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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

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Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryan. It's just the two of

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Speaker 1: us today, and both of us are totally astounded that

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Speaker 1: you pressed play on an episode called how ballpoint pens

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Speaker 1: work or something to that effect. Yeah, And when I

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Speaker 1: found this, I was like no, But then I started

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Speaker 1: reading it and it was far more interesting than I thought.

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Speaker 1: I love ones like this where you just like, this

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Speaker 1: sounds so dull that I want to actually pop my

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Speaker 1: eyes out with it by a ballpoint pen, not listen

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Speaker 1: to anything, But now it turns out to be interesting.

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Speaker 1: Like Grass. Remember our episode on Grass you could forget

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Speaker 1: the great debate over whether you should flood your lawn

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Speaker 1: with a quarter inch of water or not? Yeah? Answer,

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Speaker 1: you should not? Uh so, Chuck? Yes, to begin, I

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Speaker 1: have a question for you. Have you ever seen a

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Speaker 1: ballpoint pen? They have them? That's become one of your great,

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Speaker 1: long time running jokes. I don't know what you mean, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever breathed air? Ah? Yeah? I mean I

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Speaker 1: was using my black Bick ballpoint pen. Yeah, I remember today.

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Speaker 1: I even remember because blue pins are for dopes. You,

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Speaker 1: my friend, are out of your mind. You like blue pins.

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Speaker 1: Blue pen is the only way to go, my friends.

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Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, the pilot G two

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Speaker 1: point seven millimeter pen ink gel pen in blue is

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Speaker 1: the only way to go. That's my favorite pen on

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Speaker 1: the entire planet. Well, I will say today I'm using

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Speaker 1: the standard Bick black. Uh, like the one that in

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Speaker 1: elementary school you could take a part and make into

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Speaker 1: a great spitball shooter. Oh yeah, that was. It was

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Speaker 1: an off off label prescription for that. Yeah, it's the

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Speaker 1: clear one, not the white plastic case, but the clear

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Speaker 1: case or the you know clear pinbody. But h and

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Speaker 1: I do love that pen. But I know the pin

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Speaker 1: that you speak of, and I do love it because

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Speaker 1: I love there's nothing like a pen that just takes

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Speaker 1: to the paper perfectly. Yeah, it's immagical. That's what gel

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Speaker 1: ink pens do their beautiful things. And the thing I

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Speaker 1: like the reason I like blue and it comes in black.

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Speaker 1: If that's your thing, you know, I'm not gonna hate

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Speaker 1: on it. But if when you underline something printed out

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Speaker 1: like our notes, um, and then you go back over

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Speaker 1: it with highlighter, like I do, the blue really stands out.

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Speaker 1: The black just kind of like blends in with the

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Speaker 1: printed out words. All right, Well, here's what I used

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Speaker 1: to do is and you probably remember the days when

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Speaker 1: I would be looking at my highlighted text with red

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Speaker 1: ink things written down because the red really popped. But

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Speaker 1: then I just sort of got tired of it, and

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Speaker 1: I'm just a black ink guy. You're you're sticking and picking.

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Speaker 1: I'm sticking and picking. You're picking and sticking. That's what

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Speaker 1: I mean. Uh So, should we talk about writing over

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Speaker 1: the years. We should, as anyone listening still if you are,

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Speaker 1: we're going to continue on just in case. So let's

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Speaker 1: let's start about writing over there, because this is pretty interesting, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: tuk tuk. That's where we should start, tuk took. And

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Speaker 1: we should shout out to Mary Bellis, who wrote a

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Speaker 1: thought co little um brief thing called A Brief History

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Speaker 1: of Writing that kind of ran down some points that

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Speaker 1: will cover. But she points out the tuk Tuk. She

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Speaker 1: doesn't call him tuk took, but that's really what she means.

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Speaker 1: That's because I've trademarked it. Sure, um tuk Tuk started

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Speaker 1: writing with basically sharpened stones by carving things on the

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Speaker 1: size of cave walls. Easy PC. That was probably our

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Speaker 1: first writing in pliment. Yeah, like no ink by this point.

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Speaker 1: Um as with the Greeks when they started writing, they

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Speaker 1: had a little stylus made of bone or metal or

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Speaker 1: something and they would mark things on wax coated tablets

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Speaker 1: and it would take always. It seems like it's the

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Speaker 1: Chinese who come up with the great innovations in ancient

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Speaker 1: times and still who knows. We're not allowed to read

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Speaker 1: Chinese websites though, No, but they invented and really crafted

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Speaker 1: Indian ink, Yes, which is pretty clever little mixture its

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Speaker 1: soot um, specifically from pine smoke. Vellas says, it's pretty

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Speaker 1: pretty on the nose if you ask me. And then

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Speaker 1: some oil, lamp oil, and then you take a donkey

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Speaker 1: and squeeze gelatine from it, which I'm wondering, like, does

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Speaker 1: that mean that you have to kill the poor donkey

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Speaker 1: or can you just come up and milk of gelatine?

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Speaker 1: I think the donkey loves that well, I wonder because

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Speaker 1: I think gelatine is actually made from hooves. I think

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Speaker 1: you're right, And usually if you start making things from hooves,

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Speaker 1: the animal, the hoof used to be attached to is

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Speaker 1: no longer with us. So it's a sad way to

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Speaker 1: make ink. But that's how they made ink for thousands

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Speaker 1: of years. Actually, yeah, there was a philosopher, Chinese philosopher

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Speaker 1: name Tien Chew and his inc. Was the one that

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Speaker 1: that really sort of became the go to inc for

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Speaker 1: for many, many many years. Yes, he called it chewink.

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Speaker 1: We called it what chewink? Really? No, No, I'm making

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Speaker 1: stuff up at this point. I can't tell he had

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Speaker 1: the he had the idea. This was I think back

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Speaker 1: around BC that he started mixing natural dyes and um

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Speaker 1: things from berries, different kinds of plants um to make

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Speaker 1: different colored ink. So ink went from just black two colored,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, um they started attaching different meanings

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Speaker 1: to these different colored inks. He admitted the four color pin.

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Speaker 1: But oh yeah, I remember that. Oh I forgot all

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Speaker 1: about us. Didn't they go up to like eight colors too? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they got They got pretty out of hand. And the

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Speaker 1: thing that stunk about those is they never wrote really well, no,

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Speaker 1: they definitely didn't. There. The gimmick was more that you

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Speaker 1: could write at all in different colors in the same pin.

