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 McCormick.
Speaker 1: And today we're answering your listener mail. Or I don't
Speaker 1: know how much answering we're gonna do. We're at least
Speaker 1: gonna read your listener mail. We might offer thoughts about it,
Speaker 1: we might just put it out there and let it
Speaker 1: let it hang. But we're gonna get into some stuff
Speaker 1: about our episode on the Lock and Key, some responses
Speaker 1: to bug funerals, and we're going to address the ongoing
Speaker 1: stream that maybe we'll never stop of listener mail about
Speaker 1: robot jocks. It seems like people just can't get that
Speaker 1: out of their heads. And it's been a pleasant surprise
Speaker 1: because when I when I I think that was one
Speaker 1: that I I selected, and I was thinking to myself, Man,
Speaker 1: this one's so hard to find right now, perhaps I'm
Speaker 1: the only one who out there who has any kind
Speaker 1: of fond memories of this movie. Uh So it's been
Speaker 1: nice to see that other folks remember it as well.
Speaker 1: Now that's been an abso lute highlight of weird house
Speaker 1: cinema for me so far. I I think about robot
Speaker 1: jocks at least once a day. And we didn't even
Speaker 1: realize the serendipity when we picked it that one of
Speaker 1: the places it's actually streaming is called to be That's
Speaker 1: oh man. I didn't even really really put that together,
Speaker 1: but that's true. Yeah. Uh. Do you want to read
Speaker 1: this first message about our bug funeral episode from Jim
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. Yes, Jim in New Jersey, a longtime
Speaker 1: Listener mail correspondent here right in and says, Robert and Joe,
Speaker 1: you missed one of the best stories about E. O.
Speaker 1: Wilson and the Scent of Death for Ants. Radio Lab
Speaker 1: featured it a bit over ten years ago and include
Speaker 1: included a link for this you can look it up
Speaker 1: so by looking for Hey, I'm Dad, the story of
Speaker 1: the very lively Aunt. Oh, and we should say the
Speaker 1: subject line of Jim's email was Aunt's yelling I'm not
Speaker 1: dead yet anyway, Jim continues once the signal of death
Speaker 1: is an air which takes about two days. Any ant
Speaker 1: that happens by grabs the corpse and carries it through
Speaker 1: the colony to a refuse pile designated the graveyard and
Speaker 1: dumps it on a mound of also dead ants. Wilson
Speaker 1: wrote in his autobiography, I thought maybe with the right chemicals,
Speaker 1: I could create an artificial corpse. Wilson discovered that oleic acid,
Speaker 1: just a tiny, a teeny sorry drop of it was
Speaker 1: all the ants had to sniff to think dead. One day,
Speaker 1: he took a drop of the chemical and gently deposited
Speaker 1: it on an ant that had the misfortune of walking by.
Speaker 1: Wilson describes how as soon as he dabbed the ant,
Speaker 1: the next ant that came near, grabbed his aunt, slung
Speaker 1: it on its back, hiked over to the graveyard, and
Speaker 1: though the aunt was still very much alive kicking you know,
Speaker 1: says ed, flug it into the refuse pile. Dead is
Speaker 1: what you smell, not what you see, if you were
Speaker 1: an aunt. So though it tried to clean itself over
Speaker 1: and over, the minute it returned to the colony, it
Speaker 1: was grabbed, carried, and slung back on the pile. The
Speaker 1: zombie aunt was eventually able to clean itself sufficiently and
Speaker 1: rejoin the nest. Jim in New Jersey. Uh, that is morbid,
Speaker 1: but yes, very funny. Actually, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: was clear in the text of Jim's email, but I
Speaker 1: think that middle section was actually a quote from that
Speaker 1: NPR piece. We should just clear Okay. Yeah, and in
Speaker 1: that case, yeah, definitely go back and listen to it.
