Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Monday, the day
Speaker 3: each week that we read back messages from the Stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow Your Mind mailbox. If you have never gotten
Speaker 3: in touch before, why not give it a try. You
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com. We appreciate all the different kinds of
Speaker 3: feedback we get. Of course, if you ever have corrections
Speaker 3: you need to make, that's fair game. We really love
Speaker 3: when people write in with something interesting to add to
Speaker 3: a topic we've talked about on the show. But whatever
Speaker 3: you want to send, it's fine. Send it on to
Speaker 3: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see, Rob,
Speaker 3: I'm going to kick things off today with this response
Speaker 3: to our first episode on the illusion of control. This
Speaker 3: comes from Ariel. All right, let's have it, Ariol, says
Speaker 3: dear Robert and Joe. I hope this message finds you well.
Speaker 3: My name is Ariel, a software developer from Argentina, and
Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan of your podcast. This is the
Speaker 3: first time I'm reaching out, and I wanted to share
Speaker 3: some thoughts on your recent episode, The Illusion of Control,
Speaker 3: Part one, especially regarding the thought experiment about someone else
Speaker 3: pushing the slot machine button. Your discussion sparked my interest
Speaker 3: because in the realm of computer software, the generation of
Speaker 3: random numbers is a fascinating topic that's much more complex
Speaker 3: than it may seem at first glance. Generally, the most
Speaker 3: sophisticated algorithms for generating random numbers significantly consider the physical context,
Speaker 3: including at the very least the precise timing of pressing
Speaker 3: a button. The outcome, Specifically, the random number generated could
Speaker 3: vary even with a delay of a few milliseconds in
Speaker 3: pressing the button. That doesn't change the chance, but it
Speaker 3: might change the outcome. So maybe it was what's the
Speaker 3: lady's fault that the player lost the bet. While I
Speaker 3: don't have specific insights into how slot machines are programmed,
Speaker 3: the principle usually holds true across various applications. Random number generators,
Speaker 3: or RNGs, play a crucial role here, producing vast sequences
Speaker 3: of numbers every second without any discernible pattern. These RNGs
Speaker 3: can be classified mainly into two types. True random number
Speaker 3: generators or trngs and pseudo random number generators or PRNGs.
Speaker 3: Trngs derive randomness from physical phenomena, making it virtually impossible
Speaker 3: for attackers to predict the sequence of numbers. On the
Speaker 3: other hand, PRNGs generate numbers based on algorithms and a
Speaker 3: seed number, which could theoretically be reverse engineered, although the
Speaker 3: likelihood is exceedingly low. This distinction is crucial because it
Speaker 3: highlights how even seemingly insignificant factors like who presses the
Speaker 3: slot machine button or the exact moment it's pressed, could
Speaker 3: influence the game's outcome in a system that relies on PRNGs.
Speaker 3: I thought this perspective might add an interesting layer to
Speaker 3: your discussion on control and randomness, emphasizing how deeply intertwined
Speaker 3: physical actions and digital outcomes can be, even in systems
Speaker 3: designed to be as unpredictable as slot machines. Thank you
Speaker 3: for the continuous effort you put into making such thought
Speaker 3: provoking content. Your show has been a source of endless
Speaker 3: fascination and learning for me, and I eagerly look forward
Speaker 3: to each new episode. Please keep up the great work.
Speaker 3: Best regards, Aril from Argentina. Well, thank you so much Aril.
Speaker 3: This is a wonderful email, and it raises a great
Speaker 3: question about what it really means to cause an outcome
Speaker 3: and what it really means for an outcome to be random.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely true what you say that random number generators
Speaker 3: can be, for example, time based. I remember this is
Speaker 3: a very primitive example, but I remember when I was
Speaker 3: in middle school and I was trying to program weird
Speaker 3: little computer games in que basic. I would use a
Speaker 3: demand in the Cubasic code called randomized timer. And the
Speaker 3: way I understood that is that the code I was
Speaker 3: writing would use the computer's internal clock as a seed
Speaker 3: to generate unpredictable pseudo random numbers. Because I think if
Speaker 3: you try to get Cubasic to generate a random number
Speaker 3: without doing a command like that, like to pick a
Speaker 3: seed out from the timer, it would just give you
Speaker 3: the same random number every time. Not very random.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So in that case, the exact time the code was executed,
Speaker 3: down to some fraction of a second, would determine what
Speaker 3: random numbers you got. Slot machines may work differently from that,
Speaker 3: but it's at least possible that someone pressing the spin
Speaker 3: button at a slightly different time could lead to different
Speaker 3: physical electrical processes producing a different output, So a slightly
Speaker 3: different trigger timing would in theory be the difference between
Speaker 3: winning and losing. But I would still say it is
Speaker 3: sufficiently random from the point of view the player, because
Speaker 3: while there is a difference, that difference is not something
Speaker 3: that the player could use to predict or control outcomes.
