138: A confusing refreshment

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When might you show someone your social six?

The answer to that at the end of the show.

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

Brooke.

Okay, folks, someone's pressed the play button again.

Everyone stand by.

Hello, welcome to the lateral podcast.

You are today's listener number 35,406.

We'll do another run-through just for you, but I must admit that it does get a little bit repetitive after the first 20,000.

So ready to force a smile for the next 40 minutes.

We have one half of the Sad Boys podcast returning to the show.

Jordan Adica, welcome back.

Pow pow pow.

Not real guns, just the finger gun stuff.

I got to stop doing that.

Not a threat.

Thank you for having me.

How did you feel last time?

It was your first time on the show.

Well, I think we can pretty conclusively, I know there's no points, but we can pretty conclusively say I got every single one of them right.

I think I did especially well on my question.

Yeah.

Pretty fantastic on it.

You have to be careful, though.

You're setting yourself up for a fall there.

You've got to keep the standard high.

I was going to say, if I do well again, it's an indication of my intelligence.

And if I don't do well, it's a joke.

And I was kidding.

That is the correct strategy to take.

Very best of luck with the show today.

You are joined by your compatriot, the other half of the Sad Boys podcast, Jarvis Johnson.

Welcome back.

Thanks for having me.

Jordan and I are now estranged as of the events of the last episode, and I'm hoping we can mend our relationship today.

You did just suddenly come up with the gag that actually you're not halves anymore.

You're just taking the podcast.

I am assuming that you're all settled up.

Yeah, you say gag, but I think this is a history being made.

This is the end of our professional relationship or the beginning of a new one.

Let's find out.

We're kind of co-parenting the podcast now.

Weekdays for Jovis.

Oh, each of you gets it for half of the podcast.

Like halfway through, you just suddenly have to hand over.

Same length, just

two halves of solo podcasts.

Well, best of luck to both of you jointly and separately.

The third member of the panel today, we have singer-songwriter and music YouTuber Mary Spender.

Welcome back.

Thank you for having me.

And I can announce I am now the child of the Sad Boys podcast.

I'm being co-parented.

I'm the other guest.

I'm one of the boys, you know.

Many headlines are being created from this episode of Lateral.

Oh, it's nice too, as it means that all of your music and output technically is mine.

Yes.

Yeah.

You can have all the money that comes from that streaming income too.

But you have to hold it in a trust fund until Mary reaches.

Until it's 18, until you're older, yeah.

Yeah, which, and let me tell you, I promise the casino I'm going to is only going to increase it.

Perfect.

Well, best of luck to all of you.

Actually, now I think about it, we should have just recorded this show instead of doing it live, but it's too late now.

So for the 35,406th time, here's question number one.

Thank you to Alex for this question.

Lego stopped using cadmium sulfide as a dye in the 1980s due to the potential toxicity to kids.

However, they considered adding barium sulfate, often used as a white dye, also due to kids.

Why?

I'll give you that one more time.

Lego stopped using cadmium sulfide as a dye in the 1980s due to the potential toxicity to kids.

However, they considered adding barium sulfate, often used as a white dye, also due to kids.

Why?

My first thought is that kids might try to eat the Lego, so maybe barium sulfide makes them taste bad.

That were like a Nintendo Switch cartridge.

I was thinking kids have sticky fingers that might take off the paint, or like something that the kids have.

I think edible is probably safer, isn't it?

The cadmium is

like toxic, right?

It's like what they put in those McDonald's Shrek cups or whatever.

And

the barium is they're doing it for kids, but not for a negative reason.

So they're considering adding it.

Due to kids.

Due to kids, but not to their detriment.

So it has to be for their safety, but they didn't.

I mean, I can say I'm considering it.

Yeah, I considered putting like vitamin B12 in that.

I just didn't.

Okay, so touch or they put things in their mouths and choking hazards and maybe it's something.

Oh, does it taste nice?

I'm not sure they want to encourage the kids to eat.

Oh,

is it so is it so that it can be digested?

And like,

is that too gruesome?