Speaker 1: Radio Lab has always been a wonderful show. Uh, And
Speaker 1: there archives are are rich and deep, as is the
Speaker 1: Aunt Graveyard. I would say, no resentment of rivalry whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Please go listen to Radio Lab. Yes, okay. This next
Speaker 1: message picks up from one of the tangents we went
Speaker 1: on in our Funeral for a Bug episodes. You remember,
Speaker 1: in that episode we started talking about some of the
Speaker 1: weird ironyes of pastoral poetry. So pastoral poetry is a
Speaker 1: you know, long running genre going back into the ancient
Speaker 1: world but still continuing into recent times, where the main
Speaker 1: thrust of it is that it sort of celebrates the
Speaker 1: rural existence as a as a as a peaceful, beautiful
Speaker 1: thing that is uncomplicated by all of the I don't
Speaker 1: know the sin and complexity of of city life. And
Speaker 1: so this message comes from Jacob and it picks up
Speaker 1: on one particular comment we had there subject line pastoral
Speaker 1: ism and YouTube. Jacob says, hey, Joe and Rob first
Speaker 1: time writer a longtime listener. I was listening to the
Speaker 1: January twenty one episode Funeral for a Bug and you
Speaker 1: wondered if shows like The Great British Baking Show were
Speaker 1: modern pastorals. I think there's something to that, but I
Speaker 1: can do one better. Since the pastoral, according to poets
Speaker 1: dot Org, idealizes a rural life and landscape, I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but think of the sub genre of YouTube videos.
Speaker 1: I've recently become addicted to building things, especially building things
Speaker 1: by hand using traditional techniques like blacksmithing, hand tool woodworking,
Speaker 1: timber framing, and so on. I've had quite a few
Speaker 1: in my subscription feed. But if you stand out as
Speaker 1: fitting the definition, primitive technology seems like the er example.
Speaker 1: But Mr Chickadee, Dylan Iwakuni, and t A Outdoors are
Speaker 1: some that I think also fit into the pastoral tradition.
Speaker 1: They usually have minimal dialogue, are set outside, and focus
Speaker 1: on the tool work. Unlike some other woodworking or maker
Speaker 1: centered channels, there's no attempt to instruct. It's literally watching
Speaker 1: someone build a cabin or a kiln or something out
Speaker 1: of basic materials like stone, wood or clay using hand
Speaker 1: powered tools. I'm struck by this comment from the poets
Speaker 1: dot Org definition quote. Ironically, the conventions of the pastoral
Speaker 1: genre were established by sophisticated urban poets whose beautific portrayals
Speaker 1: of rural life perpetuated fantasies and misconceptions about the rural lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that that was definitely one of the ironies
Speaker 1: we we touched on in the episode. It was like,
Speaker 1: all this stuff about how how nice it would be
Speaker 1: to be a shepherd, but you know, written by someone
Speaker 1: who's never been a shepherd and doesn't realize what kind
Speaker 1: of work is involved. But back to Jacob's message. Jacob says,
Speaker 1: I've done a little woodworking and home renovation, and working
Speaker 1: by hand is slow and physically demanding. It can be
Speaker 1: fun the way a good workout is fun. But the
Speaker 1: idealized notion that somehow this is the good life, the
Speaker 1: simple life, is way off. Rural life meant subsistence farming
Speaker 1: or labor, and that typically meant living on the edge
Speaker 1: of starvation one bad season or one serious injury or
Speaker 1: illness away from disaster. Hardly a desirable lifestyle, which makes
Speaker 1: me wonder what the appeal is for these channels, Because
Speaker 1: I'm hopelessly addicted, and judging by their subscribers, I'm not
Speaker 1: the only one. It's soothing to watch and listen to us.
Speaker 1: Some of them even tagged their videos as a s MR.
Speaker 1: But more than that, I'm gil ty of romanticizing exactly
Speaker 1: what I criticized above. I'm currently building a work bench
Speaker 1: for the and the first thing I decided to do
Speaker 1: was to do it all by hand. I don't have
Speaker 1: a great explanation for why, other than that it takes
Speaker 1: all my focus and as such puts me in a
Speaker 1: sort of flow or zen meditation state. It's also a
Speaker 1: bit of time travel learning a traditional craft. It helps
Speaker 1: you understand an era not your own. But that's a
Speaker 1: luxury of the relatively rich. If I were doing this
Speaker 1: for a living and hoping to sell enough to feed
Speaker 1: my family, I doubt I'd be calm or philosophical about it.
