: being the same stone see attached picture. Apparently apparently this
Speaker 1: is it also known as the umphal of stone. It's
Speaker 1: an example of a beatless or sacred stone. The mythological
Speaker 1: record says the stone was also used by Zeus to
Speaker 1: decide where the center of the world was no surprise,
Speaker 1: he picked Delphi and that's where he placed this stone
Speaker 1: to market and yeah, indeed you can look up images
Speaker 1: of this. There's a Wikipedia article on this that has
Speaker 1: some yeah, decent music, the photographs of them. Um Anyway,
Speaker 1: they continue. It's certainly bigger than I ever imagined a
Speaker 1: baby god would be. But I guess when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with deities it's probably going to be a bit subjective.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, keep doing what do you do your friend, Josh? Oh,
Speaker 1: thanks Josh. It looks kind of like a beautifully decorated
Speaker 1: giant stone bullet. Here's the question. Was it decorated before
Speaker 1: it was ingested by a god or did it? Was
Speaker 1: it inscribed like this by virtue of being ingested by
Speaker 1: a god? Also, you're saying not carved by a human
Speaker 1: in recognition of having been vomited up by Chronus. But
Speaker 1: it was actually carved by Cronus's guts, like when he
Speaker 1: swallows a stone it starts making little lacy patterns on
Speaker 1: the things inside. Yeah, why not? I mean the physiology
Speaker 1: of the gods has to be something spectacular. Three cheers
Speaker 1: for god guts. Yeah. Okay, you're ready for Dad Jokes,
Speaker 1: as as ready as anyone ever is. Okay. This first
Speaker 1: message comes from Eden. Eden says, Dear Robert and Joe,
Speaker 1: in your recent Dad Jokes episode, you' all brought up
Speaker 1: the lack of a signifier or punctuation mark in written
Speaker 1: text that conveyed sarcasm. I wanted to shout through my
Speaker 1: phone that there already is an existing signifier of sarcasm
Speaker 1: in written text, and it does not ruin the joke
Speaker 1: to use it. Rules for writing sarcasm have evolved naturally
Speaker 1: on the Internet, and we see them every day. In fact,
Speaker 1: often it is not punctuation so much as a lack
Speaker 1: of punctuation. It's use as a form of rhetorical speech
Speaker 1: is described here, and Eden includes a link to a
Speaker 1: Tumbler post arguing in short that within Tumbler there has
Speaker 1: evolved a linguistic convention that sentences presented without punctuation can
Speaker 1: be understood in an ironic or rhetorical manner. So an
Speaker 1: example kind of like what's used in this post would
Speaker 1: be a sentence like why did Taco Bell give me
Speaker 1: seventeen sauce packets for one taco? The sentence would feel
Speaker 1: very different depending on whether or not you actually include
Speaker 1: a question mark at the end of it. If there's
Speaker 1: a question mark at the end of it, people might
Speaker 1: be tempted to answer the question to say like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe it's because of this, or you know that they
Speaker 1: could interpret it in different ways. If you don't punctuate
Speaker 1: it at all, it's somehow kind of understood that this
Speaker 1: is just like a joking or rhetorical question, and you're
Speaker 1: probably exaggerating with the number. I'm I'm, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of a stickler for including your punctuation.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I I'm. We take a lot of
Speaker 1: convincing to to get me behind the idea of just
Speaker 1: not using punctuation on a sentence, or to just in
Speaker 1: order to use no capitalization, etcetera. You mean you're you're
Speaker 1: not really familiar with this convention on the internet, or
Speaker 1: just that you don't approve of it. Oh well, both mean.
Speaker 1: I mean if I was more, if I was more
Speaker 1: accustomed to it and their apps, I'd be more into it.
Speaker 1: But like my gut reaction is, if we have to
Speaker 1: choose between sarcasm and proper functuation, we choose punctuation, and
Speaker 1: we we erase sarcasm from our our culture. Okay um.
Speaker 1: Eden goes on a lack of punctuation or a period
Speaker 1: where there should be a question mark, or even all
Speaker 1: caps are an immediate signifier of sarcasm. Uh, this linguist
Speaker 1: on the toast can explain it better than I can.
Speaker 1: And then again Eden links to a to an article.