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Speaker 1: You know, they were for elementary school kids. So one

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Speaker 1: of the things that um that happened as the writing implements.

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Speaker 1: And I hadn't really realized this, but as our writing

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Speaker 1: implements became more and more refined, just better and better.

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Speaker 1: And part of that was not just like the implement

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Speaker 1: but also the types of ink way were using and

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Speaker 1: how they were delivered, and then the paper whatever substance

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Speaker 1: we were putting them onto. These the original things which

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Speaker 1: started out is basically drawings on cave walls, got more

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Speaker 1: and more um refined, and actually it grew more and

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Speaker 1: more abstract, and they became our system of alphabets, letters

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Speaker 1: and at first the so from what we from what

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Speaker 1: we know, the first alphabet ever created was created in

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Speaker 1: ancient Greece, classical Grease, by a scholar named Cadmus. And

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Speaker 1: all of the um the original written alphabets that were invented,

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Speaker 1: we're all upper case. Nothing about upper case. Everybody's just

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Speaker 1: shouting to one another constantly. Right, And I didn't know this,

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Speaker 1: but there's another word for upper case and lower case.

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Speaker 1: It's magiscule and minuscule, or the actual technical terms for

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Speaker 1: upper case and lower case. And the story goes that

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Speaker 1: the reason they're called upper case and lower case. Is

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Speaker 1: that in the days of um UH type set printing,

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Speaker 1: you would keep your your magiscule letters in a different drawer,

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Speaker 1: usually higher up out of reach, because you didn't use

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Speaker 1: them as often than you would the minuscule letters. You

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Speaker 1: keep those in the lower case. And that's where the

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Speaker 1: term comes from from what I understand. Very interesting. I

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Speaker 1: thought so too. Maybe the fact of the podcast, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, we'll have to just keep going and find out,

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with pens. The Romans actually created

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Speaker 1: a reed pen, and this makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 1: It would use stems from marsh grasses, like bamboo type

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Speaker 1: of stuff, which made perfect sense because it's hollowed out already.

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Speaker 1: All you do is sharpened the end of it, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, to come to a point like a little nib.

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Speaker 1: Then put the ink in there, and you've got a

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Speaker 1: very rudimentary pen, which you know worked pretty well for them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: apparently these things were so tight that you had to

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Speaker 1: like squeeze them to squeeze the ink out of the end,

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Speaker 1: so it wouldn't just like dribble out constantly, although I'm

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Speaker 1: sure it's still would. It's not a perfect system. It

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Speaker 1: isn't a perfect system, and there's there's still room for improvement. Um.

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Speaker 1: And that came in seven hundred CE, right about or

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Speaker 1: so years go, when somebody thought to use a quill

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Speaker 1: from a bird feathered animal. Yeah, and that was a

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Speaker 1: big one. It says in here that the longest period

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Speaker 1: in history as far as writing implements goes, was the

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Speaker 1: quill pen. Yeah, pretty amazing a thousand years. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about that. Yeah, it was the best

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Speaker 1: They basically got to the quill pen, or like until

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Speaker 1: some somebody invince a ballpoint pin. This bird feather is

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Speaker 1: about the best thing going. Yeah, And I mean they

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Speaker 1: used so you could use a bird feather as a

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Speaker 1: quill pen for about a week before it would get

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Speaker 1: gummed up and you'd have to have another one. And

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Speaker 1: they actually um figured out that the bird from a

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Speaker 1: or the feather from a living bird plucked in the

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Speaker 1: spring provided the optimal quills. And even more than that,

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Speaker 1: depending on whether you're right handed or left handed, you

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Speaker 1: wanted to pluck the feather from the left or the

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Speaker 1: right wing. Yeah, Because if you're right handed and you're

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Speaker 1: writing with a quill from a right wing, then that

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Speaker 1: that guy's gonna be tickling your nose every time. And

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Speaker 1: it may be fun for a little while, but what

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Speaker 1: you really want is a feather from the left wing

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Speaker 1: and that way, if you're right handed in that way,

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Speaker 1: that feather swoops to the outside of your face. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it would have having the wrong the wrong feather quill

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Speaker 1: would have like just been another excuse not to balance

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Speaker 1: your checkbook, you know. Yeah, and these things lasted for

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Speaker 1: about a week. Um, you needed a special knife to

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Speaker 1: sharpen them. Uh, took a long time to to get

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Speaker 1: it kind of prepared. And they were, you know, like

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Speaker 1: I said, about a week old and they were done,

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Speaker 1: so they were fairly disposable, but they still held down

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Speaker 1: the fort until early fountain pins for over a thousand years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and fountain pens are their own thing. They are, um,

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Speaker 1: surely you know or remember from time to time, I'm

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Speaker 1: will get like a letter from somebody who's like a

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Speaker 1: fountain pen enthusiast. It's like a whole thing. You remember that, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Or you get a graduation gift that's like a nice

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Speaker 1: fountain pen and you're like, jeez, really, but I'm saying

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Speaker 1: you and I have gotten like letters from face to

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Speaker 1: like write these beautiful letters out and fountain pens. I

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Speaker 1: think at least one of one person has sent us

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Speaker 1: an actual, like really good fountain pen um. And I've

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Speaker 1: never caught the bug, but there there is, like there's

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Speaker 1: a subculture people out there are so into fountain pens

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Speaker 1: that they expressed that by writing letters to one another

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Speaker 1: using fountain pens. Obviously it's really cool. I mean I

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Speaker 1: have never like you've never taken to it. I'm a

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Speaker 1: ballpoint man through and through, but I get it. You know, sure,

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Speaker 1: it's it's cool, it's classy. You're not gonna yuck their yum.

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Speaker 1: In other words, no, And I don't have very nice

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Speaker 1: penmanship anymore either, so it would just, you know, I

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Speaker 1: kind of tie those things together, Like if you're writing

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Speaker 1: a letter in a fountain pen, you don't write like

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Speaker 1: I do because that would just be dumb. Right, I

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Speaker 1: write like a serial killer in an insane asylum holding

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Speaker 1: a cran with a fist. That's how I write. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Should we take a break and jump over to the

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Speaker 1: ball point Yeah, let's all right. So a ballpoint pen.

