147: The blank homework

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What rule gave rise to the self-proclaimed title of salad engineer?

The answer to that at the end of the show.

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

This is something of a maker special on Lateral as we welcome back three familiar faces to the show who are all looking to better their performance from their last appearance.

Like a butcher's shop on Mount Everest, the stakes have never been higher.

Bravo.

Here to face a grilling once more, we start with Alice Fagnola.

Welcome back to the show.

Hi, thanks.

So glad to be here.

Last time on the show, I don't think we really appreciated just what a wide range of ridiculous things you build and make and work with.

What have you been doing lately?

I'm trying to make crocs out of wood because that's sensible.

Ooh.

I was trying to portmanteau crocs and clogs there, and it really doesn't work.

Crogs?

Crogs?

Crocs.

Clogs?

Yeah, that's difficult.

So we'll see.

But yeah, the world's most comfortable shoe.

I'm just trying to make them extremely uncomfortable.

Is that like carving and polishing and everything?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm not even that far into it, but

it's happening, hopefully.

Well, very best of luck to you with the project and with the show today.

You are joined by two people in the same room who will always hide their notes from each other when they ask the question.

Evan and Caitlin, welcome back to the show.

How are you doing?

We're doing well.

We're doing good.

Happy to be back.

I'm ready to exercise my brain again.

Well, thank you very much for coming back.

Last time I saw you, you had just completed the annual pumpkin.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

A lot's happened since then.

Yeah.

Yeah, we've...

Been working on a few interesting things.

Evan built a custom ergonomic laptop that is transforming.

Okay, so that, how do I describe this to the people watching in audio?

That, is that so you don't have to look down at the screen?

You can keep your, so it's, it's on like telescoping arms, the screen, it just kind of comes up to any height?

Yeah, it's selfie sticks.

That's wonderful.

Wait, so hold on.

Now I'm now I'm confused.

Did you like reroute all the wiring through the selfie sticks?

Where does it go?

It's Bluetooth.

So it's wireless.

It's actually just a tablet on top and a Bluetooth keyboard joined together with laser cut parts and selfie sticks and camera hinges.

That is magical.

That's so good.

All right.

Well, very best of luck with the show today.

No more mincing of words.

We will get straight to the meat of the matter.

There's a lot of meat puns I'm butchering.

Shop shop, here's question one.

This question's been sent in by Jacob.

Why could the flag of Guinea be seen on air mali airplanes i'll say that again why could the flag of guinea be seen on air mali airplanes first off i need to figure out what is an air marley airplane yeah like where is that airline from because it would make sense if it was from guinea yeah

that would be very obvious

It's just like two words I don't fully understand.

Allie, do you have any insight?

Yeah, it is a word salad.

Didn't we open with the salad thing?

Sounds like you threw magnetic poetry onto my fridge and now it's a question.

I think this might be an accent thing because you will have heard that as the name Mali with an R in it because I have a British accent.

This is M-A-L-I, the African country.

Oh, Molly.

Yeah.

Okay,

that's what happens.

That makes more sense.

You know what?

I don't actually know what the local pronunciation of that country is.

I just said it with my accent.

I was just trying to hide the fact that I didn't know geometry.

Geography.

Geography.

So, yes, this is the flag of Guinea, the country seen on Air Mali, which is the now defunct national airline for the African country.

Well, I know that

in Africa, there have been a lot of rearranging of countries and renaming of countries.

And like, there's been more shuffling of that in Africa to some degree than in other continents

as

political and geopolitical situations change and stuff like that.

So, I wonder if it was something like that.

Or, or I wonder if it's just something where, like,

you know, one line of planes was purchased by

another country or something.

I can see that too.

Is the Mali flag, is that how you pronounce it?

We'll go with it.

Sure.

Really simple.

Could you accidentally put that in your branding?

Because

it is just a logo that you designed.

And oops, it's also a flag.

So, not that, but it is something about designs and flags.

It is a property of

the flag and the plane.

I can't say more than that right now.

Oh, so it's not that the countries are so close that you just look out the window and there's a flag down on the ground from the other country.

Okay.

Because that was my other option.

Is one country's flag a subset of another country's flag?

Like, like, is a portion of one flag

the flag of another country?

Like within the design?

Within the design.

Subset is not the right term, but you're starting to think in the right area there.