Like if a kid eats something, surely it needs to pass through it.

Particularly if it's made of plastic.

At that point, I think it's mostly macro plastic.

Because this is just, yeah, this is just the paint, or this is just like kind of the external, or I guess the Lego is like fully the color.

But one thought, you mentioned that they did not end up doing it.

So is it it possible that they discovered that it did taste good or that it could be more alluring to kids and then in testing they bailed for that reason as best offspain

you have identified that this is to do with eating legos okay That really is the only other thing that kids do with Legos.

It's leave them in the way of a parent and to step on with bare feet.

Yep.

Yeah.

Or insert the tiny studs up their nose.

Yeah.

Yeah, the nose is real risky.

I did do that.

If it doesn't make them taste bad, does it make them smell bad?

But we've all had Lego, right?

Yeah.

And

it's never had a smell.

This was never implemented, right?

They didn't, no.

So

I have a very weak

understanding of

the natural world of the elements.

Is there anything, what was the name of the thought about?

barium sulfate and that is important barium berry tasty tastes good sounds not tasty it does have another famous application medical application medical so it does something to you does it do something good or bad it actually does very little to you in itself but when combined with something that may already be

something that kids are already doing it could it could become a hazard maybe Oh, maybe something else they ingest.

This was actually to help kids.

Or maybe more than that, help their parents.

It's like a sedative.

Oh,

does it glow or something?

Does it glow?

So like if you had like an ultrasound because the kid had swallowed it, that it would show up?

Or just glow in the dark?

You're very close.

That's not the right technology, but you're very close.

It shows up in something that in an x-ray?

Yes.

Yes, it does.

Have you ever heard of a barium meal?

Oh, so you have to ingest something so that it can detect, and then you go in an x-ray and it shows right.

Oh, like a coating liquid for

the other.

Yeah.

Absolutely right, Mary.

My mother, who is a nurse in the NHS, will be ashamed of me for not putting that vicar.

I was never a science nerd.

I think nurses in the NHS have their own problems right now.

They might not have podcast time.

Yeah, Lego does not show up on x-rays.

It's reported that the company considered adding barium sulfate so that doctors would be able to detect them.

It is harmless.

It doesn't dissolve in water.

It was found that barium sulfate made the plastic more brittle, and the plan was dropped.

Wow.

So you still cannot detect a Lego

on an X-ray?

No, but you can still give someone a barium meal and see if there's a blockage.

Yeah, they were thinking of doing it to help kids, but when they realized it hurt their bottom line,

that's not

the product.

where we draw the line.

I think, well, it's probably the

Scandinavian mindset of Vels, it's for Darwinism.

Survival of the fitness.

Mary, whenever you're ready, give us a question, please.

This question has been sent in by Bob Weiss.

In 1933, Chicago hosted their second World's Fair.

On opening night, the lights were switched on automatically by sensitive sensors that detected light coming from the star Arcturus.

Why was this star chosen in particular?

In 1933, Chicago hosted their second World's Fair.

On opening night, the lights were switched on automatically by sensitive sensors that detected light coming from the star Arcturus.

Why was this star chosen in particular?

Is it it operates at like a particular frequency?

I was thinking that, I was also thinking about the thematic relevance of the star.

Is the star visible that night, like in the open air?

It wasn't particularly to do with its visibility, though that did help.

Also, I just assume whenever anyone says that the lights are switched on by sensors, like the same way when someone's turning on the big lights on the Christmas tree or something like that, that button does nothing.

There is a technician behind the scenes with a switch that's just looking at that.

There's a man inside the box playing chess, okay?

A sensitive man.

This might be the World's Fair where there was a load of

early Walt Disney.

No, it's far too early for early Walt Disney stuff, isn't it?

No, too early for, I know what you're thinking of, but I, yeah, this was too early for that.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a small world.

It must have been the 50s and 60s because that happened.

Yeah, that was later.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because there was a World's Fair that they were going to do an Abraham Lincoln animatronic that they canceled.

Yes.

Because he died.

A little early for that.

They found out.

Oh, God.

All this time.

