150: Here's a xylophone

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with a class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

On Roblox, why are there a surprisingly large number of games with sea creatures in the title?

The answer to that at the end of the show.

My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.

Today on Lateral, we have a triple shot of folks from Morning Brew, who I...

must add did not sponsor this podcast.

We just invited them on anyway.

They take steaming hot news from the world of business, grind it up into small sips, and add a load of oat milk and caramel syrup to make it digestible.

Though I'm not a huge fan of coffee myself, if I may espresso an opinion.

First, to spill the beans, we have Macy Gilliam.

Thank you so much.

I'm so happy to be here.

I mean, you were, I think, the person who wrote in and asked, Can we be on lateral?

I am a huge fan of the show.

So I'm just literally so happy to be here.

It doesn't even matter if I get any questions right.

How does it feel now staring down the barrel of a webcam and realizing that this time the answers have to come from you?

It is scary.

I hope that I'm good at it.

I feel like some episodes, I know all the answers, and some episodes, I'm like, I would not get those at all.

So we'll see.

Well, very best of luck to you.

You are joined by two other people from Morning Brew who are,

Toby, you are one half, I think, of the sort of breakfast news.

podcast of Morning Brew.

So your job is to analyze and distill and pull out just the facts.

How are you feeling right now?

I'm feeling good because I have my other half of the podcast with me, Neil.

We co-host Morning Brew Daily, which is just a 25-minute business news podcast that makes you insufferable in your office because you have all the fun facts from the news cycle.

You can just drop by the water cooler.

So very excited for this.

Macy turned us on to it, and I am also a little bit nervous staring down the barrel of a webcam.

The last person dragged by Macy into the show.

It may not be true, but that's the narrative we're going with.

Neil Freeman, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Super excited.

I feel much better than those two.

I'm ready to go.

I'm just going to let them cook because I'm going to know the answers off the bat every single time.

Oh, no, you've got to be careful with that.

There is a chance you set yourself up as the villain of the show there.

I think that's what we're going with.

Well, good luck to all three of you.

Let us percolate your thoughts about question one.

Thank you to Brady Joyce for this question.

The Parks and Recreation Department of Mobile, Missouri put up a sign saying, Xylophone, you're welcome.

Why?

I'll say that again.

The Parks and Recreation Department of Mobile, Missouri put up a sign saying, Xylophone, you're welcome.

Why?

I feel like this has to do with like the letter X

and like Xylophone and the letter X never get any love.

I don't know how Mobiley is spelled.

There could be a sneaky X somewhere at the end of that.

Was it Mobile Missouri or Mobile

Alabama?

Missouri.

Would that make a difference?

Well, I don't know, like Like

mobile Alabama, like mobile Alabama.

Oh, I could have just been mispronouncing an American place.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Can we get a spelling of the city or is that going to give something away?

M-O-B-E-R-L-Y.

Mobiley, Missouri.

It might be mobile.

If this was Britain, it could just be Mully.

I'm assuming Moby.

That's a good language joke.

Is it a response to something

or someone?

Like, what is accompanying the xylophone is it a physical xylophone itself is it someone asking a question of the parks and rec department is it like a physical thing that they're putting out there what are your best ideas okay so there's two parts of xylphone xylophone is either x because it's obviously like the number one x word that you talk about or it's just a sound and so like pre answering a question by saying it's a xylophone guys I'm thinking like maybe some sound is emanating from somewhere and they're like oh it's it's a xylophone Like before you ask those noises you're hearing, that's a xylophone.

I wonder if it's, you know, those like roadside games at night that try to like keep you awake by asking you like trivia questions like you might see on this podcast.

So it's like the answer at the end, they're like, it was xylophone.

You're welcome.

I feel like you just got it, Macy.

Well, I don't know.

I'm trying to read it on space here, too.

You know, like the alphabet game on road trips where you have to get it.

And so you're like, here's a sign for X and X is xylophone.

So you are absolutely right.

For those who don't know the alphabet game, Toby, what is it?

It's just when you're on a long road trip, you try to find words that start with every letter of the alphabet, A through Z, and obviously X is the hardest one.

So thank you, Parks and Rec Department in Missouri.

Good job, Toby.

Yes, the full sign says playing the alphabet game.

Xylophone, you're welcome.

Mobile Parks and Recreation.

That's what is cheap, though.

