379: Rainbow Moon

Hello and welcome to dear Hank and John, or as I prefer to think of it, dear John and Hank.

It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you DBS advice, and bring you all the weeks' news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

John, can you believe that it is 374 days until Christmas and people already have their Christmas decorations up?

All right, I'm going to rewrite the joke.

Here's the new joke.

Okay.

John, did you know that people already have their Christmas decorations up, even though it's 374 days until Christmas?

Put the punchline at the end.

That's my advice.

I'm not a stand-up comic.

I don't know.

I have learned that over the years.

I feel like you start them out and they're confused.

They're like, that's not usually how we talk about time.

More than 365, that doesn't exist.

All right.

I don't know.

I was really happy with it.

But thank you for working it out with me, John.

I appreciate it.

I'm just trying to work it out.

Hey, speaking of working things out, you might remember in a recent episode of the podcast, like a post-cancer episode,

you said.

I think they're called.

I think

it is sort of a before and after moment, Hank.

Like, I don't want to exaggerate it or anything, but you did get cancer.

And anyway,

we were musing on why Swiss cheese is kind of not a good deal because it's got all the holes in it.

Yeah.

And you're basically paying for air.

You're paying for the holes.

All that air.

Yes.

Well, I don't think I mentioned this to you, but about 16,000 people wrote in.

And do you know what they said?

Have you figured it out?

Cheese is sold by weight.

Cheese is sold by weight, Harry.

I don't buy cheese by weight.

I buy cheese by size because I'm that.

You buy it by volume.

You're like, hey, I want that eight inch by eight inch by eight inch cheese.

How much is it?

Well, I'll tell you one thing I don't have to do.

I'm going to

weigh it.

I don't have to weigh it to tell you how much it is because that's not how I sell it.

I sell it.

I buy cheese by the liter.

It's weird, but I do it.

But even if you bought it, my point is that even if you bought it by the liter, it would still be, I guess it would be liquefied Swiss cheese, but it would still be the same issue.

It's only if you buy it by

area.

Yeah, that's what.

Liter is area.

Liter is a unit of volume.

Thank you.

It's okay if you don't understand all the different units.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

You're telling me that a liter

is an amount of volume?

Yeah, man.

What else do you think it was?

I thought it was a weight.

You know, it is directly transferable to a weight as long as it's water.

Because, like, 12 fluid ounces is a weight, right?

12 fluid ounces is a volume.

What about 355 milliliters?

How can 12 fluid ounces be a?

No, because 16 fluid ounces is one fluid pound, which is definitely a weight.

An ounce is a weight.

An ounce is a weight.

But I think a fluid ounce is it?

Because I think a fluid.

Respectfully,

you don't sound good.

Like if you're, if you are right, it's shocking.

It's shocking to me that

12 fluid ounces would be an amount of space rather than a weight.

12 fluid ounces is an amount of space.

I'm sorry.

Ounces?

If you wanted ounces, you could just leave out the fluid.

Fluid ounces is an amount of volume, and it is defined by

ounces of

water specifically, which has

a specific water.

Let me ask you a very serious question.

The Diet Dr.

Pepper that I am drinking right now, which by the way is great.

I've noticed that with Diet Dr.

Pepper, depending on like the air quality, the heat, the moisture level and everything, I taste one of the different 23 flavors more

profoundly with each Dr.

Pepper.

Okay.

I'm

getting a lot of plum on this one.

Anyway.

Do you know that that's why they put the bubbles in soda is so that they don't have to put as much liquid in there?

Well,

boom.

That's not true.

They put all the bubbles in there

so that they don't have to sell you as much soda.

Like the chips and the bags with all the air in the chip bag.

I genuinely can't tell if this entire thing is a bit or if you're telling me the truth.

Do you know how they make Swiss cheese?

Why that's Swiss cheese?

Because it's made with whole milk.

I know.

Okay.

Hank, is 12 fluid ounces a weight or or is it a volume?

Just tell me the truth.

H-O-L-E, whole.

I understand the joke.

12 fluid ounces is a unit of volume.

So I just need to know where the line is between the bit and not the bit.

Okay.

When you say 12 fluid ounces is an amount of volume, not a weight, is that a bit?

No.

That's true fact.

Fluid ounces are a unit of volume.

Just like liters are a unit of volume.

The one liter of water weighs exactly 1,000 grams or one kilogram.

Right.

But there's bubbles in here.

So you're telling me that if I

just want to confirm this, if I weighed the diet, Dr.

Pepper.

Yes.

It would weigh less than 12 ounces.

No.

No, because

Then it's a measure of weight.

I'm sorry, but that's literally the definition of a measure of weight is that 12 ounces is 12 ounces.

You're right.

You're right.

I think it would weigh more than 12 ounces because high fructose corn syrup is heavier than water.

And that the

bubbles are

essential.

The bubbles were a bit...

The bubbles are not in when before you open the can, the bubbles aren't in there.

There's no bubbles.

It's carbon dioxide dissolved in the water, like the sugar is dissolved in the water.

And everything else is dissolved in the water.

So there's no, the bubbles aren't there until you open it and the bubbles come out.

And as the bubbles are.

And that's the Schroedinger's cat.

I've learned more about Soda Pop

in the last three minutes

than I did in my entire life.

Podcast.

Yeah.

What?

Okay.

All right.

So first of all,

there's no bubbles in the Dr.

Pepper until I open it, at which point there are magically bubbles because that's just how chemistry works.

I can get behind that.

Okay.

But you're telling me that 12 fluid ounces of Diet Dr.

Pepper weighs more than 12 ounces.

That's it.

That's a stunner.

That's a shock.

That is, and this is as somebody who's consumed quite a lot of Diet Dr.

Pepper.

That might be the biggest surprise since April when you called to tell me that you had cancer.

When I was coming back from Sierra Leone, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life.

I was hyper-focused on tuberculosis, except, no, not really.

I got a new job called CEO of Complexly.

