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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from house stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Robert,

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Speaker 1: do you ever have this experience where you are about

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Speaker 1: to have someone over to your house? You're not to

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Speaker 1: have a house guest, and then suddenly, for the as

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Speaker 1: if for the first time, you actually see what your

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Speaker 1: house is like inside, Like you start to notice, like,

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Speaker 1: what is that smell in here that I had not

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Speaker 1: noticed for however long it's been here? And what is

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Speaker 1: the stain on the wall? I don't even know where

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Speaker 1: that came from. You suddenly or you know, you get

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Speaker 1: the fresh eyes. Um. I would say no, not in

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Speaker 1: terms of visitors coming to the house. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: clean up before visitors come. But aside from discovering things

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Speaker 1: for the first time, I wouldn't say that's really been

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Speaker 1: my experience. I will say that, you know, there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of times where, say, you cook something and it's

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Speaker 1: kind of as a kind of a strong smell, and

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Speaker 1: you lose track of that smell while you're hanging out

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Speaker 1: in the house, even if you've cleaned up dishes and

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Speaker 1: all then you go outside, maybe you take the garbage out,

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Speaker 1: and you come back in and you smell it all again,

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Speaker 1: like the freshest that the scent is fresh now. Or

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Speaker 1: you go on a trip, you're gone for a week

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Speaker 1: or two, and you come back and said, you just

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Speaker 1: if you smell your house for the first time in

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Speaker 1: the same way that other people's houses have signature smells, Well,

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Speaker 1: perhaps my brain is just weird then, But I mean,

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Speaker 1: I I feel like it must be fairly common to

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Speaker 1: uh suddenly become aware of what your dwelling looks like

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Speaker 1: to somebody who has not yet become blind to it. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But anyway, so what do you do when you're having

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Speaker 1: somebody over, Well, you go through the process. You're like,

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Speaker 1: I gotta get this place esthetically pleasing to somebody who

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Speaker 1: isn't me, right, Yeah, you clean it up, you get

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Speaker 1: rid of the clutter. And I mean, if I guess,

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Speaker 1: I suppose, if there is something out that would offend

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Speaker 1: a visitor, you remove it. Um, but that's some nice

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Speaker 1: music on maybe yeah yeah, And and that's certainly an

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Speaker 1: area where one thing where I certainly would think about

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Speaker 1: who is visiting, Like the music that I put on

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Speaker 1: for say, family coming over to visit might be slightly

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Speaker 1: different from uh, friends coming over, depends on the friend.

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Speaker 1: I guess, um, it's not tool either way. No, it's

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Speaker 1: not tools. Not really entertaining music. Uh, you know, I

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Speaker 1: would go for more. I would go for something more

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Speaker 1: ambient anyway. You know, I go for some like the corporation,

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Speaker 1: and I think I would pretty much go for the record.

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Speaker 1: If you don't like the recorporation, I don't really want

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Speaker 1: you in my house anyway. But considering this ritual, another

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Speaker 1: big thing is the candle. You know, people are having

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Speaker 1: somebody over, they like they led a nice smelling candle.

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Speaker 1: A nice smelling candle is is key here, Ideally a

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Speaker 1: candle with little or no scent, because you can certainly

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Speaker 1: go in the other direction and get a candle that

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Speaker 1: smells very strongly of some sort of noxious chemical. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like the Yankee what would it be, fake flower factory candle? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. You know, it's interesting. We were

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Speaker 1: a we're publishing this episode after Christmas, but we were

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Speaker 1: recording it before Christmas. This is a time when people

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Speaker 1: do things like what the heat, hot cider and clothes

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Speaker 1: and orange peel up, you know, on their their stoves,

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Speaker 1: not so much to drink, but just to fill the

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Speaker 1: house with a festive odor. Yeah, you want people to

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Speaker 1: feel like feel as guests that this is a pleasant place.

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Speaker 1: But considering this ritual, I got to thinking, what if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to do exactly the opposite, Like, maybe you're

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Speaker 1: about to be visited by people who drive you nuts

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Speaker 1: and you want to find a way to subconsciously convince

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Speaker 1: them to leave your house as soon as possible. So

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Speaker 1: instead of doing all this lighting the nice smelling candle,

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Speaker 1: putting on the nice music, cleaning up everything that might

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Speaker 1: be unsightly, you try to do everything you can to

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Speaker 1: create the most aesthetically unpleasant environment possible. Do we have

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Speaker 1: the science? Do we have the technology to build the

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Speaker 1: ultimate unpleasant room if we wanted to? I think that

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Speaker 1: everyone will find Even though some of these things are

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Speaker 1: difficult to put a value on, you know, it's going

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Speaker 1: to be subjective from person to person, I think we

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Speaker 1: have phenomenal ability to create a particularly uncomfortable unpleasant room. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: if we're gonna go about this exercise, I think we

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Speaker 1: need to establish a few rules. First of all, I'd

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Speaker 1: say the goal is to create the most unpleasant environment

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Speaker 1: we can possibly imagine. But at the same time, we've

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Speaker 1: got to have some kind of limit, because we're not

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Speaker 1: going to build a torture chamber right where we are,

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Speaker 1: assuming what we're not. Well, No, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: build a torture So let's assume a couple of things.

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Speaker 1: Number one, the occupant of this room is not a

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Speaker 1: prisoner and can leave at any time. And number two,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to consider anything that could be like

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Speaker 1: violent or inflicting pain. This would be sub no, susceptive,

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Speaker 1: unpleasantness and discomfort. Okay, So along the lines of say,

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Speaker 1: and this is something we'll get into the design that

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Speaker 1: they may go into, say an interrogation room in a

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Speaker 1: situation again where the individual is perhaps not not being

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Speaker 1: held against their will and or you know, is not

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Speaker 1: being a physically abused. And by interrogation room, I mean

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Speaker 1: not only like police interrogation rooms, but also uh, an

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Speaker 1: office in which one's boss may may may may lurk.

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Speaker 1: I think of this because here in our own offices

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Speaker 1: we have and I don't know who made these choices,

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Speaker 1: but we have some particularly painful chairs. Uh. They're like

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Speaker 1: wooden stools with like wrought iron backs, and they're they're

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Speaker 1: they're perfectly okay if you treat them like a stool,

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Speaker 1: but you're talking about attempt to recline in them at all.

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Speaker 1: It is torturous. And I think that's a long history

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Speaker 1: here because I remember at a previous location for our offices,

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Speaker 1: they were equally uncomfortable chairs in somebody's office. So if

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Speaker 1: they had guests come in, guests to in the office

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Speaker 1: to discuss something, they would be utterly incapable of becoming comfortable. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't think this is unique to us. This is uh,

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Speaker 1: this is like a psych power game. That's a business

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Speaker 1: is all over the place. If you want to be

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Speaker 1: powerful in the negotiation across the desk, you want your

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Speaker 1: chair to be taller and more comfortable and give you

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Speaker 1: the opportunity to lean back. And the person across from

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Speaker 1: you should be in a shorter chair, lower to the ground,

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Speaker 1: that's more uncomfortable. That forces them to lean forward, and

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Speaker 1: then a lot and then suddenly the everybody in the

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Speaker 1: office says, hey, we want standing desk. You have to

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Speaker 1: give it to us. And then they give them the

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Speaker 1: standing desk, and it changes the playing field forever, because

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Speaker 1: now everybody's elevated. It's true. Standing desks ended capitalism. I

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Speaker 1: didn't think it would happen, And then most people got

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Speaker 1: sick of their standing desk and just went back to

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Speaker 1: some some seated model. You know, we we we're talking.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna probably talk a lot about office environments as

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Speaker 1: we go through there, because that is an area where

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Speaker 1: there has been a lot of thought that has gone

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Speaker 1: into the design. How do I make this space more

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Speaker 1: conductive to cooperation or creativity or hard work? And likewise,

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Speaker 1: how do I, uh, you know, keep my employees down

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Speaker 1: and make them gaze up in at my fabulous sun

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Speaker 1: throne that sort of thing. Well, I mean, part of

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Speaker 1: what you're raising here is just the implication that what

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Speaker 1: can make a room a really pleasant or unpleasant place

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Speaker 1: to be is not always just in the physical attributes

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Speaker 1: of the room itself. It's in the context that caused

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Speaker 1: you to be in the room, and that is continuing

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Speaker 1: to cause you to remain there. Oh, certainly. But but

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Speaker 1: at the same time, a room is rather special, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: Like a room is a thing that humans created and

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Speaker 1: perhaps inspired a little you know, you could say, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: they had caves right in some places you had, you

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Speaker 1: had holes and ditches, naturally eroded places. But in terms

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Speaker 1: of like a room, that is an amazing invention of humans,

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Speaker 1: a place where the human has complete control over, over,

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Speaker 1: over every aspect of its design. You make your self

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Speaker 1: a little world. Yeah, you're only limited by really your

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Speaker 1: your materials, in your imagination, and you can create out

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Speaker 1: of that. You can create a heaven or you can

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Speaker 1: create a hell. So I guess what we're doing today

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Speaker 1: is creating minor hell right now, as long as we're

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Speaker 1: talking about hell in hellish rooms, I do wanna um,

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Speaker 1: I do want to make a quick point. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: when we think about hell, which is to say, when

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Speaker 1: we think about artistic and sometimes cinematic depictions of torment

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Speaker 1: in the afterlife, we often what do we often see?

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Speaker 1: We often see big open spaces, lava pits, maybe like

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Speaker 1: a giant flaming cavern. Yeah, it's like a hellish landscape

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Speaker 1: out of you know, the paintings of of Bosh or

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Speaker 1: it's something I always remember the scenes in legend, Ridley

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Speaker 1: Scott's Legend where there I think in hell. I'm always

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Speaker 1: a little confused as so what's actually supposed to be happening?

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Speaker 1: In legend, but it's gorgeous to look at. In the

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Speaker 1: midst of this sort of a kid's movie, there's this

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Speaker 1: baroque scene of dwarves being tormented by by Hellish cures

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Speaker 1: in this infernal domain. I think about the nineties movie Spawn.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what it looked like, but I

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Speaker 1: think there was a really bad c g I hell

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Speaker 1: seen there. It was basically just like it was like

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Speaker 1: a big cave that was on fire. Yeah, so you

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Speaker 1: see a lot of that, which is also kind of

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Speaker 1: ridiculous when you think of caves like of course it

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Speaker 1: would be more of a cramped environment. But despite all

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Speaker 1: these big, wide open spaces we see, particularly in Western

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Speaker 1: Christian traditions, as Alice Cape Turner points out in her

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Speaker 1: book The History of Hell, Eastern influenced Byzantine art often

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Speaker 1: depicts the damned in isolated boxes. Uh and uh. I

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Speaker 1: actually looked up some pictures of this, and indeed, in

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Speaker 1: Byzantine art you'll see these little cubes, almost like a

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Speaker 1: cube farm situation, but instead of each cube containing you know,

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Speaker 1: a desk and a computer or what have you, it

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Speaker 1: contains a pair of centers in some state of torment.

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Speaker 1: I guess it really forces you to ask, is hell?