Like,

I wouldn't let my siblings get away with that in the alphabet game.

In America, honestly, a big billboard

advertiser in Middle America are like some X-rated turn off shops or something like that.

So usually that's the only way to get is if you see like a triple X like on the next right turn.

So

that's an awkward thing if you're a family playing this with kids.

Right.

That you go, hey, look at that billboard.

Yeah, triple X.

Or you're driving on the road to Vegas from LA and you're passing Zizix Road.

Like there aren't that many.

That's a deep cut.

Oh, there's...

Sorry, I'm dealing with three East Coasters here, aren't I?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm like, I'm Middle America.

I'm East Coast now.

Isn't the number one thing you see on the road the word exit?

No, it's the first letter.

Oh, but it has to start.

Okay, sorry.

I play a different version.

I play the beginner version.

Yes, this is a sign for people playing the alphabet game with road signs.

Each of our guests has broad question along with them.

We will start today with Toby.

All right.

First question.

This question has been sent in by ben wiles when u.s president james a garfield was shot in 1881 doctors struggled to find the bullet so that it could be removed alexander graham bell brought in a prototype metal detector the device was working perfectly but the bullet wasn't found until after garfield's death why

I know that was a long one, so I'll do it one more time.

When U.S.

President James A.

Garfield was shot in 1881, doctors struggled to find the bullet so that it could be removed.

Alexander Graham Bell brought in a prototype metal detector.

The device was working perfectly, but the bullet wasn't found until after Garfield's death.

Why?

Does it have to do with the magnetism in his blood that was obscuring the

metal of the bullet?

Is that a thing?

Totally made.

I'm no doctor.

Sorry, sorry, not to show you down.

No, but like magnetism in blood, to be fair, is is that pseudoscience stuff you find being sold with like the bracelets in shopping malls?

By magnetism in blood, I meant like electrical pulses that may have,

I mean, something has to have been different from when he was alive or dead.

I'm going to take the obvious route one solution here and just say the bullet wasn't in him.

Like there was there was just an exit wound no one had spotted and after he died someone went oh, there's the bullet.

Oh, it's actually on the floor over there.

The bullet

was still inside him.

Okay, okay.

Okay.

I wonder if there was like a previous surgery or something he had where he had like a metal plate or something and the bullet was like behind that.

Or is it because it's like a early metal detector, it just wasn't working?

Well, it said it was working.

I wonder how good surgery was back in the 1880s if they could insert a plate into you.

I feel like inserting a plate is like, I feel like 1880 surgery would have been quite good at removing stuff and probably not all that good at putting stuff in.

There was no other metal inside Garfield's body, so he didn't, you know, have a broken collarbone and a plate on that or anything like that.

Oh, God.

I didn't know Alexander Graham Bell had a metal detector prototype.

It makes sense given what he was working with, but.

Yeah, apparently it was good, too.

It worked.

This thing functioned.

Did the metal detector find the bullet after, or are those two things separate?

The metal detector did not find the bullet.

Was it a silver bullet?

Would silver not set off a metal detector or something?

If the bullet was made out of something?

Was Garfield a werewolf?

Garfield was not a werewolf to my knowledge.

I mean, you never know.

And

Macy, a silver bullet would set off a metal detector, but the bullet itself was lead.

So it...

it was not a like a wooden bullet or something like that.

So a metal detector works by you move a coil of wire with...

yeah you move a coil of wire past metal that induces an electric current that current gets amplified it

sets off a dial or screams in your ears or something like that so

how would that not go off if you're waving it over the guy who's got a bullet in him the the hint i will give is it it did it did go off okay The metal detector maybe showed it was in his leg and then they looked around in his leg and they didn't see it.

Like, is that...

His leg was no longer attached.

Sorry, I've got all the gruesome answers today

You want to put stuff in Garfield you want to cut his legs off.

Yeah from the wording of the question it wasn't that they didn't find it

It wasn't that they couldn't access it.

It was that they just didn't even locate it until after he was dead So so the timeline of his death wasn't that they were looking for the bullet and he bled out right there on the spot.

It was they were looking for the bullet, but he ended up dying weeks and or months later.

So it wasn't like a cause and effect sort of situation.

So So it would have been autopsy, or I guess we want to be really gruesome cremation when they found the bullet.

Yeah,

they did eventually find it after he had passed, yeah.