Speaker 1: This is an article by a linguist named Gretchen McCulloch
Speaker 1: who explains several ways that sarcasm or irony is often
Speaker 1: conveyed in written language today on the Internet, often by
Speaker 1: intentionally incorrect spelling, by lack of punctuation and capitalization. All
Speaker 1: these things can sometimes be used to convey sarcasm or irony.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I recognize these conventions. I've seen them on
Speaker 1: Twitter in places where like a where a statement in
Speaker 1: a post is denoted as ironic or sarcastic by being
Speaker 1: presented say, like in all lower case with no punctuation.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can some of these tools. I guess
Speaker 1: I can get more behind the all caps thing. I
Speaker 1: can understand that, and I guess I've probably used that before,
Speaker 1: um and any. I guess even intentional misspellings have a place,
Speaker 1: especially if you're trying to sort of present a a
Speaker 1: specific dialect, you know, or impersonating specific individual um or
Speaker 1: um you know, like say there's a particular celebrity you're
Speaker 1: trying to uh to summon, you know, an image job
Speaker 1: or to invoke in the writing. I think that would
Speaker 1: make sense. I think I've realized one thing I do
Speaker 1: is that often if I'm talking to somebody I work
Speaker 1: with and I want to deny I don't think I
Speaker 1: would ever put this together before, but I've realized I
Speaker 1: often denote sarcasm or irony by including somewhere in the
Speaker 1: sentence a business buzzword that I would never actually use
Speaker 1: in a genuine manner. That that. Yeah, that that could
Speaker 1: work for sure as a as a signify or something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, But I guess part of it. I
Speaker 1: guess a lot of this does come down to, you know,
Speaker 1: what we talked about before, about how do we know
Speaker 1: someone is being sarcastic? You know, there's there's tone, and
Speaker 1: there's context. And if you're if if you're using the buzzwords,
Speaker 1: are you perhaps leaning more into context a bit? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Um yeah, I mean that would rely on
Speaker 1: the person sort of knowing me well enough to know
Speaker 1: that these are not terms that I genuinely use, So
Speaker 1: that probably wouldn't work for like an audience that didn't
Speaker 1: know who I was, But so, yeah, I guess that
Speaker 1: that would be a context thing. I think the like
Speaker 1: denoting sarcasm or irony or rhetorical speech by doing say,
Speaker 1: all lowercase with no punctuation, that does seem to be
Speaker 1: an attempt to use a written version of tone. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like when you use the silly voice to
Speaker 1: say something. Yeah, well, I mean I applied people out
Speaker 1: out there in the field trying to to figure this out.
Speaker 1: Even if even though there's some of these tools or
Speaker 1: maybe not for me, uh you know, perhaps they work
Speaker 1: and if they may communication better in these uh these formats,
Speaker 1: then you know, I guess it's a win win anyway.
Speaker 1: Eden concludes, My point is that we will never have
Speaker 1: something as straightforward as a single mark to convey sarcasm, because,
Speaker 1: as you pointed out in the episode, that such an
Speaker 1: obvious pronouncement might spoil the joke. But we do have
Speaker 1: unofficial linguistic rules about how we expressed sarcasm through text.
Speaker 1: Love the show Eaten. Well, that's all good. Thanks for
Speaker 1: writing in and sharing this. Yeah, this a little much
Speaker 1: of this is a world I'm not familiar with. All right,
Speaker 1: here's one from Carlos. Hey there. Just wanted to add
Speaker 1: to your dad joke stories. My dad is from Argentina,
Speaker 1: and often when I was a kid, he would try
Speaker 1: to translate jokes from Spanish. Almost every time, my dad
Speaker 1: would arrive at the punchline only to realize that the
Speaker 1: joke didn't translate. Also, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: just me, but I have noticed that curse words and
Speaker 1: other languages never have the same kick that they do
Speaker 1: in one's native language. Slang from Argentina, bay In, how
Speaker 1: my dad has explained it to me, can be pretty foul.
Speaker 1: As such, my dad often told dirty jokes or jokes
Speaker 1: that hinged on bad words, impolite company teachers, pastors, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Uh So, not only did they usually fall flat, they
Speaker 1: often were on the vulgar side, embarrassing back then hilarious.
Speaker 1: Now thanks for everything, Carlos. Nothing better than telling dirty
Speaker 1: jokes to the pastor alright. This next message comes to
Speaker 1: us from Jim and New Jersey about part one of
Speaker 1: our episodes on post biological intelligence. Jim says Robert and
Speaker 1: Joe in your Machine Lords of Barnard six, Part one,
Speaker 1: Joe was reading from Susan Schneider's AI comments comparing silicon
Speaker 1: versus organic processing, and she mentioned seven manageable chunks being
Speaker 1: the limitation of a human brain. You mentioned Miller, but
Speaker 1: didn't seem to know the reference yet. She referred to
Speaker 1: Miller as the citation for that seven chunk's claim, but
Speaker 1: we talked about how we didn't follow up on that. Well,
Speaker 1: Jim has the explanation here. Jim rights, she's referring to
Speaker 1: George Miller's cognitive psychological paper the Magic number seven plus
Speaker 1: or minus two. It's referring to short term memory. Humans
Speaker 1: can manage about seven things in their short term memory,
Speaker 1: but it varies per individual by plus or minus two.
