Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're catching up on some of
Speaker 1: your messages in response to our episode about Christmas decorations. First, Robert,
Speaker 1: let's see do you want to read this first one
Speaker 1: or should I? Yeah, sure, I'll do this one. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Lucy. I loved your Holiday
Speaker 1: inventions episode and wanted to write in that My parents
Speaker 1: still do many of the old and or dangerous traditions.
Speaker 1: We put bubble lights in the tree every year when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. They still have some of those
Speaker 1: strings from the nineties, but they've also gotten replacement bulbs
Speaker 1: for burnt out ones over the years. These new ones
Speaker 1: are hopefully less toxic than the originals. The best, though,
Speaker 1: is live candles on the Christmas tree. My family is
Speaker 1: aginally from Germany, and when my grandparents were first married,
Speaker 1: they studied in Germany for a year or two on
Speaker 1: my grandmother's Fulbright scholarship. They picked up their tradition of
Speaker 1: candles there and kept it up every year until they
Speaker 1: moved into a retirement home that would not allow it.
Speaker 1: Since then, my parents have taken over the tradition. The
Speaker 1: key is to get a fresh tree instead of buying
Speaker 1: it from a Christmas tree lot. We go out to
Speaker 1: a Christmas tree farm a day or two before Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve and cut down a fresh one. This means that
Speaker 1: when you light the candles a few days later, there
Speaker 1: is still so much moisture in the needles and branches
Speaker 1: that have a flame touches it, it just fizzles out.
Speaker 1: We always like the tree from top to bottom, so
Speaker 1: that as we sit around seeing Christmas carols and talking,
Speaker 1: the top candles burn out first and we can watch
Speaker 1: the shadows from the lower candles on the ceiling. Sometimes
Speaker 1: my dad will even get the ornaments hung so that
Speaker 1: the rising heat from a candle beneath it will make
Speaker 1: the ornament spin. Whoa. Obviously we still have a pitcher
Speaker 1: of water nearby, but we've never had to use it.
Speaker 1: I've grown up with these traditions, so I sometimes for
Speaker 1: get that not everyone does them. Great to hear about
Speaker 1: the history behind them. I always love listening to you guys, Lucy.
Speaker 1: Oh well, that does sound very nice, Lucy, but I
Speaker 1: still I don't think i'd risk it. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a story in my family, and I've asked around
Speaker 1: to see if I could find out who it was.
Speaker 1: But so this one's gonna be one of those kind
Speaker 1: of like horrible third hand stories. But there's somebody I
Speaker 1: was connected to where the wife brought with her German
Speaker 1: traditions and insisted on doing the candles. But then the
Speaker 1: husband was very suspicious of of actual candles on a
Speaker 1: Christmas tree and would stand by with a with a
Speaker 1: fire extinguisher aimed at the tree the whole time, just
Speaker 1: ready for it to go up. I mean, you're gonna
Speaker 1: do candles on the tree, why not just like hang
Speaker 1: butane torches from the branches. They make their own ornaments
Speaker 1: and candles. All right, Well, it looks like Carney is
Speaker 1: still in the Christmas spirit and has another one of
Speaker 1: these list males for you too. Okay, this one comes
Speaker 1: from Rose. Rose says, Hi, Robert and Joe loved your
Speaker 1: latest episode on the history of Christmas decorations. To talk
Speaker 1: about whether gingerbread houses are meant for eating brought back
Speaker 1: some early childhood memories. When I was a little kid
Speaker 1: in the nineties, my family decorated gingerbread houses every year,
Speaker 1: except we didn't use any actual gingerbread. My grandma would
Speaker 1: construct houses out of cardboard, which we would code in
Speaker 1: frosting and decorate with candy and pretzels. I think some
Speaker 1: might say that gingerbread and cardboard have negligible differences. Uh,
Speaker 1: but that would be a true grunch of a person
Speaker 1: who said, oh, I mean real gingerbread. If you're using
Speaker 1: real ginger, you get that kind of like it's almost spicy,
Speaker 1: So it can it can really work. What are are
Speaker 1: you supposed to use fresh ginger and gingerbread? I thought
Speaker 1: you're supposed to use ginger powder in baking. Maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about this, Well I don't. I've never
Speaker 1: actually made it myself, so I'm I have no idea ultimately,
Speaker 1: but I know that generally you can taste the difference
Speaker 1: between real ginger and um in powder ginger, and then
Speaker 1: of course I feel like I have had gingerbread. When
Speaker 1: a gingerbread is good, it tastes a little spicy, like okay,
Speaker 1: when it kind of like bites you back a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that would probably be fresh ginger. Wait, you
Speaker 1: were saying real ginger though, do you do you mean
Speaker 1: fresh ginger? Or is ginger powder not from a not
Speaker 1: from real ginger? Surely it is? Well yeah, well when
Speaker 1: I say real ginger, you know I'm I'm meaning fresh ginger. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: that's what I thought. Yeah, I mean as I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's actual imitation ginger out there.