But you said that the metal detector did go off.

Yes.

So what's it detecting?

This is gnarly.

Something else in the room was causing part of the issue, was causing an issue.

So it's not...

It's not detecting the bullet, but something else is setting it off.

I'm not that well versed in my metal detector uses.

The Oval Office Desk.

If he's president, is there extra security around him or something or extra procedures that are setting off a metal detector?

Maybe just think about where

a procedure would take place.

In a hospital bed.

Is he on a metal bed?

He's on

a bed with metal springs in it.

And so

whenever they were trying to find out where the bullet was, they kept getting

because the entire bed was setting off the metal detector.

And it is 1881 and no one has quite figured out how to calibrate that or that perhaps you might want to move him to a different place.

That felt like a logical...

You're like, wait, we're getting a lot of detection here.

Either he was shot a bunch of times or maybe

she's riddled with bullets.

Yeah.

And they were actually looking on the wrong side of his chest too.

The bullet was found on the left side of his chest, the opposite side to where the doctor had been looking.

So that was part of the issue as well.

Wow.

If you wanted to know what happened to the would-be assassin too, sentenced to death by hanging the following year, Tom, I know you've been trying to get morbid, so

there's your morbid tidbit.

Thank you to Dylan Bell for this next question.

Philip delivers a large, dangerous load to a station.

Once this has been completed, his vehicle is now even more dangerous than when it had a full load.

How?

I'll say that again.

Philip delivers a large, dangerous load to a station.

Once this has been completed, his vehicle is now even more dangerous than when it had a full load.

How?

First question is, what kind of vehicle could it be?

Train, plane, automobile.

Station also, like that language feels very precise.

You think of train station, but then I thought space station too.

Like why is station being used?

Yeah, but are there astronauts named Dylan?

That name feels

a great point.

Sorry, Dylan.

It's a crazy angle to go, but I feel like the name Dylan rules you out from being old enough to be an astronaut yet.

To be clear,

the question writer was Dylan Bell.

The name in the question is Philip.

Okay.

But I am now going to ask David the producer to check if there have been any astronauts called Dylan because I feel like we need to just pull that back slightly.

Yeah.

Poor Dylan.

Poor Dylan.

Was it someone delivering prisoners,

you know, criminals?

I guess that's where my first thought went, but I don't know why an empty bus going back to the prison would be.

Maybe because prisoners could escape in the bus.

They could be hiding in the bus.

My mind went to like delivering something volatile.

And then...

But sometimes those like empty trucks can be like dangerous if it's like a truck can be like more dangerous to drive because the weight is distributed weird or something

what if it's like a mom delivering a bunch of angry teenagers somewhere and she's just so mad because they were so annoying in the car driving back that she's developed road rage

so was it the what the vehicle itself is more dangerous not like the payload is not more dangerous after it's been delivered it's like the actual

I forget what was the word vehicle

I think it would apply to both oh so both are more dangerous once it's outside containment in a way.

Macy, you were starting to think along the right lines there.

Okay.

What were you saying, Macy?

She hates Dylan.

Yeah, that's what I was, that was my main point, I think.

No, Dylan's great.

My point was, I was thinking of something that you would deliver that would be volatile.

And then, like, if it was like a semi-truck, sometimes those can be like more dangerous to drive empty if, like, the wind hits it and it doesn't have enough weight or something.

I don't know.

I'm also now thinking maybe we're taking the word vehicle too literally, and like uh, it could be like a microscopic, like cell robotic something can be like a vehicle for something else.

It could be like nuclear stuff that's really small.

I think you're getting further away there.

You were getting quite close.

He's like, you're on the right track, and then you're like, we're going microscopic.

You're right.

This is kind of a specialist vehicle.

You haven't identified the station correctly yet, though.

Okay.

Well, there's like naval stations.

That's kind of a weird way of saying it.

Train stations, bus stations.

Station is kind of a military word, though, right?

Is there military involved in any way, or is that further away?

I mean, this would also apply in the military, but not in this case.

There is a very obvious type of station that you're missing, but if you get it, the entire question basically unveils itself.

So I'm not going to give you that right now.

A subway station?

I guess, did we say that one?

I wonder if we're too America-pilled.

I feel like you guys have better stuff than us.

Oh, you're really not.

You are really not.

This is

gas station.

Is it like an oil truck?

What are those called?