I looked it up, John, and 12 fluid ounces of soda weighs about 12.5 ounces, unless it's diet soda, in which case it weighs about 12 ounces.

Good God.

So you get more soda if you get regular soda.

Only by weight, not by volume.

I'm so proud of that, Joe.

It's more magic.

It's more stuff.

Like, it is literally more.

That's like saying that, like,

It's just denser.

It's just denser.

It's literally not more stuff.

It's the same amount of stuff denser.

You deliver me a cube of air.

Yeah.

That's less stuff than if you deliver me a cube of bricks.

You agree?

It's not, it's not less stuff.

It's just less density.

There's fewer molecules.

There's more molecules in a

regular soda than a diet soda.

Indeed, you have identified the nature of density.

Or at least least more, more, not no, not necessarily, because there's, you also got to cure the protons and the neutrons.

That's actually what the mass is.

So there are more protons and neutrons in a regular soda than a diet soda.

Correct.

This is a true, definitely true fact, and it is not a bit.

It sounds like a bit.

It's also a bit, but it's true too.

I genuinely, y'all at home listening, I don't know if it's a bit.

I'm going to have have to look it up later

because hank is using the same tone of voice when he's bidding and when he's not bidding i know i am it's the tea i had tea but i think from now on special tea wait from now on no just english breakfast from now on oh it's the caffeine i get it i'm gonna get i'm gonna start Pricing things per molecule.

Like I want to go in or per proton.

I want to go into the store and instead of being like, this costs this much per ounce.

No, I want you to tell me how much it costs per atomic particle.

Well, I certainly need that now that I know that half the stuff that I'm buying by weight, I'm not buying by weight.

I'm buying by volume.

Yeah.

And I buy cheese per slice,

people.

So you're telling me that when I buy a gallon of ice cream,

I'm not buying a weight of ice cream.

And when you buy a gallon of ice cream, you are buying a volume of ice ice cream.

Gallon is a volume.

So I buy a gallon of ice cream and I might have, they might have put a bunch of air in there to make it

a more aerated ice cream.

It's definitely a bunch of air and dippin' dots.

Well, well, like, so between ice cream brands, there could be a different amount of ice cream for the same price.

And you have no way of knowing that because they're both one gallon.

The only way you could know that is if there was what I think we should call proton price transparency.

Proton price transparency.

PPT.

PPT.

In the Future, we're going to have a grocery store, the new Good Dutch Store grocery store, available at your corner market.

It has PPT, unlike every other store in America.

It's very confusing, and no one likes it.

The great thing about PPT is that everything seems so inexpensive, right?

Like you get so many protons per penny.

It's like five times 10 to the negative 9th cents per proton.

I was thinking it would be more like how many protons per dollar.

So it would be like 10 to the 73rd protons per dollar.

Then you'd look at another thing ice cream and it'd be like 10 to the 72 or 6 to the 72 protons.

And you'd be like, ah, God.

I mean, that's a difference, but is it going to change my life?

How much does a proton cost is an amazing title for a video?

It is a good.

I mean,

that's the kind of video that you'll still make, you know, but I'm over.

Yeah.

I can absolutely make how much does a proton cost?

And like, how much does a proton of gold cost very different from how much does a proton of air cost?

Because thankfully, air continues to, as far as I can tell, be mostly free.

Yeah, mostly.

Well, I mean, this has been an education unlike any other.

Today I learned so much about Diet Dr.

Pepper, about ice cream, about protons, about their cost, about the lack of transparency in the volume business.

Yeah.

I'm so glad I asked you this thing about Swiss cheese, but I also want to ask you this question from Kimberly

because it's a volume question.

Yeah.

Dear John and Hank, I like Jenga.

You know that game Jenga where you pull out the little pieces of wood and eventually the tower falls over?

Of course I do.

Well, I just figure some listeners at home might not, you know, so I wanted to lay the land for them.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

It's a super simple game.

There's not much to it, Kimberly reports.

It's fun.

But why are some blocks harder to pull than others?

Like, aren't they all the same size?

Are they not?

What's the weight distribution there?

Just how?

Baffled by the gravity of the situation.

Kimberly, Kimberly, I'm so glad you asked.

It's actually not possible to produce two wooden blocks with the same number of protons.

There has never been

two Jenga blocks with the same number of protons.

They're like snowflakes.

It's, well, you know, it's possible.

It's just extremely unlikely.

Yeah.

And the thing is, Jenga would have to put a lot, like billions of dollars of work into

making, you know, nanometer-specific cuts.

Yeah.

Or micro-cuts.

And they don't want that because they want it to be tricky.

So do you know the answer to this?

You just told me the answer.

The answer is that the Denger blocks are different sizes.

That's true, but I also do think that it's partly about how you stack.

I think the stack also is never quite perfect.

I don't think that's it.

Well, I do.

I think that if you had, well, imagine, put it in your mind, build in your mind the imaginary

metal blocks that are all exactly the same size.

And you put the calculator.

If I close my eyes and I picture something, do you know what I see?

I'm sorry.

I feel bad.

I see nothing.

And so thank you for making a joke about this thing that I

talent I don't have.

It wasn't a joke.

I wasn't a bad person.

All right,

I'm going to close my eyes.

There's nothing there.

Describe to me what I'm supposed to be seeing and I can maybe make words for it.

So they're, they're perfectly cut silver metal Jenga blocks.

Yeah.

I don't see them, but I know what you mean.

And they can, and they slide into each other so tightly that there's not even a seam.

Like you can't, like you put the three together, you can't even tell there's three there.

It looks as if there's just one block now that's a square.

And then you lay more down.

They're just going to, like, they're just that like you're gonna take one of those out and that that tower will remain exactly as solid as it has always been in fact now that i'm saying this i want to build this jenga set

um and yes but what i would say well first off i think you're absolutely right that the main thing is that the blocks are different sizes and we can get into that but i would say that if you stack differently, like if you stack one so that they aren't perfectly aligned because you're a human being, not a robot.