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Speaker 1: You say that word over and over and it's you

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Speaker 1: never really stopped to think about what that means. But

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Speaker 1: in the end of that little pen and it's impossible

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Speaker 1: to not just sort of obsess over this after you've

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Speaker 1: maybe listened to this episode or or researched it like

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Speaker 1: we did. But when I was writing today, I was

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Speaker 1: just constantly thinking about that little ball. You know, it

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Speaker 1: haunted you. How undersung it is? Okay, I see, I

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Speaker 1: thought you were just like you. You felt like it

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Speaker 1: was eavesdropping on you. You could feel it like king

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Speaker 1: at the atoms in your hand or something weird like that. No,

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Speaker 1: just thinking of the simple genius of this invention. It's

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Speaker 1: you know, at the end of that pin is a little, small,

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Speaker 1: tiny rotating ball A lot of times just steel or brass,

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Speaker 1: maybe tungsten carbide. And it was revolutionary and completely different

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Speaker 1: than anything that came before it. Yeah, and and to

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Speaker 1: go back to the fountain pen to kind of put

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Speaker 1: a button on that, Like, Yes, fountain pens are pretty awesome,

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Speaker 1: and when you master using a fountain pen um you

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Speaker 1: probably do like it. But if you're just an average

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Speaker 1: mom who's like, look, just give me a writing implement.

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Speaker 1: I want to write something down and not getting any

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Speaker 1: jollies from this looking at it. From that perspective, the

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Speaker 1: ballpoint pen is an improvement in a number of ways

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Speaker 1: over the fountain pen, and specifically, one of the ways

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Speaker 1: that it's an improved it is that you can use

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Speaker 1: it up in an airplane much more easily. Yeah, the ink,

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Speaker 1: there were problems with the ink at high altitudes and

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Speaker 1: fountain pens, yeah, and just problems with the ink at

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Speaker 1: any altitude. You know, it doesn't flow super evenly. I

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Speaker 1: mean if you have a really nice pin and know

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Speaker 1: how to use it, but like a cheap fountain pen,

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Speaker 1: it was no good. The ink is very slow to

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Speaker 1: dry and smudgy. It uh would clogg a lot. And

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Speaker 1: once it's kind of clogged and gummy, then either have

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Speaker 1: to be really good at cleaning it or it's just junk. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so um. One of the ways that the ink comes

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Speaker 1: out of a fountain pen is through air, through capillary

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Speaker 1: action and air. And so since you have air in

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Speaker 1: a fountain pen, that means that since ink dries in

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Speaker 1: the presence of air, which is what you want when

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Speaker 1: it touches the paper, it will also dry inside the pen,

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Speaker 1: which is how it gets gunked up like you were

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Speaker 1: talking about. But in an airplane too. When you take

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Speaker 1: a fountain pen that's been down on on planet Earth

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Speaker 1: for a while, that air that's in the fountain pen

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Speaker 1: gets trapped in the air. So when you take it

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Speaker 1: up in an airplane in a pressurized cabin, it's still

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Speaker 1: like the cabin's pressurized, but it's still much less pressure

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Speaker 1: than it is at sea level, which is where the

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Speaker 1: pen just was. And because of this, the higher pressure

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Speaker 1: air inside the pen wants to move to where it's

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Speaker 1: lower pressure. Higher pressure always moves to lower pressure, I think,

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Speaker 1: unless there's some Rando exception. I'm not thinking of that

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Speaker 1: we're going to get a thousand emails about. But like

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Speaker 1: high pressure stuff wants to move to low pressure stuff,

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Speaker 1: So that high pressure air tries to move out of

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Speaker 1: the fountain pen, and as it does, it pushes the

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Speaker 1: ink out. So fountain pens tend to flood on planes,

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Speaker 1: which again is not that big of a problem these days,

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Speaker 1: but if this was the nineteen forties and you were

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Speaker 1: a pilot for the Royal Air Force or a navigator

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Speaker 1: or something, it was a big problem. Yeah, for sure,

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Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons why ball points came along. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the the ballpoint idea had been around since the

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, but it never really took like, they can

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Speaker 1: never figure out how to make a good working pen

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Speaker 1: that actually was able to go to market. It was

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Speaker 1: I didn't see that. It was it's been around since

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Speaker 1: the eight hundred times that the original idea for the

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Speaker 1: ballpoint pin. Yeah, but they could never fashion a pin

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Speaker 1: that really worked well. Yeah. I would think also it

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Speaker 1: would really depend on the technology of the ink, for sure.

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Speaker 1: I think that was a big part of it. But

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Speaker 1: it would take a journalist to Hungarian journalists named Laslow

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Speaker 1: b r Oh to take a tour of a newspaper

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Speaker 1: facility when he was like, wait a minute, these newspapers

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Speaker 1: are coming out and they're being stacked on each other

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Speaker 1: right after printing, and it's not smudging around like my

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Speaker 1: my dumb old India Inc. Does. And he said, why

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Speaker 1: don't we use that kind of ink put it in

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Speaker 1: a pen? And not only that, why don't we take

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Speaker 1: a pen that has a little time metal ball at

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Speaker 1: the end that rotates. It also seals that tube so

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Speaker 1: the ink doesn't come flowing out. It does double duty,

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Speaker 1: double duty. And then the rotation is what draws that

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Speaker 1: inc out that in a little gravitational pull and I

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Speaker 1: think I might be onto something here. Yeah, and he

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Speaker 1: definitely was. And this this article hilariously says that he

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Speaker 1: vowed to make a pen that used fast drying ink

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Speaker 1: because at the time that was a real problem. Like

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Speaker 1: the the ink that you had in a pen to

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Speaker 1: keep it from drying out in the pen had to

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Speaker 1: be super watery. Right, So the idea of making a

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Speaker 1: pen that wasn't a fountain pen that used fast drying ink,

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Speaker 1: that was it was quite a vow. I'm sure the

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Speaker 1: person giving him the newspaper tours like, are you sure. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he said, I'm I just vowed it, I'm gonna do it.

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Speaker 1: So he did. He got together. Luckily I had a brother, George,

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Speaker 1: who was a chemist. Yeah, that that was very helpful. Um.