Oh, wait.

I know what happens.

I think.

When you deliver gas to a gas station, the remaining fumes that are left inside like the fuel tanker are more dangerous than like the stable petrol.

Yes.

There you go, Tom.

Yes.

Itself.

You are absolutely right.

Even more than that, at gas stations, the gasoline is stored in an underground tank usually.

As it empties, it fills up with vapor.

Some tankers will deliver fuel and take away the vapor

because that can be...

I mean, the word is not concentrated, but it can be refined back down into

useful.

So it's useful.

But you are right, Toby.

A truck filled with gasoline vapor will go up a lot easier than a truck filled with gasoline.

That makes me the biggest fear driving on, like, again, we're back to road trips, but like when you try to pass a semi or a semi like corners you on the side.

And if it's like a gas truck, now I'm going to be even more afraid because I know it could be filled with, you know, flammable vapor.

But half the time it's probably filled with gasoline, so you're fine.

There you go.

The glass half full, glass half empty approach.

Tanker half full, tanker half empty.

Now, I also have an update on Dylan astronauts.

There has been one astronaut called Dylan.

His name is Dylan Taylor.

He is a commercial astronaut.

He paid to go up on New Shepard, or I assume he paid, but he went up on one of the New Shepard flights.

So there has technically been someone on a suborbital spaceflight called Dylan.

Okay.

This is your chance to apologize, Macy, if you want, to all Dylans.

I know.

I'm sorry to all Dylans out there.

I'm sorry that I ever doubted you, Dylans.

I think that you all will save the world.

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Macy, it is over to you for your question.

All right, this question has been sent in by Alan Wu.

Poppy was preparing to fly on holiday aboard an Airbus A321.

She noticed a large yellow lever with the letters RME on the handle.

Some minutes later, she realized what this meant.

What was it?

One more time.

Poppy was preparing to fly on holiday aboard an Airbus A321.

She noticed a large yellow lever with the letters RME on the handle.

Some minutes later, she realized what this meant.

What was it?

Neil's my airplane guy.

He's pretty good with airplanes, so I'm gonna let Neil take the lead here.

And it's not a Boeing, so he can't make the obvious jokes right now.

No jokes.

I don't know.

It's uh, I mean, I think the key is figuring out what RME stands for.

Is there anything special about the A321?

If you know your planes, Neil?

It's literally like a single-aisle jet, like a Boeing 737, just kind of like a workhorse regular plane that would fly like a domestic route um maybe

yeah not not so many international flights it can go like six hours or something but it's just kind of one of those workhorses does that get us any closer totally it doesn't get it's no that's not getting you closer sorry it's just me yeah there you there you know something about an a321.

Levers on planes

tend to like open things, like open doors, right?

And so like they wrench it close and R-M-E

really

mean

remove before no.

So I've seen those remove before flight tags that

weirdly, aviation enthusiasts seem to put on their bags or on their bag or things like I've seen remove before flight tags uses accessories and that seems like a stupid thing to put on the bag that you want to fly with you.

Yeah,

remove.

Wait, it was on a door.

Is this the lever was on a door, right?

The lever is on a door.

Toby, Toby, you were on the right track.

Yellow lever, door.

I also,

like, would it signify she's on the wrong flight, too?

Like, would she look at this and go, like, oh, no, I'm on, like, a Royal Marine

RME flight?

I wish there was, like, something that she did after besides that she realized what it meant.

Was it like, she realized what it meant, so she de-planed or she walked away as fast as possible.

If she's flying off on holidays, like a 3-2-1 is not a military jack.

There's not gonna be the back opening and a parachute squadron leaping out.

Something to do with the bathroom?

No, not the bathroom.

Is it something to do with the

door?

It is, yes.

So this lever is on the door.

And does it stand for something, RME?

Are we trying to find the

interestingly?

RME is not an acronym, but wordplay is involved.

It's to do with the army.

army no um army wait there we go not the army but hang on one one thing i have heard on flights like one of the things that the cabin crew have to do before departing is arm the slides i'm wondering if rme

arm if that's the pun or something like that

you are very very very close with that that's very much the right track disarm flight attendants disarm door for cross-check that's what i always hear yeah that's what you hear on landing, isn't it?

Wait, but arm.

If it's not an acronym and it is wordplay,

army, arm,

arm.

And now some people pronouncing words over and over again.