Speaker 1: There's imitation vanilla there, there's there's imitation stuff. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: sorry to continue with roses message. So we got these
Speaker 1: houses made out of cardboard, decorated with candy and pretzels
Speaker 1: picking up. They definitely weren't meant to be eaten, if
Speaker 1: I'm remembering right. They would sit out as a decoration
Speaker 1: for a while, maybe people would steal a few pieces
Speaker 1: of candy off, and then we just threw them out
Speaker 1: after Christmas. Unfortunately, we stopped this tradition while I was
Speaker 1: still fairly young, but I have fond memories of it.
Speaker 1: That was pretty weird in hindsight. Happy Holidays, Rose. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's that much weirder than anything else.
Speaker 1: So it sounds kind of nice. Yeah, and then you're
Speaker 1: not wasting the gingerbread this way, So as they go
Speaker 1: for it. All right, we have another one here. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Victoria. Victoria Rights. I'm an
Speaker 1: environmental scientist and I allow this in my home. Is
Speaker 1: it dumb? Absolutely? Why do we do it? Tradition? Que
Speaker 1: fiddler theme? And of course it is a picture of
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree with live candles, with burning candles on it.
Speaker 1: They look pretty cool because the candles are twisty. I've
Speaker 1: never seen this before. They're like cork screw shaped a
Speaker 1: little bit, I mean very, very slightly cork screw shaped.
Speaker 1: And in in the photo, a gentleman that I believe
Speaker 1: is Victoria's husband is lighting it. Because she continues, my
Speaker 1: German has been grew up placing real candles on a
Speaker 1: real conifer, lighting them with real fire, and watching them
Speaker 1: burn to their bases without a trace of anxiety. He
Speaker 1: clings to this tradition harder than any other, and I
Speaker 1: don't mind living a little dangerously. We have some firm
Speaker 1: rules around this practice. Number one, the tree must never
Speaker 1: go thirsty. I pay more attention to this dead plant's
Speaker 1: hydration than that of my own body. The conifer will
Speaker 1: be less of a powder keg if the leaves don't
Speaker 1: dry out. We feel the tips before every lighting if
Speaker 1: they're getting crunchy. The candles are not lit. Number two.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows where the fire extinguisher is and how to
Speaker 1: use it. I acknowledge that this wouldn't be enough to
Speaker 1: put out a fully engulf tree, but it is better
Speaker 1: than nothing. Number three. When lit, the candles are supervised
Speaker 1: at all times. This part can get a little boring. However,
Speaker 1: there's little else to do on Christmas Eve besides sipping
Speaker 1: scotch and staring at your potential doom. Number four. After
Speaker 1: the holidays, take the discarded tree to the bonfire beach
Speaker 1: and burn it. Watching that thing shoot flames high into
Speaker 1: the air puts whole celebratory practices in perspective. Knowing the
Speaker 1: risk makes us more vigilant. Thank you both for the
Speaker 1: stimulating content, and may your holidays be far less perilous
Speaker 1: than mine. Warm regards, Victoria. The regards sound very warm.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing this, Victoria. This is great and
Speaker 1: I love the picture that this was a This was
Speaker 1: a great bit of listener mail. I really love this one. Okay,
Speaker 1: how about this response? Going back to our episodes about spinning, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's spin. Okay, this uh this comes from Joe, a
Speaker 1: different Joe. Joe says, Dear Robert and Joe, I've been
Speaker 1: enjoying your recent episodes and listener mail on the size
Speaker 1: of spinning as it affects the human body. It's a
Speaker 1: fascinating topic. It was delightful to hear the perspective of
Speaker 1: a ballet dancer, ice skater and pole dancer. But I'm
Speaker 1: surprised no one mentioned aerialists. I gotta say that did
Speaker 1: not even enter my mind. In fact, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I would have known what that word meant before
Speaker 1: this mail, so so thanks for bringing it up, Joe.