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Speaker 1: In June three he got that patent with a European

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Speaker 1: Patent Office made bureau pens. It was the first ballpoint

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Speaker 1: pen to be brought to market. And the British government

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Speaker 1: you were talking about the Air Force, their Royal Air

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Speaker 1: Force went crazy for it. So they just bought the rights. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I couldn't find that anywhere else. Really, I saw

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Speaker 1: that the Royal Air Force ordered thirty thousand of these,

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Speaker 1: but not that they bought the rights. Well, let's say this,

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Speaker 1: they either bought the rights or all but bought the

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Speaker 1: rights by being their number one customer. Right. I like

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Speaker 1: how you married the two facts. Yeah, so I mean

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Speaker 1: they were not only did they right well at high altitudes,

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Speaker 1: but they were just sturdy. And it was a pin

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Speaker 1: that you could take into battle with you. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't flood as they call it at high altitudes.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, it was pretty a pretty durable pen um

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Speaker 1: and so Bureau he patented it with his brother, George

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Speaker 1: founded the the Bureau Pen Company, right, And I think

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Speaker 1: that's so cute. He named it after himself, even though

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Speaker 1: he and his brother did it, and he very easily.

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Speaker 1: No Bureau was his last name. I'm sorry he could

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Speaker 1: have named right, that's what I thought he'd done. His

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Speaker 1: last name is Bereau, Okay, so that makes way more sense.

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Speaker 1: I thought he'd been like, George, thank you, but I'm

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Speaker 1: naming this pen after myself. But it was it was

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Speaker 1: a pretty big hit. I don't think it was a

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Speaker 1: commercial success right away. Um, but that big order or

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00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:31,439
Speaker 1: the purchase by the Royal Air Force, Um, definitely helped

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00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:35,960
Speaker 1: the Bureau company established itself almost simultaneously. Well, a year

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00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:39,320
Speaker 1: or two later, there was a guy in America named

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Speaker 1: Milton Reynolds, and he said, I just found some of

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Speaker 1: these bureau pens on a business trip I think in

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00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:48,119
Speaker 1: like Argentina or somewhere, and um, he said, I'm going

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00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:51,280
Speaker 1: to totally rip this off. And he did, and he

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00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:57,520
Speaker 1: founded a company, UM and created the Reynolds pen, which

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00:19:57,560 --> 00:20:03,160
Speaker 1: is basically the Bureau pen. Yeah, and these were really successful. Um.

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Speaker 1: I saw articles as ten bucks. But I found an

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Speaker 1: article from the New York Times from the nineteen forties

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Speaker 1: that talked about at Gimbals uh in New York, you

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Speaker 1: could buy one for twelve fifty, which was super expensive.

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Speaker 1: I mean twelve fifties expensive for a single pin today.

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Speaker 1: Sure you know, like a point pinoa be a real

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Speaker 1: jerk to pay twelve fifty for a pen these days,

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Speaker 1: with this economy. But this little article said that people

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Speaker 1: all but trampled one another to get ahold of these pins.

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Speaker 1: Gimbals ordered fifty thousand of them and sold thirty thousand

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Speaker 1: of them in week one. Eventually there would be a

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Speaker 1: lot of lawsuits, UM, back and forth about the patent. Basically,

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00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 1: those never went anywhere because what they were essentially saying

356
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Speaker 1: is the idea for the ball bearing, which is kind

357
00:20:52,119 --> 00:20:55,119
Speaker 1: of what makes us all possible, has been around for

358
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Speaker 1: so long that no one can really claim this to

359
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Speaker 1: the point where like you can sue one another. That's

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Speaker 1: how I could not find how Reynolds got away with it.

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00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:07,600
Speaker 1: My um my idea was that they had just filed

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Speaker 1: the patent. George in Laslow had filed the patent in Europe,

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Speaker 1: and um Reynolds was doing it here in the Undy.

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Speaker 1: But it was that I didn't realize that there was

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Speaker 1: actually a patent battle. Yeah, and then there was a battle,

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Speaker 1: like Favor came on board. I mean everybody started making

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Speaker 1: pens like crazy all of a sudden. Favor then eventually

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00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 1: sued uh Reynolds because they just sued them for a

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00:21:29,280 --> 00:21:32,760
Speaker 1: shoddy product. Really, I didn't. I'm not sure how that

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00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:35,720
Speaker 1: quite works because it wasn't like they were a consumer.

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Speaker 1: They get that off of the market. But uh, they

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Speaker 1: were kind of right, I don't think. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if they won that lawsuit, but a lot of these

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Speaker 1: returns UH pins were returned. H these initial Reynolds pins

375
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 1: were returned because they didn't work, but children with burns

376
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Speaker 1: on their arms because the pen just suddenly caught fire.

377
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:59,040
Speaker 1: But he made almost six million dollars in nineteen five

378
00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:02,199
Speaker 1: dollars in the first ti months of his company, so

379
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:04,960
Speaker 1: he was set. So by the way, Chuck, I'm on

380
00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 1: the west Sig inflation calculator. Yeah, you have it app

381
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 1: twelve dollars. I should just have it as like an

382
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:15,359
Speaker 1: app in my brain, you know. Maybe, oh, that is

383
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:17,399
Speaker 1: the first thing I'll do, and we start adding apps

384
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:20,920
Speaker 1: to our brains. But um, twelve dollars and fifty cents

385
00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 1: and would be a hundred and seventy three dollars in

386
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:28,399
Speaker 1: sixteen cents here. Yeah, that's a little crazy for a

387
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:32,400
Speaker 1: brand new pen. If people have been living with fountain

388
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:34,720
Speaker 1: pens and they were sick of them, the idea of

389
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:38,480
Speaker 1: something that improved on that much would I could see

390
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:42,160
Speaker 1: running and droves the gimbals being like, you're you're gonna

391
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,600
Speaker 1: go out of business eventually, and Macy's will stick around,

392
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:47,280
Speaker 1: so tell me all your pen They also did you

393
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: know it was a lot of advertising hullabaloo, Like they

394
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: called them the pen of the Atomic era and sort

395
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:58,119
Speaker 1: of all that futuristic stuff. People went wild for healthy glow.

396
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: But as far as my own big pen, uh, this

397
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:05,920
Speaker 1: was a revolution because, like we said, twelve fifties, a

398
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 1: lot of dough back then in a Frenchman named Marcel.