Oh, no.

I didn't even know he was sick.

What was the location again?

Chicago.

Chicago.

Oh, okay.

Chicago 1933 World's Fair.

People are traveling from all around the world to look at really cool stuff that the world's top minds have produced and, you know, products.

This is still a thing, by the way.

We still have World Expos.

It's just they don't have quite the cachet they used to.

Right.

A star, Arcturus, was chosen.

I don't know where Arcturus is, like, in our solar system.

It's got to be fairly bright.

Got to be bright.

It's got to be one of the big visible ones, because if you're pointing sensors at it.

As a clue, I can say, relatively speaking, Arcturus is one of the closest stars to Earth.

Oh, man.

Huh, okay.

The question, in 1933, Chicago hosted their second World's Fair.

Oh.

Is that some.

Is there a pun with the time unit of a second?

Is it like the second closest star?

Like the first Chicago World's Fair had some sensor that detected light from Alpha Centauri, and then Arctaurus is the next one?

Man, they've had to keep going for a while.

Yeah.

You have to find a new star.

You might, I don't know whether you would know when the first world's fair was was it in like the 20s

a little bit further back

well how war adjacent was the first one even more further back the other

crossing over the centuries so it was in the 1800s the first one

how many light years away is arctaurus Could they have known that with the technology of the time?

Is it like that's what I was thinking about with that's why I was thinking about seconds and time, like the amount of time it takes yeah for like light to reach but oh jarvis jarvis you've got it you must have it say say it again say

well i was thinking about oh so okay wait is it the

the distance from so the first world fair the amount of time between the first world fair and the second world fair is the distance between arctura that light takes to travel from arcturis so we're now getting the light from the first world fair and that is what's turning on the lights the light from the star star dates back to their first World Star.

That's lovely.

That's really cool.

That's very clever.

Jarvis, I see you enter your mind palace.

So, yeah, it was 1893 was the first.

So, Chicago's previous World Fair was 40 years prior.

Organizers chose Arcturus because they believed it was 40 light years away.

That's showing up.

That light from that star took 40 years to travel.

Do we know if they were right?

Because that's always funny to go look and like, oh, yeah, they were actually off by 100 light years.

Yeah, I'll take your word for it.

I mean, what do I know?

I'm just some guy from the past.

Well, as it happens, it's actually 36.7 light years away.

So the organizers were a few years late.

But the idea was that the light hitting the photocell sensor in 1933 had left Arcturus in 1893, the year of Chicago's first World Fair.

It's very romantic.

Very romantic.

I like it.

And so easy to lie about.

People say it every time.

The amount of tools to check their work there were so few and far.

There was no one writing in to those guys being like, just so you know, it was actually 36.7.

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This next one's for all you CarMax shoppers who just want to buy a car your way.

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Thank you to Tom for sending in this question.

You can admit you sent it in yourself.

Go on.

No, go ahead, go on.

The last time we had someone called Tom on this podcast, I got referred to as other Tom, and I'm not starting that again.

In 1984, McDonald's ran a promotion where customers collected scratch cards containing the names of events at the Los Angeles Olympics.

These could later be redeemed for free food.

Why did this cost the firm a lot more than planned?

One more time, in 1984, McDonald's ran a promotion where customers collected scratch cards containing the names of events at the Los Angeles Olympics.

These could later be redeemed for free food.

Why did this cost the firm a lot more than planned?

That's a very good question, other Tom.

Was it posed?

Was it

had people learnt the

no, we'd know the events.

I think of fraud is the first thing that comes comes to mind.

And I'm not sure if...

Is fraud the right path to go down?

Because...

Or is it timing?

Like, was it delayed?

So the events had already happened.

So you already knew the answer.

Yeah, did they...

Was this cost in litigation?

It was potentially a

bad job they did in the thing.

1984, there's no...

Sinister,

there's nothing to do with actual 1984.

George Orwell knew about McDonald's.

Yeah, that caught that was a key point that did kind of catch me here, and I'm trying to push it away.

Wait, you missed that bit?

How dare you?

