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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette. I'm

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Speaker 1: an editor here at how Stuff Works, and as usual

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Speaker 1: I have sitting with me senior writer Jonathan Strickland Hale

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Speaker 1: and well Met Pillette. Oh you see where this is

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Speaker 1: gonna go pretty quickly? Huh. Yeah, welcome to the third

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Speaker 1: in our series on focusing on folks who are important

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Speaker 1: in the tech and computer industry. And we need to

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Speaker 1: come up with a better title than that, I think Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah. Anyway, we're gonna talk about the

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Speaker 1: another leader in tech and uh specifically within the video

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Speaker 1: game field, Richard Lord British or General British Gariot. Yes, uh,

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Speaker 1: you may not be familiar with his name, but if

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Speaker 1: you've ever played the Ultimate series of Games, you have

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Speaker 1: something you owe him your thanks. Yes, yes, he's the

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Speaker 1: one who made those yeah. Um yeah, Richard Garriott. He's

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Speaker 1: a He's a remarkable person. I've I've actually had the

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Speaker 1: great pleasure of meeting and chatting with Richard Garriott on

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Speaker 1: many occasions. But it was back when I was a teenager,

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Speaker 1: a young pup. Yes, yes, before I had become a

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Speaker 1: professional journalist. Um so. But the the he's a genuinely

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Speaker 1: very nice person. But it's it's interesting to kind of

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Speaker 1: look at his journey, uh, where he's gone from, uh,

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Speaker 1: from being a when he was a teenager to being

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Speaker 1: a multi millionaire who now is possibly pursuing space related interests.

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Speaker 1: I think possibly pursuing it. Well that further pursuing, I

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Speaker 1: should say, um, well, first of all, it's not any

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Speaker 1: super prize that he would be following his father's footsteps, right,

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Speaker 1: that's true. We should talk about him for a second.

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Speaker 1: Richard is the son of Owen K. Garriott, who, among

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Speaker 1: other things, was an astronaut. Yep, he actually was on

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Speaker 1: the sky lad mission in nineteen seventy three and in

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Speaker 1: eighty three he was on Space Lab one. Wow, that's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. It's very cool. So I have a dad

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Speaker 1: who's an astronaut. Right, So here here's Richard Garriot and

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Speaker 1: his dad's an astronaut. He Uh, he's interested in things

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Speaker 1: like role playing games, becomes a big fan of the

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Speaker 1: game Dungeons and Dragons. Um. He sent to a computer

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Speaker 1: camp when he's a teenager and becomes extremely interested in

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Speaker 1: computers as well and begins to see ways to marry

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Speaker 1: these two interests together, his love of role playing games

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Speaker 1: and the love of computers. I actually want to throw

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Speaker 1: something in as I was reading the Wired article about

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Speaker 1: Richard Garriott. Actually it was sort of about Richard. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of about Star City, which is a um Russian

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Speaker 1: space camp that that he went to. But apparently, according

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Speaker 1: this article, uh, he convinced his teachers that learning basic

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Speaker 1: the computer language Basic satisfied his foreign language requirement in

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Speaker 1: high school. That doesn't surprise me at all. Richard. Richard's

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Speaker 1: a very very charismatic and uh and convincing fellow. When

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Speaker 1: you meet him in person, he's um uh, he's fascinating

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Speaker 1: to talk to he Uh. I know that he created

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Speaker 1: a computer game back when he was at the computer

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Speaker 1: camp that printed on tape just before monitors. So the

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Speaker 1: way it would work is that you would, uh, you

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Speaker 1: would inter say a room and like a role playing game,

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Speaker 1: and it would print out a room and as key

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Speaker 1: art showing you you know where your look where you

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Speaker 1: were in relation to the rest of the room, and

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Speaker 1: you would move your character. Let's say, like I move

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Speaker 1: one space north, it would have to print out the

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Speaker 1: whole thing all over again, showing you where you were

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Speaker 1: now in relation to everything else, plus making other stuff

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Speaker 1: appear as it came into view of your character. Not

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Speaker 1: the most efficient kind of game, but it did show

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Speaker 1: that he was very interested in this from the very beginning,

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Speaker 1: and it was a very clever solution to the problem

