WEBVTT - 9 Sneaky Ways to Send a Message 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.880 You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:26.200 and iHeartRadio. Guess what give? What's that Mango? So, as 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.440 you know, I love spy stuff. I love detective stuff. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.440 And as a kid, I was very into creating secret 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.479 codes and ridiculous ways to communicate to my friends and 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.800 stuff like that, like what exactly what are we talking about? 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.200 It was like secret knocks to get into a clubhouse, 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.920 or passwords or phrases sometimes code words for other people. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.800 My friend Rajish made up this nonsensical language that was 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.120 honestly just goofy, and so it was funny phrases for 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.200 like passing the salt or pepper at the table and 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.120 things that would make our parents confused. And then I 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.600 had a friend later, this is more like sixth grade, 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.040 we came up with a way of writing and passing 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.000 notes that was really easy to write super quickly, but 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:08.760 really hard to decipher if a teacher or like another 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.240 kid found it. And so I was into that type 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.200 of stuff. It was just like fun to do. And 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:15.880 this week I was reading about one of the earliest 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:20.000 secret languages, and honestly, it might be the weirdest communication 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.759 method I've ever heard of, and not one I would 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:29.240 have ever schemed up. It is scalp tattoos sounds painful, 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.240 What is this? It definitely was, But sometimes you have 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.120 to deliver a message. So this goes back to the 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.920 fifth century VCE, when Isteos, the ruler of Malatas in 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.840 Anchi in Greece, needed to get a very sensitive message 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:47.720 to his buddy Aristogoros, and the message was maybe it's 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.000 time to revolt against the Persians. Right, he can't exactly 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:52.800 just send a courier with a scroll, because you know 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.040 there are Persians everywhere. So here's what he does. He 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.240 shaves the head of his most trusted servant, tattoos the 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.400 message right onto the scalp, and then waits and weeks later, 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.240 once the hair GRoWES back, the servant is sent off 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:09.520 to Malatos, and when he arrives, Arista Goas shaves the 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.880 poor guy's head again and boom, the revolt is on. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.600 Is both ingenious and horrified totally, but I guess it 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.280 worked because the Germans apparently used it again in World 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.080 War Two, which is insane. Anyway. I like it because 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.840 it's like the ultimate don't shoot the messenger, and mainly 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.440 because you have to shave him first. But that is 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.560 the first of nine facts we've got today about secret languages, 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:58.520 So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.120 Part Time Genius. I'm Munga Shiti there and Will is 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:05.120 out today, but I'm here with writer extraordinary Gabe Lucier 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:05.760 on the line. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.280 Hey, Gab, how's it going pretty good? How are you 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:09.280 doing well? 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.760 And of course, over in the corner, that's our wonderful 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.320 friend and producer Dylan Fagan, who is holding up two 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:19.760 giant que cards with random pictures of a banana, a biscuit. Oh, 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.480 he's adding a few three squirrels on another one, which 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.560 I guess is a secret language of his own. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.440 Yeah, I honestly can't believe he said that on air. 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.960 That's pretty scandalous. I mean he added a tomato card. 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:33.799 Uh uh Okay, Yeah, I see what he's saying now. 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:36.120 That's actually really sweet, So thank you, Dylan. 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.560 I take it back. Yeah, Dylan's a sweetheart. Okay, enough 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.200 of that game. I mentioned I was into codes and 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.560 secret languages. Also at home, we spoke like this obscure 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.920 Indian dialect, so I practically had a secret language with 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.400 my parents. Anyway, But do you have any secret language experience? Well, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:55.240 as a kid, I actually I used to talk out 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.720 of the side of my mouth, and so pretty much 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:00.680 only my family could understand what I was saying. They 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:02.120 kind of had to interpret it. So that was a 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.840 kind of secret language. I think it was more of 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.960 a nervous habit really, But which side? Let me see 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.040 if I can get back into the Yeah, it was 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:15.000 the right side. Also, my brother and I we tried 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.839 to teach ourselves pig Latin at one point, but we 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.040 could never really understand what the other word's saying, so 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.599 it didn't work out. I love it, so gave what 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:26.920 is your first fact today? All right? 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.599 So I am reasonably certain that neither of us have 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.800 scalp tattoos. I can't really tell, I guess until one 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.520 of us gets lice. But a little call back there. 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.480 But one ancient form of secret messaging that I bet 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.000 we've all tried before is writing with invisible ink. So 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.440 most of us discover this as kids writing with lemon 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.400 juice or vinegar and then holding the paper up to 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:49.680 a light bulb to make the letters appear. But when 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.960 the technique was developed in ancient Greece and Rome. It 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.760 wasn't a game. It was used for military and political espionage. 