So, I wonder about like a manufacturer's defect with the scratch-off stuff.

Like, um, did it just give the answers?

Yeah, no way.

None of them were, but I'd like, but that's the thing.

I don't know the game, right?

Uh, or if it is a game, it's just it would help to think about what the game might be.

Okay,

why were there names of events printed on the scratch cards?

So the name would be like 100 meter relay or something else.

Okay.

Okay.

Something to do with betting, something to do with the results, the rankings, the.

And it was during the event, so it can't be, you know, predictive.

Okay, so is the names of events were on the scratch offs, but did that also tell you on the scratch off itself what you received or did it depend on the results of the event?

Maybe you get the

athlete.

Like if America gets gold, you know what I mean?

And if the...

That was the promotion, Javis.

Yes.

Oh, and America got way too many gold medals.

Yep.

The slogan is, when the U.S.

wins, you win.

And Mary, you're right.

They got way too many gold medals.

Why?

There's something else that happened here.

Wow, okay.

Home game.

Because America's the best country we're going to have.

Jordan, how dare you?

Why did they get too many?

That was the year that

was that the year that Marion Jones did doping and and america won a bunch of golds they all doped they were all surely everyone that wasn't the year everyone was doping right no no uh

jordan you said america is the best that was very much up for international debate at the time in in a very very vicious and cold way well cold war was happening uh and in in and uh who didn't participate in the Olympics due to the cold war did did did uh i actually don't know if that happened russia but like did that did did some countries not participating

uh affect American like the chip basically our competition our major competition

was not present they excluded them the Olympics or they were excluded I'm not sure yeah the entire Soviet bloc three months before the Olympics began announced they were boycotting the games

By that point, the scratch cards were printed, the promotion was going on, and suddenly America was going to win a lot more gold medals than McDonald's had bargained for.

Wow.

Wow.

Oh, my God.

They're scared.

Let's say it.

They were scared.

Tens of millions of dollars of financial impact.

The way it worked is that you had the scratch card with the name of the event on it,

a Big Mac for a gold medal, fries for a silver, and a Coke for bronze.

Oh, my God.

When is McDonald's going to learn that these scratch-off games are bad news bears?

Yeah, stick to like Sonic the Hedgehog models.

Don't do gambling anymore.

Yeah, well, I say that, but then I'm also like,

they did put cadmium in

the commemorative glasses.

So

really,

they need to figure some stuff out.

So, yes, this was the McDonald's when the U.S.

wins, you win promotion, which got very expensive when the Soviet bloc just dropped out.

When the Soviets lose, you win.

Oh, no.

Jordan, whenever you're ready, your question.

This question has been sent in by Carson Lowe.

Thank you for the question.

A poster is on the wall of a high school chemistry classroom.

A four-word message is written twice, though most people will read it only once.

What is this message and how is the second version different?

One more time.

A poster is on the wall of a high school chemistry classroom.

A four-word message is written twice, though most people will only read it once.

What is the message, and how is the second version different?

Did anyone study chemistry?

I was not at all.

I was poor at chemistry.

I did take it.

So, my guess is that there's like

something that's like written out in elements

and that's written out in English.

And

you mean like periodic table symbols where it's like two letters at a time?

Periodic table symbols, maybe,

yeah.

And so, like, that that could be why you would only read it once, because the average person isn't going to look at NACL and think of like, you know, sodium chloride.

I'm, I'm trying to think of this poster, like literally picturing it, and I feel like I'm thinking along the same lines, or could it be

somehow

so it's written the same thing as written twice, but you would only say it once.

So I think most people would only read it once.

Oh, you'd only read it once.

They'd only read once.

Sorry.

Would it be mirrored or like

what's like a

word you I don't know?

Like a word you could say backwards that's the same?

I was thinking it might be a safety message.

Like high school chemistry classroom, kids are going to mess about.

Please wash your hands or something like that.

Tom, you're right that it is a safety-related poster.

Don't like the gas taps directly on fire.

It happened once in my high school.

It made a really big flamethrower, and then someone got in trouble.