Speaker 3: And this is what you meant Aariel when you said
Speaker 3: that quote. This doesn't change the chance, but it might
Speaker 3: change the outcome. So I think you could compare it
Speaker 3: to how unless you're talking about like a practice cheet
Speaker 3: or something, two regular people rolling a die will inevitably
Speaker 3: roll the die differently, and in fact, the same person
Speaker 3: rolling a die at different times will roll it differently,
Speaker 3: but neither one is better than the other at getting
Speaker 3: high dice rolls. There would be no way to predict
Speaker 3: in advance which role will be better unless you know.
Speaker 3: Unless your Laplace's demon and you can like algorithmically calculate
Speaker 3: the future by knowing the position of every particle and
Speaker 3: photon in the universe, which we're not that demon. We
Speaker 3: can't do that. So if somebody rolls your dice for you,
Speaker 3: in one sense, you could say they caused you to
Speaker 3: win or lose because they physically set the dice in motion,
Speaker 3: so they physically caused whatever the role was. But the
Speaker 3: way we would normally understand someone to cause you to
Speaker 3: lose would mean that they did something that could have
Speaker 3: been predicted to lead you to losing or could be
Speaker 3: predicted to decrease your chance of winning. And so somebody
Speaker 3: rolling the dice for you or pressing the slot machine
Speaker 3: button for you would not be that kind of cause
Speaker 3: because no matter who does it, the outcome of each
Speaker 3: roll or spin is not predictable. Okay, So again I
Speaker 3: think this really plays on like different ideas of understanding
Speaker 3: what it would mean to cause an outcome or for
Speaker 3: that outcome to be random, you know, questions of quantum
Speaker 3: physics aside. I think you can argue that nothing on
Speaker 3: the macroscopic scale in the universe is actually random. It's
Speaker 3: all physically determined by preceding causes. But lots of stuff
Speaker 3: is functionally random from our point of view, and functional
Speaker 3: randomness just means that there's no way for the party
Speaker 3: in question to predict each outcome in a pattern. There's
Speaker 3: like no predictable pattern into it, even though there might
Speaker 3: be predictable overall percentages. It's like, you know, when you
Speaker 3: flip a coin. You can predict the outcome of a
Speaker 3: series of coin flips in a way because over time
Speaker 3: those coin flips will converge on a fifty to fifty
Speaker 3: of heads and tails. So you can predict the overall
Speaker 3: pattern of outcomes, but you cannot predict with better than
Speaker 3: fifty percent confidence what each individual flip will be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, overall, you know that in your career, our
Speaker 2: life of playing Dungeons and Dragons, you know the D
Speaker 2: twenty rolls are all going to even out, but maybe
Speaker 2: you're only going to roll five of them tonight. What
Speaker 2: are those going to look like?
Speaker 3: Right? Right? Exactly In the same way you can know
Speaker 3: exactly what your true odds of winning on a slot
Speaker 3: machine are. I think in some sense they're probably that
Speaker 3: those odds are public or posted, and they do reflect
Speaker 3: your true odds of winning. But that's not very helpful
Speaker 3: in determining what's going to happen on your next spin,
Speaker 3: except I mean in the sense of telling you that
Speaker 3: you know most spins you're gonna lose, you will probably,
Speaker 3: and also in letting you know that you know your
Speaker 3: odds are low enough that you will eventually run out
Speaker 3: of money and stop being able to play, and so
Speaker 3: that's the end of the game for you.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, now that we've gotten the serious listener
Speaker 2: mail out of the way, let's get to the weird
Speaker 2: house cinema listener mail. This first one I'm going to read.