Arm, arm, arm.

But would you say the word army when you're talking about arming a door?

No.

So what words would go more with that?

With arming a door?

Yeah.

Locked.

It's locked.

Don't come in.

Wait, is it just from the point of view of the door?

Is it just saying, arm me?

No, I like that a lot.

Oh, I wish that was it.

That would be so fun.

The door is a personality.

No, that's not it.

She's close to takeoff at this point.

Like, this is,

she's leaving on holiday.

It's a few minutes later that she realizes what it's for.

Maybe she realizes what it's for because it's being used at that point.

I know

the K-pop band BTS, their fans are called Army.

That seems further away.

So that's not, yeah, that's way far away.

Army?

Are we like trying to pronounce this in a funny way?

Like, should we go like R me?

I mean, that just sounds like a pirate having a breakdown.

Army.

I am having some sort of breakdown.

It's not.

Yeah, no, it's not there.

Let me see.

Let me give you another clue.

You guys are really close, though, but there are some other letters on the door as well.

And the lever can be moved.

The lever with this RME on it can be moved.

There's other letters on the door or levers on the door?

They're letters on the door.

Letters.

RME.

How many doors are there on a plane?

Cockpit doors.

Cockpit.

the cabin doors.

And the bathroom.

Oh,

is it...

Did they like label the wrong door the wrong thing?

Like, is it a mislabeled situation?

Well, it's on a lever, too.

The letters R-M-E are on the lever, and then there are more letters on the door that are not on the lever.

Oh, hold on.

Are these letters being lined up?

Yes.

So when you move the lever, I'm going to call this a lever.

I'm British.

When you move the thing, R, M, and E are being lined up with some other letters to show something.

Correct.

You are right there.

Okay.

It completes a word.

It completes a word.

Yes.

They're lowered into place and it completes this word.

And you guys

were right.

It's arm and me.

It's like...

No,

so we've just armed.

It's just armed.

It's just the word arm.

There's an A and a D, and you know the door is armed because you've moved the letters into place to say it.

Oh,

you guys were so close for so long.

I was like, surely they're right there.

Tom got the breakthrough.

Tom nailed that.

Surely, surely a better way to do that would be to have like dis

on the lever, the lever, and then

move that out the way.

Anyway, yeah, okay, fine.

Yeah, because I'm looking at the picture of it, and the word disarmed is just like above it that's signaled a completely different way.

It looks like there's like a color change.

So that seems like a crazy way to signal them.

I got way down the pirate route.

I'm already.

This is just not how you talk.

Unless you sail the high seas.

Our next question has been sent in by Addy.

On 18th of May, 1980, it reached 66 degrees Fahrenheit in the state of Washington.

Why did the road maintenance crew have to put the snow plow attachment on their trucks?

On 18th May 1980, it reached 66 degrees Fahrenheit in the state of Washington.

Why did the road maintenance crew have to put the snow plow attachment on their trucks?

So it's not a snow plow, it's the snow plow attachment.

Well, I think it's not a snow plow in that it's not being used for snow, but it's the snow plow.

Because they're regular trucks, you just put that on the front.

I have a relatively good idea about it, and I don't know if this is...

Well, I don't know.

I'm just going to start saying what I'm thinking, because I might be off.

But I think

66 degrees, first of all, thank you for making it Fahrenheit, not Celsius for us.

It's an American question.

You know, it's a, it's a, a, a light spring day, let's say.

It feels like that is like warm enough that it would cause some sort of like bloom to happen prematurely or some sort of cicada or bug to be, you know, come out earlier than expected and it just covers the roads to such an extent that you have to like like snowplow either like the dead bugs or the dead flowers or whatever it caused to happen prematurely off the roads.

What month did you say it was?

May.

May.

So then I don't think that May would be super unseasonable.

My mind went to when kids will do that prank where they put like dish soap in a fountain and then it's like foam everywhere that you would have to like clear that out.

Somewhere on the internet, there is footage of someone doing that to a log flume ride

at a theme park.

Yeah,

sorry, it's not awesome.

We shouldn't destroy our log floor and rides.

That's not my

initial thought was they are not even using the snowplow.

They have to, for some reason, get it off the floor of their shop and

make it like elevate it somehow to get it off the to get it off the floor of the shop because the metal could not be against the hotter pavement.

I don't know.

