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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and

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Speaker 1: there's Chuck out over there, and Jerry's hanging around somewhere,

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Speaker 1: and this is short stuff about Vanta Black, which is

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. It is uh and it's funny. I never

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Speaker 1: really thought about variations of black until a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago, when we finally were able to professionally renovate

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Speaker 1: our house and not just to have me do it poorly,

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Speaker 1: because I wanted my upstairs office to be black because

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Speaker 1: it's got lots of windows and tons of light, and

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Speaker 1: so it wouldn't have that, you know, dungeon like feel

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Speaker 1: even if it were black. And I didn't know how

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Speaker 1: many blacks there were to choose from until I started looking.

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Speaker 1: It was really interesting. Yeah, there's a ton and actually, um,

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Speaker 1: if you wanted to go super duper black Chuck, it

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Speaker 1: would it cost you a pretty penny had you been like,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna paint this whole thing in Vanta black, because

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Speaker 1: that's some expensive stuff. I'm think you can buy it,

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Speaker 1: can't you. I don't know. I think there is something

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Speaker 1: called v b X two, which is a bit of

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Speaker 1: a paint, like an actual paint that you could spray

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Speaker 1: on but I yeah, I don't get the impression that

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Speaker 1: that you could buy it. And as a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: I guess if you would buy it or tried to

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Speaker 1: buy it, you would be running a foul of a

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Speaker 1: license held by an artist name nich kapoor Um, who

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Speaker 1: supposedly is the only person legally allowed to buy Vanta Black.

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Speaker 1: So who knows in this crazy world. But a lot

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Speaker 1: of people are probably like, what are you guys talking about?

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Speaker 1: What was so great about this Vana Black that it

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Speaker 1: would it would war in its own short stuff episode?

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Speaker 1: And I say to those people, kick back and listen up,

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Speaker 1: because Vanta Black is pretty interesting stuff, that's right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: If you would be interested in having a really, really

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Speaker 1: really deep black, oh, let's say one that absorbs I

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Speaker 1: don't know, Pot nine six of light, then Vanta Black

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Speaker 1: is for you. It was I remember when US came out,

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Speaker 1: I think it's about six or seven years ago from

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Speaker 1: Surrey Nanosystems. Uh. They very much were proud of the

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Speaker 1: fact that they set a world record for their vertically

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Speaker 1: aligned nanotube array black, which is what it stands for

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Speaker 1: as being the blackest black of all time, right, and

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Speaker 1: it's called vertically aligned nanotube array black because uh it's

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Speaker 1: actually made up of nanotubes UM. I was looking into

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Speaker 1: it's like, well, how how would that create a black pigment?

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Speaker 1: And it's pretty interesting. These these tubes are super super

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Speaker 1: tall UM and they're so they're vertically oriented, so they're

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Speaker 1: standing up on end and apparently the ratio between their width,

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Speaker 1: their diameter, and their length is like one to one million,

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Speaker 1: So for say every nanometer that they are around, there

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Speaker 1: a million nanometers tall, and they're really tightly crowded together,

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Speaker 1: so there's like a billion nanotubes per square centimeter of

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Speaker 1: you know, whatever's painted van of black, and they actually

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Speaker 1: capture light. The light goes into these nanotubes and can't

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Speaker 1: find its way out and eventually just dissipates his heat,

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Speaker 1: which means that the reflective uh nous of anything painted

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Speaker 1: in vanta black or with nanocarbon nano um carbon tubes

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Speaker 1: UM like that, like you just don't see anything. There's

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Speaker 1: no ridges, there's no um depth, there's no anything. It's

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Speaker 1: just basically like you're looking at a void and all

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Speaker 1: you can see is the silhouette of that thing that's

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Speaker 1: painted van of black, which makes it pretty awesome. All right,

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Speaker 1: how about we take a break. That's a great cliffhanger,

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Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit about why anyone cares

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Speaker 1: because it is kind of cool. Right after this m

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Speaker 1: did you ever see spinal Tap? I think you did, right, Yes.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember the none more Black joke? No, it's

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Speaker 1: when they came out with their black album and they

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Speaker 1: said look at the cover, how black is that or

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Speaker 1: something like that, and he goes, it could be none

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Speaker 1: more black. And there's a very subtle joke in that

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Speaker 1: scene which I didn't pick up on until about my

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Speaker 1: thirtieth viewing, which is they have a record store release

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Speaker 1: signing for their black album and they're sitting there holding

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Speaker 1: black sharpiets, but they don't gave attention to it. That's great.