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Speaker 1: Would a true hell be more open office pla in

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Speaker 1: or a cubicle farm. I think it would be more

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Speaker 1: cubicle And I think we see that by looking again,

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Speaker 1: we can look to cinematic inspiration. We can look to

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Speaker 1: the modern uh secular hells, that being interrogation rooms and

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Speaker 1: also torture rooms, torture chambers and dungeons that we see

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Speaker 1: in so many different works of fiction. Uh, and we've

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Speaker 1: see in so many films and movies, right, holding cells,

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Speaker 1: interrogation cells, and and cells of torture. And when I

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Speaker 1: think of excellent cinematic torture rooms, my mind, which sometimes

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Speaker 1: they do, my mind inevitably goes to David Cronenberg's film

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Speaker 1: video Drone. Yeah, the show you only see them watching

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Speaker 1: on TV right, unless you, well, unless you have the

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Speaker 1: special Criterion Collection edition, then you get to watch all

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Speaker 1: the footage. You've watched it all. Yeah, I watched it yesterday. Um,

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Speaker 1: the FedEx man came while I was doing it. It It

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Speaker 1: was a little weird, but um, but at any rate,

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Speaker 1: part of the plot in this this film is that

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Speaker 1: there is this kind of guerrilla radio transmission or pirate

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Speaker 1: radio transmission that they pick up. That is just this orange,

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Speaker 1: sort of a dusky red orange room, and and I'll explain.

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Speaker 1: I'll describe that room a little bit more as as

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Speaker 1: as we come back to it, but it is it

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Speaker 1: is a very unpleasant looking room, even before you really

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Speaker 1: notice any unpleasantness happening in it. Well, yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: the idea is that he was Cronenberg was just trying

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Speaker 1: to come up with what would be the most depraved

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Speaker 1: possible TV program you can imagine, and it's just this

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Speaker 1: ugly room with a person being tortured in it with

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Speaker 1: no plot. Yeah, I'll go and describe this room for

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Speaker 1: anyone who either hasn't seen the film or hasn't seen

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Speaker 1: it in a while. It's again this dusky red color.

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Speaker 1: And then the opposing wall is clay, this big slab

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Speaker 1: of clay that's also of that coloration. The slab of

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Speaker 1: clay is apparently electrified in order to allow the tormentors

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Speaker 1: to like push people up against it, and then they

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Speaker 1: will than then they'll be shocked by it. And the

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Speaker 1: there's like a water trough in front of or at

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Speaker 1: the base of that clay slab. And then there's also

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Speaker 1: this area of black grating on the floor and in

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Speaker 1: the main video that that is picked up in this transmission.

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Speaker 1: The lighting is also just kind of I don't know

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Speaker 1: what the term is, just kind of like obnoxious, uneven lighting.

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Speaker 1: We see it lit artistically later in like a dream sequence,

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Speaker 1: but in these transmissions it's just ugly lighting. It looks

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Speaker 1: like an ugly, wet, dank, cold, lonely room. And then

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Speaker 1: on top of that, people are tortured in it. So

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Speaker 1: this is your gold standard for the ultimate unpleasant space. Okay,

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Speaker 1: Now we have stipulated, as as I said earlier, no torture, right,

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Speaker 1: no imprisonment, no torture. So we're gonna have to take

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Speaker 1: those elements out right, But I I think if you

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Speaker 1: take the torture out of this scenario, the room itself

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Speaker 1: is still very unpleasant. I agree entirely. I think it

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Speaker 1: was made exactly for that purpose, and Cronenberg did a

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Speaker 1: fine job of envisioning one of the ugliest rooms you

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Speaker 1: could imagine. Like I will say, I will say this,

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Speaker 1: I have never seen anyone having reproduced this room, like

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Speaker 1: even individuals who who who might be into some level

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Speaker 1: of of simulated torment, you know, like you see if

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Speaker 1: you see images of some sort of like a B

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Speaker 1: D S M. Dungeon. They tended generally to stick to

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Speaker 1: like a black coloration black or metal, or or perhaps

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Speaker 1: you know, some sort of like a subway tile white

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Speaker 1: kind of situation. But I've never seen this reproduced, which

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Speaker 1: I think is very telling. Not that I've done like

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Speaker 1: an exhaustive cattle hugging or anything, but you know, I

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Speaker 1: feel like I would have probably come across it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I cry, uncle, we I think we've got to get

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Speaker 1: away from any actual association with any real torture rooms

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Speaker 1: and and build our room, build our special non torture

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Speaker 1: room of infinite unpleasantness. All right, let's let's go for it. Now.

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Speaker 1: I guess that you could divide it into multiple categories

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Speaker 1: of things you could do to this space. You could

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Speaker 1: have sites, sounds, smells, and then other sensations. Maybe so

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Speaker 1: in the same way that on the TV series Queer Eye,

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Speaker 1: you have a different host who's responsible for different aspects

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Speaker 1: of somebody's makeover recreation. Oh, it's true. You've got like

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Speaker 1: the hair guy and like the food guy. Right, So

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Speaker 1: in this sort of the reality show we're we're constructing,

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Speaker 1: you would have like a different expert that would handle

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Speaker 1: each sensory arena of the room. Well, if we're gonna

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Speaker 1: start with sites, I think our first guru to come

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Speaker 1: in should be Pinhead from Hell Raiser, right, because he

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Speaker 1: has such sights to show you. It's true he did.

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Speaker 1: He did claim to have a lot of sites to show. Now,

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Speaker 1: in terms of visual stimuli, the very first thing I

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Speaker 1: must mention is that this room has got to have

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Speaker 1: a low ceiling, right, not just my personal preference either.

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Speaker 1: According to environmental psychologist Dr Sally august Ston, research has

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Speaker 1: shown that when people are in a room with a

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Speaker 1: ceiling lower than about nine feet, they are more vulnerable

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Speaker 1: to feeling crowded, having their their physical space invaded, and

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Speaker 1: they're distressed more easily. And apparently studies have shown that

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Speaker 1: the psychological difference between like an eight foot ceiling and

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Speaker 1: a tin foot ceiling is serious. People feel less creative

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Speaker 1: in a space with lower ceilings. Now, of course, ceilings

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Speaker 1: that are eight feet higher pretty common. You'll find those

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Speaker 1: all over the place. I think to get really nasty,

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Speaker 1: you would want to get lower than eight feet, like

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Speaker 1: just barely low enough that it is really unpleasant without

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Speaker 1: making anybody have to or anybody you know who's a

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Speaker 1: normal height have to bend over. So I'm thinking a

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Speaker 1: ceiling of about six ft eight inches, how tall is

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Speaker 1: the ceiling? And uh, there's a there's a weird floor

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Speaker 1: on a building and being John Malkovich, Oh yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think that people have to stoop over, don't they? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that would that would be unpleasant if I had to stoop.

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Speaker 1: But you could be in a six foot eight room

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Speaker 1: without having to bend over, It's true. But but I

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Speaker 1: can see what you're saying, like, even if you've never

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Speaker 1: had to actually stoop, there is that feeling that the

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Speaker 1: ceiling is closer than it should be. That's what I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, and that is like a measured psychological phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: Low ceilings make people feel uncomfortable. Yeah, they feel crowded,

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Speaker 1: they feel cramped, and their stress levels go up. And

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Speaker 1: just anecdotally, I've read about like people trying to live

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Speaker 1: in apartments that had low ceilings and that that it

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Speaker 1: eventually drives them crazy. They've They're like, I've got to

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Speaker 1: move out of here. Huh. Now, I think in addition

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Speaker 1: to that, we should address other aspects of the construction

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Speaker 1: of the room itself, like you gotta have a low ceiling.

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Speaker 1: What about windows. Oh, it almost goes without saying that

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Speaker 1: you can't have windows. Right, there are no windows in

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Speaker 1: the video drum room, at least not that we we

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Speaker 1: see windows at least when not obstructed. They provide you

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Speaker 1: a taste of the world for which we evolved, right,

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Speaker 1: a place full of uh cycles and change of fixed

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Speaker 1: features moving into these no matter how boring the room is,

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Speaker 1: if you can look out and see even just a

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Speaker 1: drab city street, you can you can see something, right,

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Speaker 1: you can see life, You can see change. Um, So

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Speaker 1: I think the windows absolutely have to go. Anything we

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Speaker 1: need to have, like a bricked up window just to

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Speaker 1: drive the home. The fact that there used to be

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Speaker 1: a way to see out of this room, but we

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Speaker 1: we just didn't have time for that. So I was

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Speaker 1: looking to find some research on like empirical research on

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Speaker 1: the effects of window versus windowless rooms. And what I

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Speaker 1: found was by Kelly Farley and Jennifer and Vitch a

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Speaker 1: Room with a View, A Review of the Effects of

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Speaker 1: Windows on Work and well Being for the Institute for

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Speaker 1: Researching Construction the National Research Council of Canada two thousand ones.

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Speaker 1: This is a big literature review of the research on

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Speaker 1: the relationship between windows, well being and productivity, and so

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Speaker 1: here's what they found. First of all, people definitely prefer windows,

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Speaker 1: they really want to have them, and doesn't always appear

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Speaker 1: to be necessary for like health and performance. For example,

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Speaker 1: some studies in British schools showed that children in windowless

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Speaker 1: classrooms did just as well as kids who could see

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Speaker 1: the outside world. But lots of studies have found that

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Speaker 1: people just tend to hate spaces without windows. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: in the words of one study by Russ in nineteen seventy,

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Speaker 1: people believe that windowless workspaces were causing them to feel

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Speaker 1: feelings of isolation, depression, and tension. Now, I don't know

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Speaker 1: to what extent it would actually have an impact on

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Speaker 1: our hellish designs here, but I have read that that

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Speaker 1: if the windows are open for any extended period of time,

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Speaker 1: that can have a beneficial effect on the human microbiome.

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Speaker 1: Probably like it, that's just going to come back to

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Speaker 1: not only visual connection with nature, but actual, uh microbial

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Speaker 1: connection with nature. Well, I'm assuming that with our room,

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Speaker 1: probably nobody's going to stay in it longer than an

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Speaker 1: hour or so. So uh so we we we wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have to worry about the long term health effects, I

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Speaker 1: would hope. But here's the next thing. So there is

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Speaker 1: also evidence that people when they're in a windowless environment,

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Speaker 1: they dislike it so much that they try to compensate

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Speaker 1: for a lack of windows with decorations. So Summer in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four found that people in windowless places often

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Speaker 1: start hanging up pictures and posters containing images of natural landscapes,

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Speaker 1: bodies of water, and animals, and these go all over

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Speaker 1: the walls. This of course reminds me of a good friend,

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Speaker 1: Dr Hannibal Elector, who in the Silence of the Lambs,

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Speaker 1: he's in a cell with no window, and so what

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Speaker 1: does he do. He's created a mural. He's created I

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Speaker 1: can't I don't recall exactly what the mural is, draws

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Speaker 1: pictures of Florence, and yes, because then of course he

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Speaker 1: goes to Florence in the in the next book, you know,

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Speaker 1: speaking of Hannibal Elector, who was in some kind of institution.