Ooh.

It's not like one of those things where Australia and New Zealand have the union jack in the corner.

It's not like that.

Okay, okay.

That's where I was going with the thought.

I wonder if it's backwards.

The logo was first and then the flag happened.

I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

Oh, are we on the right track?

I feel like we are.

You are, but not in the way you think.

Dang it.

She's saying that I'm on the right track and it's not useful.

You said the right words.

I wonder if...

One of the flags is pretty simple.

Like it's just one color and there's like a circle cut out of it.

But the circle is like a window that's cut out in the the airplane.

So the airplane makes another country's flag on accident or something.

Now you're getting close.

Okay, okay.

Because something that Tom said made me think that it has to do with the airplane specifically.

So there's a feature on the airplane that modifies one flag and makes it look like another flag.

Yes, absolutely right.

The flag's printed on the headrest in a way that moves it around.

Printed.

No, it's on the outside of the plane, I'm getting the outside it could be it is it could be like on the tail and the tail cuts something off because the tail isn't like a rectangle and it cuts off like an identifying feature that differentiates the two flags nope sorry

but you start to think in the right direction it's a quirk of how the flag is painted on the plane does it have to do with degrading over time it becomes

perhaps sun

bleached and it changes the color no the both the flags were on the plane Both the flags are on the plane.

Mm-hmm.

And they're painted on.

Yep.

And we got the most positive response when I said there's something like a window or something like that.

But it's not going to be a window.

It's a quirk of how flags are painted on planes, basically anyway.

How are flags painted on planes?

Which makes me think it either has to do with like how

it would have to work around and like accommodate around features like windows or how it would have to work around or accommodate like the curvature of the plane or like the shapes of like the tail or the wings or something like that.

Not quite that.

Have a think of, let's say it wasn't painted on there.

Let's say that they actually just put flagpoles on the side of the plane because that's what they're trying to emulate.

Like they put it on backwards so that the plane flying forwards, it's like going the other direction.

You said earlier, Ali, I wonder if it's backwards.

And I went, ah, and then you said something about a different topic.

I was like, oh, that's not what you meant by that.

But you said the right word.

You absolutely said the right word.

Yes, flags on planes are painted as if they were flying from a staff and the plane is going forward.

So if you ever look at the right-hand side, the starboard side of like a US Army plane, then the flag will be apparently backwards because you are seeing it as if it's flown from a staff.

So put it together, what's special about the two flags?

They are inverses of each other.

Yes, they are both tricolore flags with three vertical bars.

They are the reverse of each other.

So Ehrmali, painted backwards to look like a flagpole, is the flag of Guinea.

Evan, it is over to you for the next question.

This question was sent in by Matthew B.

In 1915, Anzac forces evacuated their position in Glypoli, now part of Turkey.

One soldier improvised a device consisting of two tin cans, one of which had a small hole in it.

How did he save tens of thousands of lives?

In 1915, Anzac forces evacuated their position in Glipoli, now part of Turkey.

One soldier improvised a device consisting of two tin cans, one of which had a small hole in it.

How did he save tens of thousands of lives?

Now, I feel like for the Americans on the call, I need to give a little bit of context here.

I had to do a little bit of digging on this too to refresh some memories.

So, Anzac is the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.

The AC might be something else, but it's Australian and New Zealand forces.

And Gallipoli was a bloodbath.

It's in popular culture at just

a very dark time in Anzac's history.

If you would like to feel very bad for a while, if you listen to the band played Waltzing Matilda,

it is in Australian New Zealand popular culture as the bloodbath.

So this is a dark question, but you said save tens of thousands of lives?

Yes.

Okay.

One soldier improvised a device with

two tin cans and one with a hole in it.

Yeah, a little bit of an inventor tinkerer.

Okay.

I mean, I did this exact thing, I'm sure, when I was six, and it's telephones.

Is it not speaking between the two of them?

Obviously, that's the first thing that comes to mind, but it would be two holes.

That's what came to mind, too.

Yeah.

Now, there was still a piece of string.

Okay.

And I'm assuming that these were connected into one singular system because it's referred to as a device, like a singular device.

So it's not like you throw one over there and you keep one here.

Now, the two

tin cans did interface with a third thing besides the string.

The inventory we have is two tin cans with one small hole

and there's something else, the piece of string involved.