399
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: Uh would it be beache b I c h I

400
00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 1: think it's big is bi. That's why he dropped the

401
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:18,920
Speaker 1: h is so people could pronounce it. Yeah. He developed

402
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 1: a process for making these things really cheap per unit,

403
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you could get a pen

404
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 1: for twenty nine thirty five to thirty five cents. Uh,

405
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: and he called it the big pen. And that really

406
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: changed thing because Uh in ten ten years later he

407
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: came to the United States and everyone was like, man,

408
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: we've been buying all these credit expensive pens for twelve

409
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:43,560
Speaker 1: fifty Yeah, Mr Bick comes along. These aren't great early on,

410
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:47,439
Speaker 1: but they only cost you know, cents. Yeah. But the

411
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,040
Speaker 1: so these big pens were, I mean, they made quite

412
00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:51,680
Speaker 1: a splash. And one of the ways that they did

413
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,159
Speaker 1: was the lower prices. Not only offered these pens for

414
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,640
Speaker 1: much lower prices than the other pens, they they they

415
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: created competition among all the ballpoint pen manufacturers, and all

416
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you could get a ballpoint pen for

417
00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 1: like ten cents when three years before you would have

418
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 1: paid twelve fifty. And it really changed the industry. And

419
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 1: as as it just kept going and going and manufacturing

420
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: got better and better, and so did two did these

421
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 1: highly disposable, cheap ballpoint pens thanks to Bick. Have you

422
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: ever like taken a good look at the big logo.

423
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 1: It's freaky, man. It's like a little school kid with

424
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,679
Speaker 1: a ball head, right, yeah, ball point head. Yeah, And

425
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: there's like a light reflecting off of the sphere of

426
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: the ball. But it also just kind of, you know,

427
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: looks like a cyclops and he's holding a pen behind

428
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 1: his back to like, what are you gonna do with

429
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: that pen? Kid? I wonder if that's how young Marcel

430
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: Bick's himself. Maybe so, I don't know, he's uh into

431
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: data art. So let's talk about the design of these things.

432
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 1: The brilliant andlicity of the ballpoint pin design. Like we

433
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:07,199
Speaker 1: mentioned that the little ball there is a buffer between

434
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 1: the paper and the ink. Uh, it rolls around it.

435
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:13,959
Speaker 1: It fits very tightly in this socket, but not so

436
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: tightly that it can't roll. Because there's nothing more annoying

437
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 1: than a ball that's stuck in place, which happens from

438
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: time to time. It means your pen is toast probably

439
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: probably so. But this little socket, like, I'm glad this

440
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: article pointed this out. It's it's really small and it

441
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: might be hard to sort of imagine it. But if

442
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: you if you get in the time machine and go

443
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: to your dad's bathroom, you might find a deodorant called

444
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:47,120
Speaker 1: a roll on deodorant band band roll on, And it's

445
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: the same exact thing, same technology, and that you have

446
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: a ball keeping that fluid inside in the reservoir, you know,

447
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: from leaking out, and then as it rolls around your

448
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: your disgusting armpit, some of that juice goes onto your

449
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,159
Speaker 1: disgusting skin. Yeah, and burns a whole clear through it.

450
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah did you No, I was never into

451
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,120
Speaker 1: roll on because it burns a hole in your skin.

452
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 1: Spray No, I don't think I ever had in a spray. Um. No.

453
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 1: I've always been like a solid stick, dude. I can't

454
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 1: even use like the speedsticks stuff that's like, yeah, it's

455
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 1: gotta be like solid. Yeah, if it's not white, great,

456
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 1: but I mean it can't be like gel. It has

457
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 1: to be solid like that. Yeah. See, I can only

458
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: use the unscented gel stuff. I can't find unsented sticks anymore.

459
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: I used to use sure because that was the only

460
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: uncented stick you could find. Use men an unscented gel. Wow, well,

461
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: I might have to give that a try, because it's

462
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: been a while since I really gave my under arms

463
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: a chemical burning. But all that stuff is not supposed

464
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,400
Speaker 1: to be great for you, you know, like Emily gives

465
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: me the natural stuff, and you know you know what

466
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: that means. It means chuck stinks. Tom's makes this great one.

467
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 1: Um it's I think Apricot sent it. It's wonderful. Human

468
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: uses it. Sometimes you use it. I've used it before,

469
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: but it's hard to find the uncented natural stuff. Yeah,

470
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:24,199
Speaker 1: that's true. And then I don't know, man, you know,

471
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: I just I need a little extra now. Same here, man,

472
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,639
Speaker 1: I need powerful chemicals to overcome the stink from my

473
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 1: under arms. I use um acts because I'm in eighth grade.

474
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 1: But it's the only stuff that's like a good solid

475
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: stick that works with a minimum amount of application. Isn't

476
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: that the stuff that just stinks to high heavens? Well,

477
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: I mean, if you really slather it on or you

478
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 1: use the body spray, it's gonna smell, but um, it

479
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:55,360
Speaker 1: has a has a scent to it. Yeah. Um, I'm

480
00:27:55,440 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: using black sugar right now. Um. And just we've either

481
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 1: gotten three new sponsors or we will never be sponsored

482
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: by We're doing a lot of buzz marketing right now.

483
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: It's true. But anyway, roll on any persprint technology and

484
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: ballpoint pen technology are the exact same. I think that's

485
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: the point we're trying to make exactly. Oh so with

486
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: this ballpoint pen ball, Um, the the it's extraordinarily small,

487
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 1: like on my pilot G two, since I use a

488
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: point seven millimeter, the ball is so small that it

489
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: makes a line that's just seven tenths of a millimeter wide. Yeah,

490
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: that's what that means. I never knew that. It's a

491
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: very very tiny, tiny little ball. Like when you look

492
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: at the end of a pen, you don't really see

493
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: the ball the the ball in the ball point. It's

494
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: that small you have to really look. And that's a

495
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: point seven. Yeah used the point one. No I haven't.

496
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: I'm not crazy, Chuck. Come on, I don't want to

497
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 1: line that unless it's like something super specific I'm trying

498
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: to do, like a nice point five. Yeah, I've tried

499
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: point five. I like it a little thicker than that,

500
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: so I go with the seven. It's not like I'll

501
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: never use a point five, but foot point seven's my

502
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: my favorite for sure. Blue point seven point one would

503
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: be if you're doing like cross hatching on an illustration

504
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: or something, I could see it for that. I don't

505
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: even know what that means. You know, when you make

506
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:31,479
Speaker 1: the lines for shading drawing, that's cross hatch. So I

507
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: want everyone to go to YouTube and type in close

508
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: up of a ballpoint pen, and somebody went to the

509
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: trouble of doing like an extreme close up it must

510
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: be through some sort of microscope video camera of a

511
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: ballpoint pen making a mark on a piece of paper,

512
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: and it's really fascinating interesting. So what you're talking about

513
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: getting back to the way that these work. The ball

514
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: holds the ink above it keeps it from spilling out,

515
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: also keeps it from drying out. But when pressure is

516
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,479
Speaker 1: applied to the ball by pressing the pen to the

517
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 1: paper or whatever you're writing on, it releases the ball

518
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: or spins the ball so that the backside of the

519
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: ball that's covered in ink spreads across the paper and

520
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: that same part of the ball that just spread ink

521
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 1: on the paper rolls back up into the socket where

522
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 1: there's more ink to be spread onto it, and for

523
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 1: this process to be continued on again and again wherever

524
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: you're rolling the ball on the paper, Because when you're writing,

525
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: what you're doing is rolling a tiny ball with ink

526
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: on it all over a paper. I love it. That's it.