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Speaker 1: The same has also been found in hospitals. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two, Wilson found that patients were twice as likely

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Speaker 1: to experience post operative delirium when they were in windowless

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Speaker 1: versus windowed intensive care units, and even the ones that

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Speaker 1: didn't get post operative delirium were more likely to develop

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Speaker 1: post surgical depression in windowless areas. Quote the author suggested

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Speaker 1: that windows might provide some sort of necessary psychological escape

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Speaker 1: from the grim realities of surgery, and without them, the

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Speaker 1: additional stress is sufficient to tip the balance toward a

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Speaker 1: brief psychotic episode for a large percentage of patients. Now.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, an interesting fact is that people's

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Speaker 1: negative attitudes about windowless spaces seemed to be based on

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Speaker 1: what kind of space it is. Like workers on the

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Speaker 1: floors of windowless factories didn't seem as bothered as people

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Speaker 1: who worked in small windowless office spaces. And there are

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Speaker 1: other interior spaces where there's evidence that people don't really

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Speaker 1: mind a lack of windows, like they don't really seem

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Speaker 1: to mind a lack of windows in theaters, in restaurants,

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Speaker 1: in bowling alleys, in nightclubs, and department stores and museums.

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Speaker 1: This also makes me think of and I'm not a

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Speaker 1: big fan of this term, but the man caves that

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Speaker 1: some some some male listeners may either have or aspire

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Speaker 1: to have or have at least heard of, right, And

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Speaker 1: and it does bring to mind just a dark window

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Speaker 1: lists basement in which you know, video games and socks

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Speaker 1: are everywhere. I guess you've got a bar with the

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Speaker 1: sink that you never run water in soup stinking well. No,

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Speaker 1: I mean, when you think about it, what what all

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Speaker 1: these places that people don't really mind a lack of

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Speaker 1: windows in seem to have in common. They tend to

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Speaker 1: be large interior spaces, usually with plenty of freedom to

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Speaker 1: move around and lots of activity or points of interest inside. Right,

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Speaker 1: or certainly, if you're in the cinema, the film itself

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Speaker 1: is the window exactly, that would be the point of interest.

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00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:53,439
Speaker 1: And yeah, and it is kind of like a window.

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00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: That's a good point. So I would say busy, open

403
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Speaker 1: interior spaces seem to somewhat mitigate the unpleasant as of

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Speaker 1: a lack of windows, presumably because people in these other

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Speaker 1: environments have stuff to look at and room to move around.

406
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Speaker 1: So you know what this means for us? Our temple

407
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:11,879
Speaker 1: of infinite unpleasantness should have no windows, and it should

408
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,520
Speaker 1: also be small, small, and cramped, without much open floor

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Speaker 1: space to move around or things to look at. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: and in terms of things to look at, I think

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Speaker 1: Mr Pinhead would would probably be on board with the

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Speaker 1: idea that the worst thing that you can show someone

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Speaker 1: is nothing. Well, yeah, I mean there's a really there

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Speaker 1: are some forms of rooms that don't actually inflict physical

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Speaker 1: pain on people that could be considered torture, and one

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Speaker 1: example would be solitary confinement. Right. I believe we've covered

417
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Speaker 1: this on the show before the the the debilitating effects

418
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Speaker 1: of solitary confinement are well defined at this point. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is. It is a mental torture to put somebody

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Speaker 1: in a space like that, right, which is why it's

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Speaker 1: very important than in our scenario, the person is not imprisoned, right,

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Speaker 1: they can leave it any time, they can leave. How

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Speaker 1: long could you stand it? Though? Yeah? How long can

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Speaker 1: you just stand in a featureless room without any kind

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Speaker 1: of art to engage in, etcetera. You might actually, I

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00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: suspect overestimate your abilities on this count, because I think

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00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:16,919
Speaker 1: people underestimate sometimes how much their environment affects them. You know.

428
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 1: I think we tend to think like, well, if I'm

429
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 1: mentally prepared, I can deal with anything. But I don't.

430
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 1: We're very susceptible to the aesthetic qualities of our environments

431
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:28,199
Speaker 1: more so than we give our environments credit for Now,

432
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a quick break and then when

433
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: we come back, discuss what color to paint the walls.

434
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:38,199
Speaker 1: Than alright, we're back, um, Mr Pinhead has brought in

435
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:44,400
Speaker 1: some cans of paint, watches, watches, what color? What colors

436
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 1: are our best candidates for painting this unpleasant room, because

437
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,240
Speaker 1: we know quite well just from personal experience, right, that

438
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: colors play a big role in our mood. Right, Yes,

439
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: So I want to start with an example here that

440
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go ahead and find everybody that this

441
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 1: one is one that there's a fair amount of disagreement on.

442
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 1: So this is and this is of course so called

443
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: drunk tank pink or Baker Miller pink. So one. Dr

444
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:17,400
Speaker 1: Alexander Schaus, PhD, director of the American Institute for Biosocial

445
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 1: Research into in Tacoma, Washington. He claimed back in the

446
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies that this specific shade of pink had

447
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 1: a calming effect on humans, slowing heart rate and a

448
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:33,120
Speaker 1: lowering string. I'm suspicious, yeah, and it did this this uh,

449
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: this announcement of his it did indeed lead to cells

450
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: in some places being painted pink, or opposing locker rooms

451
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,360
Speaker 1: being painted pink. Supposedly you know, to to make the

452
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: opponent less aggressive, but follow up studies provide minimal support

453
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: for this effect. If anything, it's a very short term effect. Yeah,

454
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 1: I was looking for research on this, and some of

455
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 1: the research that was coming up was in the Journal

456
00:24:55,400 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, which I think is not a considered

457
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: a legitimate field. Right. So, I think on one is

458
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:05,920
Speaker 1: a good, nice cautionary tale because I think, on one hand,

459
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: we do have to acknowledge that the color is only

460
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: going to have so much effect on on our feelings

461
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,439
Speaker 1: in our in our inner world. Well, this sounds kind

462
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 1: of like what the opposite of what we want anyway.

463
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: We don't want to calm people, right right, we want

464
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: I mean to come back to the video drone room.

465
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,119
Speaker 1: The video drone room is that weird orange color, and

466
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 1: orange is certainly an arresting color. It's hard to ignore.

467
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: It's highly visible in low light, and it's one of

468
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 1: the reasons that that's one of the reasons we see

469
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:36,160
Speaker 1: it on life vests and so forth. So I think

470
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 1: that was another excellent aesthetic choice by Cronenberg and his team. Well,

471
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: I've got another one, and this next one is again

472
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: I look for an answer informed by empirical research. So

473
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: say hello to Pantone for so my source here is

474
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,880
Speaker 1: a two thousand twelve article in the Brisbane Times by

475
00:25:56,080 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: Rachel Wells and so apparently, in two thousand twelve, the

476
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: Australian federal government was embarking on a public health project.

477
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: It wanted to discourage smoking, and in order to discourage smoking,

478
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: it wanted to make cigarettes as unappealing as possible. And

479
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: this project would require commercial tobacco products in Australia to

480
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 1: be given new packaging, which was not the packaging that

481
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: would have been selected by the by the you know,

482
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: the tobacco producer, but the manufacturer, but mandated by the government.

483
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: And so it would be logo free, uh, manufacturer art free,

484
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: with huge health warnings and and so forth. They were

485
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: trying to force cigarettes to be sold in packages that

486
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: would discourage people from using them. And of course they

487
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,159
Speaker 1: had to mandate a color scheme for the cigarette packs,

488
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: and that color scheme was supposed to make the cigarettes

489
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:53,880
Speaker 1: look disgusting and unpleasant. So they brought in help and

490
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: they consulted for several months with a market research agency

491
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 1: called GfK Blue Moon. There was a person who worked

492
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,199
Speaker 1: at this company named Victoria Parr who told the author

493
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 1: of this article in the Brisbane Times quote, we didn't

494
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 1: want to create attractive, aspirational packaging designed to win customers. Instead,

495
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: our role was to help our client reduce demand, with

496
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: the ultimate aim to minimize use of the product. And

497
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: the winner in their competition to select a color, which

498
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: they did through you know, normal market research means, was

499
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: a really strange and unpleasant color called pantone for forty s,

500
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 1: a sort of depressing, drab color somewhere between dull brown

501
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 1: and green. How would you describe this color? Well, I

502
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: would say that for starters, I actually printed my notes

503
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 1: out in in full color to take advantage of this.

504
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, can I can barely tell that it's

505
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 1: in color, Like, it's so brown and brown that it

506
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 1: kind of gray green brown. Yeah, Like it barely registers

507
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: as having used, you know, pigments from the printer. On

508
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: the other hand, I have to say that this color

509
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: does remind me of some of the Panzer colors that

510
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: my dad would use to paint scale models of German tanks.

511
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna go as far as to say

512
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: it's a pleasant color. I think this is ultimately an

513
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: unpleasant color, But I think this is an example of

514
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: a color that probably produces more positive memories or matt

515
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 1: might stir some nostalgia in me where others would just

516
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: see brown. Uh, you know, I don't. I don't believe

517
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,719
Speaker 1: it's exactly one of the colors that's used in various

518
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: tank models and whatnot, and some aircraft models from the

519
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 1: Second World War, but I think you'll agree that it

520
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: would be right at home in the kind of bleak

521
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: rainbow that is that's that's that's displayed in some of

522
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: these like Panzer military color paint sets. It's specifically the

523
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: bleakness and dulness. Because they did try many other colors

524
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: when they were doing this research, including like shades that

525
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: we more directly perceived as brown, actually didn't make it

526
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: because people sometimes saw those I think as like kind

527
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: of classy. Yeah, they're more like earth tones. There's something

528
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,719
Speaker 1: kind of unnatural about this this shade, the kind of

529
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: green grayness of it. So anyway, the firm went through

530
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 1: this process. They had seven studies conducted on over a

531
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: thousand smokers between the ages of sixteen and sixty four

532
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: testing out different colors to see which were the most

533
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: and least appealing for cigarette packaging. Quote. Participants indicated that drab,

534
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: dark brown packages had the lowest overall appeal and looked

535
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: like they would contain the lowest quality cigarettes, which would

536
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: cause the most harm. The cigarette packaging was supposed to

537
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: go into effect in December. Here's what they look like, Robert, I,

538
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: I showed you that they've got these horrible pictures of

539
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: like the side effect the health effects of smoking, or

540
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: of like revolting torture images on the cover of them. Yeah,

541
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: there's one that was like an eye with the lids

542
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: being pulled back and it looks like a flash scene

543
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: from Event Horizon or something. Yeah, so apparently other countries

544
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: are adopting this for their packages as well. Uh. Now,

545
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: a few things to consider here. The testing was done

546
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: on Australians, and we know that color preferences can vary

547
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: from person to person and also on average between different cultures.

548
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: But I somehow suspect this drab color will be pretty

549
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: unpopular around the world. Yeah, I would be surprised if

550
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: there if there any cultures out there where this is

551
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: just an exciting color, you know, because we've talked about before,

552
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: how like, oh, well, you know, red has more prominent,

553
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 1: say and in traditional Chinese culture versus some other cultures.