Yes.

My initial idea would be that it would be super complex, and the tin cans are just one small piece of a really big, complex, confusing thing, but not if it's just three things or four things.

And so, whatever this device did, it allowed, what was it, like, did you say 10,000 people to like retreat?

Yeah.

So they were able to like run away.

And

so that makes me think: like, did this like I wonder if it like imitated something that it wasn't?

Like, if like something about the hole made it

like

you could spin it around and it would make like a like a sound like it's something else.

Caitlin was kind of a little bit on the right track generally.

I think you guys are getting there slowly.

Okay.

So maybe it imitates something else or like

seemed like it was something other than two tin cans

and a piece of string.

It can't be something as simple as like a tripwire or something like that that

detected something.

Yeah, I'm also trying to think of like why is there a hole in one of them?

You know, is it because like was that hole like an attachment point and it attached to something else, or did something go in need to go into the hole or come out of the hole?

Like, could they put something in there and swing it around?

And, like,

there's no swinging, no, no swinging it.

Okay, I don't want you to go too far down that rabbit hole.

Okay, because I was briefly thinking like remote minefield detector, where you just swing a thing around.

But this is a lateral question, it's not going to be something grim.

This is going to be about saving lives.

One can was placed above the other.

Okay,

okay, one above the other.

Water filtration.

Um,

when it's tipped, you hear it.

it specifically allowed them to retreat i i did it oh that well that's why i'm clarifying or did it just say it saved them it saved tens of thousands of people just saved okay okay if one's on stacked tenuously and it gets tripped and falls that's a

meerkat being like hey something's coming and then tens of people

yeah tom was on somewhat of a tangential track with water water is involved somehow okay okay

it's not filtration or sanitation it's

it's like what else would you find you'd have like helmets you'd have like rope you'd have but rope is just big string

water was it in a river of some sort nope i'll give you a small hint the can with the hole is the one that had the water in it

Okay.

So the hole is either for putting water in or pouring water out.

You could also use it for telling time.

If you have a can that drains at a known speed,

you could use it for,

I'm running out of things to use it for.

Tom was on the right track a little bit.

There was a little bit of a time element to it.

The drip over time was a key part of the design.

You're making tiny stalactites.

And so other the other can is fully closed?

No, no.

Oh, it's an open can.

So the there's an open can.

There's an open top.

So there's a can that has a hole in it and water is dripping out of that.

That makes a sound.

It's something to do with the audio.

You know, I'm going to go back and add a clarification because Caitlin did point something out.

So in 1915, Anzac forces evacuated their position.

Oh.

So you were right.

It was during an evacuation.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So they did

leave where they were because of this can thing.

Yes.

Okay.

This is trench warfare.

Are they trying to convince someone that there's still someone at home?

Like, are the people still in there?

But how would you do that?

Oh, like, could

the sound of the dripping water somehow

like

mimic like the sound of like

an army being there in some way.

Yeah, like home alone when he puts all those people up in the windows, and it's like definitely a family here.

It is very home alone-ish.

Okay.

I'm noticing you're having to cover your face up and say, don't give anything away.

Well, okay, so the only home alone things are either convincing people that you're still in or setting booby traps.

Yes.

Like, is this a way to make the trench unsafe for someone following so they've got time to retreat?

So it's not a booby trap.

It's more convincing someone that's home, but dripping water isn't really that loud.

What would be around that would really make a louder sound during trench warfare?

A gun.

This device pulls a gun trigger somehow via water straight.

On a delay.

Keep on going.

Oh, it's on a delay.

Yeah.

So it fills the can without the hole and the weight of that, once it's enough, it pulls the trigger.

You You guys got it.

And that convinces the enemy that you're still there.

There's still that noise.

And it's not safe to come in because someone might be shooting at you, which gives the troops time to retreat.

Yes.

When the troops decided to evacuate in December 1915, Lance Corporal W.C.

Scurry invented what became known as the drip rifle.

Water slowly drained from one can into another that eventually became heavy enough to pull the trigger of a mounted rifle via a string.

The sporadic firing of rifles convinced the Turkish forces that the lines were still occupied long after the evacuation had finished.

Wow.

Since the Turkish troops were close by, it's estimated that without the distraction, up to half of the 80,000 ANZAC troops would have died.

