Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hi, everybody, welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Scott Benjamin Don Ben Bolling, and today on the Car
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast, Ben, we're gonna talk about chain drive cars. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's weird because a lot of people don't know that
Speaker 1: early autos were actually changed. Hey, I can't be in here.
Speaker 1: What are you doing? No? Hey, someone did anyone to
Speaker 1: turn holy Oh my goodness. I didn't. I really didn't
Speaker 1: expect it to get this bad. I know. I'm sorry. Ernie.
Speaker 1: We we were getting to the mail. You don't have
Speaker 1: to do this, these acts of violence. This is not
Speaker 1: very how stuff works. This is not very stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind. This is not very car stuff. It
Speaker 1: was car stuff. Uh well, anyone out there listening um
Speaker 1: this of stuff to blow your mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. I'm Julie Douglas, and we have neglected our
Speaker 1: mail bot Arnie for way too long. The time was
Speaker 1: we would call him out every episode and and and
Speaker 1: he would bring us wonderful mail from our listeners and
Speaker 1: we would read them and we'd interact. But we keep
Speaker 1: getting busier and busier. There's there's never time so we
Speaker 1: we haven't called the mail boat over in quite some time,
Speaker 1: and he's just been setting alone there in his cube. Uh,
Speaker 1: just getting I guess, progressively crazier. Well, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a kind of zukosis, right, I mean, this can happen
Speaker 1: to robots, and I can't believe we weren't sensitive to
Speaker 1: this before. And I've heard I heard the creeks and
Speaker 1: the squeaks the last time we roled you out about
Speaker 1: six months ago. And I should have known that something
Speaker 1: like this would have happened. And I'm sorry, I just
Speaker 1: I never imagined it would play out like this. Well,
Speaker 1: we have to deal with it, that's the thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: we can't have this robot rampaging around the studio. Um,
Speaker 1: do you have any ideas? I mean, we could try
Speaker 1: using fire extinguishers against him. I don't know, we could
Speaker 1: try and trap him somewhere. Well, it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know how when people are trying to stave off
Speaker 1: like some sort of terrible thing happening to their village
Speaker 1: and they make it sacrifice sacrifice with you mean, Holly, No, never, Holly.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about maybe some emails or some you know,
Speaker 1: like we can offer that we could do an entire
Speaker 1: episode where we finally share all the awesome listener feedback
Speaker 1: that we have. Yeah, maybe this will this will chill
Speaker 1: the robot out and calm his uh his homicidal rage. Alright, Arnie,
Speaker 1: I know you have lasers that are they're directed at
Speaker 1: us right now. We both have one right in the
Speaker 1: middle of chest, and we just want to let you know,
Speaker 1: hear me happy about this. We have I don't know,
Speaker 1: like scads of emails to share, and I think that
Speaker 1: you'll be very happy about this. Alright, Alright, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna grab one here. Um, let me see, let
Speaker 1: me just let me start through here. Maybe there's there's
Speaker 1: one here. Uh well, here's here's a good one. Here's
Speaker 1: he just those are on that one. Okay. This one
Speaker 1: comes to us from a listener Rob Rob Wrightson and
Speaker 1: says hello, Robert and Julie. I have become a recent
Speaker 1: follower of Blow the Mind in listening to all four
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty seven episodes available to me in the
Speaker 1: months of August and September of this year, while at
Speaker 1: my ten hour a day job as a metal fabricator
Speaker 1: here in beautiful very Ontario of Canada. I have the
Speaker 1: greatest respect for all that you do in bringing science
Speaker 1: to the public. I have made many changes in my
Speaker 1: life in light of the new learning and preach science
Speaker 1: to all that hear me my four children, ages nine, eight, six,
Speaker 1: and four. I'll listen with the light as I spread
Speaker 1: the knowledge I've acquired that day. Please keep up the
Speaker 1: excellent work and always remember that each and every time
Speaker 1: you podcast, you are giving something that can never be
Speaker 1: taken away. The greatest power one can possess is knowledge.
Speaker 1: Thanks again and happy casting. Thank you so much, Rob
Speaker 1: um Man. I don't even think that Arnie has listened
Speaker 1: to all four You're gonna make it. Don't say things
Speaker 1: like that, right He is now putting his laser on this.