Speaker 1: The things we can manage are not just numbers, letters,
Speaker 1: or words. Each slot can manage a single chunk, That
Speaker 1: is it can be a composite idea with several parts,
Speaker 1: but we still consider it a whole. I've heard that
Speaker 1: one of the original tests involved showing chess peace configurations
Speaker 1: to chess novices and masters. They had a fixed amount
Speaker 1: of time, let's say sixty seconds to examine the board,
Speaker 1: and they were tasked with reconstructing it. The chess masters
Speaker 1: did much better than the novices, but then instead of
Speaker 1: actual chess game configurations, both sets of volunteers were shown
Speaker 1: random chess peace configurations, and the novice says and master
Speaker 1: has got about the same number of pieces correct. In
Speaker 1: the chess game portion of the test, a cluster of
Speaker 1: pieces in the corner would appear as six or seven
Speaker 1: pieces and require almost all of the short term memory
Speaker 1: slots for the novice. However, the chess master would recognize
Speaker 1: them as a castling position, and this castling chunk would
Speaker 1: would only require one short term memory slot. Likewise, other
Speaker 1: familiar chess piece configurations would chunk for the chess master.
Speaker 1: The chess master doesn't have more memory. The chess master
Speaker 1: has additional information about the game to chunk it more
Speaker 1: efficiently than the novice. Random configurations contained no chunks, so
Speaker 1: the master could only remember seven pieces, which was the
Speaker 1: same as the novice. And this makes sense to me
Speaker 1: because if you have something that's sort of already understood
Speaker 1: as a whole and and stored in your memory in
Speaker 1: a way, you could store it much more efficiently. Like
Speaker 1: you could probably remember seven whole lines from movies that
Speaker 1: you've watched a million times and you've got the lines
Speaker 1: already memorized, but you couldn't remember as easily nearly as
Speaker 1: much of the dialogue of a film that you were
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with and being exposed to for the first time.
Speaker 1: You could remember, Oh, it was this line from that film,
Speaker 1: and that's one piece of information in your brain. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Jim goes on, chunking exists in most skills and hobbies.
Speaker 1: If a concept has its own name, it's probably a chunk.
Speaker 1: Referring back to Susan Schneider, a human short term memory
Speaker 1: has seven slots. A computer does not have this limitation
Speaker 1: Jim in New Jersey, Well, thanks Jim, that that fills
Speaker 1: in something very relevant. Yeah, and it also kind of
Speaker 1: makes spell slots in dungeons and dragons uh less um yeah,
Speaker 1: less of an abstract concept, right, I mean, it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you only have so many slots. You can only have
Speaker 1: so many spells prepared. But each spell is one chunk
Speaker 1: if you know it well enough. Yeah, all right, And
Speaker 1: then we one message about spoon. It's not very long.
Speaker 1: It is just from a listener who signed their email quote.
Speaker 1: Just a signature here, so I hope that works. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the messages saw this and it reminded me of
Speaker 1: your discussion about the sport. I think actually what you're
Speaker 1: talking about is our our refusal to discuss the sport.
Speaker 1: But this listener says you'll enjoy the foon and then
Speaker 1: attaches a picture. One is a sport. So it's the
Speaker 1: bowl of a spoon with some times at the end.
Speaker 1: The foon is a fork in which each of the
Speaker 1: times ends in a tiny spoon bowl. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty weird looking. Even the spork looks weird because it
Speaker 1: looks like it was Perhaps it's it's it's if it's
Speaker 1: a like a fine silver spork, which I guess probably
Speaker 1: it probably exists. But this looks like it was, you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps created in photoshop. Rob. I can tell you're about
Speaker 1: to lash out in anger. Let's let's move on to
Speaker 1: something else. All right, just a uh comes to us
Speaker 1: from brad Um and it's a response to our episode
Speaker 1: Gold Medal of the Sun. Dear Robert and Joe, I
Speaker 1: am writing about your episode on Gold. I don't believe
Speaker 1: you mentioned one of Gold's most interesting properties. It's heat
Speaker 1: shielding prowess. Approximately point eight ounces sixteen grams of gold
Speaker 1: foil is used in the engine bay of each McLaren
Speaker 1: F one because it protects the carbon fiber body and
Speaker 1: the mono cue frame and chassis from heat, the heat
Speaker 1: of the engine. Are we talking about a car here,
Speaker 1: by the way, Yeah, I think this is like it's
Speaker 1: like a racing car of some kind of very very fast,
Speaker 1: high performance car. Yeah, because I was thinking of like
Speaker 1: a like a like a fighter plane. It's like, I
Speaker 1: don't don't recognize McLaren as as as a company that
Speaker 1: makes fighter jets, so I don't. So I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: with this word that mono cock or mono monoc quay,
Speaker 1: whatever that is. Yeah, Anyway, they continue. This was a
Speaker 1: choice by Gordon Murray, the chief engineer of the car.