In reality, only half a dozen casualties were taken because of this invention.

That's incredible.

Makers!

Yeah!

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Thank you to Lucas for sending in this next question.

When filming the Endor scenes for Star Wars Return of the Jedi, one character often had to be accompanied by workers in high-viz vests.

Who was it and why?

One more time, when filming the endor scenes for Star Wars Return of the Jedi, one character often had to be accompanied by workers in high-viz vests.

Who was it and why?

Okay, so the endor scene is snowy, white.

What blends in with white?

More white.

Was it the like, uh,

was it the snow monster?

And he had to be escorted by people in high-vis vests because he wasn't visible.

You have unfortunately confused Endor with Hoff.

Oh my god.

Oh, that's embarrassing.

Oh, my nerd credentials are Endor.

I was going to say something, but you know.

What I'd like is we all let Evan just carry on with that.

And he's like, well, someone's going to have to tell him.

I was like, he's going to get it.

He was so confident.

Okay, so Endor.

That's the forest one, right?

Yes, the forest moon of Endor.

Okay.

I love that scene.

The thing that they're around is dangerous.

Other people need to see.

whatever they're surround their surrounding the character.

What character would be dangerous to other people versus the other way around hmm it could also be that they're blending in too because in that battle there were ewoks were those uh small yeah ewoks okay ewoks were present in that scene and maybe they were too small or they blended into the forest too much so it could be that

it could go either way either it could be that it was dangerous for the character being escorted or the character being escorted everyone else needed to be aware of where they were because there was a danger if they didn't know Do we think it would help if one would have seen Star Wars when answering this question?

Probably.

Probably.

I mean, I've seen it, but it's been so long.

Even as someone who's never seen all the Star Wars films all the way through,

I know this.

And I think most people who've, if you know pop culture, you would be able to answer this one.

So I'll describe some scenes that I remember.

So there's the ATAT Walker gets smashed by two logs, but I think that might have been a miniature because they were doing practical effects back then.

There were a lot of battle scenes, there was a lot of fighting.

A lot of Ewok fighting.

A lot of Ewok fighting.

Were the Ewoks kids?

They're small, right?

Were they child actors?

I don't actually know.

But it seems like that doesn't matter.

It doesn't.

No.

Which means you can rule out Ewoks.

Okay, rule out Ewoks.

Okay, okay.

I was really going hard, like, into the Ewok direction because I was thinking, like,

something everyone knows if you haven't watched it.

Now there's the rebels or the empire forces.

Yes.

Mainly, like, stormtroopers and stuff like that.

I'm also trying to think of stuff that's, like, iconic to Star Wars that you would know even if you don't watch.

Yeah.

There's also something that is iconic that is outside the world of Star Wars here.

Have a think about where they might be filming this.

They need a forest scene.

Where are they going to go for it?

Redwoods,

The trees were big.

They were big.

And that makes me think of redwoods.

Were they, but there's not like my brain was about to say, like, were they wearing Hyves vests so that, like, hunters didn't shoot anyone on set?

But I don't think there's hunters in the redwoods.

Keep thinking.

This could be a different forest where there are hunters.

Oh my god.

Wait, wait a second.

I'm gonna let you keep.

I'm gonna let you keep on going.

Oh, wait, oh, no, I know.

i think i know i think i know okay well i don't know where the forest is but it is the redwood state uh parks it is it is northern california yes okay i think the character at risk was chewy

yes chewbacca yeah and i i think it's because like they were worried that hunters would shoot him thinking he was like a large animal or like big like a bear or like bigfoot's the key word there yes

oh that's great i love this question that's so good uh the crew were worried that chewbacca

actor Peter Mayhew, would be mistaken for Bigfoot in the dense forests of Northern California because Bigfoot hunters had searched in there and there were some shots where he's off in the distance.

So

they put a couple of folks with high-vis vests near him at all times just in case there was some hunter nearby who was like, I'm going to bag Bigfoot.

I would feel like that's not enough.

If I'm playing, if I'm playing Chewbacca, I feel like we need a better contingency planning.

That's great.

Ali, whenever you're ready.

This question has been sent in by Raquel.

Sarah is spending a relaxing evening at home.

After a while, she sighs and decides she needs to tink.

After tinking for a while, she sighs again and decides she needs to frog.