Speaker 1: Since it's a hobby, though, I can work at my
Speaker 1: own slow pace and think deep thoughts or listen to
Speaker 1: deep podcasts like Stuff to Blow your Mind while I
Speaker 1: do it. Love the show, keep up the good work,
Speaker 1: and you can absolutely read this on air with my
Speaker 1: name if you choose. Thanks Jacob, Well, Jacob we're always
Speaker 1: assuming we can read this on air with your name
Speaker 1: with the we we tend to leave off last names
Speaker 1: if you supply them. And if you're writing in about
Speaker 1: something and you you would prefer no name attached at all,
Speaker 1: that's perfectly cool. Just let us know that that's the case.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you can also write to us uh
Speaker 1: with a message that you would prefer us not to
Speaker 1: read on air. Just make sure you note that in
Speaker 1: the email. But yeah, I thought this was a really
Speaker 1: interesting message, and I think this is this is onto
Speaker 1: something that is very interesting. So there there are multiple
Speaker 1: threads to to pull on here. One is, yes, this uh,
Speaker 1: this sort of idealization of traditional rural types of labor uh,
Speaker 1: you know, farming type labor, woodworking type labor um and
Speaker 1: and the difference between doing that labor as a hobby
Speaker 1: where you have no time constraints really and you can
Speaker 1: just explore it at your leisure versus doing that kind
Speaker 1: of labor to survive, which is which is very different.
Speaker 1: I often think about this difference, um with cooking. You know,
Speaker 1: I do a lot of cooking at home, actually really
Speaker 1: enjoy cooking. Uh. And sometimes people will say like, oh,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about, you know, being a chef
Speaker 1: for working in restaurant. I have worked in restaurants, not
Speaker 1: as a cook. I've worked as a you know server,
Speaker 1: you know, bus boy and all that, and it's a
Speaker 1: totally different thing. I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: realize that if you're working in a restaurant kitchen, it
Speaker 1: is not the same kind of leisurely recreational fun activity
Speaker 1: as it would be if you're just sort of like
Speaker 1: cooking on a week weekend at home. Uh. There you
Speaker 1: have these intense time constraints, a lot of different types
Speaker 1: of labor to manage and prioritize. It's often highly stressful. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's just a totally different experience than recreationally cooking
Speaker 1: in a home kitchen. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is
Speaker 1: often the case with with various hobbies and and uh
Speaker 1: and activities like like, for instance, I engage in some
Speaker 1: of the miniature and model painting and and you know,
Speaker 1: it's really fun and calming. But if I were to
Speaker 1: if if I were doing this exact task or something
Speaker 1: like it, and I was having to crank something out,
Speaker 1: you know, if I was part of a production line
Speaker 1: or if I were I don't know, if you were
Speaker 1: to apply it, say, um, you know, being a colorist
Speaker 1: or something, um, you know for manuscripts or comics or something. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, if you potentially get into that situation where
Speaker 1: you're just having to to just do so much of it,
Speaker 1: you don't have that the potentials there to to to
Speaker 1: lose hold of that zen state that you go into
Speaker 1: when you do it. In fact, I've I've followed like
Speaker 1: really skilled miniature painters before and uh, and in some
Speaker 1: cases they've had to. They've they've done like a certain
Speaker 1: amount of professional work, you know, like they're selling pieces
Speaker 1: that they've painted and they're doing commissions. But then they
Speaker 1: have to scale back and stop doing that. And part
Speaker 1: of it is sometimes the fact that it it makes
Speaker 1: the hobby less fun. You know, your hobbies become less hot,
Speaker 1: less fun sometimes when they become your job, which is
Speaker 1: one of the the disappointing facts of life. I guess
Speaker 1: another thing I would say about that is, I think
Speaker 1: what it's really I think the really crucial element is
Speaker 1: not whether or not it's a job that you get
Speaker 1: paid for, but it is about, um, whether there is
Speaker 1: specific fically sort of like time and stress pressure on you.