Oh my god.

Don't do that, kids.

Don't do that.

I think that is this an anecdotal poster about someone giving you.

Oh, what do you know?

It says Tom Scott at the bottom.

Okay, so a thought that the message that's written the second time is only revealed due to like a chemical reaction.

That could be like too too that's not happening right um i will say jarvis your your thought process for this makes so much sense if you were a whimsical teacher

but i will say that this is not very edutainment it's it's very quite practical but with a chipped don't eat the chemicals

don't lick the chemicals i remember there being, you know, there's like in my chemistry lab in like college, there's like a place where you could do a shower like a chemical shower in the event that you got something on you that you weren't supposed to and then there's you're not supposed to breathe things in

you're not supposed to get things in your eyes not supposed to get things in your use protect you're supposed to use protective eyewear you're in the right uh that is the right guidance that the poster is giving oh so is it written twice but you'd only read it once if you were wearing a certain type of

glass like protective glass that you could only see it through like like i don't know like a polarized lens when you look at a phone and you can't see your phone but then you can

one version of the text is written in conventional English huh conventional English and then non-conventional

English and it's not US English

I just removed the Z

always wear your goggles something like that is it like blur I feel like it would be like blurry or something like don't forget your glasses or something something you know like um

i will say when i read this i was a little taken aback and i

i not to be like a these days the it's pc gone mad or something but it is it's it's the kind of thing where i can imagine someone being like whoa that's

not politically correct anymore a little insensitive oh i don't know yeah oh then as someone who wore glasses for most of childhood uh

four eyes or you'll end up with zero eyes No, that would be very funny.

Yeah, or it's like don't go blind or something along those lines.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Don't go blind.

I now officially do not want to get cancelled, so I feel like I can't say anything.

That is one tricky thing.

I will say, yeah, you are in the right area.

It is about the risk of the results of potentially getting chemicals.

Yeah.

I'm still trying to think, you know, why would it be written twice?

And you won't read the way it's written a second time.

It feels like it, okay, it's non-conventional English.

Like, what would...

I can't wait to know this.

This is one of my favorite things.

I will say the second version of the text is not written in any

traditional form of letters at all.

It's like, if this makes sense to you, like then you've got hit on the head or something like that.

Tom are you having a mind palace moment?

No, but ironically, because this is a printed poster, is that second line useless to basically everyone?

It is.

The vast majority of people would not be able to.

Is it Braille?

It is Braille.

Because you can't.

And that is, because you can't touch it either.

It's just a printed poster.

Yes.

Oh, that's so.

It might be textured.

Okay, never mind.

Yeah.

But

I will say

it really has no utility for people that would actually need to read it in Braille.

Because braille is not large letters up on a wall that you have to feel with your hand.

Yeah,

it's very much for like the braille is j for the branding of this book.

It is basically saying don't go blind.

Like,

you know what I mean?

Like, so what are the words?

What's the message?

Well, I will say

in English, the English portion is wear your safety goggles.

And then the Braille translation of that.

But then there is a tagline that is the real kind of kicker to this.

Okay, I did say wear your safety goggles at some point.

Yep.

Or else.

Basically, it is or else.

The text below, and this is, I don't know if this really kind of caught me.

Which would you rather read?

Oh.

Yeah.

Oh my god.

Isn't that wild?

I mean, if you are trying to convince kids to wear their safety goggles, that is going to work.

They're still going to light the gas taps on fire.

That's true.

The poster was on the wall in the chemistry classroom of the question submitter castle.

Wow.

So this might be currently in use, which seems wild.

Thank you to Cameron for this next question.

In 1824, how did the frontiersman Jim Bridger get his location wrong by about 620 miles, more or less a thousand kilometers, thanks to a single sip of drink.

I'll say that again.

In 1824, how did the frontiersman Jim Bridger get his location wrong by about 620 miles, about a thousand kilometers, thanks to a single sip of drink?

Instinct, lateral podcast style instinct, I'm having very briefly.

Is it possible that he was not the one that imbibed this drink?