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.520 And the way it works is the acid weakens paper 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.599 fibers and reduces their burn temperature, so when you apply 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.560 heat to those areas, they turn brown faster than the 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.640 rest of the paper. You can also write with a 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.880 base ink like baking soda, and trigger a similar color 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:12.360 change by applying an acid. 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.040 You know, it's funny because on one hand it is 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.640 seriously clever, right, but it also seems like it would 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.159 only work the first few times, Like, once someone knows 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.080 the trick, it's much easier to check for a hidden messages, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:24.919 I'd imagine. 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.720 Yeah, right, yeah, And by the time the American Revolution 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.520 rolled around, both sides were using invisible ink, and both 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.000 sides knew it. It became standard practice, you know, to 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.479 test intercepted messages with heat and acid, which kind of 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.160 made the whole thing pointless. Luckily, though, an amateur chemist 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.400 named James J was on the case. He developed a 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.120 formula for a new kind of ink, one that could 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:54.000 only be made visible by a specific corresponding chemical or reagent. 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.159 So no matter how much heat the British applied, the 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:01.280 invisible message would stay invisible. Once this ink was ready 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.279 to go, James teamed up with his more famous younger brother, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.080 John Jay. Perhaps you've heard of it. Oh yeah, He 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.520 helped get the ink into George Washington's hands. So Washington 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.800 distributed it to spies in British occupied New York during 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.240 the war, and they used it to write messages on 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:21.080 blank pages of books. And despite being searched on multiple occasions, 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.480 none of this secret writing was ever discovered by the British. 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.000 That is incredible, And that's also incredible that John Jay 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:28.760 had a connection to this. I didn't even know you 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.920 had a brother, So what was in this secret formula? 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.640 Jay never revealed what was in the ink because writing 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.080 down the recipe would have been too dangerous. Fortunately, though, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.880 some of the letters written in his invisible ink survived 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.000 the war, and in the nineteen thirties, a doctor named 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:49.520 Lodovic Bendixen studied those samples to determine the ink's composition. 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.599 Turns out it was made from the tannic acid of 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.320 gall nuts, which aren't nuts at all. 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:57.080 See when a wasp. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.200 Blazed its eggs on the branches of an oak tree, 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.680 the tree defends itself by entombing the eggs inside a 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.600 big woody growth. And that's what a goal nut is. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.280 It's a wooden cocoon full of dead wasp eggs. That 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.960 is gross. I love it. I also love that like 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.240 it took to the nineteen thirties for people to figure 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.520 out what this was. You know, it's pretty amazing. But 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:19.440 what was it about the reagent that revealed ink? 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:21.720 Like? Do we ever find out what that was? And 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.120 was it as disgusting as a call nut? Because if so, 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.760 you can you can just not tell us. We did 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.200 find out, but don't worry. It was just an iron 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.559 supplement called ferris sulfate, which is often used to lower 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.000 the pH level and soil. It was a pretty obscure 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.720 pair of chemicals to put together. But that's exactly why 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:39.960 the British didn't figure it out. 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.239 Way to go, James, j right, Seriously, he's the lesser 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.200 j But I don't know we could make the case for. 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.000 Anyway. What do you got next, Mago? Well, I'm gonna 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.480 take it to the Victorian area. And if you were 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.800 a fancy lady back then, you were actually fancy, by 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.080 which I mean, of course you didn't go anywhere without 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.480 an elaborate handheld fan, typically made of silk or fine parchment. 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.560 In fact, you'd have different fans for different occasions, and 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:08.840 the one you took to church might have a Bible 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:10.560 scene painted on it, while the one you use for 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.120 parties would have a festive image of people dancing. Right. But, 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.280 according to a famous French fan maker, women also used 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:22.040 fans to send secret messages to their gentlemen admirers. For example, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.080 if a woman held a fan in front of her 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.720 face with her right hand, that meant follow me. Twirling 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.600 the fan in her left hand meant we're being watched. 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.840 And perhaps my favorite, opening the fan and snapping it 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:35.240 shut meant you. 