089 = Venomous Snakes and Doggy Legs

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the problem solving podcast, which is a bit like a dog

in that it's great.

Did you look around the room and see a dog?

No, no, not true.

It's just I've seen several dogs.

Several dogs, right?

They're on my brain.

Your hosts, I'm Matt Parker, comedian, mathematician, and author

who is like the dog's tail.

Oh.

In that he is...

I oscillate.

Yep.

He's always moving.

Always moving.

When he's happy.

And it's.

You've got the vibe of someone who has just shown up without realizing they're doing the opening lecture at a conference.

Someone gives you a bunch of cue cards out of order and shoves you onto the stage.

Yeah.

do you realize you've just described one of my ongoing stress dreams?

Oh, really?

Awesome.

Which is that I show up to do a festival that I forgot that I have a show booked and I haven't written a show.

Definitely has stress dreams where you've got to do a gig or a show and you haven't prepared it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, Matt Parker is a part of a dog.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's me.

Yep.

And I am also part of a dog for a funnier reason.

I'm Beck Hill.

Ex-comedian.

For a real

episode.

Normally, I introduced myself as Beck Hill comedian and writer, and I'm not sure I can do it.

I think we're going to have to put a pause on writer.

Way, there we go.

There's a dog pum.

Yeah, you didn't mean that, did you?

I pointed it out.

And I was like, oh, good, I'll take it.

Yeah, I'll run with it.

Yep.

I'm sorry that this is very labor-adored.

Ah, nice.

Good work.

Thank you.

I told you I'd come.

You've pulled out of that nosedive.

Yep.

Saved the podcast.

Yeah.

On this episode,

I work out just how dangerous snakes are.

I'm going to look at whether dogs have arms or legs.

Oh, yeah, that's why you're doing dogs.

Yeah, that was another reason.

I didn't want to give it away too early.

And we have any other Barkness.

Nice.

Hello, new listeners, if any.

Yes, hello, welcome.

Hope the intro didn't put you off.

Feels pretty accurate, to be honest.

Yeah.

And hello, Matt.

Oh, yeah.

How are you doing?

I'm great.

I've had an ice cream.

This is a post-ice cream show.

Yeah, so what's going to happen is we're going to go great for the first half of the show, and then the second half, we'll be notably tired.

It's like, I mean, two episodes ago, we ate a lot of cake

and then did an episode

and it was a mess.

Yeah.

And now we've just eaten a bunch of ice cream.

Yeah.

And we're going to do an episode.

Yeah.

When will we learn?

It's going to be a mess.

Yeah.

I would like to point out before we start,

my voice sounds a bit rough.

Hey.

I just finished recording the audiobook for Love Triangle.

Ah.

Yeah.

So I had three days locked in a small room reading my own words out to myself.

Oh, okay.

So it was in the start of a textbook.

So the noise was relevant to the nearest exit was North.

Yep.

So I had to sit there and just read the book, which is not strictly true.

I stood there and read the book.

Oh, you're a stander?

I'm a stander.

Because I'm not a professional audiobook reading person.

But I have spent a lot of time standing on a stage talking into a microphone.

Yeah.

So I'm like, I'm just going to reuse that skill set to do this.

And they were great.

They ran around, they found like a music stand from somewhere, they cobbled this together.

I think something was gaffer taped on.

And they did it.

They arranged.

They got the mic at the right spot and they got the thing up.

Incredible.

This was five years ago.

Yep.

I show up this time.

And apparently, since I did it, like one other person is requested to stand.

And now I'm back, but now they've upgraded to a standing desk.

Oh, nice.

I was able to stand up and just read away.

Yeah.

It was a lot of fun.

I do voiceover stuff, and I preferred standing up for them just because then there's more space for my lungs.

Yeah.

Because then you're like emoting more with your voice in voiceover.

I mean, it gets a little tiresome.

By the end of the third day, I'm like, why did I choose to stand?

But I think it's a much better performance.

I did film bits of it.

It's on my second channel on YouTube if people want to see the tiny room I was put in.

Yeah, or get a chunk of the book for free.

Yeah, I did ask Penguin how much we're allowed to put in the video.

I didn't just put up a long section of it, I put up little chunks where interesting things happen.

Yes, it's a lot of it is working out how to turn a book about mathematics, which has a bunch of diagrams and pictures, into an audio book.

And this time they emailed me in advance and said, Hey, do you want to come in and we can go through and work out how we're going to do all the different bits of the book?

And I, slightly

a little bit cheeky, was like,

Nah,

how about we just work it out as we go?

Yep.

And that's what we did.

It's fine.

You just work it out as you go.

Yeah.

I read the text.

I imagine how I'd explain that on stage if I didn't have any slides and we're away.

So you can watch me live work out how to rephrase things to work in audio form.

I think that's great.

This is almost as exciting as my news.

It's your news.

Which is.

Good thing I'm sitting down.

Yeah.