Like the

single sip of drink is more of like a, it was involved in the same way that like

it's the star did not was not involved in the planning of the World's Fair, it was just a component of it.

So, he probably only went like

a degree off or to, well, six because the default answer is obviously, you know, he did a shot of tequila.

Right.

I'm also to try and think laterally, did this, did the sip, was the sip consumed by a person?

It would have been very difficult for him to consume that sip.

Not impossible, not harmful, but it wouldn't have been nice.

But

he was doing like orienteering.

He was himself creating the map or this was.

Yeah, he was one of the first Caucasian explorers heading that way.

It would have been difficult for him to consume the sip.

Was it something like Mad Honey or like ayahuasca or something that he was sipping that then takes him off course because he's having hallucinations?

Or perhaps like an animal that he was with

drank

some water or something and then oh a horse?

Yeah, because I feel as though if my, you know, I was thinking, well, maybe the horse had something toxic and it's a but if I'm riding a horse I can tell it's not going the way I want to.

I'm noticing that my horse is careening off in some distance.

Maybe some kind of like medical concoction and it knocked him out and they continue.

I don't know if I can record.

Was he traveling?

Was he the only human traveling?

It does say his party in the notes, but he was the leader.

Well, not much of a leader.

It would have been difficult for him to consume the sip, and if he did, it wouldn't have been nice.

Was it only one person who consumed the sip, one

being

that consumed the sip?

Yeah, I wouldn't construct too much on that.

He literally just took a sip.

Well, yeah, but I'm imagining maybe it was,

you know, the only disease I remember from that time would be dysentery.

So maybe he had like dysentery medicine, went unconscious.

His less than competent party just kind of lost track.

And then when he came to, they were like, this is the new world.

So he took a, he sipped a substance that.

A drink.

A drink.

640 miles.

Yeah, well, 620, but give or take.

It's not, it's not exact.

This guy sucks.

This guy's really bad at map stuff.

Like, is it salt?

Was he sailing?

Oh, he wasn't sailing, but Mary, that was what surprised him about it.

That was salt water.

Oh.

He drank salt water.

And he's like, I should be in a freshwater ocean.

And he should be by a river that was fresh, not salty.

Yes.

And so he was off course by 600.

So was this, this led him to be off course?

Oh, he, he, he, he was off course by his own navigation errors, but the sip confer, like, made him realize that he couldn't possibly be on course.

You've kind of got it the wrong way around.

He took a sip of salt water, and that meant he got his location wrong by about 620 miles.

Did he think he was closer to the coast than he was?

Or that he was...

Yes, okay.

Yes.

So it was a saltwater pool.

You've got basically all the parts here.

You're absolutely right.

He sipped saltwater.

He thought he was at an arm of the Pacific ocean and he was wrong by about 600 miles oh

so that's all absolutely right the one missing piece is where actually was he oh my god my geography is going to be terrible

salt lake city

as it's now called yes he was among the first caucasian explorers to reach the great salt lake in what is now utah wow so thank you to utah for doing the obvious names of their cities there really helped i never even put together that that was salt like i never thought about salt.

That was a little joke they had.

His party was encamped on Upper Bear River.

He set out alone downstream to the outlet.

He drank salt water from the river and he thought he'd found an arm of the Pacific Ocean.

In truth, he was out by 600 miles.

How embarrassing.

Awkward.

Incredibly embarrassing.

How shameful.

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Javis, I believe you got a question for us.

Yes, I do.

I'm really excited about this one.

This question was sent in by Justin Kelly, though Fauz Reda and an anonymous listener also sent in similar ideas.

In January 2008, John was unboxing a package ready to start a fun, new exercise routine.

Realizing that there was a problem, he placed two tea lights, roughly eight inches or 20 centimeters apart, above his television.

Why?

In January 2008, John was unboxing a package, ready to start a fun, new exercise routine.

Realizing that there was a problem, he placed two tea lights roughly eight inches apart above his television.

Why?

I have to step out of this one.

Mary, Jordan, it's on you.

2008, so inception's not out, yeah, that's next year.