Speaker 1: Next email, which actually was sent to us via Amazon,
Speaker 1: and this is from Annaka says, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for inspiring this story that she wrote. It was stacks
Speaker 1: of fun to write stuff to play your mind is
Speaker 1: always interesting and just plain brilliant. You know what she did,
Speaker 1: She sent us a kindle edition of her story The
Speaker 1: Vampires of Marie. In parentheses, it's Hannibal de Noir Vampire
Speaker 1: Hunter Book one, which is so cool. I I love
Speaker 1: of it when we hear that we are are helping
Speaker 1: to shape some maybe subcious thoughts that you have. It
Speaker 1: are knocking around there and creating different works of art.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Annaka. Indeed, yeah, this one
Speaker 1: I believe was she was partially inspired by her episode
Speaker 1: Rise at the Vampire pat about the evolution of the
Speaker 1: vampire pat, which certainly I found tremendously fascinating. You know,
Speaker 1: how does something evolve to depend exclusively on blood is
Speaker 1: a diet? And she even sent us a copy of
Speaker 1: the book, and uh, I've been reading on it and
Speaker 1: found it quite enjoyable, so so I can I can
Speaker 1: definitely recommend everyone check it out. Indeed, all right, well
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us from Kim.
Speaker 1: Kim says, greetings from Cape Town, South Africa. Once again,
Speaker 1: well done on a great episode. She's responding to our
Speaker 1: episode The Dark, which we published in October. She says,
Speaker 1: as a blind woman, I was interested to hear if
Speaker 1: you would touch on the dark and blindness. I was
Speaker 1: blinded in a car accident almost seven years ago. I
Speaker 1: am totally blind, zero light perception, and I have had
Speaker 1: trouble sleeping since day one of this blind journey. I
Speaker 1: am so very thankful that I have the two of
Speaker 1: you to keep me company during my sleepless night. That
Speaker 1: could tie into the imaginary Friends episode. Smiley face, thanks
Speaker 1: for a great show. Keep up the great work, all right.
Speaker 1: The next miss if we have here, is from Coope.
Speaker 1: We haven't heard from him for a while that he
Speaker 1: had sent this. She said over the weekend, I was
Speaker 1: going through a bunch of old stuff at my grandparents house,
Speaker 1: and amongst all the useless, dusty crap heirlooms was this
Speaker 1: little gem. It's just a great accordion, by the way, spoiler,
Speaker 1: he says. Of course, meeting me, I snagged it immediately,
Speaker 1: not that anyone else wanted it, nor do I have
Speaker 1: the first clue how to play it, but come on,
Speaker 1: accordions are awesome. I agree. It's a honer, and I'm
Speaker 1: assuming it's probably from the sixties, but I can't seem
Speaker 1: to locate a serial number anything. Apparently these Carmen models
Speaker 1: dating back as early as the thirties, which would be
Speaker 1: doubly rat Let the researching begin, anyway, I thought you
Speaker 1: might appreciate this. PS. You can tell this is a
Speaker 1: quality Cooper family item by the high tech electrical cord
Speaker 1: duct tape handle adorning the case. And indeed he shows
Speaker 1: this picture of this great honer and I love this,
Speaker 1: of course, because I am an accordion a fictionado. I
Speaker 1: have not been practicing as much as I should, but
Speaker 1: I can still rock out. Thank you for being my friend.
Speaker 1: The Golden Girls theme, and that's all because of this podcast,
Speaker 1: which was the whole idea behind that was to try
Speaker 1: to cultivate a good habit, and so the accordion was
Speaker 1: my habit. Very good, very good. Alright, Uh, let me
Speaker 1: let me read another one here. Um, I think this
Speaker 1: might be working a little bit. He's he's. Arnie is
Speaker 1: seeming a little less aggressive. Um, the lasers are still
Speaker 1: pointed at us. All right, This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Rachel. Rachel says Robert and Julie. New listener and
Speaker 1: loving the podcast. I just listened to the Zen of
Speaker 1: Pain episode and wanted to add the discussion with a
Speaker 1: couple of bits of my experience first. Although this was
Speaker 1: touched on in the discussion of ritualistic piercing suspension b
Speaker 1: D s M, I would love to hear more about
Speaker 1: the the burgeoning ritual of body modification in the West,
Speaker 1: separate and apart from, but in many instances tied to
Speaker 1: longer traditions of such throughout the world. As someone with
Speaker 1: a large number of body piercings and tattoos, I can
Speaker 1: say that the experience has become almost a personal ritual
Speaker 1: for me, the anticipation of what the pain will be,
Speaker 1: the actual experience of it, and the relief of its denouncement,
Speaker 1: both the endorphins crushing through my body and the awesomeness
Speaker 1: of having a new piece of body adornment. It's a
Speaker 1: little stranded in time, and it's not being tied to
Speaker 1: a larger context of history, art, and culture, but it's
Speaker 1: something I've experienced for years and derived great pleasure from.