What is causing her to tink and frog?

Yoga positions.

And again, Sarah is spending a relaxing evening at home.

After a while, she sighs and decides she needs to tink.

After tinking for a while, she sighs again and decides she needs to frog.

What is causing her to tink and frog?

Very interesting question.

Very interesting.

So we can use some context clues.

We know tinking is something that takes a while.

to do because it says she tinks for a while.

Yes.

So it's not like she tinks.

It's not like a single thing you do.

She also, before tinking and frogging, she sighs, which to me, a sigh indicates it's kind of like a little bit of like a reluctance to like,

yeah, I should do this.

Guess I got a tink now.

Yeah, got a tink.

Now, I wonder if those are

T stands for something, I stands for something.

What are those called?

Like an acronym?

Acronym.

It could be an acronym or some kind of like slang that we're not understanding.

It's very skibbetty.

It's very sigma.

Oh, no.

She's risling right now.

Oh, no.

Tink and frog.

Tink and frog.

I'm trying to think: is there any link between those two?

Yeah.

T-I-N-C-F-R-O-G.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

They're both four-letter

words, maybe acronyms.

It was relaxing evening at home.

Yeah, she's home.

I will confirm it is T-I-N-K.

T-I-N-K.

That makes me think

that maybe it is either an acronym or it's short for something where, like, it being a K instead of a C is relevant.

For some reason, when I was hearing the question being asked, I wanted to add like

like letters to it to complete it like think or I don't know what frog would turn into but like like maybe there's like a like a what's the like the pig Latin you know like where

yeah you know like where one word kind of means another word through some formula hmm like it's code like it's code you're on the right track the word tink is has a clue in it tink okay

tink so Tink is short for tinkerbell in Peter Pan.

I don't know which adaptation of Peter Pan, but

so now I'm making a load of Disney connections in my head.

You've got Tinkerbell and you've got the Princess and the Frog, and you've got a load of old fairy tales and things like that.

But I don't know what that could be a metaphor for.

Metaphor for.

So she pretends to be Tinkerbell for a while, and then she pretends to be Kermit the Frog for a while.

Okay, no, I would say not that track.

We went too far.

Okay.

And you're right about the sighing.

She's trying to undo some mistakes.

So

you're thinking correctly here.

She's trying to undo it.

She's a sigh.

She's like, I'm going to tink for a while.

T-I-N-K.

This is tickling something in the back of my head.

Like, crochet.

I don't know why.

My brain has just gone like crochet.

That this is

the noise of needles.

It was when you said undo some mistakes.

My brain went like crafting, and then I feel like I've heard frog.

There's a linguistic concept called priming, right?

Where like you hear one word, and then the bits of your brain associated with other similar concepts just gently light up.

So you've got more.

And like I heard undo mistakes and frog, and my suddenly the crochet word in my head lit up.

You are so close.

Oh, okay.

Maybe.

If that's the case, my mom is going to be yelling at at the screen right now.

I wonder if, you know, how when you're tying your shoes, you go over the this and you go under the that and you remember what you're supposed to do in what order by like saying like you know you remember an acronym.

So maybe like tink is like together in

nothing, you know what I mean?

What action are you doing?

Oh my oh

oh

you're knitting.

You are knitting.

You are specifically knitting.

Have a look at the words.

Oh, it's backwards.

It's backwards.

So

if you're undoing knitting,

you're tinking.

Yeah.

Tinking is undoing knitting.

So what would a frog be?

Do you want to try and figure that out too?

So tinking is undoing knitting.

So tinking is knitting backwards.

I mean, this is a little obscure.

It's not a wordplay thing here.

Yeah.

So it's not gorping backwards.

Gorp.

So wow, you guys are incredible.

I didn't even have to give you any

notes here.

Like, you got everything that I was supposed to give you.

So

what's frogging?

So we need to figure out

Sarah's knitting and she made some mistakes.

You got it.

That's why she's sighing.

Tink is to go backwards to the place where you made the mistake.

So knit backwards.

And frog is to unravel several rows of stitches.

If you realize that the mistake happened much earlier, the name is a pun on rip it, rip it, rip it, unravel it, rip it back, mimicking rivet noise that a frog makes.

Rivet, rivet, rivet.

Wow.

People who knit are very clever with their terms, and I like

the playfulness.