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Speaker 1: of not having a visual means by which you could

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Speaker 1: communicate that information. But now, oh, go ahead, I was

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Speaker 1: going to say. You know, you may be saying, okay,

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Speaker 1: so if he wants to be an astronaut, why didn't

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Speaker 1: you just do that? I mean, why is he doing

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Speaker 1: the whole computer camp thing. Well, there was one problem,

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Speaker 1: actually two problems. That would be his eyes. Yea, his

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Speaker 1: eyes were not good enough for for NASA. So he's

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Speaker 1: been he sort of from what I read, he sort

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Speaker 1: of fell back on computers and gaming because he liked

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Speaker 1: those two things, and he because he couldn't go forward

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Speaker 1: in in the space program. So you kind of got it,

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Speaker 1: you know, a fork in the road. And he said, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I love these things too. This is what

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna do, right, And he embraced it, and I

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Speaker 1: teen eight he wrote a game called a Calabeth, which

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Speaker 1: is sort of the precursor to be precursor to the

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Speaker 1: Ultimate series. UM. And this was back in the days

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Speaker 1: when you would find computer games at your local little

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Speaker 1: computer store and they would be pinned up on a

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Speaker 1: bulletin board and they'd all be in zip. Luck bags

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Speaker 1: would be a floppy disk, maybe a sheet of printed

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Speaker 1: instructions and uh, if you were really lucky, some art

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Speaker 1: that actually said what the title of the game was.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise it was just on the sticker on the disc itself.

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Speaker 1: He's old five and a quarter inch floppy disks. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do too. I still have some. UM can't run

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Speaker 1: them on anything, but I have them. So yeah. It

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Speaker 1: actually got very popular. And the way Richard used to

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Speaker 1: tell the story was that he said, I was doing

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Speaker 1: what I loved and I sent the sent this company

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Speaker 1: my my game, and then they started sending me money.

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Speaker 1: It was great, fantastic. I was like, well, this is

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Speaker 1: what I want to do. So from there he went

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Speaker 1: on to program Tima one and uh, this was back

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Speaker 1: in the day when a single person could produce a

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Speaker 1: game from start to finish on his or her own,

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Speaker 1: something that does not happen very much these days. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's just because games have gotten so complicated at this

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Speaker 1: point that you you almost need an entire department of

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Speaker 1: a major company to to put one together. But this

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Speaker 1: was back in the day when someone with enough enough

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Speaker 1: time and enough effort could produce a game by themselves.

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Speaker 1: So but he did started a company, d Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: formed it with his brother and a few other people,

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Speaker 1: Origin Systems. And Origin Systems produced the Ultimate series as

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Speaker 1: well some other games, like with the Wing Commander series

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Speaker 1: and a few other series as well, but the Ultimate ones,

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Speaker 1: I think we're kind of the flagship for that company. Again.

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Speaker 1: According to the Wired article, more than a hundred million copies. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I own a few of those. Yeah, yeah, because I

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Speaker 1: was a huge Ultimate fan. In fact, before I ever

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Speaker 1: met Richard Garriott, I was. I was already playing Ultimate too,

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Speaker 1: which was a very simple role playing game in in

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Speaker 1: the early ultimates one through three. It was pretty much

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Speaker 1: following the standard kind of role playing system in which

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Speaker 1: you're you're playing a powerful character and you go around

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Speaker 1: killing stuff and selling stuff and trying to beat the

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Speaker 1: bad guy to win the game. And here's the interesting part.

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Speaker 1: The first thing that I think is really interesting about

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Speaker 1: Richards progress as a game developer. He started to become

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Speaker 1: dissatisfied with the way these games were kind of laid out.