Speaker 1: I should have done. I've seen aerialists performed before. I
Speaker 1: mean i've I've certainly been to circus away, so I
Speaker 1: should have thought about the spinning that yeah, the circus lay,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, So Joe goes on aerialists, as
Speaker 1: you probably know, as I didn't know, are the section
Speaker 1: of performance artists of the circus realm that perform aerial
Speaker 1: stunts on aerial apparati. Many common apparatis, such as the
Speaker 1: hoop lyra and aerial straps, also test the brain and body.
Speaker 1: One extra weird apparatus is the Spanish web. The Spanish
Speaker 1: web is essentially a human lasso. One performer hangs from
Speaker 1: a thick rope some distance from the ground, while another
Speaker 1: performer assists in spinning the dangling performer in a giant circle.
Speaker 1: The aerialist in the air then performs stunts and tricks
Speaker 1: and so on. The spinning action is unique because the
Speaker 1: body isn't just turning on a single axis, but is
Speaker 1: also often moving in a slight orbit around the center,
Speaker 1: sometimes at high speed and with changing orientations. The head
Speaker 1: games are very interesting and takes some practice. As you've said,
Speaker 1: one trick that many spinning aerialists use is to focus
Speaker 1: on something that isn't spinning in relation to the performers,
Speaker 1: such as the apparatus itself or their own hands or feet.
Speaker 1: It's similar in concept the spotting technique that ballerina is used,
Speaker 1: but without having to turn the head. Since the apparatus
Speaker 1: itself keeps the performer from tipping, the aerialists can divert
Speaker 1: their focus, unlike a ballerina that needs a reference point
Speaker 1: to stay balanced. Focusing the vision intently on the apparatus
Speaker 1: as opposed to the spinning world behind it is a
Speaker 1: massive game changer and as it slightly tricks the brain
Speaker 1: from being disoriented with the spinning room. Also, if one
Speaker 1: can't see their own body or apparatus, such such as
Speaker 1: in many aerials strap spins, the trick is to not
Speaker 1: focus on anything at all. Don't try to follow the
Speaker 1: spinning world in front of you, but fall into soft focus.
Speaker 1: Easier said than done, it takes practice. Other fun tricks
Speaker 1: to help with dizziness before spinning include eating lots of
Speaker 1: ginger or drinking ginger tea to prevent nausea a ginger
Speaker 1: yet again. Also, if one does get dizzy and finds
Speaker 1: themselves with the spins, they can sometimes jump up and
Speaker 1: down to help with the motion. It won't do much
Speaker 1: if your spins are bad, but it seems to help
Speaker 1: some performers who overdo it momentarily For some reason. I
Speaker 1: just thought your listeners might also find this obscure life
Speaker 1: knowledge important as they happen to find themselves trapped inside
Speaker 1: a washer or never ending till to whirl. Thanks for
Speaker 1: all you guys do. Keep up the great work, Joe.
Speaker 1: And then Joe also sent a follow up saying it
Speaker 1: was him again, and he sent some links to videos
Speaker 1: of artists performing Spanish web and aerial straps fast spins
Speaker 1: in regards to human spinning very cool. And uh I
Speaker 1: like the ginger tidbit as well. Um yeah, ginger can
Speaker 1: be can be very nice for you know, slight feelings
Speaker 1: of nausea and and stomach illness. We we keep some
Speaker 1: some ginger candies on hand in the car and in
Speaker 1: the backpack whenever we're out in the bout just in case.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh it maybe helps with car sickness too,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, or and if nothing else that you know,
Speaker 1: it's a sweet and has a little ginger e buzz
Speaker 1: to it. So all right. We have some some additional
Speaker 1: um listener mail here coming to us, and these bits
Speaker 1: concerned Weird How Cinema are Friday episodes that are sort
Speaker 1: of a late night celebration of weird films as opposed
Speaker 1: to the general science and culture content that we put out.
