Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In
Speaker 1: Today we're bringing you some listener mail. It's been a
Speaker 1: little bit since we did that, so we're broadcasting from
Speaker 1: our respective laundry rooms and closets here. But we're getting
Speaker 1: back in touch with you now that you've gotten in
Speaker 1: touch with us, and to help us out here today
Speaker 1: our mail bought Carney. Oh, he's gotten into a mess
Speaker 1: of trouble. It seems that Carney has gotten into his
Speaker 1: mind that he should create AI generated fireworks displays. And boy,
Speaker 1: he can really mark off chain up a mess here, Andy,
Speaker 1: he's sure can. I mean, he was always a little
Speaker 1: bit explosive in the best of times, but now he
Speaker 1: has actual explosives just his His entire fuselage is just
Speaker 1: stuffed with Roman candles. Yeah. So it is with great
Speaker 1: delicate see that we must remove your messages from from
Speaker 1: Carneys bowels today. But yeah, it's all I want to
Speaker 1: do when I reiterate just at the top of this
Speaker 1: episode that it is always great to hear from everyone
Speaker 1: out there, to hear from listeners. Uh. We we don't
Speaker 1: certainly don't have time to respond to everything, and we
Speaker 1: don't have time on the show to feature everything, but
Speaker 1: we do read everything that comes in. Uh. We love
Speaker 1: it when you provide additional inside or experience related to
Speaker 1: different topics that we've covered, and when we do cover
Speaker 1: quite a few topics that I think touch on the
Speaker 1: universal human experience as well. Exactly right. But also we
Speaker 1: we cover things that get into the very specific human experience,
Speaker 1: for example, the number of people who have jumped out
Speaker 1: of an airplane and gotten in touch with us to
Speaker 1: tell us what that's like. So should we start with
Speaker 1: this email from Kelly here, Let's do it. Kelly writes, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I just started listening to your podcast recently, and I've
Speaker 1: been shuffling around different episode topics that looked interesting. I
Speaker 1: had to listen to one about surviving a ten thousand
Speaker 1: footfall as I'm a professional skydiver and I knew you
Speaker 1: would definitely bring up a lot of skydiving in it.
Speaker 1: I know it's almost a year old, but oh well,
Speaker 1: you ask what terminal velocity feels like. My best description
Speaker 1: that I tell tandem students who are worried about that
Speaker 1: belly and the throat feeling is that it is more
Speaker 1: accurately comparable to the feeling of sticking your hand out
Speaker 1: the window on the freeway. You feel supported resistance, and
Speaker 1: when you exit a plane, you are going the same
Speaker 1: speed as the plane, so you don't get that free
Speaker 1: fall feeling you would when jumping off a static object. Also,
Speaker 1: the way you orient your body is like when you're
Speaker 1: surfing your hand like a wave out the window. When
Speaker 1: you point your finger down, you feel you're slicing the
Speaker 1: air and up gives you left. Uh. Fun fact, wingsuits
Speaker 1: can slow down to about thirty miles per hour and
Speaker 1: actually go up when doing the maneuver called a flare,
Speaker 1: which is what we do to slow down in a
Speaker 1: wing suit before deploying our parachutes and would be my
Speaker 1: go to move right before impact if I had no
Speaker 1: parachute out. My friends survived a wingsuit base jumping accident
Speaker 1: with no parachute out when he went into the trees
Speaker 1: and took out a thirty meter line of dense forest,
Speaker 1: and another survived with nothing out while jumping off a
Speaker 1: three and fifty foot bridge. He landed in the river
Speaker 1: below and swam himself to the beach with a ton
Speaker 1: of broken bones. But this kind of luck is almost
Speaker 1: entirely unheard of. Love your show and I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to have discovered it. If you ever have any skydiving questions,
Speaker 1: feel free to shoot me a message. Thanks. Kelly. Wow
Speaker 1: swamed ashore with broken bones that gives me the willies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found the interesting the mention of wingsuits, And I
Speaker 1: don't remember if we got into wingsuits much on that
Speaker 1: episode at all. I don't think so, but it's it's
Speaker 1: a topic that I wrote an article for How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works about wingsuits ages ago, and then the I want
Speaker 1: to say, the most recent World Science Festival in New York,
Speaker 1: which would have been the twenty nineteen one, there was
Speaker 1: a there was a talk about about the human brain
Speaker 1: and extreme sports and like people who do extreme things
Speaker 1: like you know, a free climbing and wingsuit flying, like
Speaker 1: what's going on in their mind? And there was at
Speaker 1: one point one of the experts was just getting into
Speaker 1: the just the statistics of wingsuits and wingsuit technology and
Speaker 1: sort of like the different you know, ups and downs
Speaker 1: of how dangerous it is. It was really quite quite fascinating.
Speaker 1: If anyone out there is interested in checking out a
Speaker 1: video of that presentation. It was titled the Science of
Speaker 1: Extreme Behavior, the Line between Courageous and Crazy. You can
Speaker 1: find it on on the YouTube channel for the World
Speaker 1: Science Festival. It's it's really fascinating, all right. Do you
Speaker 1: want to take a look at this next email about
Speaker 1: my interview with bart Ermine on his book Heaven and Hell. Yes,
Speaker 1: this one comes from our listener Ben. Ben says, hello
Speaker 1: from London, Robert and Joe. I just finished listening to
Speaker 1: the Heaven and Hell episode and wanted to share a
Speaker 1: few cool tidbits in the same vein. I studied classics
Speaker 1: at university and as a result got to read some
Speaker 1: very cool texts in the original Latin and ancient Greek.
Speaker 1: While I only read a bit of the Bible. I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting how the first sentence, and I
Speaker 1: think this is the first sentence of the Gospel of
Speaker 1: John was in the beginning was the word in English?
Speaker 1: But Ben says that in Greek it is in the
Speaker 1: beginning was reason. And I'm gonna try to pronounce this
Speaker 1: in ark in whole logos. I could theoretically get behind
Speaker 1: that statement a lot more. Uh, And yeah, I've I've
Speaker 1: actually looked into this before there there is this question
Speaker 1: about how exactly to translate that statement at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the Gospel of John. But yeah, reason and the word, uh,
Speaker 1: these concepts are are sort of synonymous and linked in
Speaker 1: ancient Greek. Oh that's that's good. Yeah, because they in
Speaker 1: the beginning there was the word. I remember being con
Speaker 1: used by that as a as a child, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what do you saying? You're saying the Bible came first,
Speaker 1: Like what what do you mean? There was their words first, Like,
Speaker 1: this doesn't make any sense. But logos reason being first,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot more sense. Okay, and Ben goes
Speaker 1: on another possibly apocryphal story I heard, which the Barberman
Speaker 1: episode reminded me of, is the origin of the saying
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter in Iota, as I heard it at
Speaker 1: the Council of Nicea in three the early Church fathers
Speaker 1: were debating the nature of Jesus, whether he was like
Speaker 1: the substance of God or of the same substance as God,
Speaker 1: which in Greek the difference would be homoros or homoios. Clearly,
Speaker 1: this decision had massive ramifications for the future development of
Speaker 1: in schisms within Christianity, and as you can see one
Speaker 1: iota mattered an awful lot. So the difference there is
Speaker 1: the difference between an r and an eye in that
Speaker 1: word um. But this was like a hugely significant theological dispute,
Speaker 1: And so I don't know if this is the origin
Speaker 1: of that phrase. It doesn't matter one iota. I know.