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Speaker 1: The storyline of these games. He thought that they were

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Speaker 1: too simple. The whole good versus evil thing was a

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Speaker 1: little too um primitive. So he decided he wanted to

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Speaker 1: create a game in which your choices as a player

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Speaker 1: would determine whether or not you could win the game.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just you know, if you killed enough or X,

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Speaker 1: you were suddenly powerful enough to take on a troll,

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Speaker 1: and you kill enough trolls you can finally take on

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Speaker 1: the big bad guy. It was that you had to

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Speaker 1: make moral choice is throughout the game, and based on

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Speaker 1: those choices that determined whether or not you could win

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Speaker 1: the game. As when he created Ultimate four and really

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Speaker 1: introduced the concept of the avatar character and UH, to

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Speaker 1: become an avatar, you had to adhere to some very

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Speaker 1: strict rules and if you broke those rules, then you

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Speaker 1: it was impossible to win the game. And UH, it

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Speaker 1: got a lot of attention among gamers, and most of

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Speaker 1: it was positive. I mean a lot of the gamers

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Speaker 1: who wanted to just breathe through a game were kind

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Speaker 1: of frustrated because they couldn't just you know, hack and

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Speaker 1: slash their way through. But it was so different from

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Speaker 1: why had to come before it that it really kind

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Speaker 1: of revolutionized video computer role playing games at the time.

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Speaker 1: And um, that's pretty much how you went from that

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Speaker 1: point on. It was very important that your character was able,

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Speaker 1: you know, that that the choices you made as a

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Speaker 1: character actually affected the way the game progressed. And uh

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Speaker 1: so it wasn't just random encounters or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: If you told off someone in this one town, then

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Speaker 1: your reputation could spread in that town and people would

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Speaker 1: treat your character differently based on that. Um. And I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, it sounds like I'm going on and on

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Speaker 1: about this, but really that was very revolutionary at the time.

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Speaker 1: Well you think about it, um, and it's more than

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Speaker 1: just a two dimensional game at that point. You know,

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Speaker 1: before you had you know, left right up down essentially

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Speaker 1: you know, black and white choices, and now you enter

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Speaker 1: into shades of gray and things that you do. The

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Speaker 1: game is smart enough to know what's going on and

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Speaker 1: to to react to the decisions that you make and

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Speaker 1: have other non player characters you know, react to you

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Speaker 1: differently based on the things that you do. That's pretty sophisticated.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot more immersive, that's a lot more like

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Speaker 1: real life. So uh you know, maybe for the non

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Speaker 1: gamers who are listening to us, and they're probably very

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Speaker 1: few of them, I'm guessing, um, you know, you would say, Okay,

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Speaker 1: well that's more intriguing. That's the kind of thing that's

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Speaker 1: gonna get uh more if you will non geeks interested

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Speaker 1: in games, because you know, say, well, this is this

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Speaker 1: is a lot more like you know, what I'm used

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Speaker 1: to in my own life. So and you can you

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Speaker 1: can see the effects of this kind of game design today.

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Speaker 1: I mean, like the game Fable, for example, I think

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Speaker 1: owes a lot to this ultimate model. UM. In Fable,

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Speaker 1: those choices you make as a character determine your character's outcome,

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Speaker 1: It determines what your character looks like, it determines how

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Speaker 1: everyone reacts to you. And I think that that's all

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Speaker 1: based on this same kind of philosophy that Richard Garriott

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Speaker 1: really sort of championed early on. UM. Now, the later

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Speaker 1: games in the Ultimate series there were nine of them total.

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Speaker 1: In the nine official full on Ultimate games, there were

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Speaker 1: also a few expansions and a couple of little side

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Speaker 1: games as well, but the last two, in particular, Ultimate

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Speaker 1: eight and Ultimate nine kind of got a little of

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Speaker 1: a well, there's a little backlash from the fans. Ultimate

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Speaker 1: eight had a different system of controls than the previous

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Speaker 1: ultimates did, and not all fans found it very entertaining.

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Speaker 1: UM and Ultimate nine, a lot of people felt even

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Speaker 1: though it was delayed quite a few times, I felt

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Speaker 1: that it was still rushed when it came out, So

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Speaker 1: there was a bit of a, like I said, a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a backlash by this point. And and again,

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Speaker 1: this is a point where the games were so complex

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Speaker 1: that groups of people had to work on them. It

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Speaker 1: was no longer possible for Richard to to design a

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Speaker 1: game from start to finish and build it all himself.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of other parties, it was in and Electronic

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Speaker 1: Arts bought Origin System UM, so you know they had

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Speaker 1: a transaction for thirty five million dollars in stock um.