Speaker 1: Because the same dynamic that I talked about with restaurant
Speaker 1: cooking can certainly be true for home cooking if you're
Speaker 1: just like trying to you know, make meals on a
Speaker 1: weeknight and you know you're trying to do it as
Speaker 1: fast as you can to feed the family and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. There, there's just a big difference between
Speaker 1: being able to do something at your own pace and
Speaker 1: needing to do something on a timetable, yeah, and dealing
Speaker 1: with outside stressors that aren't there necessarily if you're just
Speaker 1: engaging in a hobby. Um. Now, interestingly enough, on the
Speaker 1: the idea of videos about crafts, I've really enjoyed watching
Speaker 1: some videos dealing with painting, and I found them very
Speaker 1: calming in a similar way. Like there's there's one guy online,
Speaker 1: uh these the moniker Sarastro, and he has all these videos,
Speaker 1: has a very calming voice, and he's engaging and painting
Speaker 1: different miniatures and you know, covering the basics and it's
Speaker 1: just delightful content. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I sometimes watch certain um types of process of deos
Speaker 1: to relax, often like cooking videos. But also I've actually
Speaker 1: watched some of these same types of videos that Jacobs
Speaker 1: talking about and in his email here, just like people
Speaker 1: building things or restoring things. It's nice if they're especially
Speaker 1: if there's no talking, it's just kind of like uh
Speaker 1: uh gentle, low volume environmental sounds while somebody is doing something,
Speaker 1: uh efficiently, but not in a rushed way. Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: on stuff like YouTube, you can you can definitely find
Speaker 1: those videos that have that very YouTube feel and kind
Speaker 1: of a disc jockey kind of narration. Like there's some
Speaker 1: there's some miniature painting YouTubers that are are very good
Speaker 1: at what they do and are very educational and informative
Speaker 1: about the craft. But they're not as relaxing as this
Speaker 1: guy in particular because they everything's maybe just a little
Speaker 1: bit pushed further in that YouTube, you know, Starge direction.
Speaker 1: All right, here's another one for us. This is Spinning
Speaker 1: and Dizziness vestibular system plus a dash of robot jocks
Speaker 1: from Jared, Hi, Robert, and Joe catching up on a
Speaker 1: backlog that got built up this past fall. I had
Speaker 1: an experience related to spinning, dizziness, etcetera. I've been motion
Speaker 1: sensitive since my adolescence. I was more sensitive and pronto
Speaker 1: dizziness when doing flat circles versus vertical circles. Think spinning
Speaker 1: while standing up versus doing somersaults. When I was nineteen,
Speaker 1: a group of friends made a day trip to a
Speaker 1: local tourist attraction and we stopped at a city park
Speaker 1: for our lunch. On the way back, a bunch of
Speaker 1: them took to the merry go round round about and
Speaker 1: I really got it going. I held back, knowing about
Speaker 1: what what was about to happen. Thanks to peer pressure,
Speaker 1: I eventually gave in and joined them. They got it
Speaker 1: going really fast, and pretty soon I started to feel awful.
Speaker 1: It was so evident that some of the group and
Speaker 1: the one doing the pushing could actually see that I
Speaker 1: was getting sick and stopped the spinning so I could
Speaker 1: get off. I avoided getting physically ill, but it was loose.
Speaker 1: I was also one who would ride the extreme roller
Speaker 1: coasters at theme parks, but would have to rest between
Speaker 1: rides to avoid getting sick. Earlier in my marriage, my
Speaker 1: wife bought me a NASCAR ride along package for Christmas.
Speaker 1: After doing half a dozen laps at speed, I think
Speaker 1: my inner ear got a bit of a reset or recalibration,
Speaker 1: because about a year later we went to a theme Park,
Speaker 1: and I was able to ride the roller coasters with
Speaker 1: barely any effect, And since then I have even been
Speaker 1: able to ride the teacups at Disneyland. This is really interesting.
Speaker 1: I wonder if the mechanism here, I guess what's being
Speaker 1: implied by Jarrett is that it could be this kind
Speaker 1: of vestibular plasticity that we talked about in the Spinning episodes.
Speaker 1: Maybe sometimes with enough training, the brain can kind of
Speaker 1: adapt and and desensitize itself somewhat to dizziness. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder if people have tried to make money off of
Speaker 1: this with programs sort of like a couch to loop
Speaker 1: to loop vestibular boot camp. But I'm interested, Jared, So
Speaker 1: it seems like you you are motion sensitive, yet constantly
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're seeking out extreme motion experiences. So
Speaker 1: maybe you've got like a kind of a thrill seeking streak,
Speaker 1: but also you get dizzy, or used to get dizzy.
Speaker 1: That's a conundrum, all right. He continues, I also have
Speaker 1: some thoughts about the plot and details of robot Shocks.