Speaker 1: This comes to us from Chris, Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: First off, I love Weird How Cinema. I was elapsed
Speaker 1: stuff to bow your mind fan too many podcasts to
Speaker 1: listen to, who checked in for the Halloween episodes this
Speaker 1: year and was delighted to find Weird How cinema in
Speaker 1: the feed. It perfectly scratches this itch for strange and
Speaker 1: or bad movie discussion with the science and philosophy angle.
Speaker 1: Please keep doing it. I just finished the Ghost in
Speaker 1: the Machine episode. I'd forgotten all about this movie until
Speaker 1: I saw the title in my feet and immediately was
Speaker 1: reminded of the only scene I ever watched, the microwave scene.
Speaker 1: I was born in and was very young when I
Speaker 1: was flipping through channels and landed on HBO just in
Speaker 1: time to see a man getting his face cooked by
Speaker 1: an open microwave. I was sufficiently freaked out and changed
Speaker 1: the channel immediately. Ever since then, I've always had this
Speaker 1: tiny fear in the back of my mind when opening
Speaker 1: a microwave door. What if it didn't shut off? Is
Speaker 1: it going to cook my face? This even cropped up
Speaker 1: recently as my fiancee was has a habit of opening
Speaker 1: the microwave door to grab something while it's still running,
Speaker 1: trusting that the auto off will work as intended. Turns out,
Speaker 1: our microwave door latch is a little hinky and there
Speaker 1: recently and it recently seemed to keep running as that
Speaker 1: she opened it up and reached in to grab whatever
Speaker 1: she was heating up. I had flashbacks to Ghost in
Speaker 1: the machine. It was pretty freaked out, even though nothing
Speaker 1: had happened to her. We looked into it later and
Speaker 1: it's most likely that the magnatron had shut off off
Speaker 1: but the fan in light kept running still. I asked
Speaker 1: that she just hit the off button before opening the door,
Speaker 1: just in case. Anyway, keep up the great work and
Speaker 1: thanks for discussing this movie that gave me a lifelong phobia.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to tune in again next Friday. Chris,
Speaker 1: I've actually seen a malfunction a microwave that worked exactly
Speaker 1: like that, except in this case it was every time
Speaker 1: you would you would open the door, the light inside
Speaker 1: would come on and the rotating plate would start rotating.
Speaker 1: But I think it wasn't cooking well. I appreciate the
Speaker 1: kind comments there. Uh, it's certainly feel you on how
Speaker 1: there being this too many podcasts to listen to at times,
Speaker 1: so you know, hopefully we're not loading anybody up with
Speaker 1: too much. Hopefully with the ideas we just give you
Speaker 1: some some choices, you know. Um and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to just listen to the Weird House,
Speaker 1: just listen to Weird house. You just want to come
Speaker 1: in and listen to the stuff to blow your mind episodes,
Speaker 1: Go for it. I mean, I think I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: advise everyone to subscribe, but I don't know. Maybe subscription
Speaker 1: doesn't work for everybody. I don't know. Do do what
Speaker 1: you want, do what feels good for you. As long
Speaker 1: as you're listening to some of our show, UM, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm happy. Okay. I mentioned a few episodes back
Speaker 1: that I thought we had lost some emails that came
Speaker 1: in during September and October. I think somehow they just
Speaker 1: like disappeared from our inbox. UM, and our our longtime
Speaker 1: correspondent Jim in New Jersey actually recent several emails from
Speaker 1: that period, so we wanted to catch up with them now.
Speaker 1: The first one, UH concerned our episodes on mushroom foraging,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about how, UH, sometimes human foraging
Speaker 1: techniques are strangely kind of similar to AI, to computer
Speaker 1: search algorithms, and so Jim often writes in on like
Speaker 1: computer science related topics in and he's got some comments here.