Playful, yeah, very, very good.

That's awesome.

Thank you to Bob Weiss for this question.

In 2019, a professor in Japan set a class assignment to write an essay about their recent trip to a museum.

One student turned in a blank sheet of paper and she was given top marks.

Why?

I'll say that again.

In 2019, a professor in Japan set a class assignment to write an essay about their recent trip to a museum.

One student turned in a blank sheet of paper and she was given top marks.

Why?

It's a minimalist art museum and we're just not putting anything on the page because

that suits that style.

Or, I wonder if, like,

like, there's any reason why the

the it might have been like invisible ink or something.

Ooh, it was a spy museum, a spy museum.

Because we don't know, it might not be an art museum, yeah.

I know, I assume art.

I wonder if it has to do with 2019.

Before the panel, I'm gonna cut you off, Caitlin.

You're right, it absolutely is invisible ink.

That is half the answer, But I'll let you work out the rest.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Whoa.

So what kind of good job?

Thanks.

Yeah.

So that makes me wonder what kind of museum was it, like a science museum somehow, where it's like the ink is revealed with UV light, like something like that.

Or

a history museum

and like, you know, some exhibit in the museum had to do with something where like secret messages were needed.

And I don't know.

Some sort of old-timey national security museum yeah again caitlin's the closest there i don't know what's happening

she's already done too much let her take a break

caitlin secret life as a spy confirmed

spy is not the right term all right

national security fbi

cia those uh those are all spies okay

i feel like it could go back to like

like ancient egyptians and stuff like that i feel like they would do stuff like invisible ink they were they had little sneaky secret things that they did my guess is that egyptians didn't have invisible ink i don't know i feel like they could have used like

they did i don't know but it was just putting something over your carved hieroglyphics it's like you carve the hieroglyphics and then you just plaster over them plaster over them

i was thinking like i don't think they had ink at all they had wasn't there like papyrus yeah there absolutely was I don't know why I was a dick about that.

You're absolutely right.

Yeah, there was like

a slab of rock in front of the other one.

I think I was thinking like clay tablets.

That's just the wrong civilization.

The civilization in question is important, though.

Like, because the word civilization was used, it makes me think it is like an older civilization.

This was a professor in Japan.

Oh, Japan.

Samurai.

The calligraphy of some sort sort is big.

Oh, calligraphy.

It must have been some sort of secret letters between lovers, maybe.

So you said it doesn't have to do with spies.

Maybe it's like discreet messages between lovers.

Spies is closer, sadly.

It's not the right word.

I think.

Are they romantic spies?

I've been hesitating with spy because you've been thinking like CIA and code books and that sort of thing.

We're in in Japan and we're talking about Japanese history.

There we go.

That's the word I was looking for.

Yeah.

Okay.

Caller spies.

Because you're right.

Like that, that is basically a spy,

but we were looking for ninjas.

This was a museum concerned with Japan's feudal era, 13th to 17th centuries.

The professor said he would give high marks for creativity.

This was Professor Yuji Yamada.

And first-year student Aomi Haga decided to write her essay in invisible ink employing the ninja technique called Aburidashi.

She even made the ink herself out of soybeans.

Yeah, A.

She deserved, yeah, she deserved that.

Those high marks.

Honey punches of votes is the forma perfecto demez en el conto familia.

Cono juelas cruzientes y mi el verdad qual los niños les encantas.

Ademas delicios os trosos de granola nuces y fruta que todos vanadis brutad.

Honey punches de votes para todos.

Tokal bener para sabermás.

Caitlin, it is your question.

At the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., there's a machine that gives you a guaranteed 2% profit on your money.

Why?

Again,

at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., there's a machine that gives you a guaranteed 2% profit on your money.

Why?

My guess is it's some sort of donation matching.

Because if it was just straight profit for you,

then everyone would just be getting infinite money so there has to be some sort of a glitch and the only thing i can think of is like some sort of donation matching like some foundation will say hey if you give ten dollars

we'll make it twelve or something that's not profit for you though i'm i'm gonna sit out of this one because i think i saw one of these very recently it's in my head if i'm wrong uh feel free to mock me but i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna let you all take this one a money machine i need to go there right now make 2% on whatever I put in.

You would only see this type of machine

somewhere where there might be like tourists.