Speaker 1: And Rachel also shared some some other comments on us,
Speaker 1: But that was the core of it that I wanted
Speaker 1: to uh to share with everyone because because yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the whole tattooing experience, and in the history of tattooing,
Speaker 1: the culture of tattooing into it, and and body modification
Speaker 1: as well, it's certainly a fascinating topic and one that
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll will explore in an upcoming episode. Okay, um
Speaker 1: Arnie just slid me a note Okay, he said, I
Speaker 1: cannot relate. Move on. Okay, fine, fine, okay. Well do
Speaker 1: you do you have anything on happiness? Yeah? Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: One right here. This is from a Marie. She says,
Speaker 1: after hearing your podcast on happiness, I wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up the work of Barbara iron Reich. I didn't think
Speaker 1: I heard her mention, but if I missed a quick reference. Sorry.
Speaker 1: After being diagnosed with breast cancer, she was angry, and
Speaker 1: the attitude of the breast cancer community was that you
Speaker 1: should always be happy despite your cancer. She was even
Speaker 1: told by another cancer patient, quote, you need to run,
Speaker 1: not walk to get therapy. You can't get better without
Speaker 1: poisoning your system end quote. For having an expressing negative
Speaker 1: emotions about her diagnosis and a New York Times articles,
Speaker 1: she explains that what she was hearing was quote to
Speaker 1: be cheerful and accepting because you would not recover unless
Speaker 1: you were, and to consider your cancer a gift. Additionally,
Speaker 1: the message was if I don't get better, it's my fault,
Speaker 1: which she calls a clever blame the victim's sort of thing.
Speaker 1: She also talks about the frequent self help advice that
Speaker 1: tells people to get rid of the negative people in
Speaker 1: their lives, which included major corporations firing people for telling
Speaker 1: them things they did not want to hear. She believes
Speaker 1: this was an integral part of why the housing loan
Speaker 1: crash happened. And then I'm going to skip over a
Speaker 1: bit of it. She goes on to say. Overall, she
Speaker 1: argues not that we should be pessimistic, but that we
Speaker 1: should be realistic and base our views on the world
Speaker 1: as it is not what we wish it were. And
Speaker 1: she I think that's really interesting that she brought this up,
Speaker 1: because this was the episode called the Happiness Equation, which
Speaker 1: talked about this sort of set point that we all
Speaker 1: have in our happiness disposition, which is affected by life events.
Speaker 1: But then we also talked about this idea of being
Speaker 1: realistic and being a little bit pessimic pessimistic, and so
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that she brought up Barbara I
Speaker 1: writ experience with something that would have greatly affected her
Speaker 1: level of happiness and how that sort of happiness pill
Speaker 1: of being positive was shoved down her throat. Alright, good, well,
Speaker 1: hopefully that one that one that I think you like
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, I think this one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Kieran. Kieran writes, and it says, Hello, Robert and Julie,
Speaker 1: I very much enjoyed your podcast on LSD flashbacks. It's
Speaker 1: refreshing to hear media discourse on the matter that doesn't
Speaker 1: evolve into hysterical knee jerking. While physically very benign. Trip
Speaker 1: of means like LSD take us far from our everyday
Speaker 1: conscious experience, and therefore should not be taken lightly. Something
Speaker 1: that may be of interest to you is the effect
Speaker 1: of hallucinogens on people with color blindness. The condition is
Speaker 1: caused by a physical defect within the eye, but the
Speaker 1: brain of a color blind person is capable of experiencing
Speaker 1: novel colors given the right stimuli. One thing I would
Speaker 1: take exception to is the assertion that the effects of
Speaker 1: LAST are mainly visual In nature. Visual hallucinations are the
Speaker 1: most obvious and talked about faucet, but in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the cognitive effects of LAST are what makes it so valuable.