Speaker 1: So Jim says, Robert and Joe, you mentioned AI searching
Speaker 1: algorithms at the end of your mushroom series. I can
Speaker 1: provide one. It's considered an AI algorithm, but it's really
Speaker 1: just an algorithm that I think I can describe sufficiently.
Speaker 1: It's called a star search, and that's spelled like in
Speaker 1: typography with the letter A and then an asterisk. It's
Speaker 1: a type of foraging algorithm through a network. Cities and
Speaker 1: the roadways connecting them are networks. There are many other
Speaker 1: types of networks too, for example, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etcetera,
Speaker 1: communication networks such as the Bell telephone system network and
Speaker 1: the Internet and so forth. The mathematical notion of these
Speaker 1: networks are called graphs. The concepts, properties, and algorithms that
Speaker 1: work for graphs in general can be applied to real
Speaker 1: networks too. There are two traditional network searching or foraging algorithms,
Speaker 1: breadth first and depth first search. Let's say that it's
Speaker 1: Saturday morning and you and your spouse want to look
Speaker 1: for garage sales. You could start in your local neighborhood,
Speaker 1: then proceed to the next ones out and continue spreading
Speaker 1: out in concentric circles. This is breadth first, but let's
Speaker 1: change strategy. This is a special Saturday. There's a group
Speaker 1: garage sale at a church, a few neighborhoods away, or
Speaker 1: in the town center. You would go straight to these
Speaker 1: locations and then visit additional garage sales on the way back.
Speaker 1: This is depth first. A star search is a little
Speaker 1: between the two. Let's look at the strategy. You start
Speaker 1: in your local neighborhood and visit the first garage sale.
Speaker 1: While you're there, you ask other buyers where they've been
Speaker 1: and what looks good out there. You evaluate their best suggestions.
Speaker 1: You would keep track of all the best garage sale
Speaker 1: tips and add new ones as you move from garage
Speaker 1: sale to garage sale. Once you're ready to move to
Speaker 1: another garage sale, you you go to the one that
Speaker 1: shows the best promise on your tips list, even if
Speaker 1: it means driving across town. This is the essence of
Speaker 1: a star search. Though I don't know for sure how
Speaker 1: algorithms in navigation apps such as driving directions work, I
Speaker 1: would consider using a star search. Let's say that you
Speaker 1: want to drive from location A to location B. The
Speaker 1: algorithm starts at A and explores the local roads, almost
Speaker 1: like ten drills of mold you've described before. The heuristic
Speaker 1: it uses to find the best path will BE how
Speaker 1: close you are to BE. Direct paths will get first priority,
Speaker 1: but it won't ignore paths that move further away from
Speaker 1: BE either. That's because an initial direction that moves away
Speaker 1: from B might eventually reach a highway ramp or provide
Speaker 1: a much faster trip to BE, even if driving in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction. Ants foraging kind of do this too.
Speaker 1: As the ants come back from food sources, they drop
Speaker 1: pheromone trails. As the ants confirm the food source, they
Speaker 1: make the pheromone trail stronger, so more ants will exploit it. However,
Speaker 1: there are still foraging ants that don't follow the strong scent.
Speaker 1: They're looking for new sources since the good source might
Speaker 1: eventually fade. Ant foraging can be thought of as a
Speaker 1: type of distributed a star search. The a star search
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page has too many videos that illustrate the algorithm well,
Speaker 1: especially like the example will of finding the most efficient
Speaker 1: train route across the USA. This very much resembles mold tendrils.
Speaker 1: I first encountered a star search when I took an
Speaker 1: online algorithm course taught at Princeton. A star search was
Speaker 1: an assignment in UH solving a tile slider puzzle. I'm
Speaker 1: proud to say that the search tree illustration in the
Speaker 1: assignment was originally created by me as I was working
Speaker 1: with the professor as an online ti A and they
Speaker 1: have included it in the assignment now uh. And he
Speaker 1: signs off Jim in New Jersey but not really near Princeton. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Jim also has a follow up that ties
Speaker 1: into the same email that came out after an episode
Speaker 1: about Orcs. Remember, in the episode on Orcs, we talked
Speaker 1: about the Orcs and Hobbits problem, which was about problem
Speaker 1: solving theory. UH. This question about how people psychologically tend
Speaker 1: to adapt when they encounter problems in this this puzzle
Speaker 1: where you need to get Orcs and Hobbits across the river.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that was discovered about this
Speaker 1: was the perils of what's known as the hill climbing algorithm.