Speaker 1: The gold foy old lined engine bay is one of
Speaker 1: two distinct design features of this car. The other big
Speaker 1: design distinction is the three seats. Here's a link to
Speaker 1: the Wikipedia article, which they include for us. Um. I've
Speaker 1: been listening on and off for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: but I have started listening frequently since I've been working
Speaker 1: from home. Keep up the great work, especially with the
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema series. Regards Brad. Thanks Brad. All Right,
Speaker 1: I am looking at the Yep, that's a pretty fancy
Speaker 1: looking car. Um, let's see. Yes, okay, this is Bond
Speaker 1: villain car. Yeah, maybe you have more perspective on this.
Speaker 1: I've got a question here. Is there a point at
Speaker 1: which a car starts looking so cool that it goes
Speaker 1: over the line and it's not cool and instead it's
Speaker 1: kind of dorky? Um? Maybe? I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: you Occasionally, you know, I guess I see a lot
Speaker 1: of normal looking cars rolling around, uh, the neighborhood. You
Speaker 1: know that you usually don't pay much attention to them,
Speaker 1: and occasionally, like even things like, at least to my eyes,
Speaker 1: even when there's like a tesla there, I have to
Speaker 1: really look at it to realize it's a tesla. Um
Speaker 1: where until I'm finally like, WHOA the student's dropping off
Speaker 1: his kids at school? And a Tesla. What's that about? Um?
Speaker 1: But I guess occasionally you do see a car that
Speaker 1: is like so fancy or so antique that it is
Speaker 1: just I I grabbing. UM. I don't know what extent
Speaker 1: it becomes uncool. I'm I guess it just depends on
Speaker 1: on how judgmental you are about how people, uh you know, um,
Speaker 1: how people spend their money and you know, what they
Speaker 1: choose to drive around in. UM. I guess it's possible,
Speaker 1: but it would be very, very subjective. Except for the headlights.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I would be able to tell which
Speaker 1: end of this car is the front. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of I imagine. I'm not a car person,
Speaker 1: so I don't really get excited about cars and all.
Speaker 1: But I think one area I might be able to
Speaker 1: compare it to would be like my my interest in
Speaker 1: things like inks and and military aircraft, which, on on
Speaker 1: one level, I can definitely look at a bomber or
Speaker 1: a tank and be like, Wow, that's a really cool
Speaker 1: looking air plants a neat design, And on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that is okay, that's that's a weapon of
Speaker 1: war that probably or in many cases definitely caused a
Speaker 1: lot of death, destruction and misery and pain. Um, But
Speaker 1: on some level you kind of separate the two when
Speaker 1: you're considering just pieces of technology like that. Uh. And granted,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about like a Lamborghini or something, it
Speaker 1: probably didn't lead to uh, you know, the same level
Speaker 1: of of death and misery that a uh you know,
Speaker 1: like an M one tank did. But still you kind
Speaker 1: of they're probably different ways that we engage in thinking
Speaker 1: about it. So we might be able to look at
Speaker 1: a car and be like, oh, that's a really cool
Speaker 1: car without thinking is that a wise use of one's money?
Speaker 1: Is that appropriate to drive on these streets? So what
Speaker 1: does that say about inequality in our in our world
Speaker 1: or our nation that sort of thing. Uh? So I
Speaker 1: don't know not to lay all that on this one
Speaker 1: particular their car. No, No, it's a it's it's a
Speaker 1: cool looking car. I will admit if I saw it
Speaker 1: driving down the street, I would say, Wow, that's a
Speaker 1: cool car. I jump right in front of it. It
Speaker 1: would be an honor could get run over by this car,
Speaker 1: something I really get excited about. I live close to
Speaker 1: railroad tracks, and I think one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: in the world are maintenance vehicles on railroad tracks? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get really excited about those. I point them out
Speaker 1: to my family and mostly they don't care. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: if there's some sort of strange vehicle that's cleaning the
Speaker 1: tracks or enabling the maintenance of the tracks, or even
Speaker 1: just a truck on the tracks, you know, um that
Speaker 1: I that that stuff. That's something I really get excited about.