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:41.400 Are cruel, amazing. But how did the gentleman admirers understand 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.400 all this? Was there some kind of codebook you had 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.199 to buy. Yeah, so that's the thing that famous fan 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.960 maker I mentioned. His name was Jules de vell Roy 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.560 and he ran the family fan business with locations in 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.320 London and Paris. Now, during the French Revolution, the French 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.400 fan maker's guild had shut down and demand for fans 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.160 had dropped because you know, they were really the symbol 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.480 of the aristocracy. So many decades later, and this is 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.280 In the eighteen fifties, Jewels decides to make fans a 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.840 must have item again, and he publishes a pamphlet titled 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.679 The Language of the Fan, with a list of over 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.520 two dozen gestures and romantic meanings. And this is all 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.360 just a marketing play, but you got to give them credit. 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.080 The stunt worked sales took off, and devell Roy actually 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:27.600 became Queen Victoria's go to fan guy. Huh, So it 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.360 was all a hoax then, like the fancy Ladies weren't 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.440 sending secret messages via fan. 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.520 So first of all, let's call it marketing. Second, devell 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.080 Roy didn't invent that idea out of thin air. In 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.800 the seventeen hundreds, there were party games that involved fans 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.800 printed with like trivia questions on one side and answers 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.320 on the other. There were also some fans with the 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.280 letters of the alphabet in the fold, so you could 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.680 use them to spell out messages, and historians believe fans 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.720 may have been used in pre revolutionary France to display 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.000 political slogans. But none of this rose to the level 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.000 of an actual widespread messaging system that everyone was using. Right, 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.480 That part was all made up. On the other hand, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.360 you don't really need a codebook to figure out what 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.360 it means. If someone flutters they're faning giggles, or if 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.199 they suddenly point their fan towards the door where their 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.360 angry father is running in through it, I think you 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.080 pretty much get the gist there. Yeah, all right. 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.720 So, as you know, I moved to Tennessee two years ago, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.800 and one of the most unexpected pleasures about that has 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.480 been acquainting myself with the South's ubiquitous breakfast chain, the 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.320 waffle House. Are you familiar, of. 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.160 Course, I mean I went to school in North Carolina. 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:39.079 We lived in Atlanta for a bit. I took photos 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:45.839 of Ruby's first baby's first waffle house a milestone. It's 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:47.760 a traditional Southern milestones. 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:51.960 Well, yeah, you really can't miss them, I guess if 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.560 you drive through the South or the Midwest. But you know, 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.000 the food is standard diner. Fair waffles are obviously a 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.320 big draw, as are the hash browns, which you can 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.480 order at least eight different ways. But what really won 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:08.080 me over is the intensely complicated plate marking system that 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.600 the staff uses to keep track of orders. So, unlike 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.680 most restaurants, waffle House doesn't use a ticket system to 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.280 relay orders to the kitchen. Instead, servers call them out verbally, 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.360 and cooks immediately start marking plates with condiment packets and 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.880 little scraps of ingredients so they won't forget the specifics. 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.200 For example, if a customer wants a plane waffle, the 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:31.760 cook puts one packet of butter on the plate right 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.880 side up. For two waffles, they stack two packs of butter, 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.559 and for a pecan waffle, they flip the butter upside down. 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.360 I'd heard tell of like a system, but I haven't 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.840 actually like watched for it. I feel like I need 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.760 to look the next time there. But you know, it 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:48.640 sounds easy enough, I guess if you figure it out. 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.320 Well, Yeah, I started with waffles because they're the simplest 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:54.040 the things spiral pretty. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:54.960 Fast with the other items. 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.959 Yeah, Like, to signify a standard order of two eggs, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.880 you put a right side up jelly packet on a plate. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.520 But if a customer wants just one egg, then you've 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:07.439 got to put a ketchup packet underneath the jelly obviously, 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.200 And if they want three eggs, you put a mustard 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.440 packet underneath instead. Yeah, and it gets weirder from there. Actually, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.520 the position and orientation of each item on the plate 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.000 communicates how the order should be prepared. So a jelly 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.760 packet at the bottom center of the plate means two 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.040 eggs scrambled, but for sunny side up the jelly goes 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.160 at the top center, and for regular fried eggs, the 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.120 jelly goes in the middle of the plate, on the 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.439 left hand side for over easy, middle for over medium, 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.640 and right for over heart. 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.080 I don't know whether I'm dizzy from trying to like 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:46.400 keep up with it or hungry from hearing about all 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.040 these breakfast orders. But what if someone just wants like 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.160 toast with their eggs? Okay, So in. 