Speaker 1: It's a common algorithm that is used in some computer programs,
Speaker 1: but we also just use it in our brains, which
Speaker 1: is UH. You basically, you have a goal state that
Speaker 1: you want to get to, and it's something like, you know,
Speaker 1: get to the highest possible altitude and then you take
Speaker 1: a step and you see if you're closer, and if so,
Speaker 1: you keep going in that direction, and if not, you
Speaker 1: turn back and you keep doing that until you get
Speaker 1: to the top of the hill. But the problem with
Speaker 1: the hill climbing algorithm is that if you're in a
Speaker 1: landscape with multiple hills and valleys, you will tend to
Speaker 1: just get stuck at the top of the nearest hill,
Speaker 1: and you will not explore hills that could go even
Speaker 1: higher if you were willing to go down first to
Speaker 1: get to them. And so this is an illustration of
Speaker 1: that when we're trying to solve problems or be creative,
Speaker 1: sometimes we need to apparently backtrack in the short term
Speaker 1: to reach a better outcome in the long term. And
Speaker 1: Jim follows up by saying, Robert and Joe Joe's description
Speaker 1: of the hill climbing algorithm is exactly what occurs with
Speaker 1: a star search. As I had written about previously with
Speaker 1: mushroom searching. The hill climbing technique is very near sighted.
Speaker 1: It can only look at the next potential step and
Speaker 1: not take in the entire landscape. This is not a
Speaker 1: bad technique. Hill climbing exploits what appears to be the
Speaker 1: best path forward toward a solution. But as the example
Speaker 1: captured so well, you might be hiking up the wrong hill.
Speaker 1: Joe introduced randomness, but there's another algorithmic technique which I
Speaker 1: mentioned in my last email as well. That technique is
Speaker 1: to introduce a handicap to the solution path. The more
Speaker 1: you exploit a given solution path based on hill climbing
Speaker 1: or any other heuristic, the more expensive it becomes. As
Speaker 1: that solution path gets longer. You may run into a
Speaker 1: situation where the solution path gets so long and the
Speaker 1: handicap is so crippling that you abandon the exploited path
Speaker 1: and venture off to explore another part of the solution space.
Speaker 1: While this isn't officially adding randomness, it does introduce the
Speaker 1: concept of hopping around uh in the solution space and
Speaker 1: not becoming fixated upon one possible solution. It's a trade
Speaker 1: off slash balance of exploiting a promising path versus exploring
Speaker 1: new ones. Jim in New Jersey, And you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta say, I really like this, and I think it
Speaker 1: could be applied outside of just pure computer algorithms as well.
Speaker 1: If you think about um, you know, whenever you've found
Speaker 1: a solution that works to do something, or at least
Speaker 1: work so far, maybe try out the idea that every
Speaker 1: time you repeat a working solution again, you do it
Speaker 1: again the same way you've done it before. Maybe it
Speaker 1: gets a little bit more expensive, like you're you're having
Speaker 1: to pay an increasing some every time you do that,
Speaker 1: which will eventually encourage you just to, you know, make
Speaker 1: sure you're not missing out on better solutions that are
Speaker 1: available to you just because you you've got one solution
Speaker 1: that you know sort of works. Interesting. Interesting, all right,
Speaker 1: here's another one from Jim in New Jersey. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is a an in response to episode on the Bed
Speaker 1: The Invention of the Bed, Robert and Joe. You didn't
Speaker 1: mention how astronauts sleep in space in your bed episode.
Speaker 1: Since there is no gravity, they can sleep almost anywhere,
Speaker 1: but they tether themselves so as not to float around
Speaker 1: in the environment. Private crew quarters on the International Space
Speaker 1: Station are only slightly bigger than a phone booth. Part
Speaker 1: of that includes a sleeping bag that tethers to the wall.