But what makes it not perfectly aligned?

What do you mean, what makes it not perfectly aligned when you're stacking three of these boxes on top of three of these boxes on top of three of these boxes that you're putting it on?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But

you're not going to align

these three perfectly next to those three.

You're always going to be a little bit off because you're a person who's doing it with person fingers that are notorious for their lack of precision, right?

And that's going to slightly redistribute the weight

in such a way that one of the three is going to be easier to pull off than the others.

However,

it's just the size difference.

And I think I'd like to make a perfect Jenga set that has no size difference and see what it's like to play with.

The problem is it's going to be very expensive.

And people love to steal board games because they are risk takers.

I've never in my life.

had someone come over to my I've had people steal lots of things from my house.

I've never in my life had someone come over to my house and steal a freaking Jenga game, and nor have you.

I want people to go on the Nerdfighteria subreddit and answer whether you got the risk-taker joke on the first time, which John clearly took.

Oh, they are risk takers.

No, it's not, I mean, I get it, but I don't want to indulge it.

That's it.

We're done.

We did it.

I got three in.

We're done.

Wikipedia reports.

The blocks have small random variations so as to create imperfections in the stacking process to make the game more challenging.

I actually think it makes the game less challenging.

It's intentional.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because you just like slot, like some of them are just like, you can blow them out.

Yeah.

Well, so there you go.

It's intentional, but I still think that how we stack matters.

I believe that we cannot remove the human element from Jenga and the stacking

is where we try.

The stacking is where inevitably we create our own imperfections.

That's going to be John's perspective on this.

And I'm going going to let him have it.

This next question comes from Sarah and Carter, who asked, dear Hank and John, if the rock of the moon was a different color, would it be as bright?

Like if the moon was black or pink, would the moonlight look different to us?

Need to know.

Various emojis.

Pumpkins and spice pink, spice penguins.

Sarah and Carter.

Penguins spiced.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Yeah, you spice the pumpkins.

Maybe not the penguins.

I don't want myself to be.

I'm concerned about your penguins.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Did I tell you about the dream I had about a gigantic penguin who abducted a baby?

You did.

I think maybe you mentioned it on the podcast.

No, that was a pelican.

Oh, you're right.

It was a pelican.

Did you have another bird abducting a baby dream?

Yeah, and they were stuck underneath the ice together.

And I had to save them.

And the penguin.

Oh, no.

Yeah, but he kept it warm, and so everybody lived.

Wow.

It was intense.

I don't know that I got.

I had.

Did you have a pole axe?

It was one of those things where like I didn't have anything and then suddenly I did.

You know, like I was like, thank God I got this gigantic axe.

Yeah.

That's nice that your subconscious delivered you like a way out of the anxiety rather than just like ramping it up over and over again, which is sometimes what it seems to want to do.

Is that what you're doing?

It's like, oh, you had a pole axe, but now you don't.

The pole axe is made out of rubber.

Ha ha ha.

Is that what yours is doing at the moment?

Not really, no, but it certainly has in the past.

I feel like a pole axe would be a good tool for getting a baby out of ice.

I don't know what a pole axe is exactly.

I just had kind of a regular axe, but it was, is it called a mace when on one side it's got that sort of hammer thing, and on the other side it's an axe?

Because that's what this was.

It was hammer on one side, axe on the other.

It's just like a big heavy ball on one side.

A pole axe is like an axe on a pole

with a sword.

Wow,

I would never have guessed that.

Next, you'll tell me me that 12 fluid ounces of Diet Dr.

Pepper just happened to weigh 12 ounces.

It's super weird.

It is very weird.

It's very strange that 12 fluid ounces of Dr.

Pepper weighs 12 and a half ounces.

And that 12 fluid ounces of Diet Dr.

Pepper weighs 12 ounces.

It's all very weird.

Boils down to protons.

I'm making this podcast I can't talk about yet.

And in the podcast I can't talk about yet, we talk about protons.

And I'll tell you what, protons are an astonishment.

Yeah, right?

It's tough, right?

Can you believe it?

The more you zoom into the proton, the weirder it gets.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

Okay, Hank.

We didn't answer the question.

What was the question?

What would the world be like if the moon moon was a different color?

So the moon is,

I think, a little bit.

So if you had like white on one side and black on the other, like whitest, white, blackest, black, the color of the moon would be closer to black than white.

So it looks very white to us when we look at it.

It does.

Because it's like on the background of like perfect blackness and also it's being hit by an awful lot of sunlight.

So the stuff that's the light that's being shined back at us makes it look like it's lighter than it is.

So if it were white, the moon would be so bright.

So bright.

How bright?

It would be way brighter.

Could we work at night?

Would we have developed a completely different civilization?

You know, that's a great question.

And also not like not like at all unthinkable in terms of how moons can be.

Like there are ice moons of other planets.

So we could theoretically have an ice moon.

And if it were bigger and made of ice, it would be very bright in the sky.

And I could totally see

the times when there is a full moon and the moon is out, that it would be totally workable to be outside and doing stuff.

Wow.

That's

about eight times as bright as it is at present.

You look that up.

Or you did the math.

Yeah, no, I did the math, Hank.

You know me.

And that's only, and it would be, you know, if it were twice as big, that would probably not just be twice as much light.

It would probably increase as a square.

So it would be

eight times as bright.

Wow.

So if it's eight times as if it's eight times as bright, I mean, I'm not good at multiplying magnitudes of light, just to state the obvious.

But I think if

certainly on a full moon, if it was even two or three times as bright, you could do most things.

I mean,

you can do a lot.

with just the full moon as is.

Now you got to remember clouds.

You got to remember clouds.

You got to remember clouds.

But the clouds would be brighter.

Clouds would all, yeah, no, for sure.

So you would look up and you wouldn't see.

And you know what else?

You know what else you wouldn't see as much of is stars.

Certainly not on a moonlit night.

Yeah.

Not on a cloudy night either, just to state the obvious.