554
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 1: Or we talked about green, about green being the color

555
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: of the evil fairy folk in uh in in in

556
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: older English traditions. But those are those are remarkable colors

557
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: that stand out. This is this is a color that

558
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: is nefarious in its unremarkable nous. It's also something about

559
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: the way that it looks unnatural. Like I like earth tones.

560
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: I like things with like brown and green packaging. Brown

561
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: and green individually are good. This is some weird, kind

562
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: of dull thing between them that I don't feel like

563
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in the world except on a computer screen.

564
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: It does make me wanna look into camouflage again. I

565
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: know you have a past episode of camouflage on the show,

566
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: but a number of the different camouflage patterns that were

567
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: developed during the Second World War and uh and and

568
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: after that, a lot of scientific thought went into them.

569
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: And I wonder if if there's any if there's any

570
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: synchronicity between this topic and that, if there are any

571
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: particular colors that I mean, obviously you want natural colors,

572
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: earthen colors and many of your camouflage patterns, but you

573
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: also don't want it to be remarkable. You know, you

574
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: want it to be unremarkable because you're not supposed to

575
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: look at the tank that has painted up like this.

576
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: You know. One more anecdote I read about was that

577
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: the Australian government, uh was originally they were calling this

578
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,479
Speaker 1: color some it's something, it's something involving the word olive

579
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: because it does kind of have like an olive green

580
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: thing going on. But apparently, like the Olive Growers Association

581
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: got in touch with them and they were like, please

582
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: don't call it that. You're insulting our product. It is

583
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: insulting to olives because olives have really a rich variety

584
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: of coloration. Well, like we said, the world is full

585
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: of wonderful brown green things that are I don't know,

586
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: they're not whatever. This is all right, So we've painted

587
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: our walls with this awful color. What's next? Well, I

588
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: guess the next question is whether the walls should be

589
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: blank or decorated with something. Okay, Well, you know, to

590
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: go back to the video drum example, you have that

591
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: awful piece of clay. I like that. I think Pinhead

592
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: would probably just hang a bunch of chains everywhere, right,

593
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: and he would and he would have stuck to just

594
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 1: like a black color coloration, which I don't think it

595
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: is that remarkable or that intimidating. Really, I don't know. Yeah,

596
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: black can be an interesting color. I mean yeah, I

597
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: mean it's it's been two houses that have black walls before.

598
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: You know the right environment if you're going for that

599
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: kind of mood, if you want something kind of gothy.

600
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: You know what happens when Pinhead tortures goths to go

601
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: to a different room. I don't know. So I think

602
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: if we are going to hang some wall art, I

603
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: know just where to consult to figure out what it

604
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: should be. So in nine the Russian American artists and

605
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: I think they would probably consider themselves sort of conceptual art.

606
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: Comedians Vitali Comar born ninety three and Alexander Millimed born

607
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five released a book chronicling and interesting project.

608
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: The book was called Painting by Numbers, Coomar and Millimed's

609
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: Scientific Guide to Art with University of California Press at nine.

610
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: So what the authors did here is. They teamed up

611
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: with the Nation Institute and a professional polling group to

612
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: conduct market research style preference polling in America and ten

613
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: other countries around the world, including Russia, China, Kenya, etcetera. Essentially,

614
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: they wanted to identify and quantify the features that people

615
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,479
Speaker 1: like the most and like the least in art. So

616
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: they pulled people these polls to find out what colors

617
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: they like the most in the least in paintings. It

618
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: turns out that blue, green, and white are very popular, fucia, gold,

619
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,360
Speaker 1: maroon or the least popular, but also all kinds of

620
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: other things is popular. No it's not. Yeah, well, I

621
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: mean when you look at gold and some of these paintings,

622
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: it does look ugly. I guess it depends on how

623
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: the gold is created, Like like our art that has

624
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,879
Speaker 1: like a very kind of like tactile gold leaf look

625
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: to it. Like I think of the work of Gustav Klimt,

626
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: there's a fair amount of gold or gold like colors

627
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: in there, and that's like that's part of the beauty

628
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:38,399
Speaker 1: of it. Well, the can't argue with the results. I mean,

629
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: this is what people said, But then there's also other stuff.

630
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 1: What kind of shapes, what kind of angles, styles, representative contents,

631
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 1: all that, What did people like and dislike? And it

632
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: turns out the results are a little bit different in

633
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: different countries, but not very much. Pretty much everyone around

634
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: the world agrees the most pleasant paintings are natural landscapes

635
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: dominated by the color blue, with views of water and

636
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: a tree. Oh. That that reminds me of the the

637
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: hypothesis we discussed in the show in the Path, that

638
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 1: it's the paintings like that are are we we dig

639
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 1: them because we're drawn to that kind of environment, that

640
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: that's in our genes to want to to be up

641
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,359
Speaker 1: on a hill in such an environment and gaze out

642
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: at this world. Well, sure, I mean it might be

643
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: another one of the reasons people like having windows. They'll

644
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: have to be able to see the natural world and

645
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: failing that put this cool pastoral picture up there. The

646
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: only major variation between the countries and the most wanted

647
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: types of paintings was like whether or not there were

648
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: people in the paintings and who those people were. For example,

649
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: do you want do you want some farmers hard at work,

650
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: or do you want George Washington? Or do you want Jesus?

651
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: Or do you want a naked lady. These are all

652
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: fine options, I mean preferably all these things at once. Yes,

653
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: some of them had more than one naked George Washington

654
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:01,240
Speaker 1: high up there. Yes, my my list of requests, salutely. Now,

655
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 1: on the other hand, what about the most hated possible paintings.

656
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 1: This offered a little bit more variation, but it still

657
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: had some pretty consistent themes across the different countries. What

658
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: people around the world seemed to hate the most were

659
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: abstract geometric art with sharp angles and color combinations like fucia, maroon, orange,

660
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: and mauve. Now this is interesting because, um, on one hand,

661
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: I can't think of a painting that I like that

662
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: has a bunch of like triangle shapes in it. There

663
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: might be one, I'm just not remembering it. But it

664
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:37,399
Speaker 1: also makes me think that there are to come back

665
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: to camouflage. There are certain camouflage patterns that have this

666
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 1: this kind of look going on, with lots of jagged angels,

667
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: angles or even a zig zag arrangement. Well, I'd say

668
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: easily one of the least popular was like square shapes.

669
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: It was like square shapes with you know, four corners

670
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 1: and really horrible color combinations like fuchia and orange and

671
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: gold that video drum orange coming back up. But I

672
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 1: wonder if part of it is that the squares is

673
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: rather unnatural and then the square itself is this unnatural color. Yeah,

674
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: I think that could be it. I mean, people like

675
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: people were, you know, they were kind of going against

676
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 1: the art critics, right, the art critics the stuff that

677
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 1: they would scoff at, like the realistic representative painting of

678
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,320
Speaker 1: just like Jesus standing by a lake with a tree

679
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: that you know, that probably doesn't do very well in

680
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: the art scene, but that is what people wanted to see,

681
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: you know. On the other hand, though, there are a

682
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:34,920
Speaker 1: lot of like Cubist paintings that are that are that

683
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: are very beautiful or or I certainly think of the

684
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: some of the work of Salvador Dali, who you know,

685
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: would use these um this. He has this one piece

686
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: in particular, that is the Crucifixion, but it's created with

687
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 1: the with these uh these kind of like large pixels,

688
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:52,879
Speaker 1: So it's a different image if you're standing further away

689
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: from it as opposed to close up. How far away

690
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: could you really get from the art though, in the

691
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: room we're creating, That's true, It would be it would

692
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,239
Speaker 1: be that are small. And I should say that the

693
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: examples that you included in our notes, these do not

694
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: look like the work of Salvador Dollars. These are these

695
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: are for the most part, not that engaging. I do

696
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 1: like one or two of them, but some of them

697
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: just look like like Cubist birthday cake. Oh yeah, they

698
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: do have like a one thing that a lot of

699
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: people really don't seem to like is very, very like

700
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: thick layers of paint where you can see the texture

701
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:29,839
Speaker 1: in three dimensions. Yeah, but it looks like icing. Yeah,

702
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a weird area because on one hand,

703
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 1: there are there are plenty of great paintings where that

704
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: have that kind of three D e quality that you

705
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 1: you do almost want to touch them and feel the

706
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: texture of them, and that's part of their beauty. But

707
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: then on the other end of the spectrum you have

708
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: like faux wall finishes right where it's just the kind

709
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:50,399
Speaker 1: of the tacky version of that same technique. Oh yeah,

710
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 1: I hadn't even considered that in the basic coat of

711
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:56,919
Speaker 1: paint on the room itself. But either way, I mean,

712
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 1: so it seems like if we want to go with

713
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: what has been and found to be least popular in

714
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: uh in at least these studies. We want like a

715
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: base code of like Panto four forty eight C and

716
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: then some abstract art with sharp angles and colors like

717
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: like fuschia and mav and maroon. Yeah, I think we do.

718
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 1: We do really have to shop around for that piece

719
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,280
Speaker 1: of art that we hang in there, But I bet,

720
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 1: I bet something could be produced. All right, now, we've

721
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: talked plenty about sites, so I think maybe we should

722
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:25,879
Speaker 1: discuss the sounds of this room. Okay, let's do it.

723
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 1: You know, I think we've mentioned this on the podcast before,

724
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: but the same two guys, Comar and Melamed, they also

725
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: used the same method, used market research polling to try

726
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,760
Speaker 1: to figure out what we're all the characteristics that people

727
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: most widely loved and hated in music. Oh yes, I

728
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: remember this one. Yeah, And they teamed up with the

729
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 1: musician named Dave Soldier and combined the things at the

730
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 1: top of the list to synthesize what they called the

731
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: people's choice music most wanted song, and that included stuff

732
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:01,839
Speaker 1: like like low vocals, saxophone, piano, and humble ambition. Yeah.

733
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: I remember listening to the track that they produced to

734
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: represent this, and it's just so unmemorable because it is.

735
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: It's just, Oh, it sounds a little bit like everything else,

736
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: but nothing stands out about it. Yeah, it sounds a

737
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:20,399
Speaker 1: little bit like a combination of like oh like like

738
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 1: early nineties R and B and like Springsteen sort of

739
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: rolled into the same song. It's It's very lukewarm. But

740
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 1: then they also combined all of the most hated, most

741
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: annoying things according to their market research, into a single

742
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: unpleasant song called Most Unwanted Song. If you've never heard it,

743
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: it's worth hearing. It contains tuba's bagpipes, wood blocks, accordion,

744
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 1: cheap synth, drum machine, pipe organ, a soprano, opera singer,

745
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: sort of opera rapping about being a cowboy, and a

746
00:40:56,280 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 1: children's chorus, plugging retail chains and screaming about Christmas Us,

747
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: and then somebody yelling political slogans into a megaphone. It's

748
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: pretty awful, but it's memorably awful. It is impossible to forget. Well,

749
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:10,799
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you know, we I don't think

750
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:13,800
Speaker 1: we can just like outsource to that for the sounds

751
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: we're playing in the room, because it's actually so awful.