Speaker 1: But I think they can sleep anywhere on the station
Speaker 1: without gravity. Their arms tend to float in front of them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he included an illustration of one of these setups
Speaker 1: consists of and yeah, this is interesting. I'd read that
Speaker 1: about having to strap your arms down before. That's that's interesting,
Speaker 1: Like you could if you don't strap them down, your
Speaker 1: arms are just kind of floating free in front of you.
Speaker 1: And uh and I think I've read before they can
Speaker 1: be kind of like this kind of ghostly effect of
Speaker 1: like whose hands are these? Uh poke you in the eye. Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1: And then Jim follows up and says, I didn't state
Speaker 1: the obvious in my original email. There are no beds
Speaker 1: to speak up in space. You don't need them when
Speaker 1: there's no gravity. That their beds are close to hammocks,
Speaker 1: as are my subject line about snoring in space, which
Speaker 1: I include as a joke, is more interesting than a joke.
Speaker 1: Astronauts don't snore in space either. The lack of gravity
Speaker 1: doesn't block airways as much. Oh interesting, now that's yeah.
Speaker 1: I had not heard that, So that's that's pretty interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: But also interesting that they're basically strung up in hammocks,
Speaker 1: because I do think we could come back and do
Speaker 1: an entire episode based on the invention of the hammock.
Speaker 1: There's some really interesting stuff there. Okay. This next message
Speaker 1: comes from Heather. Heather says, hey, y'all, I frequently Binge
Speaker 1: on your podcast episode, says, you happen to be some
Speaker 1: of the only people with whom I can delve deeply
Speaker 1: into obscure and common topics to the point of sheer
Speaker 1: exhaustion and for me intellectual bliss. Well I'm I'm I'm glad.
Speaker 1: It's fun. Um, Heather says, I just heard your December
Speaker 1: ninth episode of The Artifact the Poison Tooth. I love
Speaker 1: it today. It was for me a great tizer before
Speaker 1: a full length stuff to blow your mind episode. I
Speaker 1: imagine on a busy day this kind of informative quickie
Speaker 1: will make a satisfying mental snack. Thank you for keeping
Speaker 1: me well fed with an ever increasing variety of mind
Speaker 1: blowing content. Without you, my intellect would certainly stunt atrophy
Speaker 1: and shrivel up into a pathetic shadow of its former potential.
Speaker 1: That's extreme. I guess she's kidding, she says no, But seriously,
Speaker 1: life is better with you, and it so keep going.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your hard work and all the best
Speaker 1: to you in the coming year. Heather. Well, thank you, Heather,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for the kind words. And we're
Speaker 1: we're we're glad we could be there for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad to hear hear of some positive feedback
Speaker 1: on the Artifact episodes. They are kind of just sort
Speaker 1: of short form audio blog blog posts, and we're just
Speaker 1: switching back and forth for the most part on doing these.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're gonna keep at it. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it should be a great place to to discuss very
Speaker 1: specific ideas, you know, you know, particular items, particular points
Speaker 1: in time. That's sort of thing. Uh and and just
Speaker 1: discussed them briefly instead of devoting an entire episode to them.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I feel like they're a great outloo because
Speaker 1: we used to come across things like this all the time,
Speaker 1: where we'd find something that we found really interesting, but
Speaker 1: just like wasn't it wasn't a whole episode worth of anything.
Speaker 1: You know, It's something that might make five or ten
Speaker 1: minutes worth of content, and uh and here you go.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a good outlet for it. I
Speaker 1: feel like back in the day, you used to turn
Speaker 1: things like that into blog posts. I only ever wrote
Speaker 1: a few posts for the blog, but you you had
Speaker 1: great blog post back on the old website when that
Speaker 1: was alive. But now I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: really good alternative to the blog of of old Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to resurrect some of those blog posts
Speaker 1: of old yeah, you know, pull their bodies out of
Speaker 1: the muck and see if I can resurrect the flesh
Speaker 1: and make it march off into the podcast feed. For me,
Speaker 1: our our old blog and the website have turned into
Speaker 1: bog bodies now, but if one knows the appropriate magic,
Speaker 1: they can be revived. All right, here's another one. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Jeremy. Hey, guys and or
Speaker 1: staff member reading this, Well, that's Seth. Basically, it's just
Speaker 1: us and Seth. But we don't. I think maybe he's
Speaker 1: wondering if we have like a dedicated like employees or
Speaker 1: something to go through our listener mail for us. Unfortunately, no, no,
Speaker 1: now we do have. We we we never give him
Speaker 1: a shout out, but Sam uh is in charge of
Speaker 1: our social media stuff and he does all that's true.