We're so good at podcasting.

We're so good.

I mean, Jesus Christ.

How does this, how does this podcast fly under the radar, Hank?

I don't understand.

It's like in 2007 when we would call each other and when we had like 100 YouTube subscribers and we'd be like, this is good, right?

Like we're pretty good at this.

I think we're good.

But here's what I want to know.

Could you spray paint the moon so that it's a bunch of different colors, but and they only and they show up at like different times?

So like when it's a half moon, like the, like you, if I have the moon and stripe the moon quarters.

Yes.

And you have like a blue quarter and you have a purple quarter and a green quarter and a yellow quarter.

And then when they're all lit up, then it's like, oh, look at that big, beautiful, colorful moon.

And all those colors get mixed together.

But like, as it goes through the phases, you get different colors of moon.

That'll piss off the homophobes.

Rainbow moon.

We'll show them.

The moon has gone woke.

But it's best if it just happens rather than.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

If it just happened one day, if the moon actually did go woke and

all the people were like, this is not what God intended, even though it does appear that God did it.

We don't know how else it could have gotten done, but we're pretty sure it was the elites at the universities.

That seems like something.

Seems like something.

Seems like something new professors would do.

Yeah, exactly.

Like all the scholars of 18th century German literature got together and made the moon woke.

I knew it was coming.

I love this, Hank.

This is a great idea.

This is the best idea you've ever had.

I think that we should invest all of humanity's available resources in making a rainbow moon.

Yeah, the blue moon is when it's like once, it comes out once it, twice in one month.

Yeah.

And the woke moon is when it comes out at all.

I thought you said you were done with the puns.

Oh,

we've got a really important question from Dana, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I recall you discussing Hank's journey of meaning this time last year.

Remember when you were on a journey of meaning?

We didn't know.

Yeah.

Was it the cancer talking?

Was the cancer on a journey of meaning?

A journey of meaning to be discovered?

And who knows?

Given the everything

way to refer to it, Dana, the everything is a good way to refer to it.

I was wondering, how's that journey of meaning going?

Dana.

Dana.

How's your journey of meaning going, Hank?

I remember, so I was recently did the Nerdfighteria census analysis, which you can find on Hank's channel.

And

I was reading through people's comments and there were a lot of comments that were like, I'm worried about Hank's health.

Oh, oh, like, and this was last year.

This was before.

This is pre-cancer.

It was pre-cancer.

You were just giving off vibes.

I'm really worried about because you were working so hard.

I was.

And now I am am again like it's no it's not as hard no and and also not as stressful like the work that i've been doing lately has been mostly very fun um

and and the and there are people who are doing a lot of stressful things on my behalf which i which i appreciate um

uh

yeah the the journey of meaning is weird um and and is not and it's complicated a little bit my by mortality uh but it's also i find it to be complicated quite a lot by mortality actually well it's more complicated by mortality than it once was.

Right.

Is what I mean.

Yeah.

And, but, but like, I think that it's also just complicated by

reality.

I just think it's very, it's very, it continues to be very complicated to be a person and much more so than I thought

when I started.

Yeah.

So my journey of meaning.

Let me, let me put it to you this way.

Have you entered a place of worship in the last year?

I think that every place can be a place of worship, John.

Great answer.

Okay.

I've ended nature.

Oh, this is the kind of journey of meaning that you're on.

You're on a journey of connection to nature, which, by the way,

I also am.

That's like, I'm reading all the sacred nature literature now.

I'm deep into it.

That's good stuff.

I'm deep into it.

It's good stuff.

Yeah, no, I mean, one of the things that

has, so here's the thing about cancer is that it is

is it is you uh deciding to not be you anymore.

And so the the like cells start to instead of because all like this is the thing.

You're like, I don't know, probably around 50 to 75 trillion cells, John.

I don't know exactly how many protons you have, but you've got a lot of cells.

And

they're all working together all of the time to do you, to be like be you.

And yeah.

And that's like one of the greatest acts of cooperation of all time.

Like you are a colony of cells.

And for bacteria,

they are also cells.

And

they also communicate with you.

And so like, though, they are part of you.

They're part of some ways.

They are part of you.

Not just in some ways.

Like they are fundamentally, inextricably part of me.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, like the thing about your cells is you can extrict some of them from you.

You could extrict your microbiome and still be you, I think.

You could extricate.

Not for very long.

Well, it seems

you'd get a new one, you know yes yes unless you like lived in a sterile spot you could you could you know you can lose a hand and you're still you like you can lose a big lose a few blood cells yeah yeah you can lose

some snot this morning of your of yourself and still be you you're constantly consuming your own cells and swallowing them and digesting them which is wild yep uh and so the

so

this

tremendous like and for like half of the history of life on earth it was just single-celled organisms.

Yeah.

And then

there was no cooperation within an organism between the cells because there was only one cell.

Started to team up and like do things with each other.

And like the

part where we are eight billion colonies, each of

like 50 to 100 trillion cells.

Right.

Each of those cells replicating billions of times.

Yeah.

And it works at all?

Oh, it's miraculous.

What?

Yeah.

Like, like, how?

What?

But then, but then there's this small colony of cells in your lymph that's like,

I don't want to be him anymore.

Yeah.

Well, they just start to evolve back in sort of a single-celled way where they're like, I'd rather, you know, like, if they're, if I can make more of me, there will be more of me.

They're not making a decision, obviously, but like, there's like any trait that allows them to make more of themselves will be more present in the cellular population because they can make more of themselves.

And then you end up with

them evolving to sort of evade all of the systems that are designed to not let them do that because, of course,

otherwise that would happen all the time.

And so they're just sort of doing what you would expect them to do, which is following the rules of natural selection, and

which is just, you know, things that make more of themselves.