Speaker 1: So if I imagine there are people who get that
Speaker 1: level of excited about sports cars and all, and I can,
Speaker 1: I can acknowledge that I'm right here with you. I
Speaker 1: think I have much more enthusiasm about reil based vehicles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, I still occasionally, Unfortunately I don't have
Speaker 1: them every night. I have semi recurring dreams about getting
Speaker 1: to ride special train cars on like the subway or
Speaker 1: our local rail system here in Atlanta, though it's usually
Speaker 1: kind of like an unreal, uh subway system I'm engaging in,
Speaker 1: but like a chance where oh I get to ride
Speaker 1: this like open vehicle that's traveling through the subway tunnels
Speaker 1: or some sort of bizarre say, and it it like
Speaker 1: it occurs with some regular frequency, and my my dreams
Speaker 1: I don't always remember it all that well, but yeah,
Speaker 1: something about strange train cars. I'm I'm just really drawn to.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say, like a fancy
Speaker 1: you know, orient express style, uh dining car on Marta. Oh,
Speaker 1: I would be up for that as well. Yeah, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite museums. Uh. There are so many great
Speaker 1: museums in New York, but the Public Transit Rail Museum
Speaker 1: is so great because it's an actual subway station and
Speaker 1: it's filled with just different historical train cars and you
Speaker 1: can just walk through them and explore. It's it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Oh that sounds cool. Maybe one day huh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: one day I'll get back up there. Alright. This next
Speaker 1: message is about the Fatim Organa episode. This comes from Alexander.
Speaker 1: Alexander says, Hello, Robert and Joe. Hope you guys are
Speaker 1: safe and well. I've been a fan of the podcast
Speaker 1: for some years now, and to someone who listens mostly
Speaker 1: to comedy shows, your weekly discussions give me real food
Speaker 1: for thought. I love the informal and really interesting tone
Speaker 1: of the conversations and the themes of the episodes. So
Speaker 1: when hearing the episode about the Fatim Morgana, I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but think of a minor character of the anime Narudo.
Speaker 1: And as you guys ask for representations of the shin
Speaker 1: in media, here you go. Also, English is not my
Speaker 1: first language, so bear with me. No worries at all,
Speaker 1: Alexander rob what's a quick refresher on the shin Oh.
Speaker 1: A giant clan that lives in the deep and belches
Speaker 1: up a column of of ectoplasm that forms like fairy
Speaker 1: castles and cities in the sky, on the horizon, in
Speaker 1: the in the Sea of Japan. Yeah, amazing, like giant
Speaker 1: clam monsters burping up bubbles that turn into visions. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you and yeah, you don't want to go
Speaker 1: following it because it's not really there. You can't really
Speaker 1: live there, you can't really explore it. Um you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's fairy fire that will lead you to your
Speaker 1: down excellent summary. The message continues. So Naruto is a
Speaker 1: pretty famous anime that tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki,
Speaker 1: a young ninja who seeks recognition from his peers and
Speaker 1: dreams of becoming the the hokag I think the leader
Speaker 1: of his village, while dealing with the mythical spirit of
Speaker 1: the Kyubi, a nine tailed fox sealed in his body.
Speaker 1: The Shin appears during the fourth Shinobi World War Arc,
Speaker 1: one of the final ones. The creature is a pretty
Speaker 1: straightforward representation of the Chinese myth and also has the
Speaker 1: ability to create mirages and delusions. The giant Clam appears
Speaker 1: as a personal summon of the second Mizukag, the leader
Speaker 1: of the hidden village of the Mist, resurrected to fight
Speaker 1: in the Ninja World War. It's capable of producing a
Speaker 1: mist that creates a deceptive mirage that renders observers unable
Speaker 1: to locate the position of the summinar or the clam itself.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, it was a very interesting use of
Speaker 1: the Chinese myth of the Shin. I'm also attaching a
Speaker 1: link of the clam scene with the English sub so
Speaker 1: you guys can better understand the role of the creature
Speaker 1: in the anime. Unfortunately, when I clicked on it, the
Speaker 1: video is unavailable, so I think snatched by the piracy bots.