Is it one of those things where you like stick in a quarter and you roll it and it like flattens it out and changes it into another shape?

I was thinking penny crusher.

But 2% increase.

You always put in your own penny.

That just destroys.

There's no longer legal currency, right?

The reason I was thinking penny crusher is that I saw one of these recently.

And actually, now I think about it, the 2% profit doesn't make sense.

But I saw one of these where they supply the pennies because I think there might be something illegal about like

mutilating currency.

So they have blanks in there.

But that doesn't make sense.

That's not 2% profit.

I was really sure about this.

And now it's all.

You're still paying the 50 cents to crush it or whatever.

Yeah.

So you guys are very close.

So something around the crushers,

something for tourists.

Actually, for people who haven't seen these, does someone want to explain the penny crusher?

So, basically, what it is, is you stick in some sort of malleable metal currency.

Pennies are good because they're fairly malleable.

And

the person who's paying turns gears, which pulls the

coin in, and there's a die, a metal die on top and bottom, and it re-imprints a new type of imprint onto the coin.

And generally, it's fat, flat, and oblong versus a coin shape when you're done.

Yeah,

they'll crush it down and add a little design of wherever you happen to be.

Yeah.

But yeah, the one I saw just had a credit card reader on it, and they supplied their own penny blanks, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Like, it was for the cashless world.

Like, you scan your credit card, you turn the gear, souvenir comes out.

But for some reason, you're not paying.

They're just giving you the penny.

Right.

Or is there some sort of is payment in the work that you're doing?

Are you adding some sort of value?

And then they give you a penny so you're actually getting paid for it.

There was a wonderful bit of artwork that I've heard of, which is the minimum wage machine.

It's just a crank on the side of the box with a load of pennies inside.

And as long as you turn the crank, it will pay you the current minimum wage in pennies.

Wow.

Which, as an artistic statement, is wonderful and a bit bleak.

Yeah.

Because people are not willing to turn that crank.

Yeah, Trade your life for pennies.

Wow.

So you guys are like,

you're so close.

So one thing I will say is there are two machines next to each other.

So one's just broken?

I have a guess.

You can swipe a card and pay $1

for like $1.20 or whatever for a pre-crushed penny, or you can pay $1

for a penny that you crush yourself.

So how are you making money?

So you're making money by crushing it yourself.

So this is the thing where anyone,

even if you're not crushing pennies, could make this 2% profit.

So could it be like a...

No, never mind.

That's a stupid idea.

I would love to hear it.

Well, how do you do?

I'm thinking like a change machine.

Like you swipe your card.

It gives you a dollar to use, or how much?

Yeah, it gives you a dollar to use the machine next door and two pennies.

But

that's it.

That you put a dollar in,

and the two pennies come out with the dollar.

You almost didn't say it.

You are, you almost didn't say it.

So, the machine in question that guarantees a 2% profit is a machine that supplies pennies for a souvenir penny press machine right next to it.

So, basically, it's a change machine.

You insert a dollar, it gives you four quarters, which you can use to pay for the the penny press and two pennies to use on the penny press so technically anyone can use it and make a profit you could just be putting dollars in there all day and make your two percent profit

but it's meant for the penny press Wow

so the quarter allows you to play for the operation of the penny press the pennies are the coins you crush with it given that the zoo makes a substantial profit from the machine they don't mind losing two percent from the change machine yeah nobody's going there paying a dollar for a couple of pennies And you've got to pay for admission to the zoo.

And you need a large wheelbarrow.

For all those pennies.

For all those pennies.

We're going to try to actually turn a profit from that.

Yeah.

Can you imagine walking into the zoom with a giant wheelbarrow?

It might be a little suspicious.

A giant cache of a stack of ones.

And a convincing disguise.

Ugh, Evan and Caitlin are here again.

Yep.

So one last order of business.

At the top of the show, I asked a question that was sent in by Crashington.

What rule gave rise to the self-proclaimed title of salad engineer?

Does anyone want to take a guess at that?

It makes me think it's something like in a kitchen, like some kind of guideline for kitchen sanitary standards or something,

where like

increased guidelines of strictness were involved.

And so the person felt justified in calling themselves an engineer because they had to like adhere to more rules.

I don't know.

I went the other way around.

It's an engineer that

it's about an engineer and not someone making salads.