752
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,840
Speaker 1: It's pretty enjoyable, right. I think if we want to

753
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: be more guaranteed of unpleasantness in our sonic atmosphere, we

754
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,399
Speaker 1: don't want to accidentally make people laugh, all right. Well,

755
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 1: for possible inspiration here, I think we can actually look

756
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: to the real life architects of unpleasant rooms, who sometimes

757
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: do a lean on music and sound in order to

758
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 1: you know, carry out their various psychological operations. According to

759
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,280
Speaker 1: a two thousand three BBC article, U S psy ops

760
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: used quote unquote culturally offensive music to break prisoner resistance

761
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: among Iraqi po debuts. So we're talking, and these are

762
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: specific songs that are mentioned in the piece. Inter Sandman

763
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: by Metallica, okay, which I don't think it's a bad song,

764
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 1: Bodies by Drowning Pool, Um, yeah, no, no comment. And

765
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 1: then Barney's I Love You song, which is not a

766
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 1: song for grown ups. It is a song is a

767
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: song for very young children of a bygone era. H

768
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: So in in in all of these cases, we're not

769
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:21,919
Speaker 1: talking about one playing of the song. We're talking about

770
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:25,839
Speaker 1: putting this particular song on repeat for say hours, and

771
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: then that is used in conjunction with and enabling sleep

772
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 1: deprivation in the individual, so you're playing inter sand Man

773
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: over and over again to keep them from sleeping. I

774
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: think it would be the volume would be key, volume

775
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:43,439
Speaker 1: would be played very loud. So I think we're sort

776
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: of that would be sort of breaking the rules. I

777
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: would say, I don't think we should be in the

778
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: room of infinite unpleasantness be allowed to play something at

779
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 1: a volume that actually hurts people. That that seems like

780
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's edging in torture right right now. I

781
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: do think that we should. We can look to examples

782
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: of what people do do in order to make a

783
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: room more pleasant, and two things come to mind. Of course,

784
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: at the airport, they will of course play the news,

785
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: which I've never understood, but I guess it's engaging, right

786
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: at least people are watching it. It's something to pay

787
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 1: attention to. What we said before. What they should be

788
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: doing is they should be playing music for airports by

789
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:25,280
Speaker 1: Brian Ena exactly. And that is exactly the kind of music,

790
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: the kind of soundscape we should not employ in our

791
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: room because something pleasant and ambient, dependable like that is

792
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: totally at odds with our objective. And this brings us

793
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,279
Speaker 1: to the world of misophonia and this is This has

794
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: been explored in an older episode of Stuff to Blow

795
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:43,800
Speaker 1: Your Mind, But basically it boils down to this certain

796
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: sounds like gum shoeing, lip smacking, basically, whatever whatever your

797
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: pet peeves out there, whatever your individual pet peeves for

798
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: sounds are, uh, they probably line up with those that

799
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: are frequently discussed in a discussion of mssophonia. Miss Aphonia

800
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: being uh this condition that individuals some individuals have where

801
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: they simply react very strongly to the same the same

802
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: sort of triggers. According to a two thousand seventeen Newcastle study,

803
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: it was is quote an abnormality in the emotional control

804
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: mechanism which causes their brains to go into overdrive on

805
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 1: hearing trigger sounds. Now, obviously we can't bank on landing

806
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: only individuals with miss aphonia in our evil room, but

807
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: we can think about those common triggers chewing, breathing, snoring.

808
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: Perhaps we mix this in with other accepted trigger sound

809
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: stuff that we're hardwired to take notice of, like a

810
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:44,879
Speaker 1: crying or a whining child, which was also we've also

811
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 1: discussed on the show, or another one that I've seen

812
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 1: mentioned is incomplete phone calls, something where you can't help

813
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: and this at this we run the risk of making

814
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: the room engaging. But there is frequently something very annoying

815
00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: about not being able to decode the meaning of a

816
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: particular uh communication. Oh yeah, like you can only hear

817
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: half of a phone call, but it's in your language,

818
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: so you you sort of can't help but pay attention

819
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: to it, but at the same time you can't understand it. Yeah,

820
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 1: and it would have to be something supermundane too. You

821
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 1: don't want to You don't want your interest to be really,

822
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: you know, perked. And what you're saying, Oh, what are

823
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: they talking about? What is this? What is this scandalous

824
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 1: situation they're discussing. Well, as we've done before, I think

825
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 1: we should try to look for some kind of empirical

826
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: research on what would be the most universally accepted unpleasant

827
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: sounds of this kind. So the question would be, has

828
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: anybody done research on the most unpleasant sounds in the world? Oh? Yes,

829
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: they have, of course. So uh, I guess if you

830
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 1: had to guess, right, if you had to guess, what's

831
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: the most unpleasant sound in the world there is you

832
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: might go with the classic nails on the chalkboard. Oh, Yeah,

833
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 1: that's the one that is typically mentioned. I think of

834
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: the great quin scene in Jaws, right, how does he

835
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 1: get everybody's attention in the room at the town hall?

836
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:02,919
Speaker 1: You'll know me know how I make a living. Yeah,

837
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 1: it is undeniably an awful sound. And yes, of course

838
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,760
Speaker 1: research confirms that, in fact, people do hate this noise,

839
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: but it actually doesn't always make the top of the list. Now,

840
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: there have been multiple studies into this. So first of all,

841
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: there was one by Professor Trevor Cox of the Acoustic

842
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: Research Center in Salford University in England, and he's conducted

843
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: one form of research through sort of massive online voting,

844
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: and his project found a winner for the most unpleasant

845
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 1: sound out of the ones that they were able to

846
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: have people rank, and that was the sound of vomiting. Okay, Now,

847
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 1: actually it was just a simulation. It was a recording

848
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: of I listened to it. It was a very convincing

849
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,880
Speaker 1: simulation of vomiting. Is a dude making wretching sounds and

850
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: then slopping water down baked beans into a bucket. Okay,

851
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: it is an unpleasant sound. I'll give him that. Did

852
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: you listen to it? I haven't, but I don't have to.

853
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 1: I can. I can just imagine it because someone barfing.

854
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: It's is like that shows up in every TV show, right,

855
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: there's always gonna be that scene of vomiting, and it's

856
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: it's always disgusting, even if they don't show you anything.

857
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: And it seems like half the time they do go

858
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: ahead and show you something. Now, this was back in

859
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: two thousand seven or so, and so after vomiting. Runners

860
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:20,760
Speaker 1: up in this voting included microphone feedback, uh, the squeaks

861
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: of a train on the tracks, the sound of babies crying,

862
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: and then the next four after that where a squeaky seesaw,

863
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 1: a poorly played violin, whoopee cushion, and an argument in

864
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:36,839
Speaker 1: a soap opera. Okay, um, the train track is an

865
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: interesting one because I actually live next to train tracks,

866
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: and I mean, there, that's the sound. I probably hear

867
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: a lot, but I almost I really don't hear it anymore.

868
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: Like nothing about the train tracks ever bother me, and

869
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 1: there's always sound coming from. Actually, I live next to

870
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: two train tracks. I live next to both the traditional

871
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:58,760
Speaker 1: train tracks and public transportation train tracks, the Marta tracks

872
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. As for the whoopee cushion. I don't

873
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: understand that one, because that is funny. The whoopie cushion

874
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: is an instrument of joy. I mean maybe it's if

875
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,399
Speaker 1: these sounds are repeated for a certain period of time.

876
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,919
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I don't know. I mean, interestingly, there were

877
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: like some differences in the rankings along demographic lines, Like

878
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: young people found the sound of eating an apple with

879
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 1: the mouth open more unpleasant than older people did, and

880
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:28,439
Speaker 1: on average, men found the sound of babies crying more

881
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,879
Speaker 1: unpleasant than women did, at least in this study. Yeah,

882
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: so there there's gonna be some variation. Uh, nails on

883
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 1: a chalkboard six On this list, people hated the train

884
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:43,720
Speaker 1: way more than nails on a chalkboard. Now, something interesting

885
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:45,759
Speaker 1: to note here. I think it should be clear that

886
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 1: some sounds are unpleasant because of their meaning, right because

887
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: like we're picturing the act that produced them, and others

888
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:59,399
Speaker 1: are somehow more intrinsically unpleasant for sonic reasons, Like there

889
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 1: is something conceptually horrible about vomiting that seems to be

890
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: the reason we don't like that sound, But there's nothing

891
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 1: conceptually horrible about microphone feedback or a squeaky seesaw or

892
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:13,359
Speaker 1: a train on the track, right, It's got to be

893
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: just something about that sound itself. We can't microphone feedback though.

894
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: Can't that harm recording equipment and sound equipment though? I

895
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: guess so, But I would I would think that most

896
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:26,280
Speaker 1: people who heard it would not, you know, be familiar

897
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 1: with it. In that context, it can also be is

898
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:32,400
Speaker 1: often allowed enough to whear it is physically painful, you know,

899
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: like you will want to cover your ears exactly. Yeah,

900
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: so there that it does have that going for it,

901
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: but that would be like a sonic connotation, not like

902
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:43,839
Speaker 1: a thing about what it meant. Apart from that, right,

903
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 1: I wonder if the sound of a record scratching if

904
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: that used to be more like potently offensive a sound

905
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: before because you're like, my record is being damaged. Right?

906
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:56,959
Speaker 1: But then, yeah, you have sort of like two things

907
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 1: that emerge, Like there's the scribe the record scratch that

908
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 1: is a a comedic cue I thought, you know that

909
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 1: some sort of social faux pa has happened. Or of

910
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 1: course you have the world of scratch deejaying that emerges

911
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: where scratching or various levels of scratching a record become

912
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: part of the musical art form. Yeah, that's interesting. I've

913
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: never thought of a scratched record record scratches being all

914
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: that painful sound, but I can absolutely see how it

915
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: would be and how you might have to reclaim it

916
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: for good anyway. But all this, I think it might

917
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:30,719
Speaker 1: be useful to separate the idea of sounds that we

918
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: hate because they bring to mind things that we hate,

919
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: versus sounds that we hate simply because of what they

920
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:41,439
Speaker 1: sound like. Like why do we hate squeaky, screechy, high

921
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:45,840
Speaker 1: pitch sounds that don't inherently indicate like a disease risk

922
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: or a predator threat or anything like that, Like the

923
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: sound of vomiting might right, Or like the sound of

924
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:54,240
Speaker 1: a train, Like you're not in danger of a train

925
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 1: that is like slowly stopping or squeaking as it travels

926
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: at low speeds close by. I mean, that's that's not

927
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: a danger, certainly not an instinctual one. That could maybe

928
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 1: be a learned one. I don't know. Let's look at

929
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: another study, this one from twelve in the Journal of

930
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 1: Neuroscience UH features versus feelings Dissociable Representations on the acoustic

931
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:19,920
Speaker 1: features and valance of aversive sounds by Kumar von Kraigstein

932
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: Friston and Griffith's uh so, this was a neuroimaging study

933
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:27,239
Speaker 1: identifying the most unpleasant sounds and what is happening in

934
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:30,040
Speaker 1: the brain when we experience them. They got a small

935
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:32,840
Speaker 1: group participants who underwent m R I while listening to

936
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: a collection of forty seven different sounds, and then the

937
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: participants rated which ones were the worst. Here's the list again,

938
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:43,239
Speaker 1: nails on chalkboard is not number one. The number one

939
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: most hated sound was knife on a bottle. I guess

940
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:49,839
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure what that sounds like. I mean

941
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:53,319
Speaker 1: it and nothing's coming to mind. I just don't think

942
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: I have a strong reaction to that one. I mean,

943
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:59,359
Speaker 1: imagine scraping a knife on a glass bottle? Who does that? Though,

944
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 1: it seems like it's not wise to have on the

945
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: list the people who sabor the champagne bottles, I'd say,

946
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: I guess, okay, Well, anyway, continue. You seem really bothered

947
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: by this. I just it seems like like it was

948
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: created entirely for this. I don't know. I'll have to

949
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: try it next when I get home. I will start

950
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,920
Speaker 1: carving on bottles and it annoys me. It may have

951
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: been created for the test. Yeah, I don't know that.