Speaker 1: Those bots that someday they'll pay back. In Alexander's message
Speaker 1: p S, I would also love to make a suggestion
Speaker 1: for the future. It would be really cool to hear
Speaker 1: an episode about the Amazon, Pink river dolphin. I'm from
Speaker 1: Brazil and this aquatical mammal is and an extremely interesting
Speaker 1: animal with a rich mythical background and repercussions on the
Speaker 1: sociology or anthropology of indigenous groups. Thank you for your
Speaker 1: great podcast. Keep up the good work. Smiley face emoji
Speaker 1: which for some reason, when I copy and paste turns
Speaker 1: into a capital J. I don't know what to do
Speaker 1: about that. Let's see for starters. UM. I have not
Speaker 1: seen this anime in question. Uh, And of course wasn't
Speaker 1: able to get that link to work, but I am
Speaker 1: vaguely aware that it exists, so I don't know. MAYBO
Speaker 1: have to check it out of enjoying a lot of
Speaker 1: high quality animation these days. Oh and then secondly pink
Speaker 1: river dolphin. Yeah, I would love to do something on
Speaker 1: pink river dolphins. Uh, dolphins in general, just a fascinating topic. UM.
Speaker 1: In a recent listener mail, we listen we heard, We
Speaker 1: asked everyone, it's like, hey, what's some relaxing music you dig?
Speaker 1: We heard from a couple of people. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to read their complete emails, but I would just want
Speaker 1: to mention some of the the music that they recommended.
Speaker 1: H William, responding on the discussion module, said that they
Speaker 1: too are fans of Biosphere that we brought up, but
Speaker 1: also mentioned another artist that I dig, Rook Schnouse, as
Speaker 1: well as an artist by name of William Basinski, who
Speaker 1: I think I've listened to a little bit before. I
Speaker 1: think they're known for these like using degenerating tapes um
Speaker 1: to create interesting soundscapes. Oh, that's interesting. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite things actually that that the Internet is good for
Speaker 1: is recordings of dying sound playing chips that are implanted
Speaker 1: in greeting cards that play music. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of really good ones there. There's one that I
Speaker 1: used to listen to all the time. It was the
Speaker 1: Happy Birthday Song, but it was of course not able
Speaker 1: to quite produce the clarity and crispness and power that
Speaker 1: it once did when it was first purchased, so it
Speaker 1: rendered this absolute dirge of death for your birthday. Another
Speaker 1: one that I think I shared with you not too
Speaker 1: long ago was playing the Baja Mens who Let the
Speaker 1: Dogs Out? But as the machines spiraled down to its doom,
Speaker 1: the who let the Dogs Out chorus became increasingly forlorn. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good one for sure. Um, let's see
Speaker 1: they speaking of which is not really decayed um audio
Speaker 1: loops or anything. But I'm also a big fan of
Speaker 1: Steve Reich's music for eighteen musicians if anyone out there
Speaker 1: is looking for something to try out. But what William
Speaker 1: also mentions, uh Billow observatory that I'm not familiar with,
Speaker 1: and also brings up, of course Brian Eno, especially Brian
Speaker 1: ENO's work with Robert Fripp. Love Brian Eno. Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: In fact, we heard from another listener by the name
Speaker 1: of Jarry who wanted to write you in just about
Speaker 1: you Know, um that they that they basically go on
Speaker 1: at length here about how great you Know's work is
Speaker 1: and lists list some stuff to check out. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go into all of it here, but they
Speaker 1: do pinpoints some of the big ones, like music for airports, atmospheres,
Speaker 1: and soundtracks. I'm a big fan personally of what music
Speaker 1: music for films that has a or whatever it was called,
Speaker 1: where it's like little bits of of soundtrack score for
Speaker 1: non existent films that he put together. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: we've talked on the show before about how we both
Speaker 1: agreed that music for airports should actually be played in
Speaker 1: airports instead of whatever god awful racket that they're pumping
Speaker 1: out of, like the TVs they've got up in there too.
Speaker 1: If you run an airport, please don't have TVs running
Speaker 1: in the terminal areas. That is just a recipe for
Speaker 1: incredible stress and misery. Yeah. I don't know why. I
Speaker 1: don't know why music for airports was ignored by airports. Uh.