Um,

okay, so he's got this news news resolution.

He's gonna get fit and healthy, but something's wrong with his delivery that he's ordered from the internet.

Somewhere.

Maybe.

Could be a magazine, could be anywhere.

Two tea lights eight inches apart

on, sorry, you said on the TV.

On top of his television.

On top of his television.

Mary, do you know that terminology, tea light?

I don't know if that's one, but I know.

You know, those little, um, the really little candles that

you can, they're in the silver casing, but they're, they're like, you can get them in supermarkets.

Right, packs of a hundred of these you can get just a tiny

so his bow flex didn't turn up, so he lit his house like uh Scrooge to

help candlelight vigil for the bow flex.

That's got to be an album name for somebody.

Oh, yeah, Mary, take it, please.

I'll take it.

On top of your TV, so something is wrong with the product, and then you light two candles as a vigil

to the demise of your New Year's resolution.

Was it?

I mean, the TV element obviously must be somewhat involved.

I was just thinking, like, is this piece of, did this piece of equipment short-circuit his, the power in his house?

And then he needed

backup.

He has power.

He has power, but does it come with like a DVD instructional thing?

But actually, it's like,

it's like the wrong.

Did he receive the right product?

He did receive the right product, but there was something missing from the product that he received.

Did he receive a like a printing or an encoding of a D V D or something, but it was

an incorrect encoding, and so it was too dark for that generation of TV?

And he had to essentially like

light it.

But they were on top of the TV, so how would that light the image?

January 2008 is

a new year right after a holiday.

Okay, yes, right.

What might John have received in Christmas of 2007?

Was he a good boy?

Was he celebrating something other than Christmas?

This is just like something that might have been received as a gift.

He might have bought it for a New Year's resolution.

It could be any of those things.

It would fit both.

And it was exercise equipment?

What was the term for it?

He is unboxing a package ready to start a fun new exercise routine.

This is such a well-worded question.

Is it a

because I'm familiar with it, I'm able to give some fun, I'm able to be more fun with this.

Is it a Wii fit?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, 2008.

All right.

Just dance isn't out yet.

Something was wrong with it, and he had to light your candle.

But was he playing like tennis or whatever?

What do you need?

What do you need for a Wii?

Wait, but why would you use cat?

Oh, it was the light sensor busted?

Yeah.

Or he just didn't have it at all?

He didn't have a sensor bar.

Did it work?

Well, yes, so you guys have it.

You just may be missing important information about how a Wimote functions.

Yeah, which I actually had to do this in 2008.

I was John.

I was John.

Me, me not being a gamer and

I don't know.

I once had to rig something like this up to kind of hack a thing with a Wimote many, many years ago.

Yes.

I mean, I'm a cool jock, as you can probably tell, so this is difficult for me.

So I was busy playing Red Steel on Wii.

So all,

you guys got it, basically.

I feel like I can explain.

Yeah, they've got it.

They've absolutely got it.

So all a Wi Mote sensor bar is, is a powered infrared light.

It's two powered infrared lights that are six inches or eight inches apart from one another.

And so it's not like a receiver.

No, all it doesn't have to be connected to anything, by the way.

It doesn't have to be connected to the Wii.

The connection to the Wii is just provides power.

And so the way that a Wii mode determines your location is by triangulating it based on its distance from two things that emit the right wavelength of light.

And so a candle

satisfies that.

And so you can literally just set two candles apart or two infrared lights.

There's a number of ways to solve this problem.

But if you don't have a sensor bar, you could use a candle as a makeshift sensor bar.

I always assumed, I think maybe the gadgetry and whimsy in my child's brain was like, there's a guy in the bar.

He's catching my thoughts and playing.

There's a tiny little low-res infrared camera in the front of the Wimote.

That's the dark thing on the front.

That's the black thing on the side.

So when you point it at the bar, it's literally just picking out the two brightest infrared spots in there and just tracking everything that way.

Yeah, it's like, imagine like a heat map where it's like looking at the right, like it's black except for like the wavelengths that it's looking for.