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.640 That case, the cook would use a platter instead of 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.360 a plate, and the jelly packet pulls double duty by 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.400 indicating both the eggs and the toast. The jelly is 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.800 placed right side up for white toast, upside down for wheat, 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.520 and for raisin toast, just swap out the jelly for 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.680 a packet of apple butter. As for those famous hash browns, 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.480 they're indicated simply by sprinkling a few potato shreds at 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:14.360 the top of the plate. And once you get into 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:18.720 omelets and breakfast sandwiches, things get complicated again, but I'll 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.480 let you discover those for yourself. There's actually a twenty 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:25.120 minute training video online that breaks down all the possible 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.880 permutations of the marker system, which every waffle House cook 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:29.560 has to learn. 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.080 You know, I am weirdly fascinating enough that I feel 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.360 like I would go watch that twenty minute video but 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.640 also recommend it. It doesn't it feel well, It feels 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:42.880 one like it should be playing in the background of parties. 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.160 But yes, I haven't made a few people watch it. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.880 But also like, wouldn't if you just so much easier 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.120 to write down the orders like every other restaurant. 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.880 I mean, yeah, sure, but I do kind of admire 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.440 how needlessly elaborate it is. It's a very Rube Goldberg 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:01.079 approach to to ordering breakfast. 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.839 Yeah, and I guess you know, waffle House already has 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:05.880 endeared itself to people, and it makes it a little 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.360 more special. Okay, so we have to take a quick break, 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.480 but when we get back, we have four more weird 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.440 messaging techniques that everyone should maybe not learn, but hear 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:33.640 about it. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to part time Genius. 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.800 We're talking about nine of the strangest, most elaborate ways 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.600 of sending messages. But if you want to send us 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.000 a message, we have made it super easy. Just email 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.440 us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's Hi, Geniuses, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.400 or call our hotline at three oh two four oh 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.720 five five nine two five. You can ask us a question, 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.480 share an idea for a future episode, tell us what 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.480 you think of the show, tell us what you think 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.200 of waffle house. Whatever we want to hear from you. 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.120 So please get in touch. Okay, So, Gabe, here's one 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.200 I like, mostly because of the name. Have you ever 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:13.200 heard of Wigwag? I don't think I've had the pleasure. No, Well, 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.040 get excited. Wigwag goes back to the eighteen fifties and 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.640 it was invented by an Army surgeon. His name was 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.840 Albert J. Meyer. Meyer had actually done his doctoral thesis 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.520 on a language for the hearing impaired. He'd been a 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.840 telegraph operator in med school and later while stationed in Texas, 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.480 he thought, what if you could take the idea of 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:36.600 telegraph signals and do it visually, kind of like smoke signals. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:41.000 And so his solution was get one big flag and 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.760 instead of semaphore, which uses two flags, wigwag just decided 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.200 to use one right, so you wag it left for 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.520 one symbol, right for another, and you'd use repeating motions 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.040 to make letters. So I was a wag left, T 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.400 was a wag right, and letter V was one left, 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.760 followed by three rights, which from a distance to people 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:02.440 who didn't speak, I'm sure either looked like you were 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:06.000 trying to shoe bees or the world's saddest interpretive dance. 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:09.960 I love that this is just as complicated as the 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.880 waffle house marker system. But was there just like one 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.080 colored flag that they were using for this, or could 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:17.400 you use any flag you had handy? 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.000 Yeah, that's actually a good question. The flags were square, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.080 and they could be red, white, or black, and basically 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.840 it was for whatever stood out against the background you 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.640 were against right. And this is in the eighteen fifties 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.360 into the eighteen sixties. So once the Union Army got 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.760 serious about it, they actually built towers and used church 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.080 steeples so the messages could be seen for miles. And 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.040 there's a famous story where at Gettysburg, when the actual 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:47.480 Signal Corps officer retreats, a Union soldier famously grabs a 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.040 bed sheet and just keeps waving. Of course, there was 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.640 a hitch here because you know, both sides had trained 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.520 together before the war, so the Confederates actually knew the code, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.960 so the Union started using cipher dis to scramble their messages. Anyway, 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.359 here's my favorite part. So after the war, Meyer's successor 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.480 publishes the entire code in a book and then he 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:11.120 gets fired for basically leaking state secrets. That is. 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.879 It also just dawned on me that wigwag is probably 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:14.959 short for wiggle waggles. 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:16.400 Right, that's horrible. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.040 So how long did wigwag last? 