Speaker 1: Bring it on, regarding the discussion of combat by Champion
Speaker 1: and why either side would choose this over on all
Speaker 1: on all fight, all on all warfare. Considering the context
Speaker 1: of the film, it is possible and maybe even likely,
Speaker 1: that the market and the con fed could have been
Speaker 1: numerically and or technologically equal or close enough. Also, in
Speaker 1: the post apocalyptic context, both sides could have felt that
Speaker 1: they couldn't afford to lose the number of people that
Speaker 1: would die or be permanently disabled in combat, much less
Speaker 1: the personnel and resources they would have been spent maintaining
Speaker 1: a military. Also, you talked about the square cube law
Speaker 1: coming into play in real world conditions round giant mechanical
Speaker 1: war machines. In real life, the design would be focused
Speaker 1: on stability and impact protection to avoid being crippled or
Speaker 1: destroyed by falling, and in this type of warfare, being
Speaker 1: able to shrink components without losing significant strength or power
Speaker 1: would be the technological advantage. Imagine the Cold War and
Speaker 1: both the US and NATO allies developed large mex suit
Speaker 1: soldiers in the USSR and its warsaw packed allies did
Speaker 1: the same. Knowing that physicists would be designing and building
Speaker 1: around the square cube law, we would see the most
Speaker 1: successful side be the one who could keep their suit
Speaker 1: the smallest without suffering in armor or firepower. If you
Speaker 1: made it through all that, thanks for entertaining my musings.
Speaker 1: I love the show, Jared. Uh some really interesting thoughts, Jared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if you were to take the robot Jock scenario
Speaker 1: as real, where for some reason, these major superpowers in
Speaker 1: a in an ongoing conflict are settling everything by mex
Speaker 1: suit champion warfare, I can absolutely see because he, for example,
Speaker 1: referred to this idea we talked about with JBS Haldane
Speaker 1: and that famous essay about you know, if like a
Speaker 1: mouse can fall down to mind shaft and survive, but
Speaker 1: a larger animal falls down and splashes. And this just
Speaker 1: because like as you scale up, the difference between between
Speaker 1: your mass and the surface area of your body changes
Speaker 1: in a nonlinear way, and thus, like larger falling objects
Speaker 1: are more likely to get wrecked by falling. So if
Speaker 1: you've got like a hundred foot tall robot, just falling
Speaker 1: over is going to destroy it almost no matter what.
Speaker 1: Uh So. Yeah, So the the impetus here in that
Speaker 1: technological scenario would be on miniaturization. And it makes me
Speaker 1: wonder if if that were real, Like if if as
Speaker 1: much research and development as went into things like you know,
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, and rocketry and telemetry and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff would actually just go into miniaturization of components.
Speaker 1: That that is an interesting thought. All right, looks like
Speaker 1: we have another bit of robot jocks related listener mail.
Speaker 1: Do you want to take this one? Joe? Oh? Sure?
Speaker 1: This comes from Joseph addressing the same question about a
Speaker 1: robot jocks warfare and the logic of of champion combat.
Speaker 1: We were saying, you know, why why would the force
Speaker 1: with superior numbers and firepower agree to champion combat. It
Speaker 1: seems like that that would just essentially be agreeing to
Speaker 1: uh to lessening their odds and so and so like,
Speaker 1: unless that the rules of champion warfare were imposed by
Speaker 1: an alien civilization or something like that. It's it's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine that actually happening. But Joseph has a thought. Uh,
Speaker 1: he says. I had a minor comment to your review. Note,
Speaker 1: I have actually seen this movie when I was younger.
Speaker 1: You brought up the idea that a state with a
Speaker 1: larger force would not have great pressure to accept having
Speaker 1: single combat as a subscription, as the larger force had
Speaker 1: the basic advantage. Here's one issue I see with that analysis.
Speaker 1: This is stated after a nuclear war. Since a very
Speaker 1: small group can use a nuclear weapon and destroy a
Speaker 1: very large group, and since the damage to the civilian
Speaker 1: population by nuclear weapons is also so massive and long lasting,
Speaker 1: I think that most populations would enforce the ban on
Speaker 1: war by fully refusing to participate. Even a very totalitarian
Speaker 1: society can be brought to heal by a general public strike.