Which is, as I've mentioned many times, I do not know how to drive.

I never learned.

Yep.

However, I've just had my provisional license approved, which means that soon I will be able to do my own.

Provisional, what does that mean?

It means I'm allowed to do the written theory test, and if I pass that, I'm allowed to start doing lessons.

Oh, wow.

Wait, so hang on, hang on.

You got the license to be able to do the test

to let you then learn how to get your license.

And test to get the license.

This is great.

Great.

I got my license like decades ago in Perth.

And it's just like you go down the the police station, they're like, all right, jump in a car.

No, you don't.

Around the corner.

No, no, no.

I was like, really?

Because

that's the thing.

But I didn't have to do a provisional license to do the theory test.

I just had to go and do the theory test.

To get my learner's permit.

Yeah, I think it's this.

So I think this is the same as a learner's permit, basically, but it's the other way around.

Because I did get a learner's permit when I was 16.

Got it.

I did the theory test.

Yep.

Passed, got a learner's permit, never learnt.

Right.

I believe this should be on the test.

I'm pretty sure this is the same.

It's just the other way around.

So.

It's just so they've got my details on file for when I do the test.

God.

So then they can just...

What I don't understand is what you had to do to get it because it can't be a test because you've got the permit now to do the test.

So do you just have to apply and say, I want to learn how to drive one day?

It's essentially applying for an ID card.

Oh.

So you're giving them all your identification.

Oh, you're doing the ID step first.

And then you send them the photo.

I was like, I can take this at home.

I've got the equipment.

ID aspect done.

And then back fill in the drivers-ness of the license.

God.

And I'm going to do one of the extensive courses.

So, like...

Extensive courses.

Intensive.

That's what I meant.

But they're both, in a sense.

Because after doing the last episode and realizing just how much pollution comes from tyres, I was like, I'm missing out.

Yeah.

I want to add tire.

I want to generate some tyre dust.

Yeah.

Well, that's very funny that you get the null license first, then you have to fill in in the driving later on.

I find that very entertaining.

Yeah, it's license zero.

Yeah.

Our first problem comes from Eli.

They wrote into the problem posing page, which is a problemsquared.com.

They chose problem in the dropdown, and they said, I'm from Indiana in the United States, and we only have one venomous snake, the rattlesnake.

And I've never seen one in the wild.

I've never been to Australia, but I heard they have giant venomous snakes that will chase and kill you.

What are your guys' experience with snakes in Australia?

I'd like to go someday, but the snakes scare me.

Also, if you pulled up all the snake venom in the world, would it be enough to kill all the non-immune animals?

I love that little addition of like

a prop, like a.

They've written the actual question they have and then gone, oh, I've got to sweeten the deal.

Yeah, I've got to make this

a little something to hook Matt's attention.

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I would have gone for and then probably been put off by the last sentence.

Yeah.

And I think people are trying to, yeah, they're trying to filter us.

Snakes in Australia.

Yes.

Did I mention when I was recording from Texas that I saw a rattlesnake?

Is that what prompted this or was this unrelated?

I don't know.

I was cycling in Texas

on a cycle path, so not on a road, and the cycle path kind of went through quite a bushland-y, kind of scrubby area, I would describe it in Aussie terms.

I came around the corner, there was a snake right in the middle of the path.

And so I just gently was like, oh, a snake, and just made sure I cycled around the snake.

And afterwards, I was like, was that a rattlesnake?

I turn around, I come back, and the snake is still there.

And the snake seems unbothered by my presence.

Okay.

I stay a long way back because I'm like, I don't want to anger this snake.

Proper like rattlesnake with a diamond pattern and the rattly bed.

I was like, that's amazing.

Carry on with my life.

That, I mean, I'm not used to snakes hanging around.

Like, in Australia, I think the snake risk is overstated, but it's probably still more than many people are used to.

I've never been chased by a snake.

Never been chased by a snake.

I've seen snakes, and they usually tend to be slithering amongst brush off a pass because they don't want to get trampled or anything, so they stay away from footfall.

Well, Ellie, we can rule out one thing immediately.

The snakes do not chase you.

Well, yeah, certainly not in our experience.

Not that we're used to.

I don't think there are any snakes in Australia that chase you.

I got chased by a Gowanna once, but that's very different.

They can be

quite aggressive.

They can be very aggressive.

And I think I was in tall grass and I stepped over, like, because goannas have like denser.

This goanna went

and like jumped out and tried to bite me because obviously I must have had eggs or something in there.

And I was like, and then I ran and it chased me like maybe for a couple of meters and before it went back to its eggs.

That's very funny.

It was very terrifying.

I was probably about

14, 13.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

They're not small lizards.

But that's definitely more a lizard thing.

Like, growing up, we were taught if you're walking somewhere there might be snakes, just make sure you stomp a bit.

Yeah.

Because the snake will feel the vibrations, hear you coming, and then just get out of the way.

You don't want to get stood on.

Yeah.