Speaker 1: The idea of an iota of difference also has roots
Speaker 1: in the Bible itself, in the Gospel of Matthew, where
Speaker 1: where in the in the Telling of Matthew, Jesus says
Speaker 1: that you know, not one iota of the law will
Speaker 1: pass away, often translated as not one jot or tittle.
Speaker 1: I think it just means like one of the smallest
Speaker 1: possible markings in writing. And this is making the point
Speaker 1: that the author of the Gospel of Matthew particularly wants
Speaker 1: to make, which is that Jesus is the fulfillment of
Speaker 1: the Jewish law. But this ties into my conversation with
Speaker 1: Bart Irmin because one of the things that Bart and
Speaker 1: I talked about was how, especially in later development in
Speaker 1: the Church, like in in later Christian centuries, UH, there
Speaker 1: was much more fierce debate over differences in theology that
Speaker 1: seemed very small to us that mattered a lot to them,
Speaker 1: like debates over exactly what type of substance the incarnation
Speaker 1: of Christ was, Did Jesus have a belly button? That
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Yeah, so Ben goes on. The last
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to share was how great the Greek
Speaker 1: neo Platonist philosopher plot in Nous was and how important
Speaker 1: his thoughts were to the development of Christian concepts. His
Speaker 1: main work was the a Needs, elements of which shaped
Speaker 1: the Christian idea of the Trinity and the thorny issue
Speaker 1: of how Jesus could be both man and God at
Speaker 1: the same time. Well worth a read if you can
Speaker 1: find a good translation. That's it. Great episode. I love
Speaker 1: all that stuff, even though I'm a pragmatic secular atheist
Speaker 1: in the Judeo Christian monotheistic sense. Thanks, stay safe, keep
Speaker 1: making great episodes. Been well, Thank you, Ben, Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm I'm hoping we'll hear from some
Speaker 1: more listeners on this topic, because I know we have
Speaker 1: a lot of listeners out there who are either you know,
Speaker 1: to varying degrees and an active number of of of
Speaker 1: one of the faiths affected by the ideas that were
Speaker 1: discussed in that episode, or you have, you know, a
Speaker 1: past with those with with the chures that are attached
Speaker 1: to those traditions. Um, I feel like, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of us have some insight to share on just
Speaker 1: sort of the general ideas regarding hell and heaven. They're
Speaker 1: wrapped up in our cultures. Yeah, exactly. I think one
Speaker 1: point that Bart made that I think is absolutely true
Speaker 1: is even if you are not personally Christian or Jewish,
Speaker 1: the ideas of the Bible still have been massively influent,
Speaker 1: fluential in shaping the culture that we live in here
Speaker 1: and you know, in the United States and in Europe especially. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, in our recent episode that we recorded, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's out yet as of this publication,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about helmets and the idea of Viking
Speaker 1: helmets with horns showing up in in cartoons when we're
Speaker 1: a child, and that just kind of gets burnt into
Speaker 1: your brain. And then when you later learned that Vikings
Speaker 1: did not have hornet helmets, it doesn't matter because you
Speaker 1: still have that that idea knocking around your head. With
Speaker 1: heaven and hell. It's the same thing, like how many
Speaker 1: different cartoons, how many different you know, films, the young
Speaker 1: of viewers would have seen ended up utilizing, you know,
Speaker 1: an angel and devil having in hell of motifs and symbolism.
Speaker 1: Isn't it strange how many cartoons show characters going to Hell.
Speaker 1: I remember that happening all the time in Looney Tunes
Speaker 1: and so yeah, oh and in Disney cartoons like I
Speaker 1: think Pluto the Dog went to Hell Hell run by
Speaker 1: cats for messing with cats or something. I strongly remember
Speaker 1: images from that one because I had some really diabolical content. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I digress. Uh, well, should we go onto
Speaker 1: this next email we got about fireworks from Kelsey? Yes,
Speaker 1: so when I can tell that Carney is particularly excited
Speaker 1: about this one, all right, um, Kelsey rides Hello. I
Speaker 1: was delighted to see the topic of your show today
Speaker 1: as my father has worked in the fireworks industry for
Speaker 1: about twenty years now, so it's a place near and
Speaker 1: dear to my heart. In fact, when I was in
Speaker 1: elementary school, my first science fair project was a detailed
Speaker 1: breakdown of how display fireworks the mortar kind you described
Speaker 1: near the end of the show are made, complete with
Speaker 1: models that I made from actual shell casings with considerable
Speaker 1: help for my dad, who was managing one of the
Speaker 1: last remaining fireworks manufacturing plants in the US at the time.
Speaker 1: I don't think the judges quite knew what to do
Speaker 1: with an earnest third grader explaining how to make a bomb,
Speaker 1: but needless to say, my physics space project about leverage
Speaker 1: the next year won me more accolades. At any rate.
Speaker 1: I wanted to write in because there are actually people
Speaker 1: out there who make fireworks in their backyards. As it were,
Speaker 1: you do need to have a fair amount of space
Speaker 1: to legally slash safely store large amounts of black powder,
Speaker 1: but otherwise the process of making fireworks isn't terribly difficult
Speaker 1: or even that unsafe, so long as you follow some
Speaker 1: basic rules for handling, disposal, etcetera. I'm not actually sure
Speaker 1: what the exact laws are surrounding this sort of thing,
Speaker 1: but I know my dad has plenty of industry friends
Speaker 1: who have small workshops where they can play around and
Speaker 1: develop new formulas. When I was younger, the Pyro club
Speaker 1: my dad belonged to would rent out a field occasionally
Speaker 1: so that people could bring their stuff and show it off.