Okay, you guys are probably right.

I'm going the other way too.

Like, an engineer who's a salad engineer is a certain variety of engineer based on some like OSHA rule or something like that.

Or maybe it's an engineer that does a little bit of everything.

Toss it together in a salad.

Yeah, toss it all together.

Salad is a mix.

The rule is you should use many disciplines when engineering.

This did involve actual salad.

Kaylin's more right.

Wow, look at that.

What rule?

So some rule implemented in the kitchen?

Oh, engineers with great body fat.

Well, so in kitchens, often you do like assembly line

for efficiency.

So maybe there was like a new rule about like salads needing to be made in more of an assembly line process.

Wait,

I have a guess.

The rule

this is at like Subway or something like that.

And Subway allowed employees to set their own job titles.

And someone named themselves salad engineer.

In the same way they have sandwich artist.

Yeah, yeah.

Is it that the rule is that you have to work through lunch?

Oh, and so you're eating your salad while you continue to engineer.

So I'm hesitant to give hints because you're right about some of the details here.

Who's right?

Honestly, most of you.

Like, a lot of the details in there.

We're talking about rules.

We're talking about assembly lines and things like that.

It's just.

Yeah, okay.

So you can eat with one hand while you're continuing to do something with the other hand because it's a salad.

It's the same thing that Earl of Sandwich did while he played poker.

But employee is the wrong word.

Oh, so is it the customer?

It's like be your own salad engineer at

store.

Yeah, at the salad mart.

And

so

if it is like a salad bar, then you do kind of start on one side and end up at the other.

And there are like, there is like a proper order in a way where like, you know, you do the dressing last.

You don't do the dressing first like a crazy person, you know?

And there's another rule there.

Some of these.

What rule?

What rule?

Where are their salad bars anymore?

Pizza Hut is what comes to mind for me.

Yeah, you're right, Ali.

This was at Pizza Hut.

Oh.

What?

Okay.

Pizza Hut.

That back in the day when you could just sneeze on everyone's food, we don't do that anymore.

It makes me think like maybe there's some sort of rule placed on the salad bar, like, oh, there's limits to this, or there's limits to that, or you can't do this or that.

And so they were finding clever ways around it.

And because they had to like carefully calculate how to get around these rules, then they like gave themselves the title.

All I need you to do is identify the rule.

Weight limit.

No.

Volume limit?

The engineering really was on the volume.

Okay.

Well, I wonder if, like, they, like, they put the heaviest stuff on top to, like, crush it down so that it would fit in the bowl.

Like, you had to keep it in the size of a smaller bowl.

Has to fit in one plate.

Yes, you could only visit the salad bar once.

You could get one plate of salad.

So talk me through what they were doing.

Okay, so they were figuring out how to structurally maximize how much they could fit on one plate, like build walls with chicken strips and things like that to like maximize how much could fit.

That's a hell of a salad.

That's awesome.

You are absolutely right.

At some branches of Pizza Hut, they had a one salad plate per person rule.

And some customers developed elaborate strategies and operations to stack the food as high as possible on their one plate.

And they call themselves salad engineers.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

In China, a real-life engineer developed a technique that started with a rim of carrot batons to widen the base, stacked circles of cucumber to form a cylindrical tower that could be up to three feet high using dressing as glue.

If someone could pull that off, they deserve that salad.

And with that, thank you very much to all three of our players.

What's going on in your lives?

Where can people find you?

We will start with Evan Caitlin, you're in the same room.

Which one he wants to take it?

Go watch my ergonomic laptop video.

I'm really proud of it.

I had fun working on it.

I worked on it off and on for like a year or three.

It's one of those like background personal projects that I'm just like.

That we turned into a video eventually.

Yeah, turned into a video eventually, yeah.

Yeah, so just Evan and Caitlin on YouTube.

And Ali.

Yeah, go see me on all of the things.

I'm Ali Spegnol everywhere.

And yeah, my YouTube channel will have me probably making the hardest crocs on the planet if I can actually pull it off.

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.

We are at lateralcast basically everywhere, and there are video highlights on YouTube and full video episodes on Spotify.

Thank you very much to Alice Bagnola.

Thank you.

I'm so glad to be here.

To Evan and Caitlin.

Thanks for having us.

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

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

They called it truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.