Speaker 1: They also mentioned, you know, his work with Cluster we've
Speaker 1: talked about. I know that you're you're a fan of
Speaker 1: Cluster as well. Um, he's worked he worked on Ambient
Speaker 1: to the Plateau of Mirror, worked on that with Harold Budd,
Speaker 1: who's another big name in ambient sound. Um. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: just there's just so much, so much great stuff that
Speaker 1: the you knows put out over the years, and still
Speaker 1: it was putting out great ambient material. What I apologize
Speaker 1: if I missed it? Did? Did you already mentioned Bowie's
Speaker 1: Eno collaboration period? No? No, but that's that's amazing stuff
Speaker 1: as well. Does that include the Bowie album Low? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't know that. To answer to that, Wait,
Speaker 1: Seth has chimed in, Seth has chimed in. Yes, it
Speaker 1: does Low is one of my favorite David Bowie albums.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not as fun as some of his
Speaker 1: other albums. It's very uh dark and it it has
Speaker 1: the feeling of looking at the twentieth century from a
Speaker 1: hermetically sealed chamber through a curved piece of glass. But
Speaker 1: it is. It is a dark and beautiful album, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the electronic and synthesizer work I think,
Speaker 1: especially on the second half of the album, feels very
Speaker 1: very like dark you know. Yeah. One of the things
Speaker 1: about you know, of course, is when I think of
Speaker 1: you know, I do think of his ambiat work. But
Speaker 1: I did a lot of material. He put out a
Speaker 1: lot of material if you want to if anyone out
Speaker 1: there wants to hear like the funkier side of Eno.
Speaker 1: DJ Food put out a wonderful mix eleven years ago
Speaker 1: now who titled more Volts the Funky Eno. If you
Speaker 1: look it up you can still find it. DJ Food
Speaker 1: has it hosted on SoundCloud, and uh, I haven't listened
Speaker 1: to it in a little bit, but I remember it
Speaker 1: being a lot of fun, just a lot of of cool,
Speaker 1: funky beats from Brian Eno working with various people like
Speaker 1: David byrne Um uh and and so forth. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: also very versatile, because yes, there there is that funky side.
Speaker 1: But then music for airports is just the most calming
Speaker 1: thing I have ever heard. I mean, is is there
Speaker 1: any series of sounds that better puts the brain at
Speaker 1: at peace? Yeah? Yeah? How mad can you be when
Speaker 1: you're listening to music for airports? Yeah? It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I missed my connection. You know it's gonna be all right.
Speaker 1: All right, looks like we have some weird how cinema
Speaker 1: email as well here Joe. That's right. So this first
Speaker 1: message comes from Jim. Jim says, hey, Robert and Joe,
Speaker 1: you mentioned on the listener mail that sometimes you should
Speaker 1: do a Ken Russell film on weird House cinema. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are many great ones from Ken Russell, but my
Speaker 1: recommendation is Layer of the White Worm nineteen nine eight.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're right about that year, Jim. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that is wrong, but I will be
Speaker 1: corrected if I'm wrong about that. Rob. Maybe you can
Speaker 1: look it up while I'm reading this. It's adapted from
Speaker 1: a novel by Bram Stoker and as several well known
Speaker 1: stars Hugh Grant, Peter Capaldi, Katherine Oxenberg. It's about a
Speaker 1: British vampuric snake cult. It's fun, funny, sexy, lightly scary.
Speaker 1: I think it might be available on to be right
Speaker 1: now if you have that app. Thanks for all your work,
Speaker 1: Jim and Jim. Yes, you you know our strike zone.
Speaker 1: I love this movie definitely one that I've been planning
Speaker 1: to feature at some point. Uh. Layer of the White Worm.
Speaker 1: In fact, I thought I had mentioned it on a
Speaker 1: recent weird House cinema because we were talking about blasphemous
Speaker 1: like crucifixion scenes and movies, and Lair of the White
Speaker 1: Worm has a really good like uh snake demon, blasphemous
Speaker 1: crucifixion vision. Yeah, and I looked it up. It's a
Speaker 1: film so close one decade off. Yeah, it's been a
Speaker 1: while since I've seen it, but I remember being a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. It has a Yeah, it's a uh
Speaker 1: sexy and weird and has a really cool worm puppet
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, just glorious, absolutely great. All right, here's
Speaker 1: a bit of email comes to us from Emily. Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. Let me start off by saying, I've
Speaker 1: been loving the steady stream of stuff toble your mind
Speaker 1: content coming through my pod catcher, especially weird how Cinema.
Speaker 1: Y'all killing the game? Please continue anyway, I'm writing with
Speaker 1: the suggestion for weird House. I feel like you guys
Speaker 1: have brought it up before, but I don't remember the context.
Speaker 1: So maybe this is one of your two watch list.