Speaker 1: All right, here's another one. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Sue, and this one is in regard to our
Speaker 1: episode on the invention of the lock and key. Hello, guys,
Speaker 1: I was listening to the listener mail where you mentioned
Speaker 1: the idea that in video games you don't have universal
Speaker 1: keys and are often guided in a way to navigate
Speaker 1: you through the story. But I know a franchise that
Speaker 1: goes against both concepts. In the Legend of Zelda series,
Speaker 1: the main character Link collects small keys throughout the dungeons
Speaker 1: in the game. While you generally get a small key
Speaker 1: and then find a locked door shortly after, there are
Speaker 1: a few levels in some of the games that allow
Speaker 1: you to choose between more than one locked door. If
Speaker 1: you don't break the game, you just end up completing
Speaker 1: the in a slightly different order depending on your choices.
Speaker 1: The only in dungeon exception most of the time is
Speaker 1: the nightmare key or boss key, which is the only
Speaker 1: one in a level that can unlock the boss in
Speaker 1: the legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. You also
Speaker 1: don't even truly have to go through the story in
Speaker 1: any particular order. Once you leave the starting area, you
Speaker 1: can actually complete the four main dungeons in any order
Speaker 1: that you like, or choose from what seems like ten
Speaker 1: trillion side quests. But if you're really not feeling that,
Speaker 1: you can technically race all the way to the final
Speaker 1: boss from the start of the game. I've never tried
Speaker 1: this myself, but it appears to be documented online by others.
Speaker 1: Also about keys. My mom took my brother and I
Speaker 1: shopping as kids, and when we came out of the
Speaker 1: store we got to her hun day she was absolutely
Speaker 1: appalled that someone somehow threw a bunch of trash inside.
Speaker 1: Then she got this look on her face and screamed run.
Speaker 1: Apparently that was her first reaction to realizing that her
Speaker 1: car was parked down the lot further, but her key
Speaker 1: unlocked an identical car that's sat closer to the store,
Speaker 1: same wide Hondai. While we uh We still laugh about this,
Speaker 1: but it's also creepy to think someone could be waiting
Speaker 1: in your car because their key happens to work in
Speaker 1: your car. Thanks for a great show. Oh that is
Speaker 1: a harrowing experience. I've never actually unlocked somebody else's car,
Speaker 1: but I have like gone up to other people's cars
Speaker 1: that looked like mine. Oh yeah, I've I've done that
Speaker 1: quite a bit. And they don't even have to look
Speaker 1: exactly like mine. If it's just it's like a silver car,
Speaker 1: I'll just go up to it and attempt to drive
Speaker 1: it home. It's four wheels, basically close enough, close enough,
Speaker 1: you know. I want to say also, I have not
Speaker 1: had a lot of time for video games lately, but
Speaker 1: the one game that I have been playing a little
Speaker 1: bit often on is uh is Legend of Zelda Breath
Speaker 1: of the Wild. I finally got into it. I wanted
Speaker 1: to play it for a long time, and I would
Speaker 1: just like to underline uh Sue's comments that's a Breath
Speaker 1: of the Wild is a beautiful game. I mean, actually
Speaker 1: beautiful it is. It's like a work of art. It's
Speaker 1: just an absolutely wonderful piece of game design. This is
Speaker 1: like a switch game or something. Yeah, um, there's something
Speaker 1: deeply soothing about it. It's it's just excellent. Okay. This
Speaker 1: next message comes from Bert, also about locks and keys.
Speaker 1: Bert says, I'm meant to send this story after your
Speaker 1: lock episode, but I listened while on the road and
Speaker 1: forgot by the time I could. When I was in college,
Speaker 1: I went to visit a friend. While they're his neighbor
Speaker 1: locked himself out of his apartment for some reason I
Speaker 1: can't remember. We decided to try all of our keys.