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Speaker 1: And by that point, you know, he was a multimillionaire already,

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Speaker 1: you know, founded a mansion. Yeah, I'll have to go

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Speaker 1: a little bit later. The mansion is is Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a that's another matter entirely. Yeah, the Electronic Arts situation

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Speaker 1: was kind of the beginning of the end. UM they love.

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Speaker 1: The company continued to produce UM some some pretty good

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Speaker 1: games during that time, but Electronic Arts began to cancel

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Speaker 1: a lot of the projects that the origin team had

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Speaker 1: been working on, and eventually that I think UM made

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Speaker 1: Richard decide to leave the company entirely. He resigned from

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Speaker 1: Electronic Arts and founded a different company UM called Destination Games.

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Speaker 1: But uh, and I've never talked to him about that.

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Speaker 1: It seemed like one of those kind of taboo subjects. UM.

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Speaker 1: So I don't really know what the whole story is

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Speaker 1: behind it, but I can imagine it has to be

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Speaker 1: a little frustrating to see the something that you've created

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Speaker 1: kind of get the back burner by a larger corporation,

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Speaker 1: especially if you were told to head on like early

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Speaker 1: in the deal that you were going to have a

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Speaker 1: lot more control. Um. I don't know the details behind that.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that necessarily that happened, but he did

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Speaker 1: leave the company and found it an new company, So

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Speaker 1: that tells you something, right well. Of course, Electronic Arts,

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Speaker 1: for its part, is very very large, as in eight

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Speaker 1: hundred pound guerrilla gaming in a multi multibillion dollar industry

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Speaker 1: at this point, and they have responsibilities to their shareholders,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure that it was probably something along those lines.

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Speaker 1: You know, when you get to a to that point,

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Speaker 1: when you're that size, you uh, some of your decisions

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Speaker 1: are dictated more by the bottom line than others. Um. Well.

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Speaker 1: And and one of the thing I wanted to point

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Speaker 1: out about the games that he made back when he

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Speaker 1: was with Origin and e A UM, he was also

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Speaker 1: responsible for the creation of Ultima Online, which is one

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Speaker 1: of the very first graphic based massive multiplayer online role

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Speaker 1: playing games m m O RPGs. Was that ever did

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Speaker 1: that ever take off? Ultima Online did very well. Um,

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Speaker 1: it was although it was always battling ever Quest right

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Speaker 1: the time, and I think it eventually was pretty much

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Speaker 1: they they also ran, but they had its own hardcore

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Speaker 1: base of fans, um and so it was never it

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Speaker 1: was never a failure. It just I think EverQuest eventually

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Speaker 1: outpaced it and and just kept the lead from that

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Speaker 1: point on until of course World of Warcraft, which now

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Speaker 1: dominates everything. Um. But yeah, that's that's another thing you

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Speaker 1: have to kind of credit Richard for. I mean, granted

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Speaker 1: it was a team of people who put that together.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't you know, it wasn't a one man show

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Speaker 1: or anything, but any but he was definitely a champion

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Speaker 1: of that. I got to see UM Ultimate Online in

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Speaker 1: a beta build UM about a year before it actually

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Speaker 1: went live, and I was I was really intrigued by it.

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Speaker 1: It looked a lot like Ultimate six in terms of graphics,

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Speaker 1: so it actually went backward because at that point, I

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Speaker 1: think Ultimate eight had been out for a while, so

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Speaker 1: it actually went backward as far as graphics are concerned.

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Speaker 1: But Ultimate six was also a really popular entry into

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Speaker 1: the series, so I didn't think it was a bad

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Speaker 1: thing at all. And it was also one of the

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Speaker 1: first to have sort of the in game economy. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was really really kind of nifty. Of course, everything

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Speaker 1: that Richard does he tries to, you know, make sure

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Speaker 1: there's some innovation involved. UM. But so when Richard left

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Speaker 1: and founded Destination Games, he merged with another company called

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Speaker 1: nc soft. Actually Destination Games merged with nc soft. Richard

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Speaker 1: didn't that would have been weird. It would have been

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Speaker 1: like the Borg. So they put him in charge of

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Speaker 1: the Austin office of n c soft and that's when

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Speaker 1: Richard began work on a new massively multiplayer online role

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Speaker 1: playing game called Tabula Razza, which had a science fiction

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Speaker 1: uh background as opposed to fantasy. Now he's really into fantasy.