I did have a chat to my brother, who lives in Perth, Western Australia, and the house he's in.

He's been there for maybe four or five years now.

And he's had snakes in the yard.

Snakes in the yard?

Snakes in the yard.

It just occurred to me: this is the one problem where I haven't written any terrible Python code.

How embarrassing.

Oh, no.

So I gave Steve a call to say, hey, you've had snakes in your yard.

And just to talk through what the deal is with actually finding snakes in Australia and dealing with them.

So he's lived there for four or five years, had two snakes, had to get them removed.

And one thought it was a snake, wasn't a snake incident where they spotted a kingskink, which looks a lot like a snake, but has got tiny legs.

And twice he called out, well, the person's listed in his phone as Marcus Snake.

Marcus?

Yeah.

The snake guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

He knows other Marcuses.

Either that or Marcus is good for Marcus.

Yes, Marcus Snake.

What a nickname.

Comes out, great.

Comes out, finds the snake, removes the snake, brings like robot arm things.

Yes.

A grabber on a stick, grabs the snake, puts it in a bag.

leaves with the snake and about a hundred bucks.

Oh nice.

I love that there's like a rough,

a rough amount.

Yeah, it's like 80 to 100 bucks.

I don't know if it depends how hard it is to catch the snake or what snake.

What's funny as well is I think some people imagine like official person, they've got a proper get-up.

Yep.

Or they've done some sort of training and studied zoology.

Exactly.

Yeah,

there is

a snakeologist.

Quite often it's someone who just isn't scared to pick up snakes.

Yes, yes.

Oh, I can charge for this.

It's a bit like, you know, the magic trick where people eat a light bulb.

And the trick is you just eat the light bulb.

You just eat the light bulb.

Yeah.

So the trick to being a snake remover is just grabbing the snake.

Remove the snake.

You just get the snake and then leave with it.

Steve did once use the council because for free you can contact the council and they'll take care of the snake.

And he said

they were the real

bozos with no

training or anything.

Like he rang them at 11 o'clock in the morning because the council gave him the number.

He's like, I think I woke them up.

And they just come around and they just dofus around a while and get the snake.

There were no marker snake, is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah.

So Steve's decided that snake removal, he'll pay for the professional to come and do that properly.

Then Steve snaked-proofed the backyard.

He then went around and tried to seal up all the points where a snake can get in.

Now, if he'd done this properly, and as a scientist, he should understand this.

He should have just changed one variable at a time.

Yeah.

But he blocked up all the holes

and got a dog at the same time.

Okay.

And we don't know.

There's been no snakes since then.

And we don't know if that's because the dog stops the snakes

or blocking the holes up.

I would say holes.

Probably.

Yeah.

But they do have, they've got chickens which attract snakes because there's eggs.

Yes.

And the chickens attract some like rats and that attracts snakes.

So they've got a lot of snake attractors going on.

But yeah, between the hole blocking up and the dog, no snakes.

Sadly, they no longer get blue-tongue lizards.

Because you're a cool lizard.

They get in the same way.

So you can stop your snakes, but you also lose your blue-tongue lizards from coming in.

That's the most Australian thing.

That's the biggest problem with that situation.

Well,

not to mosey in on your problem.

Oh, yeah, go for it.

I've actually done a fair bit of research into this area because I have a bit of material that I'm working on.

Oh.

Which at some point someone will see me do a

done joke

about this.

Because what I find funny is people from America

who are scared of coming to Australia because of dangerous things.

Snakes, spiders, etc.

Yeah.

So, do you want to know how many people were killed in Australia by snakes between 2000 and 2017?

Okay, so 17 years.

Yep.

Snake deaths.

I want to say

20.

Not far off.

35.

Oh.

35 and 17 years.

Two a year.

Two a year, yeah.

Great.

Yeah.

Now,

almost three quarters of the 35 victims were male.

Right.

20% of them were bit more trying to pick up or kill a snake.

Yeah, I came across the same thing about how many deaths were from people trying to catch a snake.

Yeah.

And like, and I forget the phrasing, there's this real snide, which arguably could have been avoided.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leave the snake alone.

Yeah.

This is one of my other favourite facts.

Just while we're on the subject,

do you want to know how many people in Australia have died from spider bites?

Right.

In the last year?

Zero.

Correct.

Do you know how many people have died from spider bites in the last 10 years?

Two.

Zero.

Zero, still zero.

There have been zero deaths from spider bites since 1979

in Australia because of anti-venom.

Yeah, when I was looking into the snake stuff, there's a lot of things saying Australia's got like the best anti-venom in the world really for snake bites.

And they're the only country that have good snake venom detection kits.

So it's been shown that people identifying what snake bit them, people are terrible at doing that.

They don't memorize the snake in their moment of panic.

So we're the only...

They would just be like, that stick hurt.