And then it triangulates its position based on its position and the position of those two lights.

I did, Jarvis, I very genuinely did when you said Christmas 2008.

I was like, okay, wait a minute.

So I remember, I remember playing Melee,

and there was Obama later.

And the last thing is presumably the Wii Sports and Fitness Games.

Yeah, the Wii Fit balance board.

The last little fun piece of Jarvis trivia I'll offer is my first my first facebook profile picture uh was me without my face holding a we

because it was so hard to get a we back then i was so proud of myself i needed everyone to know that's fun that's like uh showing off like a

expensive watch it's like a bat it's like a fish i caught

that's all i'm doing with my guitars anyway right i just need to show you my toys yeah wait those are painted on

Yeah,

it's a green screen, actually.

Which just leaves the question from the start of the show.

Thank you to Daniel Middleton for sending this one in.

When might you show someone your social six?

Anyone want to take a guess at that before I give the answer for the audience?

It's not MySpace, really, is it?

I was going to say, it sounds like an old term for

the early web 2.0 when there were like a bunch of social networks, like in a little bar that you would need to

your social six, not your like six top friends or followers, or your like, you know, in MySpace where you could like choose like your favorite people.

Is it the top six friends on like a social network that I'm just not thinking of?

This is not a technology question.

Oh.

It's not WiiFit.

It's not WiiFit.

No.

Your social six.

Is it a social security number slash national insurance number?

What sort of action do people perform when they're being sociably polite?

Oh.

Oh, is it P's and Qs?

And

similar?

Four more?

Oh, your social six, is it like a handshake?

No.

Your social six.

Is it like a checklist of things to be polite, like eye contact and no, I don't know.

Like protocols.

Apologizing profusely if you're English.

No, but it might be on that list, Jarvis.

I see.

Oh, I see.

Would you have a list of things to do, say, if you did not necessarily know what to do?

So it was like instructions of your social six of like, hey, you need to be doing these things?

No, it would be.

It's on your social six.

It would be one of the items on that list.

Many people will do this automatically.

Others will find it a little more uncomfortable.

Eye contact, handshake.

That sort of thing, yes.

Saying thank you, saying please.

Introducing yourself.

Is it limited venue-wise?

Would you do this at a party and at the office?

You would do this anywhere that you're meeting people.

But there's something that people are often judged on.

The kiss on the cheek if you're European versus not European.

Closer to the right part of the body, there.

Oh,

shoe.

Smile.

A hug.

Jordan, keep going.

A smile.

Facial expressions.

Showing your teeth.

Showing your teeth.

Keep going, Mary.

Your front teeth.

Smiling with your front teeth.

Your social six.

That's great.

Yes, your social six is a slang term for the six front teeth in the upper jaw, the ones you show during a polite social smile.

It makes them sound like a gang of criminals.

Like the social six

robbed the crown jewels.

This

is so polite.

This is often used in cosmetic dentistry.

If someone's getting veneers, they are the ones that people want fixed first.

They are the social six.

Thank you very much to all of our players.

What's going on in your lives?

Where can people find you?

We will start with Mary.

Well, I make YouTube videos too about music business and music history and, you know, all things about being a singer-songwriter.

So you just type in MarySpender to youtube.com.

And I have a debut album out now on Spotify and anywhere you listen to music called Super Sexy Heartbreak.

Jarvis.

You can find me and Jordan on Sadboys podcast.

I've reinstated him as of this recording.

YouTube.com slash Sadboys.

We post every week about pop culture and feelings.

Check us out.

I'm Jordan.

I have passed on Jarvis's invite to come back to the podcast, unfortunately, having thought about it now.

But if you'd like to watch some episodes that I was in, you can head to youtube.com slash sadboys.

And if you want to watch

previous videos from my channel that I don't do anymore, you can go to youtube.com slash Jordan Adica.

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 regular video highlights at youtube.com slash lateralcast.

Thank you very much to Jordan Attica.

Thank you for having me.

Jarvis Johnson.

Thanks.

I'm gone now.

And Mary Spender.

Thank you.

Very fun.

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