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Speaker 1: I mean well, I mean, like we said, he was

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Speaker 1: really into the dungchess and dragons, and he was really

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Speaker 1: into uh, you know, he went by Lord British for

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Speaker 1: the longest time, and he dresses in Elizabethan often not

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Speaker 1: as much as he used to, but yes, I mean

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Speaker 1: you would see him dressed in dressed Gettish, yes, and

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Speaker 1: well to the point where he really enjoys that kind

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Speaker 1: of the whole pageantry and theatricality of it. He also

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Speaker 1: was part of the Society of Creative Anachronism or s

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Speaker 1: c A, which is all about recreating kind of this medieval,

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Speaker 1: this idealistic medieval Renaissance sort of recreation um, the Middle

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Speaker 1: Ages is we would have it to be, I believe

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Speaker 1: was one of the mottos of that organization, which I

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Speaker 1: may or may not have belonged to at one point. Um.

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Speaker 1: But he also you were mentioning the mansion he would

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Speaker 1: also he has has he owned a mansion that had

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Speaker 1: secret passageways you can only get through from one room

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Speaker 1: to another by solving a puzzle. Or you would be

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Speaker 1: in an upper gallery and there'll be no way to

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Speaker 1: get to the lower gallery unless you moved a certain

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Speaker 1: object a certain number of times and then a magical

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Speaker 1: staircase would appear. Um. He would occasionally turn this mansion

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Speaker 1: into a full fledged haunted house. Uh. He would do

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Speaker 1: it like every other year, and he would hire Hollywood

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Speaker 1: special effects companies to come to his mansion and converted

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Speaker 1: into this haunted house. So we're talking, you know, motion

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Speaker 1: picture quality special effects going on at this thing. And

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Speaker 1: he would let people come. He would give out tickets.

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Speaker 1: Uh you do the ticket thing to in order to

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Speaker 1: keep a good control on traffic. But I'm pretty sure

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Speaker 1: he did it was all for free. Yeah, you know.

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Speaker 1: I think he might have auctioned some off for charity

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Speaker 1: or something. But he didn't charge people to come in

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Speaker 1: and see his stuff. He just he loved this kind

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Speaker 1: of theatricality and he loved to share it with other people.

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Speaker 1: Still does I'm sure. I don't think he does the

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Speaker 1: Halloween stuff anymore. I think he stopped doing that. It

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Speaker 1: just became um too complicated. Uh. I believe sometime around

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Speaker 1: the late nineties, maybe the early in two thousand, two

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Speaker 1: thousand one, he stopped doing it. But well, that's uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, sort of the story of a successful game designer.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you're if you're making that kind of

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Speaker 1: money and living this kind of lifestyle, you'd want to,

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Speaker 1: you know, probably keep going if you were really into games. Right,

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Speaker 1: just yeah, you're doing games for except for the fact that, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you would think that, uh, and you'd be wrong. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Richard Garriot is no longer producing games, at least as

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Speaker 1: far as we can tell. Right now, um, we we

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Speaker 1: need to talk about his most recent famous exploit, which

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Speaker 1: is that Richard Garriott became a space tourist. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: I think he would disagree with you. He become a

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Speaker 1: space ambassador. No, no, no, now, see this is part

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Speaker 1: of the deal because um, this article and Wired, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. It really gets into like I said,

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Speaker 1: really it's more about Star City, which is where the

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Speaker 1: cosmonauts train. Now, when you enter training, according to this article,

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Speaker 1: when you enter training at star City, you are a cosmonaut.