952
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: I mean, for some reason, just the idea of it

953
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 1: is annoying, so maybe maybe the sound will be even

954
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 1: more so. Nails on a blackboard was number five on

955
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: this list. Actually, what was worse than nails on a

956
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,919
Speaker 1: blackboard was chalk on a black bool. That was number three.

957
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 1: And you know what, I'll go along with that. I

958
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: hate the sound of chalk on a chalkboard. It might

959
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 1: be worse than fingernails. Yeah, it is kind of an

960
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 1: annoying sound because it's the kind of squeaky. And I

961
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,640
Speaker 1: think here's here's something about about chalk on a chalkboard.

962
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 1: Even if you know what is being written on the chalkboards,

963
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: you know what the words are going to be, there's

964
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:54,520
Speaker 1: an unpredictable nature to what kind of sounds are going

965
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 1: to be produced. You know, there's not there's sort of

966
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:00,280
Speaker 1: a rhythm, right, there's kind of that tac tac tac squeak,

967
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 1: squeak squeaked, tac tac tac squeak, and then the squeaking

968
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: will will will change in volume. I can't help but

969
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 1: think that that probably plays into the annoyance factor of

970
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: chalks on a chalkboard. And I imagine some of our

971
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:13,879
Speaker 1: listeners are younger listeners just have no idea what we're

972
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,720
Speaker 1: talking about, because they're just not used that much anymore.

973
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 1: It's always been the dry race markers, yeah, or just computers.

974
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,839
Speaker 1: I guess. Well, I when I when I was when

975
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:25,239
Speaker 1: I got out of college, I went I can taught

976
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 1: high school for a little bit. It was already all

977
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 1: marker boards. So yeah, no, I had some chalkboard classes.

978
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:35,320
Speaker 1: Also in the top ten list where a female scream,

979
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 1: a baby crying, and an electric drill. Oh, and a

980
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: thing called an angle grinder, which is some kind of

981
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 1: power tool I've never used. Ok, well those all those

982
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,399
Speaker 1: all make more sense. The least unpleasant sounds, the ones

983
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: that people like the most, were things like flowing water,

984
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 1: baby laughter, thunder, applause. Makes sense. All sounds pretty good now.

985
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 1: So the question is what happened in the brain when

986
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: the most irritating sounds were played. Aid it was not

987
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: just activity in the auditory cortex, which is where you

988
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 1: have sound processing sound information processing, but apparently there was

989
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 1: a lot of activity in the amygdala, which is a

990
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 1: brain region highly associated with the processing of emotions and

991
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 1: emotional learning, including things like fear, and fear conditioning. So

992
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 1: the level of activity in the amygdala seemed directly correlated

993
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: with how unpleasant people reported the sounds were, and the

994
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:29,520
Speaker 1: worst range of sounds seemed to occur at frequencies between

995
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:34,160
Speaker 1: two thousand and five thousand hurts for comparison. I don't

996
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 1: know if we actually want to do this, but maybe

997
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,240
Speaker 1: we could play a sound at about one thousand hurts

998
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: and then a sound at about four thousand hurts, and

999
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: that one is right inside the hate range. So why

1000
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 1: are sounds between two about two thousand and five thousand

1001
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: hurts so unpleasant and so apt to produce negative emotions?

1002
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: I was reading an article about this by science writer

1003
00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: named Joseph Stromberg, and he points to a few competing explanations.

1004
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:05,840
Speaker 1: One of them is that maybe this is this frequency

1005
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 1: range it includes the natural alarm call of our nearest

1006
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 1: primate relatives, and of course includes the natural frequency range

1007
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 1: of screams. So the thinking goes, maybe we have a

1008
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 1: natural tendency to associate sounds in this range with alarm,

1009
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 1: alarm calls, fear and distress, and they generate avoidance behaviors.

1010
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 1: It's like a chimpanzee screaming to indicate a predatory. That

1011
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:31,239
Speaker 1: makes sense. But then on the other hand, going against this,

1012
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 1: strong Bird points out that researching cotton top tamarins has

1013
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: shown that these animals react the same to both high

1014
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 1: frequency scraping noises like nails on a chalkboard and to

1015
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:44,920
Speaker 1: normal white noise. They don't seem to mind nails on

1016
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:47,759
Speaker 1: a chalkboard much in particular, even though it's in a

1017
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 1: frequency range that they could potentially associate with primate alarm calls.

1018
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: So that's a complication. But he also points out that

1019
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 1: it could potentially be purely mechanical because the shape of

1020
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: the human ear just tends to amplify some frequencies more

1021
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:06,280
Speaker 1: than others, and this amplification can make certain tones cause

1022
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 1: physical pain. So I mean, we would just get emotional

1023
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:14,759
Speaker 1: negative conditioning for sounds in this range because they sometimes hurt. Now,

1024
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:16,720
Speaker 1: I feel like we could probably do a whole episode

1025
00:56:16,719 --> 00:56:19,000
Speaker 1: on infrasound, but I do want to point out that

1026
00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 1: we could, of course pipe infrasound into our awful room,

1027
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:25,680
Speaker 1: and the infrasound generated by wind turbines, for instance, may

1028
00:56:25,719 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 1: affect some people's nervous systems by stimulating the vestibular system,

1029
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 1: producing something a kind to see sickness. Other studies have

1030
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 1: linked it to annoyance and fatigue. But I don't think

1031
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: there's anything really conclusive out there. But but this is

1032
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: a topic that we could easily return to in the future.

1033
00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: And likewise, we just wanted to pipe some infrasound into

1034
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:47,680
Speaker 1: the room, just to be on the safe side. I

1035
00:56:47,719 --> 00:56:50,400
Speaker 1: think it would be well within our rights. So let's see,

1036
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:55,280
Speaker 1: so we want uh we maybe want really annoying music,

1037
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: but maybe not. Uh. We definitely want some high pitched,

1038
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 1: you know, between maybe like four thousand hurts type sounds. Uh.

1039
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:09,560
Speaker 1: We we definitely want some glass being scraped with metal instruments,

1040
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 1: some nails on a chalkboard, maybe some babies crying. Okay, yeah,

1041
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:17,560
Speaker 1: I think that all sounds good. I guess Penhead's not

1042
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: in charge of this project, gives the site. Uh, Overlord,

1043
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who would be in charge of sound.

1044
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:27,360
Speaker 1: It's gotta be a little red Okay, All right, Well,

1045
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 1: and then now let's take a quick break and we

1046
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 1: come back. We shall enter the realm of smell. Alright,

1047
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: we're back now. I have to say, before we did

1048
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 1: any additional research on this, I was convinced that The

1049
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 1: only answer here was to have a strong lavender air

1050
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:47,040
Speaker 1: freshener as artificial as possible, something you know, one of

1051
00:57:47,040 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: those that just that smells only like purple air freshener

1052
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: and nothing like fresh lavender, which is actually quite pleasant.

1053
00:57:54,160 --> 00:57:56,360
Speaker 1: I think you are right on the money there, but

1054
00:57:56,440 --> 00:57:58,160
Speaker 1: I'm But the thing is, I have to admit I'm

1055
00:57:58,160 --> 00:57:59,880
Speaker 1: probably just right as far as you and I go,

1056
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: because people do love that stuff. I mean, the reason

1057
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:06,240
Speaker 1: we can say we hate it is because we've encountered

1058
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: it places where people feel very feel the opposite about it,

1059
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 1: where they love it and they think this is a

1060
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 1: fine thing to pump into a room or a house. Well,

1061
00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: like many other things, this seems to be you know,

1062
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: smells or something that our reaction to is highly conditional,

1063
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: depending on the context in which we encounter the smell.

1064
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:26,240
Speaker 1: We've discussed before how you can give people the same

1065
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:29,360
Speaker 1: smell into their nose, and if they think it's cheese

1066
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:31,840
Speaker 1: or something, they find it appetizing, and if they think

1067
00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: it's feet, they think it's gross. Right, Yeah, context is key,

1068
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 1: and likewise, smells become coded to memories and feelings, so

1069
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:42,440
Speaker 1: there's not a perfect template to refer to a lot

1070
00:58:42,440 --> 00:58:45,320
Speaker 1: of the time for picking out particularly annoying smells are

1071
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 1: really positive smells. You know, even you could again my

1072
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: air freshener example doesn't hold up to that, uh to

1073
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 1: to that standard. One could you could scrub down a

1074
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:57,520
Speaker 1: room I guess with urine or feces of course, or

1075
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:01,080
Speaker 1: some other you know, naturally occurring or manufactured ode or

1076
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 1: like really strong bleach. I think would be a strong

1077
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: a strong contender. I think we'd have to draw the

1078
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: line at any smell that would be uh, that would

1079
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,880
Speaker 1: have volatiles that would maybe be like poisonous to Yeah,

1080
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:15,919
Speaker 1: there's like I think a lot of these uh, these

1081
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:19,560
Speaker 1: components there, it's like a slider uh, towards poisoning them.