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.680 It was around for a while, but by World War One, 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.640 you know, standing in a field waving a big red 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.119 flag was basically making yourself a target. So the system 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.520 was retired in favor of Morse code. Okay, mango, there's 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.640 a piece of paper on the table in front of you. 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.040 Don't worry about how it got there. Just take a 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:37.280 look at it and tell. 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:37.879 Me what you see. 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.439 Okay, got it. It's a normal sentence, typed up. It 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:46.640 says we should do more episodes about peanuts. I've heard 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:48.440 this from you before. I know you love the peanuts. 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.800 I love the peanuts, but Mary might kill us. 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.080 Yeah, I know, I still think you guys are wrong 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.359 about this, but I don't mean the words on the page. 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.080 Look closer, after. 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.679 The words, what do you see, just the punctuation like 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.119 the period no memi zens bingo. Yes, except that's not 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.320 a period at all, It's a micro dot. So this 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.120 is an incredible miniature messaging system that has its roots 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.560 in the Franco Prussian War of eighteen seventy. A Parisian 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:21.280 photographer named Renee de Grann invented microfilm, which allowed French 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.359 troops to shrink messages onto tiny bits of film that 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.600 could be flown out of occupied Paris by carrier pigeons. 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.760 So at the nineteen twenty five International Congress on Photography, 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.879 an inventor named Emmanuel Goldberg took this idea further. He 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.240 shrank a page of text to an area of about 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.840 zero point zero one square millimeters. Wow, and at that 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.480 size you could print the entire Bible fifty times in 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.480 a single squirt inch. That is insane, I know. And 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.480 so Goldberg called his invention Mikrotz, which became known as 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.840 micro dots, and during World War Two and the Cold War, 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.840 micro dots played a huge role in secret communication spies 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.800 shrank thousands of documents and hid them in eyeglass frames, dolls, 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.159 book bindings, jewelry, even under their fingernails. And of course, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.760 because the average micro dot was about the size of 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.919 a period, they'd sometimes adhere the dots to books and 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.960 newspapers where they just looked like, you know, part of 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:21.000 the printed page. And what's really impressive to me is 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.320 that they were doing all of this before computers. Oh yeah, 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.120 that's that's really fascinating. I mean, you think about that 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.479 as something that's so easy to do with computers, but 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.520 I hadn't considered that this is like an elaborate old process. 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:34.640 It's so much more work. 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.879 Yeah, and it could all be done with photography equipment today. 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.640 There were different techniques, some more sophisticated than others, and 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.840 along the way people did invent special cameras to generate 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.640 micro dots. But even with a regular camera you could 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.840 do it. Basically, you'd photograph a document so it filled 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:54.040 a frame of film, develop that, then mount the negative 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.680 on black cardboard with a whole cutout so you could 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.359 light it from behind. That way the text on the 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.719 negative was visible. And finally you take a close up 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.080 photo of the negative, creating an image less than a 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.159 millimeter long, and in order to see what was on 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.199 the image, you just needed a microscope. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.359 That is so cool. But right now, more than anything, 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:15.679 I'm curious what is in the micro dot that you made. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.320 It's a script for an episode about the greatest peanut 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.280 strips in history. You know, it just incaded. 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.920 So I know, I told you about the secret language 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.600 of fans and the marketing trick behind their sales, which 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.480 I love. But because I'm a little obsessed with how 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.359 repressed people were in the Victorian era, I've actually got 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.159 another one from those times. Now. As we've alluded to, 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.440 social etiquette at the time was insanely strict. You basically 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:42.920 couldn't say I like you without you know, fainting into 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.040 a lace handkerchief, right. It was too much emotion, and 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:50.320 so they had their fans. But people also invented another workaround, 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.359 and that was floriography, aka the language of flowers, and 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.280 basically it let you send text messages with bouquets. Now, 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:01.000 men were particularly blunt about this. If they handed someone 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.720 a nosegay, which was a little mini bouquet, they were 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.840 basically trying to slid to your dms right, And so 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.800 there's the obvious. There's a red rose, which means I'm 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.879 in love with you, a yellow carnation which means I 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.399 disdain you, and buttercups, which means you're childish. So a 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.920 little negging perhaps there, but it gets more elaborate. Women 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.159 in high society would wear flowers in their hair, are 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:26.320 tucked into their gowns as accessories, but these were more coded. 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.320 A sweet pea meant thank you. If you pair it 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.640 with zinias, suddenly you've opped it to thank you, dear 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.520