Speaker 1: We all know intellectually that we are a bunch of
Speaker 1: apes whizzing through space on a giant rock, but there's
Speaker 1: something about tripped and fiends that allow an individual to
Speaker 1: really feel the truth of that proposition. And similar abstract
Speaker 1: ideas in a way that makes a lasting and forceful impact,
Speaker 1: not unlike the lucky astronauts who see the Earth from
Speaker 1: space and return home with a new found appreciation for
Speaker 1: the fragility of life. Thank you for the numerous hours
Speaker 1: of informative content you have helped to combat the UNWI.
Speaker 1: I feel w navigating London's public transportation system best wishes
Speaker 1: here in Um. Yes, well that's you know what she's
Speaker 1: of course talking about the LSD Flashbacks episode. And I
Speaker 1: certainly feel we did uh discuss the visual aspects of
Speaker 1: lucinogens more in that episode. Um. But but she doesn't
Speaker 1: make a good point. I mean, the whole cognitive side
Speaker 1: of the experience experiences is very important, and certainly we
Speaker 1: go into it more in our Scientists in the Shaman
Speaker 1: episodes where we discuss UH not only LST but also
Speaker 1: psilocybin and UH and then some other substances. And I
Speaker 1: love that Karen brought up the overview effect, well, this
Speaker 1: perspective changing experience. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, Okay,
Speaker 1: Is that all right, Arnie? Okay, yes it is. And
Speaker 1: when we get back, we're getting to look a little
Speaker 1: h bit at some Origami feedback and some earwax. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. We're podcasting from the house stuff Works office.
Speaker 1: Part of the office space has been demolished by the
Speaker 1: mail bot. But um, I think I think this is working.
Speaker 1: I think we're calming him down. The lasers aren't jerking
Speaker 1: around so frantically anymore. He's sounding a little calmer. So
Speaker 1: maybe we should just continue to roll out some more
Speaker 1: a listener mail and and see what happens. So that
Speaker 1: that was a definitive yes, right there. Okay, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: here's one from April. It says, just listening to the
Speaker 1: Oregami podcast, you did, and when the section unfolding robots
Speaker 1: came up, I thought of paper as a weapon and
Speaker 1: recollected an action anime series I had watched several years
Speaker 1: that called Read or Die, in which the main character
Speaker 1: is a secret agent, bookworm, introvert type of woman who
Speaker 1: has the ability to influence the behavior of any paper
Speaker 1: she comes into contact with. Her code name, aptly, the paper.
Speaker 1: Are you at all familiar with it? I thought, U
Speaker 1: it would be an interesting and refreshing departure from the
Speaker 1: typical cookie cutter anime story arc in style. Keep up
Speaker 1: the great work, April. This is great because we actually
Speaker 1: have a video coming out on Origami, and you guys
Speaker 1: should definitely look out for that. But I love this
Speaker 1: idea of being able to just mentally transform a piece
Speaker 1: of paper, yes, and and sort of create your own physics,
Speaker 1: I guess telekinetically. Yeah, yeah, I mean I like it.
Speaker 1: It kind of taps into just the power of orgaming anyway,
Speaker 1: the idea that you can take this paper and make
Speaker 1: I mean there's almost no limit. You're just using the
Speaker 1: mathematical properties, the physical properties of the paper, and you
Speaker 1: can make everything from a tiny frog to a complex
Speaker 1: abstract h you know, piece of paper architecture. Yeah. And uh,
Speaker 1: just when we were going through some of the research
Speaker 1: and the writing for the video, it reminded me how
Speaker 1: great that documentary Between the Folds is. And we know
Speaker 1: we've talked about it before, but it bears mentioning again
Speaker 1: in Yeah, that that's really a mind blowing documentary about
Speaker 1: something that would it would be so easy to just
Speaker 1: pass over and say, oh, Orgami, I don't care about that,
Speaker 1: I don't care about folder swans, but there's so much
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, that's definitely one of those paradigm shifters. Right, yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: this one comes to us from Ivan. Ivan Wright sent
Speaker 1: and says, I'm an avid listener to most of the
Speaker 1: House suf Works podcast as Serendipity would have episodes three
Speaker 1: and four of The New Cinema's original series than Nick
Speaker 1: has graphic depictions of the ravages of syphilis A woman
Speaker 1: of means a parent has lost her nose episode three.