And you draw what bit you yep yeah sausage call marcus

marcus sausage so we have comes along with a picker exactly comes along with

like one of those barbecue prong things

and a single slice of white bread you gotta grab it from behind the neck

So it bit me out, it's just ketchup.

It's just tomato sauce.

So we're the only country that has venom detection kits that would tell you what snake it was

based on residual venom.

That's very clever.

At the time.

Very, very clever.

Yeah.

And another article I was reading made the very good point that the reason why a lot of people survive snake bites in Australia.

Like Australia's got a very high survival rate.

Yeah.

You compare it to other countries.

This matches what you were saying.

The average number of deaths in Australia from snake bites is two or three a year.

In South Africa, they average 476 snake bite deaths per year.

Wow.

And there's obviously several reasons for that, but access to medical

is a big one.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And in Australia, snake bites are covered by Medicare.

So anti-venom is super expensive.

Ozzy, Aussie, Aussie.

Ow, ow, ow.

So it costs Medicare, like the cost for a single not dying from a snake bite, anti-venom, and everything is about $6,000 Australian dollars.

Oh my gosh.

And that's just covered.

Like you show up and you're like, I've been bitten by a snake.

They're like, no worries, mate.

Bada boom, bada beam.

Yeah, we'll get marcus on the line.

Yeah.

You beauty.

You beauty.

Off you go.

Yeah.

So like a lot of things, it comes down to it's not fair.

It depends where you get bit and depends what you can afford and depends what.

support structures there are where you live.

If you're going to get bitten by a venomous snake or spider, Australia is a pretty good place for that to happen.

Yeah.

And Eli, if you want a different animal to be terrified of, do you want to know what animal caused the most deaths in Australia between 2000 and 2013?

Is it people tripping over a wombat?

Like onto a sharp stick or something.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you know how it happens.

They land on a snake.

Land on a snake.

You choke on a spider.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

What is the animal that causes the most deaths in Australia?

So between 2000 and 2013, 74 people were killed by horses.

Horses?

Because people draw off them, they get trampled.

They never buy a horse, you know.

I'll never buy a horse.

Yeah.

That's the most dangerous animal in Australia is a horse.

You know where horses evolved?

No.

I think America.

Right.

So Americans, have a good heart look at your own backyard before you get upset about our snakes.

Yeah, exactly.

And who's solving this problem?

So anyway, that's our experience.

Yep.

Now on to the maths part.

If you put up all the snake venom in the world, would it be enough to kill all the non-immune animals?

Are any animals naturally immune to snake venom?

I don't know.

There are some wood rats that are immune to.

I'll subtract them from the equation.

So I found a figure for 130 billion wild mammals.

There are 8 billion humans.

I don't know if that 130 billion included like livestock.

I don't know how wild their figure was, but there's there's about a billion cows, there's about a billion pigs, there's about a billion at most.

You know what I love?

Most animals.

This counts whales.

Includes whales.

Can you imagine how many venomous that snake would need to be?

They're a proper snake and they're super venomous.

So I sort of got, okay, how many mammals have to be killed by snakes?

And that's not a bad estimate, apparently.

So we'll go with that.

The issue becomes:

how many snakes are there?

Great question.

I looked up venomous snakes.

There's 151 venomous snakes in Australia.

Mm-hmm.

Species.

Yes.

Not just in Australia.

I gather, yeah.

Figures vary for worldwide.

I've seen 600 are mentioned in a few places.

I've seen 725.

Okay.

So I'm going to go with that 725 more snakes.

Upper limit, yeah.

Yeah.

That species, though, nowhere will give you a snake population size.

Yeah, I suppose it's a lot to track.

They are real hard to find.

They tend to live places humans don't.

A lot of the time you think they're sticks.

Like sticks.

Yeah.

I and listeners, please, if anyone can find population sizes for snakes, I couldn't find anything.

It's very hard to get them to do the census.

Hey, well done.

Thank you.

So I then was like, well, can I do this the other way around?

And then I thought, well, how many snakes would we need?

Okay, yeah.

And then we'll work backwards and see if it's plausible.

Yeah.

the question now becomes how much venom does one snake have and how many mammals can it kill yeah and it varies so some

because they could bite several yes so like in inland taipan it's got enough venom for like to kill a hundred humans whereas other snakes barely have enough for one so it varies between one and a hundred

I was like oh that's not very helpful because different snakes have different volumes of venom and they have different levels of toxicity in their venom

and it's hard to get exact numbers on this.

And there's a huge variation in how much venom a snake has, even within the same species.

So I kind of ballparked it like 10 people per snake.

And by 10 people, I mean like 10 mammals on average, just to try and get a ballpark figure.

But for that, for the 725 different venomous species, there would need to be 19 million of each type.

Oh my gosh.

I think that's too much?

Yeah, that's a lot.

But then I did find a survey in America of common lizards

across the desert ecoregion.

And I'm like, are lizard populations similar to snake populations?

It's a wild guess.

Yeah.

There are about

4,000 different species of snakes all in, including non-venomous.