Speaker 2: This one is I guess, half listener mail response and
Speaker 2: then half weird house cinema response. This one comes to
Speaker 2: us from goth mom Light. Hey, fellas number one. As
Speaker 2: a long time Durani, I was delighted that you named
Speaker 2: January's listener mail episodes after Duran Duran tunes. However, I'm
Speaker 2: puzzled as to why I listened to each of these
Speaker 2: episodes but didn't catch any other Duran Squared related stories
Speaker 2: or references. What am I missing? Is there something I
Speaker 2: should know? Whether, No, there's nothing you should know other
Speaker 2: than I too. Am a longtime durand Ran fan since
Speaker 2: I first saw the music videos for Wild Boys and
Speaker 2: View to a Kill on MTV or I don't even
Speaker 2: think it was MTV, it was a it was a
Speaker 2: Canadian channels to the CBC. Once I saw those videos,
Speaker 2: I like got they got their Hooks in early and
Speaker 2: I've remained a fan, you know, at least a casual fan,
Speaker 2: my whole life. But I got to see them in
Speaker 2: concert just last year. My wife and I went, and
Speaker 2: they put on such a great show. It like it
Speaker 2: invited me to go deeper into their discography and discover
Speaker 2: some really great tunes that I wasn't that familiar with,
Speaker 2: to rediscover my appreciation for other songs. So that's about
Speaker 2: all there is to it. And in general, some months
Speaker 2: for listener Mail episodes, I'll just randomly choose titles. Well
Speaker 2: not completely randomly, since we're talking about randomization, but I
Speaker 2: will I'll say pick an artist and be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this month, all the titles are going to be based
Speaker 2: on track titles by this particular artist.
Speaker 3: I don't always know what these are going to be,
Speaker 3: but it's a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, generally a lot of thought does not go into it.
Speaker 2: I just kind of go with the guy, we got
Speaker 2: to name them something. And you know, sometimes you can
Speaker 2: name a listener mail episode because you know, you have
Speaker 2: a lot of listener mail related to a particular topic
Speaker 2: and you can kind of, you know, theme it a
Speaker 2: little better. About other times you just have to have
Speaker 2: to go with something that's going to stand out, and
Speaker 2: you know it's not going to be mistaken for an
Speaker 2: actual episode. Right. But that's not all that goth mom
Speaker 2: Light has to share. She continues here quote I have
Speaker 2: a weird house cinema suggestion for you. Ramikin from twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: In this indie horror comedy quote, a college girl is
Speaker 2: terrorized by a ramikin. Ramikin, of course, is a small
Speaker 2: little container. We use them all the time in the
Speaker 2: house for just any time you need to, like, put
Speaker 2: a snack mix in it, put a small amount of
Speaker 2: soup in it, you know, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3: I use a lot of ramikins in cooking, like if
Speaker 3: I'm making a stir fry, and I have several small
Speaker 3: amounts of things that I want to add to the
Speaker 3: pan at different points, so I have them in a
Speaker 3: little ramikins.
Speaker 2: I've gotten aware if I'm doing something with eggs, I'll
Speaker 2: break my eggs into a ram can, either one by
Speaker 2: one or a few at a time, because that way
Speaker 2: I need to pick a bit of eggshell out of there.
Speaker 2: I'd rather do it out of the ramikin than out
Speaker 2: of a bowl with other ingredients or out of an
Speaker 2: active frying pan.
Speaker 3: Yes, I also break eggs into a ram can. In fact,
Speaker 3: I always do that if I'm going to poach the eggs,
Speaker 3: because I don't trust myself to like crack it and
Speaker 3: then drop it into the water right without like piercing
Speaker 3: the olk and all that. It's a much easier You
Speaker 3: put it in aramicin first, and you can just gently
Speaker 3: lower the ramikin into the water.
Speaker 2: Oh that's an advanced technique. I don't even try that,
Speaker 2: it's too much, but anyway, Yeah, aramikin is very useful.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of thing that would never ever try
Speaker 2: to destroy us, and I guess it makes sense that
Speaker 2: somebody would put it in a horror movie at some point.
Speaker 2: Goth momlike continues here a college girl terrorized by a
Speaker 2: ramkin for reasons anyone who's ever endured obnoxious roommates can
Speaker 2: readily understand. Also Cupcakes, director Cody Clark made it and
Speaker 2: it is available on YouTube for free. High fives, y'all,
Speaker 2: goth momline.
Speaker 3: I've never seen this movie. I love the premise of
Speaker 3: being terrorized by aramican, though I am a little confused.
Speaker 3: IMDb says this movie is over an hour long. I'm
Speaker 3: curious how that works with an hour plus runtime, but
Speaker 3: I want to trust it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of an outrageous idea, so sometimes you
Speaker 2: got to go for it.