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Speaker 1: Those are usually the best kinds of jokes where you

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Speaker 1: know it's you just have to pick up on it.

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Speaker 1: You know it's pretty great. Um, So we teached you

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Speaker 1: with why would anyone care about having something that black?

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Speaker 1: And the original purpose of vanti Black was for space

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Speaker 1: travel or maybe an application on something to improve visibility

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Speaker 1: of something very in the very far distance. So I think, like, uh,

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Speaker 1: like if you have a telescope or something coding the

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Speaker 1: inside and maybe even outside of that. With Vanti black,

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Speaker 1: it would absorb all of that light coming in. That

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Speaker 1: really just takes away any glare that you could think of,

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Speaker 1: right exactly. So there's like a lot of scientific applications

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Speaker 1: to it. But if you say, like the black is black,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't really let light escape. It tends to also

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Speaker 1: um capture the attention of artists and designs and designers

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Speaker 1: of course, and designers qualify as artists, but you know,

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Speaker 1: we like to separate them out here there, and I

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Speaker 1: just did. And in fact, some car designers from BMW said, hey,

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Speaker 1: we want to use Vanto black to basically paint a

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Speaker 1: BMW x x um so that we can like look

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Speaker 1: at the silhouettes and not have to worry about, you know,

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Speaker 1: any kind of glare or anything like that. They basically

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Speaker 1: used it. I think they really did it as a

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Speaker 1: publicity stunt. They ostensibly did it so that they could

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Speaker 1: study the shapes of the cars without being distracted by

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Speaker 1: glare or reflection in there. And if you look at this,

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Speaker 1: this BMW X six, it is pretty cool to look at.

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Speaker 1: It's awesome. And I'm not even a card guy, but

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Speaker 1: I looked at that, and I was like, that's pretty sweet. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because again, when you look at something like this head on,

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Speaker 1: it's letting such a little amount of light escape that

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Speaker 1: there's there's no there's no perspective or or any angles

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Speaker 1: or anything in it. It's just the silhouette of it. Ideally. Um,

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Speaker 1: so it is pretty cool to look at. But I

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Speaker 1: saw a watch by H. Moser and Company. Um, they

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Speaker 1: released a seventy five thousand dollar Vanta black watch and

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Speaker 1: the the the minute and our hands are just hovering

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Speaker 1: in the middle of this chasm, this void. That's the

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Speaker 1: watch face which has been painted vana black. It's it's

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Speaker 1: it's very cool to see as a matter of fact.

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Speaker 1: So it's really hard to come by, but every once

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Speaker 1: in a while people use it to a pretty great effect. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'll spring for a slide whistle for you. You're not

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Speaker 1: getting that watch, okay, all right for now, give it,

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Speaker 1: give us a few more years, hopefully. But I did

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Speaker 1: research and get you the best slide whistle there is.

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Speaker 1: It's a good slide whistle. And I will eventually break now,

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Speaker 1: I know, I know we're gonna hear it. This is

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Speaker 1: I like building the suspense. Yeah, yeah, that's where Showman

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Speaker 1: if anything for that BMW though they couldn't use the

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Speaker 1: original vant To black. They had to use different arrangements

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Speaker 1: of the carbon nanotubes to even get something that you

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Speaker 1: could apply as like a car paint, so they had

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Speaker 1: to kind of rearrange things a little bit. They eventually, um,

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Speaker 1: and also something that doesn't have to be grown in

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Speaker 1: a CBD reactor, which is problematic if you want to

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Speaker 1: paint a car. Uh. They eventually did come up with that,

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Speaker 1: and like you said, the thing looks really nice. Um,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of like you should when you get

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Speaker 1: a safe place to look this thing up. You really

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Speaker 1: need to put your eyes on it to kind of

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Speaker 1: see what you mean. But it is interesting to see

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Speaker 1: a car. I mean, obviously you see a car. They

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Speaker 1: use words like it disappears and it's invisible and it's

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Speaker 1: not invisible, but the details are a bit invisible. Yeah, um.