There are are more of them and

uh

and and then like they just start evolving to figure out how to keep living which includes evolving to evade treatment and to to evade all of the systems your body has to control them and it's what it's like such a tricky little guy to fight but but the thing that makes me like and you know that seems like it like it an inevitability and it turns out that it is pretty much an inevitability of multicellular life but the thing that like makes me much more weird about the whole thing is that like thinking about it that way, I don't know.

Like, of course, consciousness, big question mark.

Nobody knows what it is.

Is it an illusion?

Am I conscious at all?

Do I exist between, like, in the spaces between my thoughts and the examination of those thoughts?

Like, where am I in that chain?

And like, all of it, actually, the reason it's here, and like, we could like different perspectives on this, but this is my perspective.

The reason it's here is that

it helps pass the traits on.

Like I am imbued with once because once are a trait that increases the odds of a thing making more of itself.

And if it's able to make more of itself, there will be more of it.

Like that's what I am.

But what that has added up to is a creature capable of like

not just you know, making hats and computers and stuff, but like society and love and music and all and podcasts and stuff, like words, like all the beauty and the art.

Yeah.

Well, that and the interconnection between the individual cell colonies, like you're a big cell colony and I am, and then there's like eight billion others.

Yeah.

And we all like do a whole earth together.

Yeah.

That stuff made love and love is very real and very powerful and very, very strange.

It's so strange that we don't think about how strange it is because if we did, I think we would be like in a blind panic the whole time that well i'll tell you what uh understanding that cancer is is basically the the most natural thing in the world to have happen to a multicellular organism is a little bit blindingly panicking but yeah it's good that we have lots of systems to stop it

yeah some

naturally selected for and some human built and i think that's also something that i find really lovely about us is that um you know

we participate and are made out of biological systems, but we also create and participate in and reform and restructure all the time these human-built systems.

Yeah.

And so there are these problems that we don't know how to solve because

they're not human-built system problems.

And we look at them and we're like, oh, boy, we better put a lot of resources and try and solve those problems.

And that's really important, right?

Like that's why we have chemotherapy.

But then there are also these human-built system problems, which are the ones that I tend to be obsessed with for whatever reason, where like we know how to fix them,

we could fix them, you know, like getting chemotherapy to everyone is one example, right?

Like the difference between inventing chemotherapy and making chemotherapy available to some people and then making chemotherapy available to all people, those are all huge leaps that require a kind of innovation.

Like we put a lot of emphasis on the kind of innovation that leads to the discovery, but not that much emphasis on the innovation that leads to availability and access

and that's something i that's something i really i find frustrating about us but it's also something i kind of love about us that like we can do that we can do a bit better jobs of distributing uh what we've learned together and when we do that it's great like that's that's great that's how we figured out you know what's keeping the stars apart not just how to cure cancer it's how we figured out like um

why uh why my brain knows that it's going to make a fist before I make a fist.

And the

and how it can be wrong, that you can fool it.

But yeah,

it also, like, it has felt more to me

like our inability

to enact the world that is more just

is a cellular problem.

Oh, that's interesting.

Like, we, like, we are what we are, and we, we are still trying to figure out how to be it and it's so like it's so hard to fight it like to fight against or to to like to

make progress on that all the time.

We do we do we but like

and that's like that's the wonderful thing, but like you can't it you know, we it's taken so long to get from the part where the you know the the instinct and it you know, we're all like this like the first round of empathy is toward our families and toward the people we have the closest relationships with.

And like to like to like expanding that circle of empathy, it requires

tools.

It requires innovation.

Like we have to create cultural innovation to be able to do that well.

Yeah.

I would almost say that it requires a journey of meaning.

We, and we are all on one, even if we don't know.

That's right.

That's what I've been trying to tell you for years is that you were always on a journey of meaning.

You just kind of rejected the idea.

Well, it's because you kept saying it like it was religious, John.

Well,

that was that was that was my mistake.

Um, it is religious, but that's that's that's neither here nor there.

Um,

I still can't let that go, but like, you know, like I would argue that, like, nature, you know, nature religions are still religions, like religions aren't theistic, right?

Um, or, uh, or, or, or inherently supernatural, in my opinion.

Um, but but I just think

it was weird timing in that way, but it has

both in the way you've responded to it as a

sort of biomedical problem by using it as an opportunity to educate people, to talk to people, and that has the social effect of destigmatizing the experience, but also in the way that you've talked about the

non-biomedical parts of it, the mental health parts, the psychosocial parts.

I just think it's been really helpful for a lot of people.

And

I, I just, you've taken who you are and what you do and your natural curiosity and just applied it to this horrific thing.

And

I don't think I would have done that.

I think I would have,

I think I would have gotten off the internet.

So it's just something I really admire about you.

I did the only thing I know who, how, I knew how to do.

That's what people kept being like, you're doing this a very interesting way.

And I'm like, I'm just, I don't know what else to do.

It's all I know how to do.

Yeah.

It's to make well this reminds me that that today's podcast is actually brought to you by Hank's Journey of Meaning.

Hank's Journey of Meaning, available now at good.store.

This podcast is also brought to you by Proton Price Transparency.

Know what you're paying for.

What you're paying for is protons.

Today's podcast is also brought to you by Hank's billion-dollar Jenga set.

It's going to be so cool.

It's perfect.

It's going to be so cool.

I really do want it.

It's a great idea.

So fun.

It's a great idea.

It sounds very expensive.

We'd have to maybe make them small.

And also, this podcast is brought to you by the woke moon.

Woke moon.

Keep coming out.

It comes out every month.

I just, hey.

Hey, I'm fine with you being woke moon, okay?

But stop bringing it up.

You don't have to bring it up all the time.

You don't have to keep coming out.

Feels like every 28 days, it's like, here I am.

It's like you have some kind of cycle.

We've also got a Project for Awesome message from Charlotte to Madeline.

Dear Madeline, remember, Pug?

Out of context, quotes aside, I'm so proud that you're my sister.

You lead by example, caring deeply, adding humor to the mundane, and not taking BS from anyone.

As said in Summer Wars, among the plethora of painful things in this world, hunger and loneliness must surely be two of the worst.