Speaker 3: Okay. This next message comes to us from Mike. It's
Speaker 3: in response to our Weird House Cinema episode on Blackula
Speaker 3: subject line Blacula in the show Psych. Mike says, Hi,
Speaker 3: Robin Joe in the Psych episode, that's Psych, it's TV show.
Speaker 3: In the Psych episode, this episode sucks. The two main
Speaker 3: characters are trying to go undercover at a vampire club,
Speaker 3: so they dress like Blacula and Lestat from Interview with
Speaker 3: a Van Empire. Love the podcast. Thanks Mike, and I
Speaker 3: looked this up. So I've never seen the show Psych,
Speaker 3: though I do know about it for a strange reason,
Speaker 3: I can mention it in a minute. But I looked
Speaker 3: at the screenshot that Mike shared here and I checked in, Well,
Speaker 3: that's Delay Hill as Mama Walde there, and I really
Speaker 3: got to say, the costumes are dead on both of them,
Speaker 3: down to Mama wal Day's like bushy eyebrows and sculpted sideburns.
Speaker 3: They really did their research to match these movie characters.
Speaker 3: The La stat costume is also very close. As I said,
Speaker 3: I've never seen the show Psych, but I'm well aware
Speaker 3: of it because Robert, I suspect this must have happened
Speaker 3: to you at some point. Also, it's an example of
Speaker 3: where I had an idea for the premise of a
Speaker 3: story that I wanted to write, but I did a
Speaker 3: quick check to see if there was already something out
Speaker 3: there with this premise, and there was, and it was
Speaker 3: the show Psych. So the idea was, I was like,
Speaker 3: what if there was a story where a character was
Speaker 3: like an amateur detective who wanted to work as a
Speaker 3: detective but didn't have credentials, and so they just pretended
Speaker 3: to be a psychic using their actual, like you know,
Speaker 3: logically derived insights, but presenting them as one of these
Speaker 3: psychics who consults with police departments on cases, which has
Speaker 3: happened in reality in some cases strangely. So that was
Speaker 3: my idea, but I looked it up and that's apparently
Speaker 3: exactly the premise of Psych.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I've only ever watched like one episode
Speaker 2: of it, and I don't remember what my thoughts on
Speaker 2: it were one way or another, So I don't maybe
Speaker 2: I should revisit it. I know a lot of people
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll say, at least their costume department is crushing it.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: This one comes to us from Chris, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 2: You said you wanted to have listeners tell their stories
Speaker 2: about seeing weird house films, including ones featured in earlier appisodes.
Speaker 2: Now you have done it, setting off an old cogres
Speaker 2: I mean, early elderly man's descent into nostalgia with the
Speaker 2: potential for blather. Is this what you two wanted when
Speaker 2: you became shills for big video rental. It's true we
Speaker 2: have become kind of shills for big video rental, or
Speaker 2: at least locally owned video rental. Especially it's big. I
Speaker 2: mean it's big to me. It's important to me. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not like corporations at all. I mean, is there
Speaker 2: big video rental anymore? I'm not sure. I don't think,
Speaker 2: but I will say, yeah, support your local video rental
Speaker 2: stores if you were lucky enough to have them. Still
Speaker 2: they need you, and deep down you need them, and
Speaker 2: you know it. Especially again we've discussed the advantages of
Speaker 2: physical media when it comes to films. You know you
Speaker 2: can count on your video store as long as it's
Speaker 2: around to have those films for you. If you own
Speaker 2: those discs, you own them and you can watch them
Speaker 2: whenever you want. It's very I think to everyone at
Speaker 2: this point that you just can't count on streaming sources
Speaker 2: to have the films you want to watch in the
Speaker 2: cuts you want to watch them when you need them,
Speaker 2: without even getting into like cool extras and so forth.
Speaker 2: All right, that's a tangent. But anyway, Chris continues, at
Speaker 2: least you could make it up to me by doing
Speaker 2: an episode on creation of the Humanoids, which I seem
Speaker 2: to recall Robert swearing to do on a stack of
Speaker 2: credit cards. This is what you get for triggering survivors
Speaker 2: of the VHS Beta Max Wars of the mid seventies
Speaker 2: to mid eighties. Even so, thank you for introducing me
Speaker 2: to Carol Zaemon's Invention for Destruction. I enjoyed watching it tremendously.
Speaker 3: Chris. That is a wonderful one. Chris. I think you're
Speaker 3: the same one who keeps asking for creation of the humanoids.
Speaker 3: We have considered it, we will do it at some point.
Speaker 2: There you go. You just swore to do it, so no,
Speaker 2: now we have to.