Speaker 1: This is on your two watch list already. Nine seventy
Speaker 1: two is Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull. Has been
Speaker 1: on my personal to watch list since high school, and
Speaker 1: my husband and I are just getting around to why
Speaker 1: watching it recently. I'd love to get you guys this
Speaker 1: take on it. My favorite thing about the experience of
Speaker 1: watching fifty year old sci fi movies is sitting with
Speaker 1: that feeling, uh, with your disbelief. Can't quite stay suspended
Speaker 1: as a modern watcher, because the film depicts technology is
Speaker 1: basically quote magic dressed in greebals and blinking lights um
Speaker 1: hand waving away exactly how the machine does what it's
Speaker 1: shown doing, like the robots being advanced enough to understand
Speaker 1: natural speech while also running on basically punch card programs,
Speaker 1: which are themselves sophisticated enough to enable said robots to
Speaker 1: perform surgery and play poker. I don't know if general
Speaker 1: audiences in the nineteen seventies would have felt that same
Speaker 1: challenge to the suspension of disbelief, or if I just
Speaker 1: learned too much ding dang science from the wealth of
Speaker 1: accessible science content available in this day and age, including
Speaker 1: in No Small Park this very podcast. Anyway, keep out
Speaker 1: the great work and stay safe out there. Looking forward
Speaker 1: to the next batch of podcasts. Regards Emily, I think
Speaker 1: the main takeaway from Silent Running is just surgery. Isn't
Speaker 1: that hard? Basically anybody could do it. Yeah, with the
Speaker 1: right punch card. But no, Emily, You're in luck. We
Speaker 1: did a whole episode about Silent Running sometime in nineteen
Speaker 1: I believe, Yeah, June eight, nineteen, just simply titled Silent Running.
Speaker 1: It's one of the episodes that we did a series
Speaker 1: of episodes that we did with They were ultimately kind
Speaker 1: of a precursor to Weird House Cinema, where we were like,
Speaker 1: what do we need to do to get away with
Speaker 1: talking about weird movies on this podcast, And you know,
Speaker 1: we realized, well, certain types of movies lent themselves well
Speaker 1: to that kind of discussion, because like two thousand and
Speaker 1: one of Space Odyssey's Silent Running. These are films with
Speaker 1: a lot of science in them to discuss, you know,
Speaker 1: whether the science works ride or is presented in a
Speaker 1: way that makes sense. It's said, that's all part of
Speaker 1: the discussion. Yeah, but obviously things have evolved since then.
Speaker 1: You know, if we're gonna be putting out five episodes
Speaker 1: a week, at least one of them we're just gonna
Speaker 1: talk about movies. Yeah. But indeed, Silent Running great film.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'll always of it and I recommend
Speaker 1: it to anybody out there who wants to, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: seek out a weird, cool, well acted, um piece of
Speaker 1: sci fi cinematic history. A great soundtrack too. I love
Speaker 1: the Joe Bias tracks. All right, Well, it looks like
Speaker 1: our mail bot is shutting down, so we need to
Speaker 1: go ahead and shut down this episode as well. But
Speaker 1: we thank everybody for writing in. We didn't get to
Speaker 1: get to everything, but you know, we'll we'll try and
Speaker 1: get to it next week. Um. Even if we don't
Speaker 1: read your mail on Listener mail, we still read it
Speaker 1: when it comes in. So keep it coming. Your your
Speaker 1: your your comments, your thoughts, your corrections, your ideas for
Speaker 1: the future, thoughts on Stuff Table your Mind episodes, thoughts
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema episodes, thoughts on Artifact episodes, etcetera. Uh,
Speaker 1: we just want to hear from y'all. Absolutely keep it coming,
Speaker 1: you know. Actually, I thought when we switched to doing
Speaker 1: episodes once a week that that would mean we we
Speaker 1: ended up having time to read all listener mail. It
Speaker 1: did not work out that way. I feel like we
Speaker 1: still don't even get to have off of it. So
Speaker 1: apologies if your message has not been read, please don't
Speaker 1: take it personally. But we we love all the email
Speaker 1: we get. We really do. That's right. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind listener mail, it tends to publish
Speaker 1: on Mondays. I think that's its standard date of publication.
Speaker 1: Wednesdays will do an Artifact unless we need to preempt it.
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays are our core Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind episodes, Friday is Weird How Cinema, and then we
Speaker 1: have evolved episode over the weekend. That's right. Hook your
Speaker 1: ears up, download it all, listen, do as we command you,
Speaker 1: but anyway, huge thanks as always to our excellent audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us to potentially have a piece of
Speaker 1: email featured on a future Listener Mail episode, to provide
Speaker 1: feedback to this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hi, you
Speaker 1: can always email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
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