That's my

that's wrong.

That's very lateral thinking right now.

That was very lateral thinking.

What podcast are we on?

It feels like the wrong track.

It feels like the wrong track, but yeah.

Toby, I think of everyone here, you're closest.

You're right, it was something like that, but bloom is definitely not the right word for this.

Is it what's the opposite of bloom?

Death.

Like a lot of things died.

Animals.

So cicadas feels, yeah, bugs or animals maybe like, oh, there are some parts of this country where there are like lizard or salamanders that all like

come out at once.

You are right that the geography matters.

This is Washington.

18th of May, 1980.

Well, why is the temperature though?

I know like in Washington, salmon, like cross roads sometimes when they're swimming upstream.

Was it the the uh explosion of the volcano?

Oh,

yes, it was, Neil.

Mount St.

Helens.

Absolutely right.

And that that's why I mentioned the date a couple times.

And also I've said that bloom, while technically correct, was not really the bird.

It was not correct.

A plume would be a better word.

A plume of ice.

Neil, talk me through your thinking.

You said the state mattered, and there's clearly debris on the ground from something.

And I just remember there was a volcano there.

So that's where I went.

But I give not 80% of the share to Toby on this one.

Yes, when Mount St.

Helens erupted, up to five inches of ash was deposited in the area.

A thousand miles of state highways were closed, 5,000 motorists were stranded, and so the Washington State Department of Transportation used their snowplow equipment to clear the roads.

They just wanted to get it off the ground of that shop.

It's way too hot on that ground.

Get it off.

All right.

I redeem myself by the end.

But that was...

Yeah, that was way too lateral and not enough depth.

That's all right.

Let's just say that.

Neil, over to you.

Okay, cool.

This was sent in by Amari.

Ali is lying on a bed, patiently waiting for his turn.

He notices that the clock on the wall behaves in an unexpected way.

The second hand counts in 12 bursts of five seconds instead of 60 ticks every minute.

Where are you and why does the clock behave like this?

Ali is lying on a bed patiently waiting for his turn.

He notices that the clock on the wall behaves in an unexpected way.

The second hand counts in 12 bursts of five seconds instead of 60 ticks every minute.

Where is he and why does the clock behave like that?

Laying on a bed feels hospital.

Does the bed have metal springs?

Is Alexander Graham Bell there with a metal detector?

It's a party.

Here is how poisoned my brain has become with hosting so many episodes of Lateral.

You said waiting for his turn, and one of the little notes I wrote down was seabird?

Like, no, it's not T-E-R-N, Tom.

He's not waiting for a seabird to arrive.

He's just waiting for his turn at something.

T-U, and then you pull the lever down.

Yeah, and you're on end coming.

Yeah.

The bed is throwing me for a loop because my first thought was like

in athletics, like swimming or something you look at the clock and like you go and do like your set

well that could be it there there could be a bed in that sense maybe it's like a like a physical therapy area and then he's up again yeah who is who is super precise with time but in a way that's like it's probably it it matters the time that you start something not the time that you finish since the finishing time won't be as precise but you could start exactly on the five second mark the clock is precise.

I see what you're saying, though.

I'm basically just not down to the second.

Over the course of a minute, it is precise.

It's just yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's still right, yes.

So it's someone who's precise with time, but not like super precise with time.

Yeah, because it's five-second intervals, five.

Well, counting five, ten.

I mean, like, no one logs like time of birth or anything like that to

the second.

Why fives

base 10?

Is it something to do with bases?

That seems too

it's in base 12.

That was the one math subject I never quite got is how you count in like base eight or base something.

And luckily for you,

it doesn't have anything to do with this question.

Thank goodness.

Oh, there's a whole proposal for like geodecimal time and counting.

It makes a lot of sense.

It just doesn't work quite as well with your 10 fingers.

To me, I immediately went hospital or military, but I might be confining myself there.

One of the advantages of geodecimal, of counting in blocks of 12, which is what this is, right?

Is that you can divide it by two or three or four or six.

Like you can split it a lot easier.

The maths is so much more simple.

It just doesn't work in fives.

So are they

tracking something that happens

over a course of time that needs to be divided that way?

They are tracking something that is usually multiplied by two.

That's something, yeah, it's typically multiplied to get a broader picture of something.

What's interesting is this type of try to figure out what this type of thing that they're trying to measure, why it might interfere with seconds.