Speaker 1: The grafting of flesh from the arm is portrayed in
Speaker 1: episode four. It would have been a bit difficult to
Speaker 1: visualize what we were talking about when listening to the podcast,
Speaker 1: but having seen the show prior, I knew exactly what
Speaker 1: you were describing. Uh. Indeed, as in our our syphilis
Speaker 1: episode we mentioned, uh, not only the ravage of the disease,
Speaker 1: but you know, the cultural impact in the way that
Speaker 1: the people dealt with it before pendicillin and uh. And
Speaker 1: much of this is explored in The Nick, which which
Speaker 1: is really a fabulous series. Steven Soderberg Clive Owen stars
Speaker 1: in it. Uh. John Hodgment later on has a cameo
Speaker 1: as well. That will that will not delight you, um
Speaker 1: as much as you might think it would. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I found this to be a really great show. They
Speaker 1: also get into another podcast topic of ours later on,
Speaker 1: where you get to see an individual trepand so it's
Speaker 1: like every episode you're diving into some some cool history
Speaker 1: from from from turn of the twentieth century medicine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and care's a little something I learned about this. If
Speaker 1: you're about to watch this show, do not sit down
Speaker 1: and with a big steaming plate of spaghetti and watch
Speaker 1: the first episode with spaghetti because just and I don't
Speaker 1: want to spoil anything here, but something gets rolled into
Speaker 1: the surgery theater and all this sort of you know,
Speaker 1: you know what happens the stuff, there's a lots of blood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a show about surgeons. It's this. It's the
Speaker 1: show that has quite a bit of of blood in it,
Speaker 1: but but really really fascinating. So don't don't watch it
Speaker 1: while you're eating dinner. But it's ysage. I mentioned that
Speaker 1: my spaghetti had chystage in it, so I had that
Speaker 1: Meadia component. Yeah, so handle with care. But but I
Speaker 1: do highly recommend It's one of the best shows that
Speaker 1: I watched this year, and has a fabulous soundtrack as well,
Speaker 1: Like even though it's a period piece, It has an
Speaker 1: electronic soundtrack, a minimalist kind of electronic soundtrack by Cliff Martinez.
Speaker 1: So if you're if you're into just the music of
Speaker 1: the thing, I highly recommended. All right, um, This next
Speaker 1: one is from Ben and he is referencing our Ignorance
Speaker 1: is Bliss episode and he says, first, as a guy
Speaker 1: with a degree in philosophy, I'd like to thank you
Speaker 1: for what you do. Your podcast has become a regular
Speaker 1: part of my morning ritual and always thoroughly enjoyed, usually
Speaker 1: within the first hour of my time at works. So
Speaker 1: thank you very much, Ben, He says, second year episode
Speaker 1: about Ignorance hits close to home. When he was eighteen,
Speaker 1: my brother in law's twin sister died of a heart
Speaker 1: condition due to genetics. As her twin, he has a
Speaker 1: fifty chance of having the same condition, and a simple
Speaker 1: radiological study would reveal its presence, but he adamantly refuses
Speaker 1: to get tested because he doesn't want to live in fear.
Speaker 1: And then he goes on to say, go to skip
Speaker 1: a little bit. Here. He goes on to say, personally,
Speaker 1: I understand this decision completely and respect it, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, I have to wonder if things change
Speaker 1: when children enter the picture, I eat, is your desire
Speaker 1: to not live in fear trumped by an obligation to
Speaker 1: your children to find out these things for their own
Speaker 1: well being. I tend to lean a little more strongly
Speaker 1: towards yes in this scenario, but I'm not my brother
Speaker 1: in law. He might be just as likely to argue
Speaker 1: that the quality of their upbringing would be adversely affected if,
Speaker 1: in fact a test came back positive. Interesting stuff to
Speaker 1: think about, as always thinks Ben, I think that is
Speaker 1: what so I think this is the whole thing that
Speaker 1: ignorance is bliss is hinging on this idea that you
Speaker 1: don't want to walk around for the rest of your
Speaker 1: life thinking about the their shoe falling, right, because we're
Speaker 1: already kind of doing that with the various paper tigers
Speaker 1: of our mind. Anyway, So he puts forth a really
Speaker 1: interesting in real life scenario right there. All right, very good.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Himmali Himali from New
Speaker 1: Zealand right soon, and says, hey, Robert and Julie, I
Speaker 1: hope you're having a lovely year so far, and wish
Speaker 1: you both a happy to wally uh and Indian New Year.