Speaker 1: We don't have to, so uh, massive kudos to to Sam. Sam.
Speaker 1: You do an amazing job. You you you really make
Speaker 1: my life better by allowing me to not really look
Speaker 1: at Twitter or Facebook. Right alright, So anyway, Jeremy continues,
Speaker 1: I've never actually emailed any of the podcast I've listened
Speaker 1: to over the years, so this is a little strange
Speaker 1: for me, but I felt I had to let you
Speaker 1: guys know just how great the New Side Show is.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to stuff to Blow your mind since
Speaker 1: back in the Alice in Louder Milk Days from Stuff
Speaker 1: from the Science Lab and have never missed an episode.
Speaker 1: The way you guys can discuss the real or possible
Speaker 1: science of anything, from the mundane to them to mythological
Speaker 1: creatures to world changing technologies never fails to catch my
Speaker 1: interest and keep me engaged in the world around us.
Speaker 1: Being a huge movie buff, especially for terrible B movies.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how the weekly edition of Weird
Speaker 1: How Cinema is UM. I think they meant to. I mean,
Speaker 1: how great I'm gonna put in great, How how spectacular?
Speaker 1: How life altering? Um? Anyway, they continue. Even my podcast
Speaker 1: free wife is happy because I can listen to you
Speaker 1: guys discuss the movies as an alternative to boring her
Speaker 1: with the behind the scenes details of troll Too. She
Speaker 1: made it about fifteen minutes in before quote, remembering she
Speaker 1: had errands to run. Now, wait a minute, is that
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes into the movie troll to fifteen minutes into
Speaker 1: you talking about it, or fifteen minutes into our episode.
Speaker 1: I took it to mean maybe the movie, like she
Speaker 1: made a fifteen minutes into the movie, because yeah, troll
Speaker 1: Too is not for everybody. Um, they continue anyway. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to thank you guys for the great work
Speaker 1: and I hope weird how Cinema will turn into a
Speaker 1: permanent addition to the podcast. I wish you guys the
Speaker 1: best and hope you keep staying safe. Thanks for reading.
Speaker 1: That's the plan for now. Yeah, I mean it's as
Speaker 1: permanent as anything. So uh yeah, we're gonna keep doing it.
Speaker 1: All right. We're gonna go ahead and um and turn
Speaker 1: off Carney. We're gonna we're gonna seal the listener mail
Speaker 1: mail bag for the week. But yeah, we're gonna continue
Speaker 1: to do these, uh what every Monday. We're gonna or
Speaker 1: at least as long as we have a listener mail
Speaker 1: to read. We're gonna keep doing listener mail episodes and
Speaker 1: try and keep this a regular thing where we're having
Speaker 1: more of a dialogue with the listeners. So keep it coming.
Speaker 1: Keep writing in with your feedback to recent episodes of
Speaker 1: the show. To older episodes. You know you hear a
Speaker 1: vault episode and you like an idea in there, have
Speaker 1: some feedback, don't be shy about writing in even if
Speaker 1: it's an older piece. Um, you know, right in about
Speaker 1: Weird how Cinema, right in about the shorties we do
Speaker 1: in anything right in about episodes you'd like to hear
Speaker 1: all of that is fair game. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, you'll find the Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts wherever that is.
Speaker 1: We just ask you rate, review, and subscribe. You can
Speaker 1: also go to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com
Speaker 1: and that will shoot you over to the I heart
Speaker 1: listing for our page. Once you were there, you'll find
Speaker 1: a little tab there you can click on the store
Speaker 1: and that'll take you over to a place where you
Speaker 1: can buy some T shirts and stickers and whatnot that
Speaker 1: have our logo on it or a cool monster design.
Speaker 1: So check that out if you want as well. Huge
Speaker 1: thanks as always, we are excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback about this episode or any other to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future. Just to say hello, You can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart rate adio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.