Speaker 1: Some cool, less well known firework things. Until Tepic, a
Speaker 1: city north of Mexico City. They have an annual fireworks
Speaker 1: festival that involves two incredibly harrowing events. Number One, they
Speaker 1: construct paper mache bulls which are worn sort of over
Speaker 1: the head and shoulders, um or places on some kind
Speaker 1: or placed on some kind of a wheeled cart. And
Speaker 1: then they strap a bunch of fireworks to those and
Speaker 1: essentially do a sort of running of the bulls in
Speaker 1: the town square. But you know, on fire? WHOA that's this?
Speaker 1: This reminds me of the story by the Pyromancers of
Speaker 1: England about creating St. George and the Dragon. But they're
Speaker 1: full of fireworks exactly. Uh so that's interesting. We didn't
Speaker 1: get into that that is much. But I wonder, like
Speaker 1: to what mean when you're dealing with the burning of
Speaker 1: things in effigy um and creating works of sculpture that
Speaker 1: incorporate fire like that. That seems to play a in
Speaker 1: the history of pyrotechnics as well. Anyway. Um. She goes
Speaker 1: on to share a second example too. They create these
Speaker 1: beautiful fireworks fireworks driven automatons, which they then rig up
Speaker 1: on these huge towers. I believe each crew gets their
Speaker 1: own tower, and it's a competition to see which is
Speaker 1: the best. My dad has attended this event several times,
Speaker 1: though some years ago now, and apparently if one of
Speaker 1: the automatons gets stuck, guys will just scale the burning
Speaker 1: tower to give the recalcitrant part a little nudge and
Speaker 1: get things going again. And with all that knowledge in mind,
Speaker 1: I was unsurprised to find, upon googling for images that
Speaker 1: apparently Mexico has a huge problem with firework fatalities and
Speaker 1: an explosion until topic killed a bunch of people as
Speaker 1: recently as two thousand and eighteen. So that's very unfortunate,
Speaker 1: because all the pictures my father took of the festival
Speaker 1: in the nineties were absolutely amazing. I'll have to see
Speaker 1: if I can get him to scan some and pass
Speaker 1: them along. Meanwhile, on the island of Malta, probably because
Speaker 1: they have something to prove, they make the apps huge
Speaker 1: fireworkshells you'll see below, and she includes some images and
Speaker 1: these just look like they they're as big as a person.
Speaker 1: They look like massive, like oxygen tanks, absurd gigantic. She continues,
Speaker 1: why so big? I don't know. They too have a
Speaker 1: yearly fireworks festival, which I would love to attend at
Speaker 1: some point. Anyway, if you have any specific questions, I'm
Speaker 1: more than happy to pick my dad's brain for answers
Speaker 1: and has always keep up the good work, Kelsey. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you, Kelsey. Well, it is very sad to hear
Speaker 1: that that in the in the Mexican festival, that there
Speaker 1: would be fatalities involved with it. But it does make
Speaker 1: me wonder, like, um, is it or is it not
Speaker 1: part of the appeal of the fireworks that they're dangerous?
Speaker 1: Do you think, like generally like is that sort of
Speaker 1: part of what people like about them? Perhaps? You know,
Speaker 1: there's that that definite feeling of of of lighting the
Speaker 1: firework and then in the few starts burning and you
Speaker 1: have to run away really quick quickly, and then dare
Speaker 1: to look back and see what happens, and there is
Speaker 1: always the possibility that it's going to fall over and
Speaker 1: you know, blast something it's not supposed to blast, or
Speaker 1: that the fire will uh well will fizzle out, the
Speaker 1: fuse will stop burning, and you'll have to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: how am I gonna go up there and check on
Speaker 1: it without blasting my face off? So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the danger is a part of it. Um, though of
Speaker 1: course the danger is the worst part of it too, right, Well,
Speaker 1: obviously it's it's terrible when people actually get hurt or killed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then of course, on top of that, if you're
Speaker 1: dealing with irresponsible use of fireworks, I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: even worse. Using fireworks in areas that um that they're
Speaker 1: you know, suffered from trout and they're not legally allowed
Speaker 1: using fireworks in a way that is irresponsible or dangerous
Speaker 1: to yourself or others. I mean, I've heard horrible stories
Speaker 1: about that sort of thing before. Yes, So again, while
Speaker 1: it is a fascinating topic, please do be aware of
Speaker 1: the dangerous and please don't go messing around doing dangerous
Speaker 1: stuff because of an email we read on this show. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, on that note, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break, but when we come back, more listener mail.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. All right, we're back. So this
Speaker 1: next message in our listener Mail episode comes from Brian.
Speaker 1: Brian is writing about our episodes on the invention of
Speaker 1: the book. Brian says, Dear Robert and Joe, I've been
Speaker 1: a listener to Stuff to Blow your mind for many years,
Speaker 1: often thought of sending feedback your way related to previous
Speaker 1: podcasts but never got around to it. However, while bicycle
Speaker 1: writing and listening to Your Books podcast the first episode
Speaker 1: through a sudden Seattle downpour, I decided to send in
Speaker 1: some comments specifically related to the question you posed about
Speaker 1: what actually constitutes a book. Several months ago, I was
Speaker 1: introduced to a scholar by the name of Lynn Kelly,
Speaker 1: interviewed by Sean Carroll on his Mindscape podcast. A science writer, researcher,
Speaker 1: and educator, she became interested in studying preliterate oral cultures,
Speaker 1: beginning with the Aboriginal culture of her native Australia and
Speaker 1: eventually including various African nomadic cultures Incas and pueblos of
Speaker 1: the America's. As a result of this research, she developed
Speaker 1: a very intriguing theory which literally blew my mind literally
Speaker 1: is dangerous when I first heard her describe it. She
Speaker 1: has published an academic paper on the theory, as well
Speaker 1: as a general interest book entitled The Memory Code. Her
Speaker 1: theory suggests that preliterate oral cultures utilized the immense human
Speaker 1: capacity for memory to encode many books worth of information
Speaker 1: in their brains in a manner similar to how modern
Speaker 1: memory champions do today. The ancient memory techniques ranged from
Speaker 1: performance triggers and this would include stories, songs and dances,
Speaker 1: to loci triggers, landscape features, physical space and memory palaces,
Speaker 1: and tactile triggers beads, shells and knots. The common element
Speaker 1: through all these techniques, however, is the brain's power of association,
Speaker 1: particularly when associating odd, absurd on usual images with what
Speaker 1: you want to remember. This capacity seems to scale logarithmically
Speaker 1: as opposed to linearly, which allows those skilled in these
Speaker 1: techniques to encode vast amounts of information in their memories. Additionally,
Speaker 1: her theory suggests the purpose of some Neolithic architecture, for
Speaker 1: example Stoneheinge, Chaco Canyon, Machu Pichu, etcetera, was more related
Speaker 1: to essential memory retention than to religious based rituals more
Speaker 1: commonly associated with these sites. Of particular relation to your
Speaker 1: book definition question would be the shape and tactile techniques
Speaker 1: Lynn describes and shows in her Memory Code book. These
Speaker 1: ranged from the elaborate rope knots used by the incas
Speaker 1: two small handheld pieces of wood or stone carvings, hides
Speaker 1: with shells or other small objects attached, somewhat similar to
Speaker 1: the modern Brail alphabet, but with a capacity to encode
Speaker 1: orders of magnitude more information per page than a modern book.