Speaker 1: I realized this is a little bit late, considering that
Speaker 1: you were on Thursday and Friday last week, and I
Speaker 1: am sorry about that. I accidentally used the old email
Speaker 1: address and hen had to send to the new email address.
Speaker 1: And what's that new email address? It is blow the
Speaker 1: mind at how stuff works dot com. Alright, he says,
Speaker 1: keep out the great work. I love your podcast. But
Speaker 1: then he adds a ps that ties into some of
Speaker 1: our recent talk on how our sort of Halloween topics
Speaker 1: that we've gotten into, such as the dark and witchcraft.
Speaker 1: He says, it's awesome when you talk about different Indian
Speaker 1: traditions and know so much about the gods and goddesses.
Speaker 1: I thought you might also like to know that the
Speaker 1: day before d Wally is Indian Halloween. You can't go
Speaker 1: outside after dark, especially midnight, because it is thought there
Speaker 1: would be witches, ghost, etcetera. Mom says that there is
Speaker 1: a there's a saying that means something along the lines
Speaker 1: of witches swing from vines in the water wells cackling
Speaker 1: on that day. Also on that day you have to
Speaker 1: get rid of rubbish including dustin cobwebs and berry or
Speaker 1: just put them at a four way crossroads. I've noticed
Speaker 1: that the cross shaped crossroads come up as a bad
Speaker 1: evil UH symbol and other cultures too, So that's interesting,
Speaker 1: always interesting to to hear about the cultures and traditions
Speaker 1: that are various listeners are part of and how they
Speaker 1: tie into some of the topics we discussed, especially concerning
Speaker 1: this idea at this time of year about the veil
Speaker 1: being very thin between this ghost world or death and life,
Speaker 1: because you will see that in every single culture UM
Speaker 1: at this time of year. And I know it's a
Speaker 1: seasonal change thing. You know, you've got leaves falling off
Speaker 1: the trees that you know, there's a feeling that death
Speaker 1: is creeping in and things are going into hibernation and
Speaker 1: turning inward. But it is fascinating to see it UM
Speaker 1: played out in various stories in each culture, you know.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this the other the other day,
Speaker 1: UM in our episode on the it was the Problem
Speaker 1: with Hell. I think it was one of our Hell episodes,
Speaker 1: But we talked a little bit about the the idea
Speaker 1: that when we were hunter gatherers, we that we you know,
Speaker 1: we life was kind of chaotic. We couldn't we we
Speaker 1: had a limited ability to plan ahead. We had to
Speaker 1: depend on what we could find, what we could hunt,
Speaker 1: and what we could kill or trap. And a lot
Speaker 1: of those older gods were horned gods, were gods with
Speaker 1: antlers because they know very much tied in with the
Speaker 1: hunt and the availability of prey. And then as we
Speaker 1: move into an agrarian society, we we tend do largely
Speaker 1: abandon those primordical gods and go towards uh more agricultural
Speaker 1: deities that are that are more reliable, that deal in cycles,
Speaker 1: cycles of you know, of growing and harvest, but in
Speaker 1: the in the late fall and in the winter. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe part of that the veil growing thin, comes into
Speaker 1: the fact that it kind of seems, at least for
Speaker 1: a little while, like those those newer gods, those agricultural
Speaker 1: gods kind of abandoned us for a little bit. And
Speaker 1: then what are we left to do but to remember
Speaker 1: those those older gods or those older fears and the
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that that the continuation of life
Speaker 1: is dependent upon forces outside of our control. I mean,
Speaker 1: when we did uh the Dark episode, we talked about
Speaker 1: Signo bacteria, which is this ancient bacteria which may be
Speaker 1: responsible for the fact that we have um you know
Speaker 1: night and day cycles that were you know, diurnal creatures,
Speaker 1: and that there are some creatures that are nocturnal, and
Speaker 1: it makes me think like wow, that is there was
Speaker 1: a sort of body knowledge, in a sort of evolutionary
Speaker 1: knowledge of how important this, this concept of night and
Speaker 1: day is. But not only that, the change changes that
Speaker 1: enact the amount of light we're getting or the lack
Speaker 1: of light we're getting, and so it really is pretty
Speaker 1: entrenched in us. You know. That ties into an email
Speaker 1: we received from a listener, Jonathan. Jonathan wrote in and said, Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie, I've been listening to your new seasonal
Speaker 1: podcast and I thought i'd share something with you as well.