But thanks to you, I haven't known either.

I love you dearly, Charlotte.

Wow, that was lovely.

It was.

That was great.

Charlotte,

you're a good writer.

Madeline, you're a good sister.

I got you.

This episode of Dear Hank-John is brought to you by Factor.

There's so much going on.

And if there is a strategy available to you so that maybe you can outsource a little bit of the labor to somebody else, that's something you might want to take a look into.

Well, Factor helps me eat smarter with tasty, chef-prepared meals that are dietitian-approved and delivered right to my door.

And now, now, with more than 65 weekly meals made for how I live and what I like to eat, I've got more ways to get a real meal regardless of what has been tossed into my inbox.

The variety is a big deal for me because there are a lot of different ways that a lot of different people like to try and eat healthy.

I've got my own version of that.

Also, I'm allergic to shrimp, but they do have premium seafood choices like salmon, which I can eat, and shrimp, which maybe you can at no extra cost.

This is the only body I've got, and I like to try to be kind to it by not having no food in the house and running to the grocery store to get a chicken tender and honey mustard sauce and having that be my lunch.

You can also savor some new flavors for the first time.

Factor's got some Asian-inspired meals.

There's some Chinese dishes, there's some Thai flavors, more choices, and better nutrition.

According to Factor, 97% of customers say Factor helped them live a healthier life.

That's a big deal.

Sour cream and chive chicken, smoky barbecue chicken breasts with mashed potatoes, cream corn, and chive butter green beans, cheesy bacon, pork tender wine with mashed potatoes?

Eat smart at factormeals.com slash dearhank50off and use the code dearhank50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box.

That's code dearhank50off at factormeals.com for 50% off plus free shipping.

Get delicious, ready-to-eat meals delivered with Factor.

I got to get to this question before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon Hank.

It's important.

Uh-huh.

It's from Julia.

She writes, I promise you this was in the question list.

I see.

She writes, Hello.

Why do people use weighs as much as insert number of elephants to describe how heavy something is?

I don't know how heavy an elephant is.

I've never touched one in my life.

Thank you, Julia.

Well, Julia, what if I told you that how heavy an elephant is actually has nothing to do with how much space an elephant takes up, which makes it even harder to understand?

Because what they really mean is the size of 16 elephants, right?

Not the weight of 16 elephants, because none of us.

The weight of 16 elephants.

But I can't, nobody can picture the weight of an elephant.

I've never had one step on me.

I've never like bench-pressed one.

What they're thinking about is the size and space that an elephant takes up when I look at one or when I look at a picture of one, which it turns out, Julia, has nothing to do with the weight of the elephant.

I think, all right, new idea.

We sell everything by elephants.

Jeez, and it's just like, it's just like

32 thousandths of an elephant.

Volume or weight.

Volume or weight.

No.

Moving on.

I only accept volume because I don't know how much an elephant weighs.

No, it has to be weight because that's the protons.

It's directly transferable.

The problem is, and this I do not like about weighing things in elephants, is that there are some elephants that are full grown and weigh 6,000 pounds and some that are full grown and weigh 12,000 pounds.

There's lots of different kinds of elephants.

There's not there's like two main different kinds of elephants.

But there's lots of different ages and weights of elephants.

And for that matter, while we're on the topic, volumes, how do you account for the tusk?

How much does a tusk weigh?

I don't know because I've never held one.

How much does like

the nose thing weigh?

What the trunk weigh?

I don't know.

I've never held one.

I know how much space it takes up because I can look at it and see how much space it takes up, but I don't know how much it weighs.

And this is a fundamental issue, it turns out, Julia, because knowing how big something is does not tell you how much stuff, how many protons are in it.

Yeah.

And I learned that today, Julia, so I'm a little obsessed with it.

You look at an elephant and you're like, that seems awful big.

You know, it's moving real slow because of how heavy it is.

If it probably, if it stood on your fridge, your fridge would break.

I don't think it would.

You don't think...

No.

I think my fridge would break if a full-grown African bull elephant stepped on it.

Well, first off, you've just, you're saying like, I think my fridge might break if the world's largest elephant stood on it, which is not the average elephant.

Secondly,

I still don't think it would.

I think your fridge would hold up just fine.

In fact, I need to test this immediately.

All right.

Where is the nearest elephant?

It's at the Indianapolis Zoo.

It has to be.

And so the challenge actually isn't getting an elephant.

The challenge is getting a refrigerator into the elephant enclosure, which I suspect will make me the enemy of certain zookeepers.

Yeah, you're like, look, I'm John Green.

Do you know who I am?

I have a hit podcast, okay?

I have a podcast and we need to know.

We need to know.

And also, we're going to,

I used to have, I used to have followers on a website called Twitter.

Do you remember Twitter?

I was on it and I was big.

No, I would say, have you heard of Apple Podcasts, the app?

Have you ever been on their top?

charts?

Have you ever gone to the society and culture section?

Have you ever scrolled down to number 173?

That's me.

That's me.

That's who I am.

Someday

I'm going to dehydrate

this and they're going to bury me on top of the guy who's on top of the hill.

That's who I am.

And I'm going to be buried inside of that elephant.

I don't know how we're going to make it happen.

But it might be today.

Because I'm here to make mistakes.

Did I tell you that I made that joke to somebody who worked at Crown Hill and it bombed?

Oh, no.

Jokes are context-dependent.

And I was like,

Yeah, you know, I've always just wanted to be buried right on top of James Whitcomb Riley here at the very top of Crown Hill, just so that I could be the writer on top of all the other writers in Indianapolis.

And they were like, no, that's just, that's not going to happen.

James Whitcomb Riley is here at the top of Crown Hill.

He wrote Little Orphan Annie.

Yeah,

they're used to fielding weird requests from rich guys.

That's what that tells me.

That's true.

They're like, we would make that work if we could.

Right.

Yeah.

But instead, you have to be buried just below.

But you can have a mausoleum with a weird leprechaun stained glass window in the back.