Speaker 1: Certainly a pre alphabet form of in formation storage, and
Speaker 1: one that has sharing limitations but does meet many of
Speaker 1: the criteria of more modern books. Anyway, keep up the
Speaker 1: great information sharing work that your team does with these podcasts.
Speaker 1: Best Brian Well, Brian, I, I've heard other theories before
Speaker 1: about different ideas about how memories were encoded in in
Speaker 1: preliterate times and in preliterate cultures, and I don't think
Speaker 1: I'd come exactly across this theory before, but this is
Speaker 1: an interesting possibility, like the idea that structures in the
Speaker 1: environment and different types of trinkets and objects held in
Speaker 1: the hand or on the body could essentially be tools
Speaker 1: used to aid in free association through memory to retain
Speaker 1: large amounts of information that would be hard to remember
Speaker 1: on its own. Yeah, that's a great point, and it
Speaker 1: reminds me too of just the idea of say a
Speaker 1: Christian cathedral, a Catholic cathedral, or uh, say it to
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhist temple. These are spaces that are, in their
Speaker 1: own way, a kind of text. They're about um, recording
Speaker 1: information and conveying ideas to the person who is present,
Speaker 1: Like when you're inside of a cathedral. You know, certainly
Speaker 1: just the architecture of the space is supposed to inform
Speaker 1: a certain message about the the nature of the cosmos
Speaker 1: or the the grandeur of the divine. And then likewise
Speaker 1: you'll see examples of sculpture or art that are about
Speaker 1: making some sort of difficult theological concept palpable to the
Speaker 1: human mind, like something explaining the nature of the Trinity,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And likewise, in in Tibetan Buddhism especially,
Speaker 1: we have some very you know, advanced sort of spiritual
Speaker 1: technologies and play there. Um I've I've read that that
Speaker 1: is that that's often the intent of some of these
Speaker 1: more elaborate and to many Western eyes, you know, mysterious
Speaker 1: pieces of art. It's about conveying uh, theological information to
Speaker 1: the viewer and helping and even serving as a teaching implement.
Speaker 1: All right, let's uh open up another listener mail here.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Danny. Danny writes in
Speaker 1: and says, Hi, Robert and Joe, thank you for all
Speaker 1: the content you provide weekend and week out. It's comforting
Speaker 1: to have you in my ear while running or mowing
Speaker 1: the lawn or the dreaded commute. I'm writing for a
Speaker 1: few reasons, all related to your recent episodes on invention
Speaker 1: regarding invented words. Firstly, I've been trying to learn Japanese
Speaker 1: as of late, and I was fascinated when I came
Speaker 1: across a lesson that taught me the word itto uh,
Speaker 1: which is a filler word that translates to um in English.
Speaker 1: I'd never thought about it before, but apparently we learn
Speaker 1: all of these words that I just thought were basic
Speaker 1: sounds that humans made from birth. I always assumed that
Speaker 1: when a person is thinking about a topic or or
Speaker 1: stumped for a bit, they just naturally say the word mm.
Speaker 1: But I guess the word that comes out of our
Speaker 1: mouth depends on the language we learn. This newfound discovery
Speaker 1: prompted me to look into it, and it appears all
Speaker 1: languages are full of these filler words. Maybe this was
Speaker 1: obvious to most people, but I was not aware. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting thing, and it's not just words.
Speaker 1: I mean, it can be just pure vowel sounds we
Speaker 1: I think in English, English speakers very often tend to
Speaker 1: default to the schwa sound, because that's sort of a
Speaker 1: rest sound in in the English language, but in other
Speaker 1: languages you might rest on a different vowel sound. So
Speaker 1: where we would say not even um, but uh, other
Speaker 1: languages might be more likely to say a or oh.
Speaker 1: They continue somewhat similarly. You guys spoke about on a
Speaker 1: monopeia and the word yeat. I don't know how you
Speaker 1: really classify something as having an on amonopeia equality to it,
Speaker 1: but I can get behind yeat. I find a lot
Speaker 1: of our sound words are just kind of sort of
Speaker 1: related to how they actually sound, but it's not by
Speaker 1: any means concrete. Does something really bang or slam? Or
Speaker 1: are we just used to the words associated with those sounds.
Speaker 1: A dog says wow in English but now now in
Speaker 1: Spanish and black in Afrikaans? Does it really sound like
Speaker 1: one over the other or are we just used to
Speaker 1: these words? Or maybe animal sounds are not supposed to
Speaker 1: be on a monopeas and I am way off anyways,
Speaker 1: I can support heat well. I think you're getting into
Speaker 1: the territory there of like idiophones that we talked about
Speaker 1: in a previous episode, where something suggests a kind of
Speaker 1: sound association even though it's not based on anything audible. Yeah, lastly,
Speaker 1: I wanted to get to your thoughts on women in
Speaker 1: a word or phrases lifespan it can officially means something
Speaker 1: different than its original definition. I think of the term
Speaker 1: begs the question. In college I had a philosophy professor.
Speaker 1: They would absolutely lose it when somebody used the term
Speaker 1: begs the question incorrectly. In classical rhetoric, the term refers
Speaker 1: to an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises
Speaker 1: assume the truth of the conclusion instead of supporting it.
Speaker 1: An example could be quote, everybody wants this new Pokemon
Speaker 1: toy because it is the hottest toy this holiday season. However,
Speaker 1: nowadays it seems that when people use the term they
Speaker 1: are simply raising and suggesting a question. So, although I
Speaker 1: understand what my philosophy teacher was getting at, at what
Speaker 1: point can we just say, Hey, look, this phrase means
Speaker 1: something else now, so get on board. Anyway, Uh, this
Speaker 1: got a little longer than I expected. I just love
Speaker 1: the idea of words and languages and how we have
Speaker 1: different ways of communicating. Thanks for speaking about this subject
Speaker 1: and all of the other topics you cover. I truly
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Danny Um. Of course, of course, brings to
Speaker 1: mind the frequent misuse of literally. Yeah, did this come
Speaker 1: up in an earlier email. I think it did. We
Speaker 1: don't want to shame you too much for it. Uh No,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if we're allowed to shame anyone
Speaker 1: for it now, because apparently definitions are shifting to to
Speaker 1: the point where you can legally from a grammatical sense,
Speaker 1: you can legally say something is literally something and not
Speaker 1: mean literally. You can say he literally took his head off,
Speaker 1: or I literally wanted to puke, and it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you literally did that, and it means figuratively. Yeah, I mean. So,
Speaker 1: there are obviously these different schools of how you should
Speaker 1: approach the use of words and phrases like that. Like
Speaker 1: there's the prescriptivist school, which says, you know, here's what
Speaker 1: it means in established you know, canons, and and you
Speaker 1: should stick to that original meaning. And then I guess
Speaker 1: there's like the usage school that says, you know, however,
Speaker 1: if if people understand what you mean, and then what's
Speaker 1: the problem. And I do I have sympathies with both camps.