It feels like, could it be like your heart rate that maybe they like hold your pulse for like 30 seconds and then they multiply it by two to get it per minute?

Okay, that's Neil is nodding.

That doesn't work in audio, but Neil is nodding.

I am.

I am nodding.

Okay.

Just, I'm asking you to flesh out the answer here.

Okay.

When you're taking someone's pulse, you want to take it for a certain number of seconds and then multiply it so you get beats per minute.

But why would a clock go in five second blocks instead of just seconds?

If you figure out the...

Pulses in five seconds, you can just multiply it by 12 and you get like your pulse rate per minute, like beats per minute.

Toby, what's your resting heart rate?

44.

Right now, 90.

You're just giving him a chance to show that off right now.

Wow, okay.

90.

It's a big topic of conversation.

It is a big topic of conversation.

So, is it heart rate?

Like, are we on the right?

It is heart rate.

Okay, but then I guess we need to answer the question, which was, where are you?

Yes, where are you?

Where is he?

And it's more specific than like the hospital.

Is it like a blood donation center?

It's a hospital.

Okay.

He's in the bed waiting his term and waiting his turn, U-R-N.

And so let's just figure out why the clock is behaving

in five-second increments.

Because it's easier if you're taking a pulse

to not have to track exactly 30 seconds.

Was it you, Toby, who said, like, you take a pulse in 30 seconds and double it, right?

That's one way, but if you did it in five seconds, you could just multiply it by 12.

Right.

If it beats twice, yeah.

But if you are taking 30 seconds, it's so much easier to just look up, wait up to five seconds for the clock to tick, and then just wait until it does a big tick exactly opposite.

Like

this is just a triage room or something like that.

They're just taking a load of pulse rates, and that's easier for

the doctors.

So you're 80% of the way there, but we're still not quite exactly answering the question of why does the clock behave this way?

Well, maybe it is like most people's heart rates are in the

well, I don't actually know.

They're not 44 if you're in hospital waiting for them.

If there's something wrong, it's going to be going higher than that.

As speaking as a normal heart rate haver,

which I think my average resting is like 75,

I think that it's just like

too difficult to count.

It's like a lot of margin for error if you're just like trying to count to 75 and keep track rather than counting by a different increment and then multiplying up to get 60 seconds.

And it probably means you don't have to keep two numbers in your head at the same time.

That could be true, yeah.

So you're super close.

I think we can we can get to the exact precise answer given here, which is that a resting heart rate is typically between 60 to 100 beats per minute.

And if it's 60, that lines up almost perfectly with the seconds in a clock.

And oftentimes it's hard to measure both when you're hearing the ticking of a clock for a single second and that lines up maybe somewhat irregularly like just a little offbeat with someone's pulse or their heartbeating and that's why some hospitals have these irregular clocks that you know count that only move the hand of the clock every five seconds it is sometimes I get bored on runs and I try to manually count count my heart rate and it's hard.

Like you're running.

I'm trying to count.

I'm also trying to like look at my watch.

So that would make it easier.

I don't know if anyone else in the world tries to self-measure their own pulse, but that's insane.

While you're running, while I'm running, I'm just thinking about when I can stop running.

So.

And I'm listening to Lateral with Tom Scott.

And you should too.

We do have time for a shiny bonus question.

Thank you to Peter Skandret for sending this one in.

Which two-letter word appears under Jack Lemon's name on his headstone?

I'll say that again.

Which two-letter word appears under Jack Lemon's name on his headstone?

Jack Lemon.

I am worried that I am

asking this to three people younger than I am, and Jack Lemon is perhaps an old reference for me.

Neil, do you know who Jack Lemon is?

I don't know who Jack Lemon is.

All right, well, I can give you the first clue, which is that Jack Lemon is a very famous actor.

Ooh.

Well, his last name is Lemon.

Good deduction.

So I'm wondering if it's like a funny joke.

Like J-L.

It is a joke, yes.

Okay.

Oh, so if life, it's like if life gives you lemons.

But it's a two-letter word, though.

Well, it'll be hard if it's a reference to one of his specific movies or something, if it was like a joke from something he's famous for that we don't really know.

That doesn't feel laterally, though.

Like we can get there without knowing Jack Luminari.

Well, you need to know he's an actor for this.

Okay.

So we have that.