That's true.

But I'll tell you what.

I have absolutely.

If I'm not getting buried above James Whitcomb Riley, I have no interest being on that hill.

I've got no interest being like 30 feet below James Whitcomb Riley.

No, put me with the people.

Give me the cheese.

In the valley.

Oh, man.

I didn't think

at the beginning of Log Brothers, I thought I definitely wanted to be turned into ashes and sprinkled into a river.

But recently I did have reason to write down what I wanted things to, what wanted to be done with my dead body.

And I was like, I want a headstone.

Yeah, well, that's,

first off, that is also exactly what I say.

I say I don't really care.

I just, I do want a headstone, though, because I found it very helpful to be able to visit like my relatives' headstones.

Like, it's something that I just like doing, and I don't know, I like cleaning them up and everything.

But, um,

but it's, I did, I did think, like, um, when you got diagnosed with cancer, I did think, like,

well, I mean, you know, I put all that work into getting him to sign a will, and now I bet he's like super motivated to make sure it's all buttoned up.

Yeah, will's all set, John.

I bet, I bet, I'm glad.

Uh, sorry about the circumstances.

I'm all good.

I don't, if you're not, I don't think I've said it on Vlogbrothers.

And like, look, I don't know what you guys listen to, but I just had my follow-up PET scan.

I remain cancer-free.

I've got about two years of mild risk of relapse, followed by three years of very low risk of relapse, followed by, ideally, several more decades of basically zero risk of relapse.

Right.

Right.

So

this was a very good scan.

This was as good a scan as you could possibly have.

Yeah.

It's complete remission, and now it's a confirmation of that complete remission.

And my doctor, as I was leaving, he patted me on the back and he said, congrats on being done.

So that's like, I feel like what you need to know.

My doctor said I was done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so that's part of the reason we're able to make these jokes.

Yeah.

I mean, actually, to be fair, we would make them anyway, but we would make them in private.

We were definitely making some jokes in private this summer,

but those were private jokes.

Yeah.

God.

Oh, I never want to have a year like this again.

And I'm sure you don't either.

I keep saying to Sarah, like, this was the worst year of my life, and I didn't even have cancer.

I think you would have handled it okay.

Yeah, no, I'm just saying that like of the, of the brotherly experiences, of the two experiences, one unexpectedly becoming the CEO of a mid-sized media company and the other unexpectedly getting cancer, like there is a preferable option.

Yeah.

That's all I'm saying.

I'm not trying to, listen, I'm not trying to minimize my suffering, Hank.

One thing about me is I never do.

And thank you for doing that.

Well, thank you for doing all of the

therapy and treatment and everything else.

Listen, listen, listen.

Yeah.

There is one shining bright light to this year,

this difficult year, this year of

troubles and hardship and

loss and fear.

And that bright shining light is named Ali Alhamdi.

My God, my God.

My God.

I love watching that man play football, and I just hope I get to do it for the rest of this season.

We got a note, Hank, from a couple of listeners to Dear Hank and John who said, as American nerdfighters traveling to England, my husband and I, of course, had to attend the AFC Wimbledon game last Saturday against Knotts County.

It was excellent.

The beginning was terrifying, of course, because Wimbledon got ahead, and we all know how that ends.

But by the end of the game, with those lovely penalty kick goals, one goal that confused everyone, and a breakaway that toppled all of our breakaway dreams, we have some thoughts to share.

The main thoughts are that Wimbledon won 4-2 and about this new defender whose thighs make us all question our own eyesight.

He seems nervous to make a mistake in his new job because every time he gets the ball, he clears it with an impressive header or kick, but without any thought.

Yeah, no, welcome to League Two.

Bethy and Burley.

That's just, that's fourth-tier football.

If you're a defender and the ball comes to you, you need to get that ball to somewhere else, very far away, the furthest away that you can get it.

And that's what Joe Lewis is great at.

And that's part of why I love him so much.

So, listen, Hank, we're good.

We're good.

Wimbledon are good.

I don't know how good we are yet, and I don't know if we'll hold on to our two best players, Jack Curry and Ali Al Hamedy, over the January transfer window that's about to begin.

But right now, we are good.

We just beat Swindon Town 4-0.

We beat Gillingham 1-0.

We beat Knotts County, one of the best teams in League 2, 4-2.

I forgot that we actually lost to Gillingham or Gillingham, but it doesn't matter.

That's Gillingham or Gillingham.

It doesn't count.

But we beat Knotts County, one of the best teams in the league.

We beat Swin ⁇ Town, one of the best teams in the league.

And we're beating these teams handily.

We are in seventh place, which is a playoff position.

Not only are we in seventh place,

more importantly, from my perspective, we're 16 points clear of the relegation zone after just 20 games.

This is incredible what's happening right now.

Something, even though we have like the 16th or 17th

largest playing budget in League Two, somehow we are up with the big boys.

We're up there in the heady heights of Wrexham and Knotts County and Mansfield Town and Stockport.

It's very exciting.

We're six places above the franchise currently plying its trade in Milton Keynes.

All thrilling stuff.

That's very exciting, John.

I got so caught up in it, I didn't even open up my Mars News.

I'll go on while you look for the Mars News.

Ali Alhamdulillah, I think he's scored and assisted more goals in League Two than any other player.

He's 21 years old.

I know it's almost impossible that we're going to hold on to him in January.

I know that the big clubs are going to come calling that they're going to have a million pounds to spend.

And I know that we've got a lot of debt to pay off on our stadium.

And I know that it's a complicated situation, but I just hope we can hold on to him.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, John, because I very well might be.

But it seems like we spend a lot of time talking about those boys who score goals, but that's not the only people who are important on the team.

You got to have some good defenders, right?

You got to have a good goalie.

Sure.

You got the team.

Sure, but remember last season when we lost our best player in January and then

we lost the guy who scored goals and then we didn't score any goals.

It turns out that you don't win a lot of football games when you don't score any goals.