Speaker 1: I guess I will say against the prescriptivist school that
Speaker 1: just says, you know, you need to use a word
Speaker 1: or phrase to mean what it's always meant. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean it's embarrassing when you realize how many arguments
Speaker 1: full of passionate intensity really in the income down to
Speaker 1: people arguing about what a word or phrase means. That's
Speaker 1: just a mind meltingly tedious. So based on that, I
Speaker 1: think language should be evaluated on the basis of its
Speaker 1: power to communicate. Will the listener understand what you intend
Speaker 1: to say? Then? Again, at the same time, I have
Speaker 1: to admit, like I have a gut level reaction against
Speaker 1: that kind of thing when I see literally used not
Speaker 1: to mean literally, especially when I catch myself doing it,
Speaker 1: I just feel like, oh, yeah, it's I always come
Speaker 1: back to like a stand up bit that David Cross
Speaker 1: had about it about how when you use literally wrong,
Speaker 1: it's like, this is not just incorrect usage, it's it's
Speaker 1: the the opposite of what is supposed to mean. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that the example he used was, it's it's
Speaker 1: not like when you say pen ultimate and you mean ultimate. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I can easily get kind of worked up
Speaker 1: over it myself. But at the same hand, I agree
Speaker 1: that it's like like language is going to change over time,
Speaker 1: and we can't you know, we can't get mad when
Speaker 1: it does change. Yeah, I agree. You can't fix it.
Speaker 1: You can't keep it stuck in place. That language has
Speaker 1: always changed. It's actually a relatively modern invention, like the
Speaker 1: notion that words that you must use words and grammar
Speaker 1: in a certain way. I mean, if you go back
Speaker 1: and read ancient texts, they do not follow consistent rules
Speaker 1: of grammar and stuff like. It's it's more usage based,
Speaker 1: it's more fluid. It's just like are you going to
Speaker 1: be understood? Though, I will admit I I also this
Speaker 1: exact same thing about your philosophy teacher with begs the
Speaker 1: question That one gets to me sometimes I know exactly
Speaker 1: what people mean. I don't. I try not to hound
Speaker 1: to people about it because people are gonna understand what
Speaker 1: you mean when you say begs the question, you mean
Speaker 1: it raises the question. But yeah, I've got that like
Speaker 1: stupid rhetoric brain where it's like this actually is a fallacy.
Speaker 1: Is the name of a fallacy? You're insulting somebody if
Speaker 1: you say they beg the question. But anyway, I I can,
Speaker 1: I can purge my rhetoric brain for a bit. All right, well,
Speaker 1: what do we have next here? All right, looks like
Speaker 1: we got a couple from uh Anna about our Slayer episode.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is when we put out a list
Speaker 1: of Halloween episodes from past October, the Haftober playlist. Yes,
Speaker 1: uh so this one goes as follows. Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: In a recent Vault episode, you were discussing instinctive fears
Speaker 1: of spiders and snakes. I live in Australia, here, where
Speaker 1: there are a lot of spiders and snakes. There's a
Speaker 1: very common spider called a Huntsman spider. They're very large
Speaker 1: harry spiders. Although many people were afraid of these spiders,
Speaker 1: there's also a common reaction to them that is something
Speaker 1: like affection. A common nickname for them is Harry Huntsman.
Speaker 1: They seem to like to live near people, like in
Speaker 1: houses and cars. Often, if someone is showing up around
Speaker 1: their house, they will show them into a room where
Speaker 1: there is a Huntsman on the wall. Someone who is
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with the area might point at it nervously and say,
Speaker 1: there is a huge spider up there. The person whose
Speaker 1: room it is will often say something like oh, that's
Speaker 1: just Harry. Here in Australia, the spiders that are deadly
Speaker 1: are much smaller than huntsman spiders. The part that is
Speaker 1: scary about huntsmand spiders is the way they move. Somehow
Speaker 1: they seem to scuttle and glide at the same time.
Speaker 1: In fact, huntsmen have caused death, but because of the
Speaker 1: fear and not the spider themselves. Spiders like to hide
Speaker 1: in cars. Sometimes they will hide under the sun visor
Speaker 1: or in the rear view mirror. The spider will one
Speaker 1: across the windscreen and someone will crash their car as
Speaker 1: a fear reaction. People have also been known to take
Speaker 1: drastic action in trying to get rid of one of
Speaker 1: these spiders in the house, and sometimes people hurt themselves
Speaker 1: as a part of these actions. If I may add
Speaker 1: um this, this has a real poetic quality to it
Speaker 1: that I'm loving. There's like a I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm reading poetry. It's got a heck of a rhythm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of snakes here. Generally the best
Speaker 1: idea is just to leave them alone. I think knowledge
Speaker 1: is the best way to combat fear. Knowing which snakes
Speaker 1: are dangerous and which are not and what to do
Speaker 1: when you see a snake is helpful. Secondly, I know
Speaker 1: you have mentioned that in most myths about snakes, they
Speaker 1: are the enemy. One exception to this is Australian indig myths.
Speaker 1: One of the common myths among Australian Indigenous groups is
Speaker 1: the rainbow serpent. In this myth, the rainbow serpent is
Speaker 1: actually a creator. The rainbow serpent is something like a
Speaker 1: creator God. As it moved through the land, it carves
Speaker 1: out the landscape of Australia. This is my memory of
Speaker 1: the story we were told in school, so it might
Speaker 1: be a bit simplistic or inaccurate. I hope you are
Speaker 1: staying safe here in Australia. I feel like we are
Speaker 1: feeling something like disaster fatigue. We have had drought, terrible
Speaker 1: fires and heat waves than storms than the current pandemic.