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween. Forty minutes of unreleased undwin Andy included a
Speaker 1: SoundCloud duck link and if you want to look it
Speaker 1: up for yourself, that's a SoundCloud dot com forward slash
Speaker 1: and to win that's a N D U I N
Speaker 1: and then another slash, the veil grows thin. That's for
Speaker 1: words with a little hyphens in there, says listen, Share, enjoy,
Speaker 1: dream indeed, and it's perfect contemplative music for this season.
Speaker 1: So you guys should definitely check it out and thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sending that. Um, all right, a
Speaker 1: little bit of a lighter fair here. This is from
Speaker 1: b k B who said that when I was six
Speaker 1: years old, my first grade teacher noticed that I wasn't
Speaker 1: responding to simple instructions as quick as I used to.
Speaker 1: B KB goes on to say that there was exploratory surgery,
Speaker 1: and sure enough there was a load of ear wax.
Speaker 1: Now we had a whole episode on ear wax and
Speaker 1: how it's hereditary, like the smell in the amount, and uh,
Speaker 1: b KB says, it should be noted here that all
Speaker 1: male members of my family seemed to have inherited my
Speaker 1: father's talent for prodigious ear wax production. However, when the
Speaker 1: wax was removed, they found further lodged in the canal,
Speaker 1: of all things, a popcorn colonel. And he goes on
Speaker 1: to say that the next ear was checked and there
Speaker 1: was another colonel. At least he was balanced out right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he says, some children throw objects down the toilet at
Speaker 1: me in my ear holes, apparently, and he said that
Speaker 1: that was probably there for two years. He says, I'm
Speaker 1: happy to report the surgery was a success. My hearing
Speaker 1: was fully restored. And there has been no lasting damage
Speaker 1: at all. It's a family joke that if I was
Speaker 1: hot headed, uh, instead of a calm demeanor child, the
Speaker 1: Colonel's pack and all that oily substance might have popped
Speaker 1: if I ever got really mad. Anyway, that's my little
Speaker 1: ear wax been yet for all to enjoy there at
Speaker 1: the office. Have a great day since the KP well,
Speaker 1: and it's it's another excuse just to remind everyone do
Speaker 1: not stick things in your ear, even the Q tip.
Speaker 1: Just just don't do it. All right, this is I
Speaker 1: think this is working. He seems so much calmer now.
Speaker 1: And is he really beginning to look like the old Arnie? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's almost like this has been a lullaby of listener
Speaker 1: feedback to him. Look at that. Yeah, I mean he's
Speaker 1: even put the lasers away, which kind of begs the
Speaker 1: question we're gonna have to ask Izzie about this. Why
Speaker 1: does Arnie have lasers? Why did we get a mail
Speaker 1: about with lasers? Is he on military robot has been repurposed?
Speaker 1: That's the best I can figure. Is he is Israel
Speaker 1: ponts or guy and he's wonderful, and um, maybe we
Speaker 1: should talk to him about dismantling. Just okay, all right,
Speaker 1: we do that. I'm not listening. All right. Here's one
Speaker 1: more than one more bit of listener mail to catch up.
Speaker 1: This to us from David, and it's responding to our
Speaker 1: Trip to Phobia podcast episode. Our Trip to Phobia episode
Speaker 1: and the video and the gallery that went with it. Um.
Speaker 1: These broke a lot of thoughts from from listeners and viewers,
Speaker 1: um a fair amount of paranoia and fear as well,
Speaker 1: and just sort of re exploration of how we feel
Speaker 1: about the things in our environment. It broke some people today.
Speaker 1: I think it did. Um. So David writes in and says, Hey,
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie a big fan of stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your mind and the whole family of How Stuff Works podcast.
Speaker 1: Your show on Trip to Phobia was very very enlightening
Speaker 1: to me. While listening to the podcast, I begin to
Speaker 1: relate to what you were describing. I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: would qualify as a trip to phobic, though, because when
Speaker 1: I think of a whole in general, it is not
Speaker 1: at all disturbing. What caught my attention was when you
Speaker 1: spoke of many holes closely arranged. This is something I
Speaker 1: have always found quite disturbing. And I've never been able
Speaker 1: to describe is it as anything more than a bunch
Speaker 1: of small things close together wears me out, like a
Speaker 1: bunch of mold spores or something. Even while sening to
Speaker 1: the podcast, I was chopping bell peppers and I can
Speaker 1: hardly bring myself to touch the inside of them where
Speaker 1: all the seeds formed together. Anyways, when you mentioned the
Speaker 1: lotus seed pod and explained that it is most often
Speaker 1: pointed to is one of the most disturbing images by
Speaker 1: those who suffered this condition, I checked it out and
Speaker 1: couldn't even pick my phone back up. I showed it
Speaker 1: to my girlfriend and she thought nothing of it and
Speaker 1: decided to chase me around with the phone. Not funny.