There's about 7,000 species of lizards.

Okay.

Almost double.

But then that won't necessarily make a difference to the number of individuals per species.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's not like I can just go from one to the other.

And this survey basically did a straight-line transect, I think it's called, where you commit to walking in a certain direction.

So you're not swayed by trying to find lizards.

You pick a random direction, you go along, and you count the number of lizards, and you can extrapolate up, if I saw that many in this random patch

for the total area, there must be this many.

So the three most common lizards, between them, they estimate there are 82 million, which is a lot.

That is a lot.

That's 27 million per species.

And we only need 19 million on average for the snakes, but they're the three most common.

Yeah.

So I feel like with the quite generous 10 deaths per snake,

capacity 4,

I feel like that's a lot.

I feel like the true numbers are probably less than that.

Looking at

the ones I read up on.

I think I'm being generous.

So 19 million individuals per species is probably an underestimate for what we would need.

Yeah.

And let me just clarify.

So when you're saying like 10 people,

it's as you say, like sometimes it'll say it's enough venom to kill this many people all the way around.

So it's as if if you extrapolated that venom

and then were to give a dose to each human enough to kill them.

You'd have to extract the venom and then very neatly divide it up so everyone gets their allotted amount to kill them.

Yes.

So I was kind of hoping that these numbers would be on the other side of each other.

I was hoping that even the most generous, most common lizard would still be less than the amount we would need for snakes.

There's a slight overlap, but they're basically the same number as far as our estimating is concerned.

And you're being very generous.

I'm being very generous.

I would, I, personally, I'd be like, there's twice as many lizards as there are snakes.

So, yeah, exactly, yeah.

So, I think that actually there are not enough snakes to do that.

But it's not one where sometimes I put numbers on it and show it absolutely can't be done.

Like, can one person climb every mountain?

Yes, yeah.

And you can't.

So, you can ignore all of the other details because you can just show it's not possible like that.

With the information we have, I cannot absolutely clear-cut say no because there's just a fuzzy tiny, tiny bit of plausibility, but it's so unlikely.

And I think you'd have to make such generous assumptions to show that

I'm prepared to say no.

You're going to have to find something else to kill all mammals.

All the venomous snakes in the world aren't going to do it.

And also, if you were to take all the venom from all the snakes, what sort of bond villain are you?

Wow.

You'd have a lot of unprotected snakes.

Marcus?

No one thinks of the snakes.

Marcus have an easy job.

Just be grabbing them five at a time.

Fabatine Marcus.

That's what they call him.

Look, I think between us, we have well and truly answered that

problem.

So, Eli, if you want to argue us, oh,

the final decision is the problem poser.

Yeah, come get us, Eli.

We're pretending.

Our next problem is a problem that Tim has.

And Tim's problem is: do dogs have two arms and two legs, or do people actually have four legs?

Tim does elaborate, seeing as mammals are built the same, roughly speaking, bipedal species are massively outnumbered by quadrupeds.

So we are the freaks, the standing up mammals.

So given we're outvoted by the rest of the mammals, should we actually, instead of using the word arms, should we call them legs that we use for not walking?

So Tim's worried that as a species, we've named something without giving enough thought to how the vast majority of animals actually use it.

And they do.

And I don't want to pollute the purity of this discussion and problem-solving enterprise.

But whatever we end up saying, we're going to be picking a side.

Because Tim says that their wife believes dogs have arms, whereas Tim thinks we all have four legs.

Well, first of all, what I love is it's not my wife believe, like, my wife believes dogs have arms.

You could then go, like, my wife thinks dogs have arms.

Yeah.

Whereas I think they don't and that doesn't take away from whether we have arms or not but i love that tim has gone well if dogs don't have arms then we are four legs i do love the fact yeah it's it's it's like there's a single argument

that tim has bolted several extrapolations onto it and made them all core principles of the argument yeah and i think the other reason i laugh is because

This is how my brain works.

And I am laughing because I've definitely been Tim in other situations where I've been like well if this means this then this is true it's like arguing is tomato a fruit or is basil the best seasoning

for a vegetable oh no I think that's it's closer to being like well if tomato is a fruit then meat is a is a

type of salad yeah yeah yeah it's yeah yeah yeah yeah not quite how it works I love it though Tim I love you thank you for sending this in It's a valid extension because if you start arguing, do dogs have arms or legs, you could then argue, do humans have arms or legs.

Like that's, okay, I get it.

But I think what Tim's trying to say is he wants one policy for all mammals.

Yeah.

Otherwise, he's going to kill them all.

And I can provide you with enough snakes.

So

I did a bit of digging into this and found out there has been some explanations, mainly to help answer the age-old problem of how would a dog wear trousers right good point or pants if you're from america or australia yep so for those unfamiliar it's a picture of a dog with trousers over the hind legs yep and then there's a picture of the dog with trousers that cover up the like we're going to say legs for the sake of it four legs

and then the waistband just like under the tail to like yeah exactly okay the neck yeah yeah

um it's like I love the where would a giraffe wear a tie?