Speaker 1: Australia has always handled this well, but is still tough
Speaker 1: for many people. Just when we wanted people to go
Speaker 1: and visit rural areas to recover from the fires and drought,
Speaker 1: the lockdowns happened. So many people are really struggling. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I have gone on for too long. Now keep up
Speaker 1: the good work. Anna, you know, often we hear from
Speaker 1: Australians who sort of characterize it as the land of
Speaker 1: spiders and snakes. It's sort of like the venom Continent.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I really appreciate the spirit of gentle, illness
Speaker 1: and grace with which you're approaching these venomous creatures. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I also have to say I really like the
Speaker 1: poetic cadence of of this particular email. This one is
Speaker 1: a real pleasure to read now, Anna. I also wrote
Speaker 1: in in another email and sent along um photograph, writing
Speaker 1: I enjoyed re listening to your episode about monster Slayers.
Speaker 1: You were talking about St. George and how image is
Speaker 1: in and make the horse look huge and the dragon
Speaker 1: look meek. Below is the statue in Melbourne. I really
Speaker 1: like that someone has put a plastic rainbow lay on
Speaker 1: the horse's tail, and indeed there it is. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: this one's like all the other ones where the dragon
Speaker 1: is you know, maybe it's crocodile sized. I mean, a
Speaker 1: crocodile can be dangerous, but in this this statue makes
Speaker 1: St George look cruel, Like this dragon could not possibly
Speaker 1: be be captivating an entire village. It looks like it
Speaker 1: would be a mild nuisance, like it keeps eating the dogs,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Yeah, well, thanks for getting in touch, Hana.
Speaker 1: This is great. Alright. On that note, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: one more break, but we'll be right back with more.
Speaker 1: Thank thank Alright, we're back. We got several messages in
Speaker 1: response to our episode about fermented vegetables where we talked
Speaker 1: about kim chi and sauerkraut. Uh. This was a message
Speaker 1: from Jim and New Jersey longtime correspondent. Jim says, how
Speaker 1: you doing, Jim? Jim says Robert and Joe. I vacation
Speaker 1: for a month in Japan a bit over thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: I ate a lot of sushi, unlike the sushi one
Speaker 1: gets in the US. The sushi dishes there included fermented vegetables.
Speaker 1: They were often bright purple or orange. They were great,
Speaker 1: and I've never found them in the US. Maybe the
Speaker 1: higher end sushi establishments served them. Jim. That makes me
Speaker 1: want what kind of bootlegs sushi establishments have been going to.
Speaker 1: Okay Uh, He says, I've made fermented peppers from a
Speaker 1: recipe in a magazine. It was very much like you
Speaker 1: described with vegetables and saltwater. Topped with a loose lid
Speaker 1: for several days. The article mentioned several times that this
Speaker 1: was a perfectly safe process. The article included one helpful suggestion.
Speaker 1: I liked this. It was a suggestion to keep the
Speaker 1: peppers in the salt water while fermenting, because in my
Speaker 1: my interview with Esther Miller, one of the things she
Speaker 1: emphasized that was important to make sure that the fermentation
Speaker 1: works properly and stay safe is to keep all your
Speaker 1: vegetables submerged. They need to stay underneath the surface of
Speaker 1: the brine because it's the anaerobic fermentation that's really important.
Speaker 1: Um So, anyway, Jim goes on, right before you place
Speaker 1: the lid on top of the jar, put some water
Speaker 1: in a sandwich bag and seal it shut. Jam the
Speaker 1: sandwich water bag into the top of the jar so
Speaker 1: that it pushes the peppers down into the salt water.
Speaker 1: Capital loose lid, and wait several days. Jim in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: I think this sounds like a really good trick. I
Speaker 1: haven't tried this. I actually have a couple of fermentation
Speaker 1: weights that I use. Then they just sit on top
Speaker 1: of the stuff and weigh it down. But they made
Speaker 1: out of Are they stones? I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: actually made out of. There some kind of clear material.
Speaker 1: I would say clear plastic, but they feel kind of
Speaker 1: denser and heavier than normal plastics, so I'm not exactly
Speaker 1: sure what they are. There's some kind of food grade material,
Speaker 1: but I bet this water bag trick would work. All right.
Speaker 1: Here's another one. This one comes to us from Sean
Speaker 1: Hi Joe and Robert, longtime listener and occasional writer, writing
Speaker 1: in you have previously read out some emails of mine.
Speaker 1: I'm currently listening to your episode on Kimchi, which I
Speaker 1: haven't have finished yet, so if I say anything that
Speaker 1: comes up later on in the episode, I am very sorry.
Speaker 1: Bad form. Sean, Come on, you asked near the beginning
Speaker 1: of your episode for people's experiences growing up with Duryan.
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up with Duryan, as I've said in
Speaker 1: my previous emails. I grew up in England and moved
Speaker 1: to Indonesia several years ago. But its hands down my
Speaker 1: favorite fruit. The first time I tried it, it didn't
Speaker 1: do much for me. It had a slightly off taste.
Speaker 1: After that time, I tried to avoid it and hated
Speaker 1: the smell. This was difficult as at the time I
Speaker 1: lived in Jakarta near a big Duryan market. However, after
Speaker 1: going into a Durian market with someone who is experienced
Speaker 1: and choosing the best Durian, I fell in love. It's sweet,
Speaker 1: creamy flesh combined with the flavor of almost every fruit
Speaker 1: known at once. It's incomparable. I definitely recommend trying your
Speaker 1: first Durian with an experienced guide, as if the Durian
Speaker 1: is slightly unright, the quality of flavor drops dramatically. But
Speaker 1: a ripe Durian is the best thing ever. I also
Speaker 1: love it when Durian has fermented slightly, so it has
Speaker 1: a bit of a musty kick. When it's Durian season,
Speaker 1: I love to buy one or two and eat them
Speaker 1: together with my wife. My wife tells me how she
Speaker 1: used to sit up late with her dad eating it.
Speaker 1: For those who enjoy the fruit, eating it is a
Speaker 1: social event in its own right. It's not just something
Speaker 1: you snack on during your commute. I'm also loving this
Speaker 1: episode so far. Being away from my homeland, I get
Speaker 1: the occasional craving for English food. More often than not,
Speaker 1: this is pickled food like gherkins still pickles, pickled beet
Speaker 1: root or pickle lily, pickled vegetables with tumeric and mustard powder.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've had that. When I'm in
Speaker 1: England on holiday, I stuffed my face with these treats,
Speaker 1: you know, like a standard plain, old school yellow mustard,
Speaker 1: not the spicy kind. Uh that that's actually going to
Speaker 1: create a flavor somewhat similar to a piccoli, except a
Speaker 1: pickle pick will have more discernible vegetable matter in it.