527
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: That's a ball point pen. All right. Well, let's take

528
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 1: another break here and we will talk more about INC

529
00:30:46,800 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: and space pens right after this, Chuck, let's talk inc. Baby.

530
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: All right, you're a blue man. Yep. Black. It means

531
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: I like iron, you like carbon basically, So when you're

532
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: talking INC in a ballpoint pin, uh, you've got a

533
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: pigment or some sort of a dye that's dispersed in

534
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: a liquid called a vehicle. So it's not like you

535
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: can just take a bunch of pigment and throw it

536
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: in a pin. It needs to be it needs to

537
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: have some juice that it's mixed with, right, Uh. And

538
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: that's called the vehicle. Yeah, and it can be any

539
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: number of things. I actually found this really really confusing,

540
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: and I looked all over the internet and just got

541
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: even more confused. But tannins, which I thought were pigments,

542
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: apparently are vehicles, and something you want to look for

543
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: in a vehicle, like a tannin, which is something you

544
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: would get from fermenting leaves or something like there's a

545
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 1: lot of tannins in your kombucha or your wine. Right. Um,

546
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: those tannins it basically adhere. They carry the ink from

547
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: the writing instrument to the paper and as the as

548
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: the ink dries, the tannins bind the ink to the paper,

549
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:24,719
Speaker 1: making a permanent mark. That's what you're looking for. So

550
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: you've got your pigment, you've got your dye, you have

551
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: your agent. Whatever it is that's coloring the ink. It

552
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: can be anything from like a chemical um, an inorganic

553
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: chemical like cadmium or uh. It could be carbon, or

554
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: it can be iron and it would be dissolved in

555
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 1: that vehicle tannins. And then you might also add additives,

556
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: which are things that create um other properties of ink

557
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: that you're looking for, Like they use gum arabic to

558
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: kind of um increase the viscosity of the ink and

559
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: to make it so that once it dries, it doesn't

560
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: crack as much as stays kind of bendy on the paper. Yeah,

561
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: and these vehicles. So does that mean like if you

562
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: have a vehicle, a plant based vehicle, it's like linseed oil,

563
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 1: does that mean linseed oil is a tannin? That's what

564
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, there's not a lot of specific information

565
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: that explains this out there. I don't know. In other words,

566
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to do a show on tannins as penance.

567
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: Please say no, no, okay, good by this. But like

568
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 1: you were talking about the organic pigments you mentioned earlier,

569
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: I'm a carbon man, you're an iron man. The carbon

570
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: is the black, the iron is the blue. Other inorganic

571
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: compounds like chromium is where you get your yellow greens

572
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: and oranges, and then or maybe cadmium red and yellow.

573
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: It kind of just depends. So the thing that what

574
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: you're looking for, though, if you if it's a pigment,

575
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 1: it won't dissolve in water, but it will dissolve in

576
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: some other stuff like maybe alcohol or something like that.

577
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: Agents will dissolve in in solvents like alcohol, but also water.

578
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: And then you have lacquers where you actually take the

579
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: coloring agent and marry it to powdered aluminum that's lacquer.

580
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 1: So those are like the three color ways of delivering

581
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,359
Speaker 1: colors that you can you can use. But so with

582
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 1: this vehicle, whatever it is that you can dissolve the

583
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: coloring agent and that will deliver this coloring agent from

584
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: the pen to the paper. That's what you you want.

585
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: So maybe the tannin is an additive, or maybe the

586
00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: tannin just pulls dual duty and it will deliver that

587
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 1: stuff and dissolve um something like iron salts in it

588
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,879
Speaker 1: and bind to the paper as well. Who knows, we'll

589
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: never know. We're gonna die not knowing what the beauty

590
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:51,479
Speaker 1: of this show is. Someone smarter than us will clear

591
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: up what tannins are. I hope so, because I mean

592
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: I really looked this up, man, I looked up like

593
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: I looked at on like um like I think a

594
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 1: UK Chemical Society's blog post on inks, and they didn't

595
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: explain it very well. I just don't. I don't get

596
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 1: it well. Regardless of what a tannin is or is not,

597
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: what you're doing with a ballpoint pen and the ink is,

598
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: you know a lot of R and D goes into

599
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: that dance between thick and thin because you want it

600
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 1: to be thick, but you also want it to dry

601
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 1: quickly and you want it to work with You can't

602
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 1: be so thick that it doesn't respond to gravity, because

603
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: that's not a pin anymore. No, it's it's really and

604
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: the reason why, uh, you can't write upside down as suppose,

605
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: because it responds to gravity. If you're laying in your

606
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 1: bed as a fourteen year old writing a love letter, uh,

607
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: you know, holding the pad above your head, staring at

608
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: the ceiling. You know, if you think about that pin

609
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 1: rolling around that inc, you know there's an air pocket

610
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: in that cartridge and it's gonna reverse itself, and that

611
00:35:58,000 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: air is going to be at the top, and you

612
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: are not gonna be able to write very long upside

613
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: down right exactly. And yeah, you might be able to

614
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: make as like a mark for just a moment, and

615
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: then it just turns into a scratch and what you've

616
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: just done is used up whatever inc was on that

617
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: roller ball for a second, and then now there's no

618
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: more inc. Which is I've never really thought about it.

619
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:19,720
Speaker 1: But yes, of course that's why you can't write upside

620
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: down with a ballpoint pen. Yes, but we got space pens,

621
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 1: and uh, they're pressurized and that's kind of pretty cool.

622
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: Do you have one of these? No? Have you? Yeah?