1082
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: And we don't want to actually poison someone would say,

1083
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: you know, with chlorine gas or something, right, so it'd

1084
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:25,920
Speaker 1: have to be something that wouldn't hurt people, would just

1085
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:29,280
Speaker 1: be extremely unpleasant, right, And along those lines, we don't, Yeah,

1086
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:30,720
Speaker 1: we don't want it to be such a strong smell

1087
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:33,120
Speaker 1: that's giving somebody a headache or you know, they're actually

1088
00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:36,480
Speaker 1: some people suffer from a particular type of migraine that

1089
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 1: can be triggered by smells and actually cause them to

1090
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: pass out. And again, we we can't build our room

1091
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:47,240
Speaker 1: hoping to encounter uh, people who have abnormal reactions to

1092
00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 1: the stimuli we provide them. But but still that's a

1093
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 1: sign that there's certain types of stimuli that would be

1094
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 1: going too far. Yeah, I think this is this one's

1095
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:56,960
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit less of an exact science,

1096
00:59:57,040 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 1: but a good place to look for some of the

1097
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 1: worst smells on Earth, I think would be to consult

1098
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 1: field biologists, right because they're gonna be interacting with things

1099
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:08,600
Speaker 1: that are alive. Things that are alive tend to produce

1100
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 1: some of the most interesting horrible smells. Uh, there are

1101
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: things that have been recently alive. And then again that

1102
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 1: is also the smell of things that are alive. I mean,

1103
01:00:16,880 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 1: there's when something's decomposing that is the smell of a

1104
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,560
Speaker 1: lot of biological activity. The smell of death is the

1105
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:27,440
Speaker 1: smell of life. So last year, the wildlife ecologist and

1106
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: conservation biologist David Steen, who is an expert on reptiles

1107
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 1: and amphibians, kicked off this glorious thread on science Twitter,

1108
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 1: which I saw written up in a couple of places, uh,

1109
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:40,880
Speaker 1: and it got lots of people who work in the

1110
01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 1: biosciences competing to name the worst odor they have ever

1111
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: encountered in their lives. Right, please tell me that science

1112
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:50,280
Speaker 1: Twitter is a separate Twitter. I can go to just science.

1113
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 1: It's it's it is not a separate Twitter, but it

1114
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:55,600
Speaker 1: is a it is a better place on Twitter than

1115
01:00:55,680 --> 01:00:57,800
Speaker 1: most places on Twitter. So this is just people. This

1116
01:00:57,880 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 1: is just the science folk on Twitter. Yes, Okay, well

1117
01:01:00,320 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 1: I already know about that. I was. I think it

1118
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 1: was its own thing. That would be a very nice

1119
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:07,000
Speaker 1: thing if it were its own thing, and we uh

1120
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: and did not depend on Twitter as a whole. But

1121
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 1: so there was a few competitors worth mentioning that I

1122
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:16,120
Speaker 1: was reading about. One thing that somebody mentioned was musk

1123
01:01:16,360 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 1: glands of dead long tailed weasels. Okay, so this is

1124
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:23,120
Speaker 1: their anal glands. They've got these oily contents that are

1125
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 1: supposedly just awful. Uh, dead whales washed up and rotting

1126
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 1: on the shore. Vulture vomit got got to mention, but

1127
01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:36,320
Speaker 1: Steen and several others agreed though for some reason, uh

1128
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:39,440
Speaker 1: and I've not been able to find the any hypothesized

1129
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: reason for this is that the absolute worst smell is

1130
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:49,560
Speaker 1: dead turtle rotting turtle carcass can apparently induce immediate vomiting,

1131
01:01:49,600 --> 01:01:52,360
Speaker 1: even in field biologists who should be kind of hardened

1132
01:01:52,440 --> 01:01:56,680
Speaker 1: to bad smells. Yeah, I wonder why that is now. Sadly,

1133
01:01:56,720 --> 01:01:59,840
Speaker 1: one of the problems with this, uh, the smell conundrum

1134
01:01:59,880 --> 01:02:04,000
Speaker 1: is that, of course, odor receptors stop sending messages to

1135
01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:06,840
Speaker 1: the brain about a lingering odor after a few minutes,

1136
01:02:06,840 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 1: instead focus on novel smells. This is why, to get

1137
01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:12,960
Speaker 1: back to an earlier example, you get used to that

1138
01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:16,000
Speaker 1: weird cooking smell in your kitchen until you pop out

1139
01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:18,800
Speaker 1: and then come back in, uh, you know, triggering it

1140
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 1: a few minutes later. Yeah, this is a great point,

1141
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 1: and this is what's known as olfactory fatigue. After a

1142
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:26,840
Speaker 1: few minutes, your brain tends to stop paying attention to

1143
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:31,080
Speaker 1: bad smells. Uh. Now, whatever smell we ultimately wanted to

1144
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 1: put in this room, I think the answer to make

1145
01:02:33,080 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 1: it ultimately unpleasant would be that it must cycle it's

1146
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 1: bad odors, changing them every few minutes to provide high

1147
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:45,920
Speaker 1: contrast nasal discomfort. Alright, so timed little odor spitters in

1148
01:02:45,960 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 1: the corners. Okay, I like that right now? I guess

1149
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 1: we we still haven't landed on an odor because dead

1150
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:53,400
Speaker 1: turtle might just be too strong. We don't want to

1151
01:02:53,440 --> 01:02:56,280
Speaker 1: necessarily make people vomit. Well, well, I tell you what

1152
01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 1: is often a sweet sweet spot, I think is when

1153
01:02:59,040 --> 01:03:01,720
Speaker 1: you have a bad odor and then some sort of

1154
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,920
Speaker 1: artificial odor, perhaps that lavender we were talking about earlier,

1155
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 1: fighting just to cover it up, you know, where everything

1156
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:12,960
Speaker 1: smells a little like artificial lemon, but also like illness.

1157
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:15,280
Speaker 1: But again that might be going too strong. To know

1158
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:18,200
Speaker 1: you are a warped master. You should be one of

1159
01:03:18,240 --> 01:03:23,280
Speaker 1: the cinembytes Robert. Okay, So I think we've got the visual,

1160
01:03:23,800 --> 01:03:28,720
Speaker 1: auditory and and uh and smell based aspects of this room. Uh,

1161
01:03:29,080 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 1: we got a good idea what to do with that,

1162
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:33,840
Speaker 1: But what about the other sensations? Oh well, I have

1163
01:03:33,920 --> 01:03:36,479
Speaker 1: to say that dampness goes a long way towards making

1164
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:40,640
Speaker 1: me uncomfortable, especially if it's paired with with betting. Um.

1165
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:43,600
Speaker 1: So I found this in the past, and say camping

1166
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: trips where everything gets a little wet and a little cold.

1167
01:03:46,600 --> 01:03:50,320
Speaker 1: Also when I was recently in Costa Rica there at

1168
01:03:50,320 --> 01:03:52,080
Speaker 1: one point we're staying in the cloud forest and the

1169
01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:55,040
Speaker 1: little house that we were staying in it was it

1170
01:03:55,080 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: was very nice, but given the environment, uh, and everything

1171
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:02,240
Speaker 1: got a little bit moist and stayed moist and it

1172
01:04:02,320 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 1: was just part of the environment. And I found that

1173
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:06,480
Speaker 1: a bit unpleasant. And and to come back to that

1174
01:04:06,560 --> 01:04:11,160
Speaker 1: videodrome room, Uh, the opposing wall is clearly wet clay.

1175
01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 1: There's a trough of of of water beneath it. And

1176
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:18,520
Speaker 1: based on I think it was a Cronenberg um a

1177
01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 1: bit of commentary, I think he was the one who

1178
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:23,880
Speaker 1: said that the room was as as cold and unpleasant

1179
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:25,800
Speaker 1: to be in as it as it looks like. It

1180
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:28,720
Speaker 1: was just a very unpleasant place in terms of the

1181
01:04:29,280 --> 01:04:32,040
Speaker 1: moisture and the temperature. Well, the temperature is a good

1182
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:36,760
Speaker 1: point because obviously the room of infinite unpleasantness should be

1183
01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:41,200
Speaker 1: uncomfortably hot or uncomfortably cold. But the question is which.

1184
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 1: I think it has to be cold, because for hot,

1185
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:47,640
Speaker 1: as long as you're not getting into dangerous temperatures, you

1186
01:04:47,640 --> 01:04:51,320
Speaker 1: can always take off of, you know, a little more clothing, right,

1187
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 1: people can always strip down a little bit, and I

1188
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:56,480
Speaker 1: mean we don't. If you succeed in making a steam

1189
01:04:56,520 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 1: room or a sauna, then you have made a pleasant environment.

1190
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:01,600
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed this is something that people love

1191
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:04,680
Speaker 1: to fight about. People love to have arguments about whether

1192
01:05:05,200 --> 01:05:07,880
Speaker 1: it's worse for a place to be too hot or

1193
01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:12,400
Speaker 1: too cold. Well, and I've heard our coworkers arguing about this. Yeah,

1194
01:05:12,400 --> 01:05:14,400
Speaker 1: I mean, it's that's gonna it's gonna very tremendously from

1195
01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:18,040
Speaker 1: person to person, depending on you know, your background, your age,

1196
01:05:18,560 --> 01:05:21,200
Speaker 1: all these things. Because I probably there was probably a

1197
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 1: time when I would have said, oh, I just don't

1198
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:24,480
Speaker 1: want to be too hot at all, But nowadays I'm

1199
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:26,480
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the reverse, Like I would just prefer to

1200
01:05:26,520 --> 01:05:29,160
Speaker 1: be a little too hot versus a little too cold.

1201
01:05:29,320 --> 01:05:31,479
Speaker 1: I think for me, it depends on what I'm doing.

1202
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:34,960
Speaker 1: I think if I'm like, if it's like hanging out

1203
01:05:35,040 --> 01:05:38,040
Speaker 1: recreational time, I'd rather be a little too warm. And

1204
01:05:38,080 --> 01:05:40,800
Speaker 1: if it's like I'm trying to work and focus on something,

1205
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:42,920
Speaker 1: I'd rather be a little too cold. I want it

1206
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 1: hot on both ways. Like like sometimes when I'm working

1207
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:48,360
Speaker 1: on the podcast during the summer, I'll be on my

1208
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 1: front porch just sweating bullets. I like, Like I like

1209
01:05:51,920 --> 01:05:54,800
Speaker 1: sweating in my sleep. I like that too, you know,

1210
01:05:54,880 --> 01:05:57,400
Speaker 1: I really I would just I would, I guess just

1211
01:05:57,480 --> 01:05:59,600
Speaker 1: live in Florida. I'm just I just need to move

1212
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:02,680
Speaker 1: to Florida at this point. Okay, weirdo Okay. So the

1213
01:06:02,760 --> 01:06:06,080
Speaker 1: question though, is do we have any like actual factual

1214
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 1: data we can base our conclusion on here? Should it

1215
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,440
Speaker 1: be too warm or too cool? Uh? And yep, we

1216
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:15,760
Speaker 1: have the technology here. So I was reading about this

1217
01:06:15,840 --> 01:06:19,200
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post an article from twenty sixteen. There's

1218
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:21,360
Speaker 1: a guy named Patrick Bayliss, who at the time was

1219
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:25,480
Speaker 1: a fifth year PhD candidate in agricultural and resource economics

1220
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:29,440
Speaker 1: at Berkeley, and he used the power of social media

1221
01:06:29,560 --> 01:06:33,000
Speaker 1: for what's known as sentiment analysis. And while I really

1222
01:06:33,160 --> 01:06:35,680
Speaker 1: still hate social media, this is one very cool and

1223
01:06:35,760 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: interesting thing you can do with it. You can gather

1224
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:42,880
Speaker 1: massive amounts of cross referenced organic data through something like Twitter,

1225
01:06:43,280 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: and then you could research something like what types of

1226
01:06:46,120 --> 01:06:49,800
Speaker 1: words do people start tweeting more often than they normally

1227
01:06:49,840 --> 01:06:52,600
Speaker 1: would in a given location when the president arrives in

1228
01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:55,640
Speaker 1: town or something like that. So what Bayliss did here

1229
01:06:55,880 --> 01:07:00,360
Speaker 1: was he examined about a billion tweets in twenty team

1230
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 1: and he cross reference to the user's locations with weather

1231
01:07:04,480 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 1: data reporting temperature, and then used an automated program to

1232
01:07:08,680 --> 01:07:13,560
Speaker 1: analyze the mood indicating contents of the tweets and correlated

1233
01:07:13,640 --> 01:07:17,720
Speaker 1: that to changes in temperature. So basically, did the words

1234
01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:20,600
Speaker 1: people were using in their tweets indicate they were currently

1235
01:07:20,640 --> 01:07:24,160
Speaker 1: happy or unhappy? And to h to quote from the

1236
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:26,800
Speaker 1: right up in the Washington Post quote, he found that

1237
01:07:27,000 --> 01:07:29,640
Speaker 1: compared with a day when the high temperature is seventy

1238
01:07:29,640 --> 01:07:32,440
Speaker 1: two point five degrees, a day with a high temperature

1239
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 1: of ninety degrees makes the typical person experience a drop

1240
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:39,680
Speaker 1: in happiness similar to the drop in happiness between Sunday

1241
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:43,160
Speaker 1: and Monday. And so he controlled for a bunch of

1242
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:46,000
Speaker 1: different kinds of factors and found that the trend still held.