Speaker 1: Got anyway, he continues, quote, I've taken to trying to
Speaker 1: ferment my own foods out of necessity. You can buy
Speaker 1: some pickled English foods here, but they're so expensive that
Speaker 1: I try to make them at home. I regularly make
Speaker 1: yogurt at home, as yogurt tends to be quite expensive,
Speaker 1: but milk is relatively cheap. I found that pickling foods
Speaker 1: is not only quite easy and cheap, but often a
Speaker 1: lot tastier than once you'd get in a shop. I
Speaker 1: love how almost every culture in the world has a
Speaker 1: variant of pickled food. Here in Indonesia, we have a
Speaker 1: car or a car that's a pickled cucumber, garlic, shallot,
Speaker 1: and chili, and a car cooning similar to a car
Speaker 1: but with the addition of tumeric. This is similar to
Speaker 1: the Indian hr which was also the inspiration for the
Speaker 1: English uh pick up picko lily. There's also a range
Speaker 1: of fermented foods, including tempe, a kind of soybean cake
Speaker 1: fermented with fungus, which I'm seeing more and more of
Speaker 1: on American TV nowadays. Who I do love some tempe
Speaker 1: is How about satan is um? Is that is that fermented?
Speaker 1: I can't remember how that's made. I don't know what
Speaker 1: is satan. A wheat is a wheat gluten product. I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure. Oh yeah, we need to look at there.
Speaker 1: There's actually an idea we've been kicking around. I don't
Speaker 1: want to spoil the fluff on it, but I kind
Speaker 1: of want to do an episode in the future about
Speaker 1: our modern choices in fake meats and meat substitutes, in
Speaker 1: which case we will probably get into the nature of satan.
Speaker 1: It makes you, It makes you wonder what is meat?
Speaker 1: What counts is meat? I mean, obviously, like a big
Speaker 1: hunk of like a pork shoulder is meat, but there
Speaker 1: are some products in between. Yeah, and then what's the
Speaker 1: meat experience, like one thing I like in dealing with
Speaker 1: say um in a vegetarian aternatives to uh to burg
Speaker 1: to meet based burgers. You know, it's like, sometimes you
Speaker 1: have an item that really captures the feel of of
Speaker 1: a meat patty. Other times it doesn't really capture that,
Speaker 1: but it becomes its own thing and yet is somehow
Speaker 1: still meat like in its experience. I'm downe with this idea, Robert.
Speaker 1: I think you and I could get very psychedelic on
Speaker 1: meat substitutes. All right, all right, well, Sean has just
Speaker 1: a little bit left here. I'm gonna run through it.
Speaker 1: I'd recommend reading the book Got by Julia enders Inders
Speaker 1: dedicates a section of the book to fermented food and
Speaker 1: how this ties in with our love of the sour taste.
Speaker 1: She also points out, and I can't agree more than
Speaker 1: once you have tried a particular fermented or pickled food,
Speaker 1: you will never stop craving it. Thanks for another entertaining episode.
Speaker 1: All the best, Sean. PS. If you guys are ever
Speaker 1: in Indonesia after the madness of this year ends around
Speaker 1: January to March time, I'll take you hunting for some
Speaker 1: good deer in Yeah, I think we're locked in for now.
Speaker 1: But that's, uh, that's a mighty tempting offer. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: does Sean mean at a dree market or like ranging
Speaker 1: over the landscape for wild jury in I assuming means
Speaker 1: the market experience sounds sounds that sounds plenty exciting in
Speaker 1: and of its its own right. But yeah, because I've
Speaker 1: had very limited experience with during but I've certainly never
Speaker 1: had an expert guide me. So that would that would
Speaker 1: really be interesting to to have some top shelf Duryan.
Speaker 1: All right, well, that's one more door of perception left
Speaker 1: to walk through, the Duryan door. Alright. Uh. This next email,
Speaker 1: this one was short, but this came from our listener Terrence.
Speaker 1: Terrence writes about the Egg Chamber episode, specifically the segment
Speaker 1: where we were talking about exploding eggs. Terrence says, I
Speaker 1: have had the misadventure to have tried to cook two
Speaker 1: raw eggs in the microwave. I cracked two eggs into
Speaker 1: a coffee cup and nuked them for two to three minutes.
Speaker 1: When they came out, I jammed a fork into it
Speaker 1: and blamm oh the cooked egg explodes out, hitting my face,
Speaker 1: putting a blast path are and on the ceiling. But
Speaker 1: there was still all the egg whites left to eat painfully.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed what was left. Never repeated this again. What Okay?
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to understand Terrence's message here. It sounds
Speaker 1: like he's saying he stuck the fork in, it exploded,
Speaker 1: burned him, left a pattern on the ceiling, but pretty
Speaker 1: much all of that was yolk, and then the stuff
Speaker 1: left down in the mug was the egg white and
Speaker 1: he ate it is that? Am I catching it all here?
Speaker 1: I think? Okay? If I if I'm understanding this correctly,
Speaker 1: this would be in line with the the interpretation we
Speaker 1: talked about in the episode where the scientists thought that
Speaker 1: probably what's happening is that pockets of superheated water are
Speaker 1: trapped within the protein matrix of the yolk, specifically the yolk,
Speaker 1: not the whites, and then of course when it gets pierced,
Speaker 1: it suddenly flashes into steam, expands and blows the egg
Speaker 1: all over the place pattern on the ceiling, that is
Speaker 1: I'm trying to picture alright. Anyway, this next email comes
Speaker 1: to us from Matthias. This one was about the demogorgan.
Speaker 1: Matthias says, hey, guys, I was just listening to the
Speaker 1: episode of the pot about the DeMorgan and there you
Speaker 1: mentioned Paradise Lost by Milton and discussed various texts and
Speaker 1: stories from Christian mythology, and all this made me think
Speaker 1: about one of the most famous Hungarian epic poems or
Speaker 1: stage plays. This thing is a strange one. It's called
Speaker 1: The Tragedy of Man by I hope I'm saying this right,
Speaker 1: m Imray Madoc from eighty three. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you heard about it, but it's a good read. Well,
Speaker 1: it isn't Hungarian. I didn't read all of the English version,
Speaker 1: but from the little I did read, I think it's
Speaker 1: a quite decent translation. The plot is a strange paraphrase
Speaker 1: of the Faustas story, where instead of Dr Faustas the
Speaker 1: Devil or whichever version of the story you like, tries
Speaker 1: to tempt Adam in and outside of the Garden of
Speaker 1: Eden by showing him the future of humanity, including the
Speaker 1: Pharaohs of Egypt, the French Revolution, and a strange dystopian future.