Speaker 1: Mine opened his door for the heck of it. We
Speaker 1: tried it on my friends door. It opened. We knocked
Speaker 1: on his other side. Neighbor explained what was going on
Speaker 1: and tried it on her door. It opened it. My
Speaker 1: apartment key was a master key to their apartment building
Speaker 1: or maybe complex. We called our respective apartment managers and
Speaker 1: my lock was changed that night. All of these lock
Speaker 1: and key emails filmed me with such confidence. And Bert
Speaker 1: goes on to say, also a little note about Blue
Speaker 1: Oyster Cult. I don't remember how that came up. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was a message in a previous listener mail episode,
Speaker 1: but Bert says on Blue Oyster Cult, check out the
Speaker 1: live album E T I Live, I believe it is
Speaker 1: the story you were talking about, maybe the one that's
Speaker 1: like some kind of science fiction fantasy concept album. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Bird also says it includes more more Cock
Speaker 1: songs that's Michael moorecock, such as black Blade Love the
Speaker 1: Show Bert. Oh, that that must be uh, referencing to
Speaker 1: l Rick's Sword. Yeah, I know nothing of this. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean I have. There are a whole bunch of Morelock.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, they're a whole bunch of more Cock Michael
Speaker 1: more novels. I think he may have written about more
Speaker 1: Locks at some point. He he wrote quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I've only ever read the one, uh Elric book that
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of the paperbacks sitting around here,
Speaker 1: but I remember whichever one I read. I guess it
Speaker 1: was el Rik of Melanimity. I remember it being a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Do you want to read this next
Speaker 1: message from Matt? Yes, Matt says, Hey, guys, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to chime in about keys. While as you would guess,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of variants in number of keys
Speaker 1: and key types and the evolution of how complex they
Speaker 1: actually are. That's said, I'm going to be and I'm
Speaker 1: going to be narrow minded. Here and just focus on
Speaker 1: the Ford Motor Company. Ford was one of the worst
Speaker 1: with key security for almost a century. Although today with
Speaker 1: chips and modern tech your chances of finding a matching
Speaker 1: car are pretty much zero. Back in the day that
Speaker 1: was not the case. Though. In nineteen o eight Ford
Speaker 1: had a total of two key types, so you had
Speaker 1: a fifty fifty shot. Hold on, in nineteen o eight
Speaker 1: they had keys at all. That's surprising, Yeah, okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: it continues. In nineteen that was changed to three, and
Speaker 1: then in nine Ford went to a nickel key instead
Speaker 1: of brass and up the key total to a whopping five.
Speaker 1: I know this was a long time ago, but in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy the total key types for Ford stood at sixteen.
Speaker 1: This kept gradually rising in there were forty two versions
Speaker 1: of the Ford Mustang key. The nineties brought about a
Speaker 1: sharp rise in car theft and also security, and the
Speaker 1: numbers rose sharply to the point where today your chances
Speaker 1: of an identical key are pretty much zero. But just
Speaker 1: thinking that you had a one and forty two shot
Speaker 1: is rather funny. While Ford was far behind in key
Speaker 1: tech for years, and other car makers actually did much better,
Speaker 1: but I'm not trying to write a novella, so that's
Speaker 1: just some fun info for you. Uh So, next time
Speaker 1: you see an old Ford, just break out the old
Speaker 1: key drawer and you might just get lucky. Thanks guys
Speaker 1: for making life a little more interesting and helping me
Speaker 1: seem smarter than I actually am. Have a wonderful day
Speaker 1: and keep up the good work. Matt great Infomat. Thank you. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got one last message here. This one's from Aiden.