Speaker 3: I don't have any credit cards here, but should be
Speaker 3: coming down the road.
Speaker 2: And finally, this is little listener mail. Let's see I
Speaker 2: guess the way that these are publishing. I will refer
Speaker 2: to this again in the core episode tomorrow that we
Speaker 2: recorded before we recorded this listener mail episode. So slight repetition,
Speaker 2: but I think it all pans out. This is from
Speaker 2: an individual on discord. Their user name is Passey Sish
Speaker 2: or something to that effect. Sorry if I'm missing something here,
Speaker 2: they said. I think slash guests trying to influence the
Speaker 2: dice result is not the main reason for rolling important checks. Differently,
Speaker 2: in Dungeons and Dragons, building suspense is fun, and you
Speaker 2: might roll it more properly to ensure that there is
Speaker 2: no argument about the result. On the other hand, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of fun rituals like praying to the
Speaker 2: almighty dice God or sending quote unquote bad dice to jail.
Speaker 3: This is a great point. So this is touching on
Speaker 3: something we talked about in the first Solution of Control
Speaker 3: episode that sometimes people appear to be concentrating over a
Speaker 3: ice throw, as if like it'll make a difference to
Speaker 3: them getting rolling the number they want, and that I
Speaker 3: do think that is actually operative in how people behave.
Speaker 3: But there are other reasons people might appear to be
Speaker 3: concentrating over a dice throw, for example, to make sure
Speaker 3: that the dice throw is legal like this, you know,
Speaker 3: they throw it in the right area, doesn't bounce off
Speaker 3: the table or something and get an invalid result, or
Speaker 3: maybe hit something and displace it. If you've got like
Speaker 3: miniature set up on a tabletop RPG, so you know,
Speaker 3: you might roll carefully so you don't hit that. So
Speaker 3: there are legitimate reasons to concentrate on a dice throw,
Speaker 3: I guess, apart from thinking it will help you get
Speaker 3: the number you want, though, I do still think people
Speaker 3: do it to try to get the number they want.
Speaker 3: And then the second thing you say is about building suspense.
Speaker 3: I think that's a legitimate thing too. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 3: a drum roll. It's like a you know, acting it
Speaker 3: out so everybody at the table can have fun anticipating
Speaker 3: the result of this this pivotal event.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, there's a lot that goes into it. And
Speaker 2: you know, we didn't in touch on the use of
Speaker 2: dice towers and so forth. There's a and even sometimes yeah,
Speaker 2: physical dice jail in which to punish a particular a
Speaker 2: fencing roll and so forth.
Speaker 3: I've never done that, But do you literally have a
Speaker 3: dice jail?
Speaker 2: I've I don't. I don't go that far, but I
Speaker 2: see the examples of it. You can buy like little
Speaker 2: three D printed dice jails and so forth, and yeah,
Speaker 2: people seem to have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 3: You should have like a pit of scorpions you can
Speaker 3: drop the dice into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if it's fun, I say go for it. I've
Speaker 2: also seen people engage in this when they have a
Speaker 2: lot of dice, they bring like multiple air Like me,
Speaker 2: I tend to just have the one set. I have
Speaker 2: the one D twenty I always use, and I probably
Speaker 2: get a little I'm a little attached to that one,
Speaker 2: Like this is the D twenty that is you know,
Speaker 2: it's failed me plenty of times, but it's also rolled
Speaker 2: some great twenties. It's I don't know, it's just part
Speaker 2: of the ritual. And I can't punish this particular D twenty.
Speaker 2: It's it's been with me a long.
Speaker 3: Time, all right. Should we call it there for today?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll go ahead and close the mail bag here,
Speaker 2: but hey, keep them coming. Keep writing in. We'd love
Speaker 2: to hear from you. Speaking of Discord, if you want
Speaker 2: to access the Discord, shoot us an email and we'll
Speaker 2: send you the invite. In fact, I just did it
Speaker 2: just now. I just remember that somebody had just requested
Speaker 2: it via email, and I went in and sent that
Speaker 2: to them while we were recording this episode. And uh yeah,
Speaker 2: as usual, will remind you that Listener Mail's air on Monday,
Speaker 2: Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday, short form episode on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: and Weird House Cinema on Fridays, in which we set
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about.
Speaker 3: A weird film, huge things as always to our excellent
Speaker 3: audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get
Speaker 3: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
Speaker 3: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or
Speaker 3: just to say hello, you can email us at contact
Speaker 3: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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