Speaker 1: I ended up pushing her maybe a little too hard,
Speaker 1: kind of involuntarily, which got my point across. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: no damage done, and the silent treatment ended after a
Speaker 1: few minutes. But it was clear at that moment I
Speaker 1: really must have some kind of phobia to this. So
Speaker 1: maybe some sort of sub phobia. I know just what
Speaker 1: we need. Sub phobias, like we didn't have enough as
Speaker 1: it is. That includes the proximity of the holes or
Speaker 1: something is a thing too, ha ha, thanks again for
Speaker 1: teaching me something about myself. Forever listening, David. One of
Speaker 1: the things that that episode on Holes brought up is
Speaker 1: this idea that there's sort of mathematical instancy or correlation
Speaker 1: between animals that are very dangerous and plants as well,
Speaker 1: and they're they're spectral patterns and then these clusters. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to see how how people are
Speaker 1: reacting to it. Maybe they are tapping into this spectral
Speaker 1: mathematical pattern. Maybe not. Yeah, I mean on some level,
Speaker 1: it was like because a girlfriend chased him around the
Speaker 1: apartment with like a poisonous snake. So good for you, girlfriend,
Speaker 1: I think that's great. Um, now, I won't go into
Speaker 1: this because this is just this is a mathematical thing.
Speaker 1: Speaking of methemodics. And we hear from Jim in New
Speaker 1: Jersey every once in a while. He has this beautiful,
Speaker 1: lovely email about the Infinity Hotel, which we talked about
Speaker 1: in one of our episodes on Infinity, and he talks
Speaker 1: about rational numbers and real numbers and negative numbers and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to read it one because it's long,
Speaker 1: but two I wanted to bring up that, um, there's
Speaker 1: something called the Infinite Hotel Paradox. It's a video made
Speaker 1: by Jeff Dakowsky and it's on ted ed the Lessons
Speaker 1: from Ted, so if you're familiar with ted dot com,
Speaker 1: you can go there. You can also get these sort
Speaker 1: of mini lessons. And so I just wanted to point
Speaker 1: Jim and others to the source material that we use
Speaker 1: because it's fascinating. And Jim brings up this idea about
Speaker 1: negative numbers perhaps being able to fit into this hotel
Speaker 1: because we talked about how you'd have negative rooms going
Speaker 1: down forever and ever and ever. Um So, anyway, he
Speaker 1: brings up this fascinating question, which I thought the perfect
Speaker 1: form for this is really that ted ed link, and
Speaker 1: everybody should check it out if they're interested. All right, well,
Speaker 1: there you have it. Um I'm feeling pretty good. Are
Speaker 1: you feeling pretty good? I mean we are alive, so
Speaker 1: I'm feeling good. Arnie, how how do you feel? Sounds
Speaker 1: given me? All right, I feel like we've done good
Speaker 1: work here. Then we were able to catch up a
Speaker 1: little bit on listener mail, and thanks to Scott and
Speaker 1: Ben from car Stuff for helping us out there with
Speaker 1: the intro. You can check out their podcast all their
Speaker 1: content at car Stuff Show dot com. Um, if you
Speaker 1: want to see more of what we're doing, you can
Speaker 1: check us out at stuff to play your mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That's right, you'll find all the podcast episodes we've ever done,
Speaker 1: the videos, the blog post, etcetera. Uh So, if if
Speaker 1: we mentioned a podcast in this episode and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I need to re listen to that one or somehow
Speaker 1: I missed that one, I need to go seek it out, well,
Speaker 1: that is the place to do it, and especially on
Speaker 1: the more recent episode and making a point of including
Speaker 1: some sort of cool visual as well as links to
Speaker 1: related content and links to outside sources that are either
Speaker 1: we either used in the creation of that episode or
Speaker 1: are of interest and related. Yeah, and Arnie would encourage
Speaker 1: you to do this, and so what we Please send
Speaker 1: us your thoughts via email at blow to the mind
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Bluer