I'm going through Scrabble dictionary right now, all the the two-letter words.

It's a real word.

It's not.

It's a real word.

I wouldn't even call this like a Scrabble obscure word.

You know this word.

What are things associated with acting?

I mean, I'm thinking Oscars, the Hollywood sign.

Well, or he could be like a theater actor.

He was in Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe, among many other films.

So that's the kind of era we're talking about here.

Jack.

So then I'm a fan.

You said the word just now.

Something that, yeah.

Jack Lemon is Jack Lemon.

What did I say?

Jack Lemon is no.

Jack Lemon, no.

Remember, it's on his gravestone.

So like, picture what you're seeing here.

Does it play off his name in any way?

Nope.

It plays off the situation, though.

In which he is not alive.

Right.

That's the situation.

What I love is how many times you are just literally saying.

There we go.

In, in, yes.

In.

Jack Lemon in

the grave you see below.

Yes, it is.

That's fun because he's an alpha.

I don't know what that is.

Yes, it is a title screen from a movie like from old Hollywood where you would just see Jack Lemon

in and then underneath is the grave of Jack Lemon.

That's very clever.

How many times, that must be a loud record for most amount of times saying the answer without having any idea what we were saying.

Which brings me to the question from the very start of the show.

Thank you to Anonymous for sending this in.

On Roblox, why are there a surprisingly large number of games with sea creatures in the title?

Anyone want to take a quick shot at that before I tell the audience?

The only thing I know about

Roblox is it's box and cubes and sea creatures are the letter C creature after it, not sea creatures, because they're made out of cubes.

Good lateral thinking.

In this case, it's things like shrimp or fish or shark.

Because

there is a finding Nemo sponsorship.

It goes right to capitalism.

Who's making the games on Roblox?

Children.

Children are making games.

Yeah.

And they love...

They got really into Finding Nemo.

They got really into something.

They got really into

the ocean.

A couple years ago, there was a media property that really wasn't aimed at them.

Baby Shark?

Oh, Sharknado.

No.

Wait, Baby Shark was a good guess, though.

It was was a great guess, but I think that's too young.

No, this was something that really they shouldn't have been watching.

What was an adult thing about the ocean?

Titanic?

Jaws?

A movie or show that came out that has a lot of sea creatures in it?

No, no, just one particular sea creature is missing from this list.

There's a lot of shrimps, a lot of fishes, a lot of sharks.

The Loch Ness Monster.

Kids didn't get obsessed with that, though.

An octopus?

My octopus teacher.

My octopus teacher?

Or a SpongeBob?

Macy, you are closer.

It's not the right property, but it's pretty close to me.

Squid games.

Keep going, yes.

Okay.

So why are there a surprisingly large number of games with other sea creatures in the title?

Because it's like squid games, it's like lobster games, it's like...

Do they just do puns on squid games with different other with different animals?

What are the kids trying to do?

Get around copyright of squid games.

That's it, Macy.

They're trying to avoid copyright and trademark.

The developers, the

children here, are trying to copy squid game, but don't want to get in legal trouble.

And so there are many games on Roblox that are shrimp game, fish game, shark game, among many others.

Congratulations on getting through your first lateral episode.

Where can people find you?

What are you putting out?

We will start with Neil.

Yeah, so Toby and I host a podcast every single weekday morning called Morning Brew Daily, which you can find on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, or anywhere else you get your podcast.

If you want to hear that sharp

problem-solving duo, you can.

Every morning, it comes out around 7 a.m.

Eastern Standard Time.

Toby, tell me about the newsletter.

Oh, the newsletter is great.

It's kind of like a companion to the podcast.

It comes out every single morning in your inbox at 5 a.m.

Biggest business news stories you need to know with some fun trivia at the end as well.

And that's edited by Neil.

And Macy, tell me about the YouTube stuff.

I make YouTube videos at Morning Brew where I try different jobs to talk about the industry around those jobs.

Most recently, I became a plumber.

Right now, I am learning magic for a magic show I have in a few days, and it's high stakes, so it's really fun stuff.

And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com where you can also send in your own ideas for questions.

The episodes are in video every week on Spotify, and we are at lateralcast basically everywhere.

Thank you very much to Macy Gilliam.

Thank you so much.

Toby Howell.

Thank you.

We nailed it.

And Neil Freeman.

Thank you.

My brain hurts.

And I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.

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