Right, yeah.

At the bottom of the top.

Yeah, the bottom of the top.

Yeah.

Do you know what?

I think just a very thick tie.

Oh, all the way down.

No, like a really thick tie.

A really thick tie.

Yeah, because then you could wrap it around the entire neck.

No, no, you still tie it like a tie.

Oh, okay.

It was real thick.

Real thick.

Yeah, that's our answer.

Solving problems left, right, and center.

See?

That's why we have a podcast.

No one can stop us, Matt.

No one's come for us.

How would a hippo roller roller skate?

Well, I don't know if you've seen a little documentary called Fantasia, but.

So I think they're ice skating in that one.

So actually, I did find myself seesawing on this.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

So to give Tim some credit,

it is.

I feel like we came out of the gates pretty Tim-bashing.

Yeah.

To give Tim credit, that it is on all four of our legs.

We're going to walk it back a bit.

It does come down to semantics and like just how you interpret stuff.

So let's look at this.

Let's look at argument for dogs have legs and arms.

Yes.

Okay.

So dogs' hind legs and their, I'm going to refer to as front legs

are different.

Dogs front legs have an elbow.

What you would genuinely refer to as an elbow.

And they have a wrist.

Yep.

Whereas their back legs have a knee.

Clearly have a knee.

Called a stifle.

Yep.

And they have an ankle, which is called a hock.

Their back legs are different to the front legs.

And that is comparable somewhat.

I mean, they're still very different from

human arms and legs.

But you could say we've got...

Our arms are different to our legs.

Also, dogs' front legs can grasp things.

No.

Don't tell the dog.

You start opening doors.

Well, but

they can grasp stuff with their paws.

You would have seen her holding a toy or a bike.

Oh, you absolutely.

When she's chewing that bone earlier, she will hold it between her front paws.

Yeah.

She doesn't have opposable thumbs.

It's hard, but she won't do that with her back legs.

Correct.

She will do it with her front legs.

They can use them for digging.

And I mean, obviously, the back legs help, but they mainly use the front paws for doing stuff.

Doing things.

In the same way that we would use our hands.

So there is an argument tim for your wife to say that yes because legs are different you could call the front legs arms

the argument to say that they're not arms for you tim

is that it depends on what you classify as arms

so

bipedal animals would have evolved

to be upright.

We would have originally used our arms when walking.

Yeah.

In the same way that you see primates use them.

Like primates are an interesting thing in between because you'll see them using them to help move around, but also using them.

And we would call them arms on a primate.

We wouldn't say they're front legs.

So that is another argument for your wife there.

But with in a lot of cases, we refer to arms when it comes to animals or beings that evolved to no longer walk on their arms.

Right.

So arm means not walking on it.

And that's why there's differences between what our arms are like and what a dog's arms are like because

we've evolved to use our arms for different things, not walking.

But we have basically the same bone structure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just different bones are different sizes or our thumbs are more opposable.

Exactly.

So there are arguments on either side.

I would say personally researching this, I'm coming down to team dogs have arms.

And my reason for that is because if a person no longer had legs and was using their arms to help them move around, you would say they were walking on their arms or walking on their hands,

but you wouldn't call their arms legs

now that they're moving around on them.

I would say dogs have arms because that will half my expenditure on dog shoes.

Yeah, but double your expenditure on.

Actually, no, that doesn't work.

You can't double zero.

Infinitely more on

dog gloves.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

And exactly the same on dog hats.

Dude, you've got to stop.

It's becoming a habit.

I can quit anytime I want.

Meanwhile, you've got like this dealer who's like, hey, hey, buddy, he's got like a big trash cat.

Opens it up with these dog hats inside.

Oh, can I get a pair of those dog sunglasses as well, please?

I say this, that a friend of mine was in Japan recently and went to a specific shop, I think it was in Tokyo, that sold like loads of different dog

accessories.

But all the dog accessories.

I wish it was one of my, like, Skya's a great dog.

And we got very lucky with the lucky dog dip.

She hates wearing things.

And I had such visions of dressing the dog up in all manner of ridiculous outfits.

You were going to give her her own YouTube channel.

Yeah, absolutely.

You had so many plans.

So many plans.

And I laughed.

Like God does when people need plans.

And what does that mean?

Does God wear anything?

No.

And what is God, if not dog backwards?

Dog backwards exactly.

God wears clothes.

You don't know that.

Imagine if you die and you meet God and they're wearing hats and nothing hats.

That's it.

I got a hat guy.

And my phone is Marcus Hats.

So I'm team arms

for the reasons I stated.

You're team arms.

Team arms, for the ridiculous reasons I stated.

However, if Tim wants another argument, birds' wings would have been legs that evolved into essentially their arms because they are bipedal, but they're the two front, when you think of like dinosaurs and stuff.