623
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 1: I got one of the gift once. Oh boy. So

624
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: do you remember our Space Race episode? I cannot, for

625
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:42,439
Speaker 1: the life of me, remember, Chuck, if we continue this

626
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: legend or debunked it. Do you? I don't know if

627
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: we even mentioned it. I am almost certain we talked

628
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: about Yeah, hopefully we said that it was apocryphal. But

629
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: there's this this legend from the Space Race that UM,

630
00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: the American Um Space Age. See, NASA spent years and

631
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: years and years trying to figure out how to get

632
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:10,239
Speaker 1: a pen into space UM because they wanted to for

633
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: the astronauts something to to be able to write within space.

634
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 1: But because of zero gravity, because you need gravity with

635
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:21,359
Speaker 1: a ballpoint pen, if it's in zero gravity or micro gravity,

636
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: that inkin't gonna flow downwards and you've got a problem.

637
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 1: So NASA spent so much money on funding and years

638
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: of research trying to come up with a pen. And

639
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: one day some American astronauts were talking to some of

640
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 1: their Soviet counterparts and we're just telling them how much

641
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: trouble NASA was having, And the cosmonauts said, well, we

642
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: just use pencils, and the NASA astronauts are like wah wah,

643
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,720
Speaker 1: and NASA looks stupid and the Soviets look good, and um,

644
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:57,240
Speaker 1: America just did a big face palm. It's it's totally

645
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:02,919
Speaker 1: bunk bunk because the Russian used our pens, right they did,

646
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: and initially everybody used pencils, but there was there there

647
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: was something where you can find like a kernel of

648
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:10,919
Speaker 1: truth to that, like there's always a kernel of truth

649
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: on any urban legend um and this one is NASA

650
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: spent a lot of money on some mechanical pencils, not

651
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: years of research or anything like that, but I think

652
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: back in the early sixties they ordered like, um forty

653
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 1: pencils mechanical pencils from a company out of Houston that

654
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: charged them the modern equivalent of a thousand dollars each.

655
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: And the public found out about this and was not

656
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 1: very happy, right, so there was a big there was

657
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: a big to do about how to replace these pencils

658
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to use regular pencils because the

659
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: Apollo one UM launch had had gone horribly or I

660
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: think a test had gone horribly and some of the

661
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: astronauts had burned to death in the capsule, So they

662
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 1: didn't want anything that could burn a forward their capsules, right,

663
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: So they but now mechanical pencils were out, so they

664
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:08,399
Speaker 1: needed some sort of replacement. Well, they didn't spend any

665
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:12,240
Speaker 1: money on looking for a new pen or any years

666
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: of research, because in nineteen they were approached by a

667
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,959
Speaker 1: guy named Paul C. Fisher and he said, I gotta

668
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 1: pen for you. It's called a space pen. Have a look,

669
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 1: and they went, it's almost as if you had have

670
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 1: made this just for us, because you even called it

671
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 1: the space pen. And did he actually name it the

672
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,360
Speaker 1: Fisher space pen? He named it the a G seven

673
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: Anti gravity space pen. Yeah. And like I said, at

674
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: the at the onset of this little part, these were

675
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: pressurized and it was that kind of solved all the problem.

676
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,280
Speaker 1: Their pressurized to the reservoir that is to about forty

677
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,879
Speaker 1: pounds per square inch. And there's also a special inc.

678
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: It's what you would call a Visco Elastic inc. And

679
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 1: they liken it in our own article to like a

680
00:39:56,400 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 1: thick rubber cement. And it actually still need to that

681
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: ball though that ball point in this case, uh is

682
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: necessary to liquefy it and kind of get that action going,

683
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,399
Speaker 1: and they say you can even write underwater, which I'm

684
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 1: not sure how that would come into play, but maybe

685
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: it's just a fun little advertising point. Yeah. But the

686
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: fact that it's pressures overcomes micro gravity, so it actually

687
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: works and it will work here on Earth upside down too. Yeah.

688
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 1: And there's also uh no hole in these reservoirs, like

689
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: there are regular fountain pins, so not only are you

690
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 1: not wasting any ink, but there's no chance of leakage. Yeah,

691
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: they're they're um very widely touted as lasting a hundred years.

692
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 1: The air the air is not going to get in

693
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: and dry them out. Remember the erasable pin? I do, man,

694
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 1: I'd totally forgotten about those until this article came along. Yeah,

695
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: like I and I'm sure you do too. Remember when

696
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: they came on the market. It was the early nineteen eighties,

697
00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you could have a little

698
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: uh eraser mate, like the paper mate became the eraser mate,

699
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: and you could write stuff and pen and as long

700
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: as you got back to it within and chances are

701
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: it was usually right away. But supposedly about ten hours,

702
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: uh is how much time you had to go in

703
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: there and erase the inc and you could erase it

704
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: like the way yet it was. It was definitely not

705
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: a perfect thing. But pencils are sort of the same

706
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 1: well there, sort of the same way. Uh yeah, I

707
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: guess so. Well, I mean it kind of depends, like

708
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: you can definitely erase a pencil better, but it depends

709
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 1: on the kind of paper, whether or not you want

710
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: to leave no trace that anything had been written. Right,

711
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: But it's definitely better than pens. But the so the

712
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 1: trick with eraseable pens, the way that they were eraseable

713
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: is that they weren't actually using ink, so there wasn't

714
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: something to bind them to the paper. I mean there was,

715
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,280
Speaker 1: but it took a very long time to be bound,

716
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: about ten hours. And the ink that they used was

717
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 1: actually liquid rubber cement, and so when you would write

718
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 1: in this we rever cement, you had that said amount

719
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: of time before it really bound and you could conceivably

720
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:07,479
Speaker 1: erase it to totally forgot about those, but it said

721
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 1: it's not made from dies, Like how did they color it?

722
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. I would say that it

723
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 1: was probably one of the top ten wonders of modern chemistry.

724
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'll buy that, Okay, Why not. Somebody's got

725
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:24,919
Speaker 1: to They're still out there too. I don't. I don't

726
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: think people are is knocked out by them as I

727
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: used to be. But it's not the eighties. Everybody was

728
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,240
Speaker 1: really coked up back then, and it was really easy

729
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: to impress people, including me as a twelve year old.

730
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 1: You were cooked up as a twelve year old. I've

731
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:44,439
Speaker 1: got one last one. Have you heard of rollerball pens? Yeah?