Speaker 1: So there is some science fiction in there for you,
Speaker 1: and many more historical events in places, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to spoil the whole thing anyway. Really love the show, guys,
Speaker 1: keep it up. Now that it's summer, I'm at two
Speaker 1: episodes a day. I know I have too much free time,
Speaker 1: but what can you do? Cheers Matthias from Hungary. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Thanks for thanks for writing in and so Matthias,
Speaker 1: and links to three different English translations of this play.
Speaker 1: I was not familiar with whatever you call it, epic
Speaker 1: poem play. I was not familiar with it, but I
Speaker 1: I looked up some of these translations, and there's some
Speaker 1: good stuff in it. So there's one translation from J. C. W.
Speaker 1: Horn in nineteen sixty three, and there's a scene where
Speaker 1: where Lucifer or the Devil, and Adam travel together into
Speaker 1: space so that we get we get space travel, and
Speaker 1: Lucifer says, so high are we now risen from the site?
Speaker 1: First fades the beautiful, and then the great and mighty.
Speaker 1: To let length. Not else remains to us than mathematics, cold, remote,
Speaker 1: And then Adam says, now fade the stars behind us.
Speaker 1: As we fly, I see no end, I feel no obstacle,
Speaker 1: without love, without conflict? What is life here? All is
Speaker 1: cold and terror Lucifer. Then Lucifer says, if thus far
Speaker 1: only thou hast the heart to go then turn we
Speaker 1: back and play amid the dust. That's beautiful. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Devil's taunting humans into space exploration, like, oh, you're too
Speaker 1: scared to go into space? Well why don't you? You're
Speaker 1: scared because space makes it seem like the only thing
Speaker 1: that really exists as cold mathematics, Well why don't why
Speaker 1: don't you go play in the dirt? Uh? And then
Speaker 1: I checked out one of the other translations by somebody
Speaker 1: called Auto Tom Shay And in the final scene, it
Speaker 1: ends with the I don't think spoilers matter for a
Speaker 1: hundred year old epic play, but so this is the
Speaker 1: final scene warning within it ends with the creator, the Lord,
Speaker 1: giving exhortation to Adam and Eve in their banishment from
Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden, and the Lord says, I told
Speaker 1: you man, fight, trust and be full of hope. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad this was brought to our attention. This
Speaker 1: is this is some really cool stuff that I had
Speaker 1: just had no knowledge of. Yeah. Absolutely, I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever heard of this at all. So so thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Matthias. I might I might have to
Speaker 1: dive in alright, Well, speaking of outer space, I do
Speaker 1: want to read this one from j D um and
Speaker 1: this is in response to our episode about the star Lack. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I've been binging on your podcast since the two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen Christmas holiday, which seems quite a long time ago.
Speaker 1: If the most important thing I can do is to
Speaker 1: rate and review you, where do I go to do that?
Speaker 1: I currently pull your shows from the the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio side, and there doesn't appear to be a place
Speaker 1: to rate and review you. All right, well, well's let's
Speaker 1: let's tackle this first. We we do have to realize that, yes,
Speaker 1: not every platform is going to provide you the opportunity
Speaker 1: to rate, review and subscribe. Um. So, you know, don't
Speaker 1: worry about it if it's not an option, But if
Speaker 1: it is an option, it is something you can do
Speaker 1: to help us out. Now onto the fun stuff, uh.
Speaker 1: J D writes on your most recent post on the
Speaker 1: star lak. Yes, there is a phenomenon where the earth
Speaker 1: opens up and swallows you whole. And no, not earthquakes,
Speaker 1: but sinkholes. This is a great point because sinkholes can
Speaker 1: be incredibly dramatic. Um. So this is this is actually
Speaker 1: a kind of a hole in in our research because
Speaker 1: I can I can well imagine sinkholes, definitely helping to
Speaker 1: inform in places this idea of the earth swallowing people totally.
Speaker 1: And then the second point the j D brings up
Speaker 1: not even a passing mention of dune worms. Does anything
Speaker 1: about the star Lack not remind me of dune worms? Hell,
Speaker 1: you even made a joke, a spice joke toward the end.
Speaker 1: Am I missing something here? Um? Well, thank you for
Speaker 1: complaining that we didn't talk about Done enough. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: uh I I do. I do need to point out
Speaker 1: that I was tempted to talk about the sand worms
Speaker 1: of Iracus multiple times, but I was like, no, this
Speaker 1: is about the star Lack, like, this is the Starlac,
Speaker 1: the Starlacks time to shine. This is Star Wars time
Speaker 1: right now, not Done time. However, we do have a
Speaker 1: couple of Science of Done episodes in the back catalog,
Speaker 1: one of which really gets into sandworms science and different
Speaker 1: commentators breakdown of sandworms science and what is actually in
Speaker 1: the works of Frank Herbert Um. So go back and
Speaker 1: listen to those if you're interested. I know that since
Speaker 1: we're gonna have this exciting new adaptation um of the
Speaker 1: first half of the novel come out really in just
Speaker 1: a few months. Um, I'm certainly excited to return to
Speaker 1: the world of Done, so be on the lookout. We'll
Speaker 1: probably bust those Done episodes back into the vault again
Speaker 1: so people can can listen to them a little closer
Speaker 1: to this new movie. And there are some additional Done
Speaker 1: related topics we can discuss on the show, for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it gets your hooks ready? What do they call
Speaker 1: the climbing hooks that they used to saddle up the sandworms? Oh?
Speaker 1: That the exact terminology is failing me now, but but
Speaker 1: don't worry. I'm gonna bone up here in the most ahead,
Speaker 1: all right. J D finishes out by saying, the episodes
Speaker 1: on staring and pointing you recently put out are the
Speaker 1: poster children for your brand of podcast, very clever liberal arts,
Speaker 1: synthesis of ancient art and behavior that explains some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that not only happens today, but that we
Speaker 1: all do and react to. Still thinking about some of
Speaker 1: the items you raised on those episodes, j D, Oh,
Speaker 1: thanks glad you liked them. All right, Well, Carney is
Speaker 1: beginning to explode again, and that's his way of letting
Speaker 1: us know that our time here is at an end.
Speaker 1: But again, uh, you know, we we don't have time
Speaker 1: to read everything that we receive here on the show.
Speaker 1: We don't have time to respond to everybody individually, but
Speaker 1: we continue to enjoy um and and learn from to
Speaker 1: benefit from your insight into the topics we discussed on
Speaker 1: the show every week, So keep them coming and we
Speaker 1: will keep reading them in the meantime. If you like
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: you can find them wherever you get your podcasts and
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be if the form, if the
Speaker 1: particular platform allows it, rate, review, and subscribe. Huge thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. B B B
Speaker 1: Boy Pressing sad point four Part