Oh, so bird wings were arms that evolved into wings.

Then again, we call them wings and not legs.

So that's true.

My semi-unrelated fact that I'm sure I brought up before is that whales still have vestigial leg bones.

Like the legs are still in there.

They just don't protrude as legs anymore.

Yeah, I guess because maybe it reaches a point where it's like, well, evolutionary, it's not getting in the way.

There's no gain for not growing the bones,

I guess, or not enough.

There's not enough pressure of survival, you know, gain from not bothering to grow those bones.

So there's obviously enough gain to not have protruding legs because you're swimming around.

Yeah, and also you don't want to risk snakes biting exactly.

Snakes love biting them as they're walking around in the bush.

And people keep trying to make you wear trousers.

How would a whale wear trousers internally?

Apparently.

The ones

once your legs are internal, it's a trouser-free life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's my answer.

I think dogs have arms and therefore I think they would wear trousers on their hind legs.

Now, this is a tough one, Beck, because Normie would go back to the problem poser to sign off on a ding.

I wouldn't mind also hearing from Tim's wife.

They can have a chat and they can come back to us with a consensus decision.

Imagine if we just get a bill for divorce papers.

No, no, no.

I think they can work this out.

They're all still married by the time.

Look, if they're a couple having a,

this is what they have to resort to to have an argument.

Yeah, that's true.

I'm sure they're doing fine.

Yeah, yeah.

I would love them to listen to your arguments,

factor in mine as well.

And then report back to us.

I mean, both of our arguments are on Tim's wife's side.

Well, then report back to us.

Did it tip the scales or is Tim still unconvinced?

Or has Tim found new evidence?

That's true.

Very happy for Tim to come back and correct us with an argument.

Also, Tim, I just want you to write in and let us know that you're okay after we proceed.

You know, I do feel a little bad about that now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just let us know you're all right.

We're not making fun of you, Tim.

We're making fun of Tim's logic.

Okay.

I think Tim has just written us a very funny problem.

And Tim's leaning into the hilarity and we just tear over you once.

Like, like we assume it was all dead earnest.

The real venom was us.

We were the real venom the whole time.

What's the deadliest animal from Australia?

Yeah.

Beck and Matt.

And now to what you referred to as earlier as any other barkness or arms or barkness.

Arms or barkness.

Arms or business.

Any other business.

So Joseph

has a comment on episode 084

where I talked about why if if you look at turn signals on multiple cars they never seem to line up.

Yes.

And I basically explained why it's not possible to synchronize turn signals.

They pointed out there's a YouTube video by Technology Connections, which is a great channel.

It is.

I mean I hadn't seen this video but I do watch a lot of the videos on technology connections.

They are very good.

If you like old and semi-recent tech explained in a very nice way and occasionally pulled apart, great channel.

They have a video called Why It's Not Possible to Synchronize Turn Signals.

Open brackets, but also absolutely is closed brackets.

Which is a great video.

And I probably could have just watched that, saved me a bunch of work.

Yeah, yeah.

So we will link to that in the show notes.

Thank you for sending that in.

Joseph, and a few other people mentioned it as well.

I think Joseph was first, but a couple people mentioned this video.

Great video on the topic.

If you want to learn more, check it out.

I would also say that what this does is prove that A, we do our own research.

We do.

But not well.

Not well enough to have found a video with the actual title.

Well, you did your own.

Sorry.

Let me rephrase.

We do our own working out.

That's true.

I looked at the problem and I leant back in my chair and thought about it.

Yes.

If it had been me who tackled the problem, I would have found this video within seconds.

See, that's true.

Because that's different school sets.

We've just revealed the way that we do this show.

I've got one other bit of any other biggleness.

Oh, yeah, nice.

Thank you.

Do you remember a couple episodes ago, I showed you the prince of the Siddler shape?

Oh, sorry?

Not the prince of darkness, the prince of Siddler shape.

Of what?

I showed you a shape in my book, like a picture of it.

Oh, and I did not like it.

You didn't like it.

Yeah.

Look, what's been behind you this whole time?

It's behind me.

It's behind me, isn't it?

I was just talking about it.

I throw the.

Oh, yeah, you've got your 3D printed shape.

I've 3D printed it now.

Look at that.

Look at that beast.

I'm going to take it off the shelf.

So, some people may already know about this because I did a YouTube video about it, but I actually got a 3D printed version of the Siddler shape.

And

it's even worse.

It's exactly what you'd imagine it is.

Beck's face is not one of enjoyment.

No, no,

I don't like this.

She wants to pick it up with a long, grabby stick and put it in a bag.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah.

You could suspend this in water and make the inverse icy poles.

Oh, yeah, that's kind of got a cannibal.

I don't know why that was how I thought you would use that.

This was your first thought.

Can it icy pole?

Yeah.

Can it icy pole.

That's my new YouTube video.

I'm so sorry, by the way, to everyone who I said I would yoit.

I'm aware that.