Scoring goals is hard.

You do need everybody, and we've got an amazing midfield right now.

In fact, Armani Little, one of our midfielders, scored like a Premier League quality goal from like 30 yards out against Swindon.

So I don't know.

It's a special team right now.

Our captain, Jake Reeves, is he's got great energy.

We've got some great songs.

I feel like the quality of songs among the fans has never been better.

When I was when I went to the away, I probably shouldn't say this, but I thought it was pretty funny.

When I went to the away game in Mansfield, at the end of the game, the Wimbledon fans saying, we get to go home.

We get to go home.

You have to live here, we get to go home.

Oh boy.

No, please don't cause riots, please, football fans.

No, I think Mansfield knows.

What's going on in Mars?

On Mars,

can you guess for me how long you think the Perseverance rover has been on the surface of Mars?

Oh, a long time.

Like since way before you had cancer, which is my main demarcation point in the last couple decades.

There was when I got dumped my senior year of college, and then there was when you got cancer, and not that much happened other than that.

Gosh, has it been three,

three,

it was around the time of the pandemic, right?

Because I remember saying like, perseverance.

Yeah.

Three years?

It's been a thousand days, which is about a thousand days.

A thousand days.

No, it's been a thousand Martian days, I read

now that I am paying attention, which is very slightly longer than a thousand Earth days.

It's like the 12, it's like the 12 ounces as compared to the 12.5 ounces.

Yeah,

yeah, Martian Day is like

one

day one day in 45 minutes.

It's very weird that we have very similar days.

Yeah, it is strange.

But it landed in February of 2021.

Yeah.

So that's 2020.

Yes.

2021.

No way.

Yeah.

That's not

into the pandemic.

And that whole thousand days, it's been busy.

It's collected 23 samples.

It's studied those samples using its onboard instruments.

It's got all kinds of different weird ways to shine different lights and wavelengths and particles at it and do some onboard chemistry.

I just imagine it like sniffing, you know, and being like...

Basically, it does some sniffing, yeah.

Yeah, sending word back, like, ah, smells metallic.

And they're using the samples to piece together the history of Jezero Crater.

Very cool, very weird.

What it was like back when it was an ancient lake bed.

I guess it wasn't ancient back then.

And it's going to continue exploring that crater, doing more insights and seeing what the area once looked like, including searching for possible signs of ancient microbes that might have once lived there.

It's so

wonderful.

Like, back in my day, when I was a kid, they put these rovers on Mars and they'd be like, it's probably going to last for a week.

It's going to be there for a whole week.

Yeah, no.

And that was a big win.

Yeah.

And now Kiriatic is just like, I'm up.

I'm up.

What's up?

What's going on?

Give me a coffee.

I can do this.

I can do it.

I can make it another day, boss.

I can do it.

Yeah.

But Perseverance is just like a minivan rolling around.

just on the surface, just doing stuff.

It's so beautiful.

And the fact that it's been a thousand days just reminds me that there will be another thousand days.

And a thousand days from now, we will be in a different world.

It will be worse in some ways.

It'll be better in some ways.

It's utterly unknowable to us, but

I hope we're here to see it.

John, how long do you think Curiosity has been on Mars?

And it's still operating.

It is still doing its mission.

How long has it been on Mars?

Gosh, not as

long as I was going to say, it's almost as old as this podcast.

11 years.

Well, is it older than the podcast?

It might be.

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's incredible.

11 years.

And it's still like, by the way, I don't know that, I don't know that there's a robot on Earth that lasted 11 years.

I bet General Motors has some that are just like, yeah, whatever, man.

It's like union now.

It's complete.

They can't retire it.

It's got 10 years.

Yeah.

It's got a pension.

It's actually just cheaper to keep it working.

Yeah, I guess there there are some 11-year-old machines now that I think about the fact that I myself own an 11-year-old machine called a car.

But

I'll tell you what, it's needed some Earth-based maintenance over that 11 years

in order to be a going concern.

Man, John.

It's about to be an amazing time to buy a new or a used electric car.

There's like all these different things that are making electric cars super cheap.

And

in January, there's going to be a rebate for used electric cars and not just new ones, ones, which is very exciting.

Are you going to get one like on January 3rd?

I might get one before then, honestly.

I think that, first off, I think you should get a lot of red.

I don't get the rebate because I make too much money.

I don't.

Mr.

Bragg's a lot.

I don't think you should.

I have strong feelings about this, as you know.

I think that you should get, like,

I'm just going to tell you, the Hyundai Ionic 5 is so much better.

Like, I also owned a Chevrolet Volt, so I know, and I loved my Volt, and it's great.

It's a great car.

The Hyundai Ionic 5 is so much better.

And it doesn't look like a fancy car because it's not a fancy car.

It's a Hyundai.

Yeah.

I'm just telling you.

They're not luxury cars, but they're just saying

they're fine.

I mostly just don't, like, I don't need that much range.

And I feel like weird having that much battery if I don't need that much range.

Okay.

I get it.

But maybe I will need that much range.

I don't know.

There's nowhere to, they're like, it's very hard to go anywhere from this town.

Like there's not a lot of chargers around.

Well, no, no.

It's just like there's not a lot of anything around.

Like if you want,

there's not a lot of civilization.

Where are you going to go?

Like, like, there's like, if you're going to go

300 miles, it's about the same stuff as you'd find 100 miles away, you know?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Our buddy has a cool comedy club in Helena or Billings or something.

Boseman, I believe.

Boseman.

And I would like to go.

I should go and do a nice car.

You should go there.

That's what you should do with your fancy electric car with all of its range.

Yeah.

That'd be fun.

Well, Hank, thank you for podding with me.

Thanks to everybody for listening.

You can email us your questions at hankandjohn at gmail.com.

You can do that.

This podcast is edited by Joseph Tunamedes.

It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rojas.

Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell.

Our editorial assistant is Dabuki Drakavarti.

The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the Great Granarola.

And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.