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Speaker 1: So he is a cosmonaut. I'm sorry, but NASA will

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Speaker 1: not call him an as you not. And he apparently

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Speaker 1: takes exception of that. Um. The article suggests that maybe

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Speaker 1: it's because he's into player classes. Could he wants the

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Speaker 1: title to level up as an astronaut as opposed to

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Speaker 1: cosmat multi class. Yeah, the Americans call him a space tourist, um,

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Speaker 1: but but not the Russians. And he uh in October

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Speaker 1: lasted off for space Yasaya's rocket YEP at t M

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Speaker 1: A thirteen YEP, went to the International Space Station spent

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Speaker 1: more than a week up there. As I recall YEP

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Speaker 1: YEP and and and his fascination with space. This isn't

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Speaker 1: a new thing just because the Russians offered this. Oh

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Speaker 1: did I say the Russians just offered this? Well, he

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Speaker 1: became a donor to the X Prize Foundation, and he

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Speaker 1: actually uh started this organization called Space Adventures, which sells

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Speaker 1: seats on Russian spacecraft for trips into space. And that's

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Speaker 1: kind of how he ended up there. He um, but

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Speaker 1: seat for thirty million dollars. About to say, I think

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Speaker 1: it's up to thirty million dollars And apparently from what

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Speaker 1: he said, that's quite a bit of his money. Um.

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Speaker 1: He came, you know, this is not pocket change for him.

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Speaker 1: This is a serious investment. Um, Andrew wants to go

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Speaker 1: again and it may be uh up to forty five

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Speaker 1: million by the time he does that, So he may

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Speaker 1: he may be starting another game company. Well yeah, because

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Speaker 1: on November eleven, he wrote an open letter to the

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Speaker 1: Tabula Raza website which essentially announced his he was resigning

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Speaker 1: from the nc soft company and was leaving to pursue

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Speaker 1: other interests. But that's about as much as we can

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Speaker 1: tell from that letter. I mean, there was, it was

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Speaker 1: fairly cryptic. We know that the inspiration for this was

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Speaker 1: his trip to the International Space Station, so presumably it

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Speaker 1: has something to do with space exploration, possibly private space exploration,

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Speaker 1: but we don't really have any details other than that.

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Speaker 1: At this point, he hasn't really elaborated on his reasons

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Speaker 1: for for resigning and or what his other pursuits will be. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and again he's into it. This is not just the

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Speaker 1: Russians taking him into space and he gets to hang

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Speaker 1: around in the space station. He actually has to take

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Speaker 1: a part in working on science experiments. Um he has

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Speaker 1: to flush the space party if he needs flushing, and

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Speaker 1: he had to be trained on every piece of equipment

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Speaker 1: in case something went wrong. Right, It wasn't a passing

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Speaker 1: fancy kind of thing. Now. As a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: apparently he had to study Russian for four hours a

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Speaker 1: day so that he could actually read the instrument panels.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, he this is you know, this is

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Speaker 1: not something that he has to take lightly. This is

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Speaker 1: something he has to be ready for in all capacities.

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Speaker 1: It's not just flying around and going hey, yeah there's Mars.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, he was. He was a cool guy back

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Speaker 1: when I met him. Uh, and now he's super cool.

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Speaker 1: Um And I'm really interested to see what he does

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Speaker 1: next because he he he gets behind his projects with

393
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:09,400
Speaker 1: such energy and passion and uh and a real curiosity

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00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:13,040
Speaker 1: that you can't help but admire the work he's done.

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Speaker 1: Even if you're not a big fan of computer games,

396
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:16,879
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's no question that a lot of

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Speaker 1: work went into what he has accomplished so far. So

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Speaker 1: it's very exciting to think that he's gonna tackle something

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Speaker 1: new and I kind of kind of curious to see

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Speaker 1: where it goes. Now, Um, I have am I gonna

401
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:37,879
Speaker 1: miss his games? Yeah? I loved the Ultimate series. Um

402
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Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's kind of a bummer to

403
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Speaker 1: think that he's not going to be doing that anymore, probably,

404
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Speaker 1: But I am glad to see that his work has

405
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Speaker 1: inspired other people so at least to get you know,

406
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Speaker 1: kind of following his footsteps. That's true. And you know

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Speaker 1: he's only Yeah, he's still a young guy, so there's

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00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 1: plenty of time. Well, I think that's a really good

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00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 1: uh overview of Richard Lord British or General British gariot. Uh.

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Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about these kind of topics,

411
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,680
Speaker 1: we can read things like how M M O RPGs work.

412
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: Those articles are live right now on how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. And I guess we'll say Hale and well

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Speaker 1: met Tia again really soon for more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Let us know what you think. Send an email to

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Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you

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Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are

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Speaker 1: you