How's your yoit going?

We're almost halfway through the year, and I have done one video that came out in January.

Now, that's not the...

You started strong.

Yes.

The great thing about yoit

is that yoit isn't over until the year's over.

That's what they say.

You can always, always get back on the yoit.

I hate this shape so much just to get back to it.

Can I have it back then?

I want you to damage it or throw it away.

You know what you do?

You know what you did?

You

yeet it out the window.

Yeet it.

A year of yeet.

I mean, that's your any other business?

That's it.

I hated it.

I had a great time.

We also got some any other business from Tom, who wrote in about the folded hands emoji,

which we talked about in episode 086.

Is it a high five?

Yeah.

So they point out that Microsoft Teams has an even more conflicting emoji.

Oh, no.

So

they are like the praying hands.

Yeah.

But it's like almost like a little animated emoji.

So that the two hands sort of come together.

Oh, which again in itself is confusing because if you were to show a little animation of the hands coming together could still be folding or high fiving.

Well, that feels a lot more like high fiving.

That feels like a sort of two hands.

But they do also point out that either it's the pinkies or the thumbs are aligned, which is the same problem we had.

Before that suggests that it's more that they're praying rather than high fiving.

Yeah.

However, the way that it looks has been pointed out by several people.

am going to

send you a link.

Okay.

We will put...

Oh, what?

We cannot share that.

We can.

No.

Yeah.

That's not real.

There's a 0% chance that's real.

It's very innuendo-y.

I refuse to believe.

I mean, I'm on the Microsoft Team's website that shows you all the emojis.

Yep.

Has it got it?

It doesn't have the animation, but but it does have the image.

Yep.

It's the movement that sells it.

It's the movement that sells it.

I wish to live in a world where that isn't real.

No, I love it.

Because someone,

someone out there was like,

and got away with it.

I love whenever anyone gets away with sneaking something like that in.

Yeah.

I've heard the amount of, I work in children's television and the amount of people who worked on shows that, not our show, actually were very well behaved because things were a lot tighter now, but people who worked on shows, maybe when there were less checks being done, who would sneak rude things or swear words or whatever into the background.

Like there is, and we, do you know what, we've talked about things that have been recalled due to accidental issues, but at the same time, you're like, well, someone knew that what it was.

Someone must have realized.

So, yeah.

Anyway, I got a real kick out of that.

Thank you for pointing pointing that out, Tom.

It made my day.

And we'll link to what we can.

This is revenge for the 3D print, isn't it?

Yep.

Something for everyone in this podcast.

As we get closer to wishing you poodaloo, we're going to thank some folks

for making this show possible.

The reason we can keep this show going and ad-free and everything like that is because of our wonderful Patreon supporters.

So as a way of showing our appreciation, we like to choose three of them at random to thank at the end of each episode by mispronouncing their names.

And in this episode, those Patreon supporters are

Toom

Yaspier

Bree

An

Perkle.

Chad Kohost.

Cha.

D.

And I'm joined by my cohorst.

Oh, yeah, co-host.

Co-horst.

I mean, that is their name.

Co-horse.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate you very much, as we do with all of our Patreon supporters.

And of course, if you cannot support us on Patreon, we'll send the snakes.

Do we have enough?

We completely understand.

But if you do want to support us anyhow, the best way you can do that is by just spreading the word.

Please tell people that you enjoy us, spread it on social media, tell your friends, family, loved ones, send it on a self-addressed stamped envelope to

someone else.

Yeah.

Write it on a newspaper and get a dog to carry it to the owner.

We can't thank you enough.

If you do that, it means the world to us.

And just the fact that you listen, that's enough as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good on you.

Good for you.

Good listener.

Oh, and you can leave a review.

We're still trying to beat several other podcasts if you're offers.

We kind of stopped asking, didn't we?

We did.

But we shouldn't have.

So if you've not left us a review before, but you enjoy the show and you want to find a way of supporting us, you can, on Spotify, it's very easy.

You can just click, there's a little rate thing on our page on there, and you can just click five stars, and that's it.

That's all you have to do.

Job done.

That's all you have to do.

If you're on other.

Or how many stars you think is appropriate?

Yes, yeah.

Apple Podcast as well.

We would love if you could give us five stars in a review if you're using that.

However, many stars you think is appropriate.

I mean, yeah, sure, but five is best.

Five stars.

Five is the appropriate number.

Yes.

Tim's gonna give us one,

which is fair.

I also want to thank our wonderful co-host, Matt Parker.

That's me, Matt Barker, Matt Barker.

Well done, man.

It was there all along.

You saved it for the end.

I'm Beck Hill.

And I want to thank our ever-patient

The Leash to our dog.

The leash, nice to our dog, leading us not astray, the rather fetching

Lauren Armstrong Carter.

Woof, woof.

Woof, woof.

How'd you get bit?

Who was there to fuck spiders?

Do not put that in the episode.

No, no, don't.