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Speaker 1: And I mean I don't know if we've said it

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Speaker 1: or not, but the original Vanto Black was clocked in

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Speaker 1: at UM absorbing ninety nine point nine six five percent

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Speaker 1: of visible light. Yea, that oh we did. Okay, I'm

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Speaker 1: sorry I didn't catch that. But the the so that

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Speaker 1: was kind of like the the trend that was there,

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Speaker 1: the benchmark that was set. But apparently some other people

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Speaker 1: have said, we can do better than that. And I

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Speaker 1: guess in September of two thousand nineteen, Chuck, a group

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Speaker 1: from M I T did just that. They came up

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Speaker 1: with a type of black that's actually blacker than Vanto black.

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Speaker 1: And it uses the same technology of carbon nanotubes UM

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Speaker 1: and it is it captures point nine nine five percent

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Speaker 1: of visible light, which makes it officially blacker than Vanto black.

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Speaker 1: And like I was saying, this kind of stuff captures

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Speaker 1: the attention of artists and designers. UM. And there was

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Speaker 1: a an artist named, oh what was her name? She's

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Speaker 1: a German artist named DeMott stribe s t r e

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Speaker 1: b e Is. Did I say that correctly? M hmmm.

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Speaker 1: I might say Streba, but I don't know this way better. Um.

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Speaker 1: She took a diamond, a two million dollar diamond, and

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Speaker 1: had it coated with this new black or black, so

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Speaker 1: it's like a void, a diamond void. It It's just

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Speaker 1: amazing stuff to see this. It just takes over this

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Speaker 1: thing and and and basically plunges it into a black hole.

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Speaker 1: No matter what you coated with Yeah. And if you

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Speaker 1: are redoing your house and you want to have a

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Speaker 1: black office like me, Um, I chose one that you know,

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Speaker 1: now that I look at it, it definitely looks black,

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Speaker 1: but you could argue that there's a little bit of

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Speaker 1: gray to it. Um. If you do want something super black, though,

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Speaker 1: there's an artist named Stuart Simple s E. M P

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Speaker 1: l E. That made to Matt black acrylic paints black

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Speaker 1: two point oh and black three point oh, which are

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Speaker 1: apparently really really black. Yeah they are, and so so

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier the artist A Niche Kapoor. Well, A

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Speaker 1: Niche Kapoor and Stuart Simple are in an art war,

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Speaker 1: a good old fashioned art showdown, because Stuart Simple is

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Speaker 1: not very happy that a Niche Kapoor has the market

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Speaker 1: cornered legally on vanta black. So Stuart Simple makes his

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Speaker 1: own pigments and sells them. And if you go by them,

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Speaker 1: you mean went and bought a tube of this, uh

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Speaker 1: this black three dotto today and yeah, and in it

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Speaker 1: when you're buying it, you have to say, I affirm

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Speaker 1: that I'm not a Niche Kapoor, that I'm not an

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Speaker 1: associate of a Niche Kapoor. This is not going to

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Speaker 1: get into the hands of a Niche Kapoor. I'm not

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Speaker 1: buying it for him. Um. You have to like click

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Speaker 1: that box that says all that before you can actually

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Speaker 1: purchase the stuff. Um, which is pretty great. And I

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Speaker 1: was like, a Niche Kapoor sounds kind of familiar. And

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Speaker 1: it turns out we've actually seen his work. Um you

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Speaker 1: mean I don't think you and I have ever seen

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Speaker 1: his work together. Um at the Hirshworm Museum in d C.

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Speaker 1: And he has these like giant eggs and the inside

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Speaker 1: is painted vanta black. And it's one of the coolest

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Speaker 1: things I've ever seen in my life because it really

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Speaker 1: is like you're looking into a black hole. Like if

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Speaker 1: you stuck your hand in, it would just keep going

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Speaker 1: into another dimension, is what it looks like it really is.

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Speaker 1: I think that the Stewart's simple a Niche Kapoor feud,

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Speaker 1: we should warn its own short stuff one day and

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Speaker 1: let's hope it doesn't end in bloodshed. Yes, let's hope. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And well, since we hoped against bloodshed, I think that

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Speaker 1: means we've reached the end of short stuff, don't you chuck?

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Speaker 1: Does that mean we're out short Stuff at m H.

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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for My heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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