1243
01:07:46,280 --> 01:07:50,320
Speaker 1: Quote A one degree increase in temperature has an effect

1244
01:07:50,400 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 1: on your happiness. That's similar to living in an area

1245
01:07:52,920 --> 01:07:56,040
Speaker 1: with a median income that is five hundred dollars lower.

1246
01:07:56,880 --> 01:08:00,160
Speaker 1: So hot temperature has made people unhappy. Cold temperature also

1247
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:02,400
Speaker 1: made people less happy, but the effect the effect was

1248
01:08:02,480 --> 01:08:06,800
Speaker 1: much less consistent in how it correlated with moods. So,

1249
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:09,560
Speaker 1: according to this research, if if that's correct, if you

1250
01:08:09,640 --> 01:08:13,520
Speaker 1: want to make more people on average more uncomfortable, it

1251
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:17,559
Speaker 1: should be too warm instead of too cool. All right, Well,

1252
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:19,519
Speaker 1: I mean I can't. I can't argue with the raw

1253
01:08:19,680 --> 01:08:24,759
Speaker 1: data here, but my experience and certainly that the standard

1254
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:28,240
Speaker 1: set by the video drum set would indicate that we

1255
01:08:28,280 --> 01:08:30,360
Speaker 1: should go cold. But but but I'll go with the

1256
01:08:30,360 --> 01:08:32,479
Speaker 1: science here and then we'll go we'll go warm. Well,

1257
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:34,559
Speaker 1: if we're gonna try to tip, maybe you could alternate,

1258
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:36,920
Speaker 1: you know, based on the person. Like if you were

1259
01:08:36,920 --> 01:08:39,479
Speaker 1: going to test your metal in the room and see

1260
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:41,759
Speaker 1: how long you can hang out in there without leaving,

1261
01:08:41,800 --> 01:08:45,040
Speaker 1: we should make it what like fifty two degrees, Yeah,

1262
01:08:45,080 --> 01:08:46,920
Speaker 1: that would probably do it. On the other hand, I

1263
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:49,000
Speaker 1: guess it should be in there what what like maybe

1264
01:08:49,000 --> 01:08:52,400
Speaker 1: about eighties seven something like that. Yeah, I guess. But

1265
01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:55,120
Speaker 1: I guess it's important to for us to remember too

1266
01:08:55,160 --> 01:08:57,360
Speaker 1: that it's not just going to be the temperature with

1267
01:08:57,400 --> 01:08:59,840
Speaker 1: our room. It's gonna be all these other factors as well.

1268
01:09:00,360 --> 01:09:02,639
Speaker 1: And when I think to my own experiences with warm

1269
01:09:02,720 --> 01:09:05,360
Speaker 1: or hot places that I like, uh, there are other

1270
01:09:05,439 --> 01:09:07,160
Speaker 1: aspects there as well, you know, like I am in

1271
01:09:07,200 --> 01:09:09,640
Speaker 1: a sauna which is kind of a sacred space, or

1272
01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:12,920
Speaker 1: I am on my porch, you know, writing or researching,

1273
01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: doing something enjoyable, and uh, and that is not the

1274
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:19,400
Speaker 1: overall experience that we are creating in our our awful room.

1275
01:09:19,800 --> 01:09:22,040
Speaker 1: I wonder if we will inspire somebody as like an

1276
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:24,800
Speaker 1: art project to build this room and have it as

1277
01:09:24,880 --> 01:09:27,599
Speaker 1: like a museum exhibit that people could visit. Yeah, I'd

1278
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:29,559
Speaker 1: love to. I'd love to hear from anybody who dares

1279
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:32,280
Speaker 1: to try to create this room. And likewise, if you

1280
01:09:32,560 --> 01:09:35,759
Speaker 1: encounter rooms and spaces as you go about your daily

1281
01:09:35,800 --> 01:09:37,400
Speaker 1: life that kind of match up with what we've been

1282
01:09:37,400 --> 01:09:40,439
Speaker 1: talking about here, we would definitely love to hear from you,

1283
01:09:40,520 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 1: and yes, take a picture of it if you can.

1284
01:09:42,560 --> 01:09:44,479
Speaker 1: You know. Another thing I will say is that though

1285
01:09:44,520 --> 01:09:48,320
Speaker 1: we keep emphasizing that no torture is allowed, I would say,

1286
01:09:48,320 --> 01:09:51,120
Speaker 1: if you were to actually create this room and in

1287
01:09:51,120 --> 01:09:53,840
Speaker 1: in some way try to make people go into it

1288
01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:56,760
Speaker 1: without the true freedom to enter and leave at their

1289
01:09:56,800 --> 01:10:00,240
Speaker 1: own will at any time, this would be torture well

1290
01:10:00,400 --> 01:10:02,760
Speaker 1: or or art. You know, sometimes art is about It's

1291
01:10:02,760 --> 01:10:07,080
Speaker 1: about it about strong emotional responses, it's about entering into

1292
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:11,640
Speaker 1: saying an art installation that makes you feel uncomfortable, that

1293
01:10:12,040 --> 01:10:15,719
Speaker 1: makes you the challenges your your ideas about the world.

1294
01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 1: So really we're asking people not to create torment, but

1295
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:22,920
Speaker 1: an artistic experience. Yeah. Oh, I guess it's key that

1296
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:25,559
Speaker 1: it's of of the entrance, own free will and may

1297
01:10:25,640 --> 01:10:27,840
Speaker 1: leave at any time. Yeah, I'm saying, if you're like

1298
01:10:27,840 --> 01:10:30,679
Speaker 1: a landlord, don't do this here tenants, just to say

1299
01:10:30,760 --> 01:10:34,000
Speaker 1: what will happen? Right Likewise, I know we have some

1300
01:10:34,040 --> 01:10:36,879
Speaker 1: realtors out there. I bet some realtors have some stories

1301
01:10:36,960 --> 01:10:41,800
Speaker 1: like this. There are their houses that just accidentally ended

1302
01:10:41,880 --> 01:10:43,920
Speaker 1: up this way. Yeah, there have to be. There have

1303
01:10:43,960 --> 01:10:46,479
Speaker 1: to be, because I I'm friends with some realtors on

1304
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,519
Speaker 1: social media and they'll post they'll post some some very

1305
01:10:49,560 --> 01:10:52,840
Speaker 1: odd rooms from time to time. So surely, surely there's

1306
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:56,639
Speaker 1: some intel intel out there, art with jagged angles, drab

1307
01:10:56,720 --> 01:11:00,519
Speaker 1: colors never found in nature, sounds of metal scraping on glass,

1308
01:11:00,560 --> 01:11:03,720
Speaker 1: sort of shrimp smell everywhere. I think, yeah, that that

1309
01:11:03,800 --> 01:11:08,000
Speaker 1: must exist somewhere. All right, Well, there you have it,

1310
01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:12,360
Speaker 1: the most unpleasant room, room of imfident unpleasantness. We've provided

1311
01:11:12,360 --> 01:11:14,599
Speaker 1: the blueprint. We leave you to do what you will

1312
01:11:15,520 --> 01:11:17,599
Speaker 1: with the rest of it. As always, if you want

1313
01:11:17,640 --> 01:11:19,200
Speaker 1: more episodes of stuff to blow your mind, head on

1314
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:20,840
Speaker 1: over to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. That's

1315
01:11:20,840 --> 01:11:22,880
Speaker 1: our mothership. That's where we'll find all the episodes. That's

1316
01:11:22,920 --> 01:11:26,160
Speaker 1: where you'll find links out to our various social media accounts.

1317
01:11:26,400 --> 01:11:28,280
Speaker 1: There is also a tab on there for our store,

1318
01:11:28,360 --> 01:11:32,200
Speaker 1: which has some cool logo designs, but also episode related designs.

1319
01:11:32,360 --> 01:11:35,280
Speaker 1: In fact, just before we came in to record this episode,

1320
01:11:35,320 --> 01:11:37,280
Speaker 1: we found out that there is a new squirrel shirt,

1321
01:11:37,320 --> 01:11:40,559
Speaker 1: a new skug shirt in the market. What is it

1322
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:43,720
Speaker 1: the squirrels or not what they seem And there's this

1323
01:11:44,040 --> 01:11:46,639
Speaker 1: charming illustration of a squirrel and it has like death's

1324
01:11:46,680 --> 01:11:49,559
Speaker 1: head eyes, so it's black and white. Check it out.

1325
01:11:49,680 --> 01:11:50,760
Speaker 1: You can also get it. I think you can get

1326
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:52,479
Speaker 1: into any color though. That's one of the beauties of

1327
01:11:52,479 --> 01:11:56,000
Speaker 1: the t public stores. You can choose your own color scheme,

1328
01:11:56,640 --> 01:11:58,120
Speaker 1: but check that out. It's a great way to support

1329
01:11:58,120 --> 01:11:59,559
Speaker 1: the show, and if you want to support the show

1330
01:11:59,600 --> 01:12:02,599
Speaker 1: without spending a dime, just simply rate and review us

1331
01:12:02,640 --> 01:12:04,760
Speaker 1: wherever you have the power to do so, and don't

1332
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:07,799
Speaker 1: forget about invention. Big thanks as always to our excellent

1333
01:12:07,840 --> 01:12:11,160
Speaker 1: audio producers, Alex Williams and Torry Harrison. If you would

1334
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:13,120
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

1335
01:12:13,160 --> 01:12:16,040
Speaker 1: this episode or any other uh to suggest topic for

1336
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:18,000
Speaker 1: the future, or just to say hi, let us know

1337
01:12:18,040 --> 01:12:20,639
Speaker 1: where you listen from. You can email us at blow

1338
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:32,720
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more

1339
01:12:32,760 --> 01:12:35,080
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how

1340
01:12:35,120 --> 01:12:43,640
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com b