Speaker 1: Aiden says, Hi, Robert and Joe. Oh and sorry, this
Speaker 1: one is about our Vault episode on horseshoe crabs. But
Speaker 1: actually Aiden says that, so I didn't really need to
Speaker 1: pressage it. So Aiden says, I just heard your latest
Speaker 1: Vault episode about horseshoe crabs. Um. As you were discussing
Speaker 1: the extremely long history of horseshoe crabs and other stabilia morphs,
Speaker 1: I was reminded of a recent episode where you discussed
Speaker 1: search algorithms. One way to look at the evolutionary success
Speaker 1: of horseshoe crabs could be in the terms of an
Speaker 1: evolutionary search algorithm. Maybe they have stayed so consistent because
Speaker 1: they are stuck in a local maximum of the evolutionary
Speaker 1: fitness function. If we visualize this using the finding the
Speaker 1: top of a mountain analogy that you mentioned in the
Speaker 1: Search Algorithms episode, I think the horseshoe crabs mountain would
Speaker 1: be very tall and very steep. The longevity of the
Speaker 1: species would indicate that they have very high evolutionary fitness,
Speaker 1: so I imagine their mountain peak is much taller than
Speaker 1: that of many other organisms on Earth. Secondly, the consistency
Speaker 1: of their body plan over such long time scales could
Speaker 1: suggest that the slopes of their evolutionary mountain peak are
Speaker 1: very steep. I e. For some reason, minor variations incur
Speaker 1: a great evolutionary cost, preventing any changes from taking hold
Speaker 1: within the population. It is also amusing to consider the
Speaker 1: possibility that the humble horseshoe crab has not only found
Speaker 1: a very stable local maximum, but has in fact found
Speaker 1: the global maximum of the evolutionary fitness function, making it
Speaker 1: the most fit organism on the planet or perhaps in
Speaker 1: the universe. Maybe they're up there on the peak looking
Speaker 1: down at all other organisms with their ten serious, little
Speaker 1: compound eyes. Thanks for another great episode, best Aiden. That's
Speaker 1: some some wonderful content there. I would like to suggest
Speaker 1: to Planet Fitness that that you acquire the horseshoe crab
Speaker 1: as a mascot immediately and have it featured on all
Speaker 1: of your branding. Right, you are not fit until you're
Speaker 1: a horseshoe crab. Keep keep pumping until you got those
Speaker 1: uh what were their eyes made of? I've forgotten now
Speaker 1: some some kind of interesting mineral eyes. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the horseshoe crab would make a good I mean, the
Speaker 1: horseshoe crab is instantly identifiable. I think it would make
Speaker 1: a great mascot for for any purpose, be at a logo, um,
Speaker 1: for a business or a sports team mascot. I mean
Speaker 1: that would be great white and horseshoe crabs. Yeah, somebody
Speaker 1: out there must be. There's a there's a banana slugs, right,
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna be horseshoe crabs. Yeah. Text somebody from that
Speaker 1: that college sent some merch way back in the day.
Speaker 1: They were like they were really proud of their their
Speaker 1: bananas slugs, and banana slugs are great. They're having having
Speaker 1: seen them in the wild now I could say they're
Speaker 1: they're tremendous. Wait, who was like you see Santa Cruz
Speaker 1: or something. I think so, you know, I'd have to
Speaker 1: have to look it up. But yeah, you go into
Speaker 1: into you know, into the big forest there, uh, and
Speaker 1: you you see them there, and there their little you know,
Speaker 1: yellow golden spirals there amid the leaf litter and all.
Speaker 1: It's pretty great. Yeah, I was right. It's it's Santa Cruz. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very a good mascot. But somebody out there, if you
Speaker 1: don't already have uh the Horseshoe Crabs, go for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm not a huge team sports uh person,
Speaker 1: but I do enjoy whenever there is a a mascot
Speaker 1: choice that kind of flips the script a little bit.
Speaker 1: Like there there is a basketball team where they're the Wizards, right,
Speaker 1: so they have an actual wash. Yeah. So I mean
Speaker 1: I don't know to what extent they're really taking advantage
Speaker 1: of that, but I think that's pretty cool where your
Speaker 1: mascot is like an aged sorcerer or something. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much you could do with that. And then
Speaker 1: you got the raptors. I mean, that's really cool. I
Speaker 1: remember being a kid and there was pressure to like football,
Speaker 1: like NFL football, and I remember looking around and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: which of these mascots excites me. I guess it's the Vikings.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that is even halfway um, you know,
Speaker 1: jumping out at me. So I think I bought a
Speaker 1: Vikings pencil, um, and that was as far into NFL
Speaker 1: post I got. Oh wait, no, if if no team
Speaker 1: out there has yet adopted the slime mold as their mascot,
Speaker 1: that's got to be that like the Peak. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're slow, but they're thorough, you know. Okay, should we
Speaker 1: wrap it up there? Yeah, let's go ahead and wrap
Speaker 1: it up for this week. But we'll be back next
Speaker 1: week with more listener mail. So right in, you know,
Speaker 1: right in in response to episodes that we've recorded, episodes
Speaker 1: you think we should record new episodes, old episodes, your
Speaker 1: responses to other listener mails you've heard, um, praise, corrections,
Speaker 1: what have you. Uh, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, if you want to check out
Speaker 1: other listener mail episodes. Other episodes of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind are Friday episodes of Weird House Cinema or
Speaker 1: those core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find
Speaker 1: us wherever you get your podcasts. Just look for the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed huge thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.