732
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 1: What are those? It's basically like my pilot would, it's

733
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: considered an ink jail pen. But you could also make

734
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: the case that it's a rollerball pen, but a rollerball

735
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 1: pen it sounds like something different. It's actually just a

736
00:42:56,960 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 1: type of ballpoint pen. The difference between a rollerball all

737
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: in a ballpoint pen is the ink. So a roller

738
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: rollerball pen has slightly more liquid inc whereas a ball

739
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 1: point pens inc is going to actually be paced. Um

740
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: that kind of like that space pen is activated and

741
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 1: liquefied a little more when the ball starts rolling on it.

742
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 1: But they're they're both ballpoint pens. It's just the ink

743
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: inside that differentiates the two. Yeah, well I do like those.

744
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: My god, I cannot believe we got as much out

745
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: of this episode as we did. And sometimes it's the

746
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: paper too that you're writing on, Like have you ever

747
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: gone to sign for a check at a restaurant and

748
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 1: it's the smoothest, most like wonderful writing experience of your life? Yeah,

749
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: I think it's the the you know that I don't

750
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 1: even know what it's made out of, but that kind

751
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: of shiny receipt paper in some restaurants like Golden Corral, combined,

752
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 1: oh yeah, combined with the kind of spongy uh check

753
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 1: book what you call those things carbon paper? No? Well, yeah,

754
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: but I'm talking about the thing they deliver your your

755
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: check in the little chick. I don't know what that's called.

756
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:10,399
Speaker 1: I'll bet there's a name for it. That the little

757
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: pad like you know, like writing on a piece of

758
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,359
Speaker 1: bare paper on a wood table is not nearly as

759
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 1: pleasurable as if there's a stack of paper. No, no,

760
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: certainly not. So there's something to all that combination of

761
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: all those things with the right uh, the right check

762
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:30,879
Speaker 1: from the right restaurant. But the girl the little check

763
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: book though, can't um it can't be too puffy or

764
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 1: else then you risk poking through the paper if your

765
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: pens agreed. So since I can't remember. I don't know

766
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: the name of what they deliver the check in the

767
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: little booklet. I will say that the little things on

768
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: the ends of the shoelace are called egglets, just in

769
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,840
Speaker 1: case anyone out there didn't know that. And if you

770
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: go to you know, some farmed a table hipster restaurant,

771
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: they may deliver your check a clamshell. You know, I've

772
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: not seen that one. People get all cute with it,

773
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 1: like here, we're gonna We're gonna deliver your check in

774
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: an old eighteenth century wooden clothes pin and and clip

775
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:19,280
Speaker 1: it to your tie and pinch your cheeks. Yeah, just

776
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:21,800
Speaker 1: just give me the check, clip it to your tie.

777
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: I'm not wearing a tie, you will be. You got

778
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: anything else? I got nothing else. Well, if you want

779
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 1: to know more about ballpoint pens, there's nothing less to know.

780
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,359
Speaker 1: So just go out, find your favorite, buy a few

781
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: of them, and use them happily and in good health,

782
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: or maybe give fountain pens to try to see if

783
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:42,040
Speaker 1: that's your thing. Uh. And since I said if that's

784
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: your thing, I think I said something like that, it's

785
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:50,800
Speaker 1: time for listener mayl. They call this Colorado sar Follow

786
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 1: up search and research, search and rescue. That's what we do,

787
00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:00,800
Speaker 1: search and research. That's true, Pete and repeat. Hey, guys,

788
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:05,320
Speaker 1: Colorado's population has been growing by roughly seventeen percent every decade,

789
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. Actually, when I wasn't we were

790
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: out there for those shows, I remember Den Brights talking

791
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:16,320
Speaker 1: about the population boom of the past, like twenty years. Uh,

792
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 1: that's me talking. By the way. He said, there are

793
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: a lot of new residents now wanting to experience are

794
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: awesome mountains that, combined with the health renaissance across the country,

795
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: has created a lot of interest in fourteen ers. Uh.

796
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,879
Speaker 1: And he goes on to explain as follows, Colorado has

797
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 1: fifty eight peaks that are over fourteen thousand feet, so

798
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: that's what he's talking about the fourteen ers. Some of

799
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: them are easy and only a few miles with a

800
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,399
Speaker 1: trailhead already at eleven thousand feet. Others are brutal hikes

801
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 1: of twenty plus miles, extremely loose rock, ropeless climbing, and

802
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:53,520
Speaker 1: death if you fall. Sometimes it's really easy to research

803
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: information on the routes. But in spite of all this

804
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 1: information out there, the allure of the mountain calls and

805
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: many people had out unprepared. Every year people are rescued

806
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 1: or died due to dumb mistakes that many websites will

807
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:08,359
Speaker 1: blatanty tell you not to make and teach you how

808
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: to avoid because of the easy availability of information. And

809
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: I think he there's like fourteen or dot com or

810
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: something that's what he recommended. There's a healthy debate taking

811
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: place among the hiking community as to whether or not

812
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: Colorado should begin charging for search and rescue. Your podcast

813
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: at the Nail on the Head with the pros and

814
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:27,720
Speaker 1: cons thought you might be interested in a little insight.

815
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: Capital Peak is the deadliest and most dangerous of the

816
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: fourteen ers, and has killed six people in the past

817
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 1: year alone. However, five of them made an obvious mistake

818
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: by taking what they thought was a shortcut that doesn't exist.

819
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, man, I'm planning on attempting it in

820
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 1: two weeks, as I have done thirty eight of the

821
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,880
Speaker 1: fifty eight peaks That is from Tyler Nesbar and he

822
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,720
Speaker 1: went to Mike two of the Denver shows. Oh nice, Tyler,

823
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for coming out. I hope you liked it. Yeah,

824
00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: be safe out there, dude, for sure. Um. Yeah, Actually,

825
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 1: it's a matter of fact, drop us a line f

826
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: you're done to let us know you made it backsafe,

827
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,320
Speaker 1: and we'll tell everybody. Okay, yeah, it sounds like Tyler

828
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: is doing it right. Okay, but just in case, you know,

829
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 1: in case, thanks again Tyler for getting in touch. If

830
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 1: you want to be like Tyler, well, then buy goodness.

831
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: Go to our website, Stuff you Should Know dot com,

832
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 1: look up all of our social media links, or do

833
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:25,720
Speaker 1: it the old fashioned way and send us an email

834
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com for

835
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:35,800
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it

836
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com