155: The missing whiskey

What sort of competitors might employ strategies such as Avalanche, Bureaucrat, or Toolbox?

The answer to that at the end of the show.

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

Before we begin, I want you to select a playing card.

Not one of the obvious ones like Queen of Hearts or Ace of Spades.

Pick one that you don't think I'll get.

So I think it is a low card.

It's a black suit.

And

I'm going to say four of clubs.

Yep, thought so.

And now 1.9% of our audience thinks that I can read their mind.

Speaking of not quite having a full deck, we welcome back today the folks from Let's Learn Everything.

I'm going to start with someone who, at the end of the last show they were in said that they were going to hold their breath until the next episode.

Tom Lum, welcome back to the show.

Oh my God.

It's so good to be back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

How are you doing, Tom?

Hi, good.

I'm doing great.

What else is going on in your life other than Let's Learn Everything at the minute?

I do.

YouTube stuff.

You can drop the shtick.

I'm feeling exhausted just listening to you.

But yeah, love the podcast and love Caroline and and Ella.

I sure wish they were here right now.

Wow.

Okay.

As if by magic, the next member of the next slide everything appears.

Ella Hubber, welcome back to the show.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Actually, you know what?

No, I retract that.

Thank you because you just said we're a few cards short of a deck, which is

the second episode in a row where Tom Scott has mildly offended all of us because it's not even, I think it's every single time.

Every single time.

Producer say David writes these scripts, I'm like, I'm just going to read the words in front of me.

I will fully run burgundy this script.

And just let you put the words in front of me.

They will

come out of it.

I won't take David.

You can't bring David down.

You can choose not to say it, Tom.

Also joining us today,

I don't want to say last.

That implies hierarchy.

The other member of Let's

Caroline Roper, welcome back to the show.

You can say best.

You can say best.

Why is it always me?

What's going on?

It's not deliberate, I promise.

This is literally what the phrase last but by no means least stands for.

But you didn't say that.

All right, we're done.

We're done wasting time now.

Caroline, we should probably just briefly plug the podcast at some point with this.

I guess we should, shouldn't we?

Us three, we're from Let's Learn Everything.

We talk about science and miscellaneous topics.

We have talked about Drosophila and the meal deal in the same episode.

That was one.

It was a combo.

It was really great.

It was so good.

We talked about our location in the universe and carrots in another episode.

It really was.

I forgot.

Yeah, that was one episode.

We're shocked by it.

That's the energy of our show.

Well, it seems to match what we have here.

There is an entire shuffled deck of questions ahead of us.

So let's find out who will be the ace and who will be the Joker and deal with question one.

Thank you to Ryan Neary for this question.

In 1997, Microsoft Officers apps allowed users to type text into a box that could be moved around the screen.

Why did this upset one of their clients?

I'll say that again.

In 1997, Microsoft Officers apps allowed users to type text into a box that could be moved around the screen.

Why did this upset one of their clients?

This is interesting.

Hopefully that's what the show's about.

Sorry, apparently we're all in sassy mode today.

Oh my goodness.

Imagine we just went, this is really, this is a really boring one.

Next, can we skip?

Can we pass?

We get one pass, right?

Welcome to Straightforward.

Yeah.

I feel like this is, it could be something to do with

fraud, you know, committing some kind of fraudulent act.

Because now in PDFs, you can like type over things to change, like, you could change the date.

You could change like the amount of money someone was requesting.

So like you could do something fraudulent.

So maybe it's something along those lines of like being able to move, like cover text that you shouldn't be able to cover.

Oh, interesting.

So much more sensible than where my brain went, which was

which is just like, man, I'm sure somebody got really upset that you could like write something inappropriate and then just put it right over the top of somebody's head in an image or something like that, like make a meme.

Yeah.

You know?

I won't say what inappropriate words came to my head or the people that came into my brain either.

But that's where we went.

That's good because the actual text entered didn't matter.

You're right, that this is about the boxes.

Oh, my thought was moving text in a box, my brain was like, oh, the dithering on the fonts was off and it made someone annoyed.

I was thinking more technically.

Three personalities right there.

Exactly.

My brain is still in,

you know, maybe it's like someone uses this, like one of the clients uses this for acceptance letters to universities or something.

Then you can like put a text box over that's, you know, like you are accepted or something.

But then why wouldn't you just edit it in the actual Word document?

So that doesn't really make sense, does it?

What was the year again?

1997.

Yeah.

Wow.

I'm wondering if it could be some kind of, you know, like an early hacking thing or

some forgery or is it even that like a client had had like

difficulty or had paid more to have that function.

And then all of a sudden everybody else had it as well.

And they were upset about that.

Or?

No, not that.

Okay.

There's no compelling documentary about like the text box races.

Because he's like, we're ruined.

Dragging around text in a box.

Typing text into a box and moving it around.

And it's, and the text doesn't matter.

It's the movement of the box itself that was.

What the box looks like and the fact that you can move it.

Yes.

I really like that, Tom Lunden.

Because when we run out of ideas, instead of trying, you know, you can't think of anything else, you just say the same thing slower

deliberately.

That's my secret.

And sometimes it works.

Not this time, but sometimes.

The shape of the box.

You said the shape of the box was upsetting.

Yes, what the box looks like.

It was square.

And not rectangular?

Nope, it was square and the colour was a major concern.

Oh.

Oh.

interesting.

I was just like upsetting square.

That sounds like in a severance when it's like these numbers make you feel things.

It's like, oh, the box.

That's an upsetting box.

Did it look like something specific then, like a logo?

It deliberately looked like something specific.

Oh, oh,

did it look like the Mac logo?

Right?

Because that's a rectangle.

I was like...

Is it?

That's that's an apple.

That's not a square box.

I know one of the, at least the Finder logo or icon, I know some Mac logos, it's the smiley face, right?

With the in a in a square.

Maybe I'm wrong and maybe it's it but it's some some Mac related thing, but I guess it's not that

but that would be a fun way to to to poke at your competition is to make something that's their logo.

But no remember these are square boxes.

You can put text in them, you can move them around your screen.

The text doesn't matter though.

So is it like

they fill in the box with a color and it's just a black it's just a square with a color in.

Oh yeah.

When you start these up they're just squares with colors in.

So, did it look like

the Windows logo or something?

It looked like something.

A sticky note?

Keep talking, Tom.

Was it the sticky note yellow color?

Yes, it was.

And

was that just like not allowed?

Is that like a very specific colour they're protective of?

And like Post-It was like angry about that.

3M, the company that make Post-it notes.

Wow.

Were extremely angry that Microsoft had added their product to Microsoft Office without permission.

Wow.

3M sued them for creating computer representations of repositionable adhesive notes yellow in color.

Wow, okay, like that's the pattern they're protecting.

Did they like successfully

sue them?

Well, they it's believed they settled out of court.

Details a little hard to come by.

3M also had a software version of their Post-it notes, and that was what they were probably more angry about.

So there is a documentary here.

Yes, this is 3M, who sued Microsoft for making a digital version of Post-it notes.

Ella, whenever you're ready, give us your question.

This question has been sent in by LP.

In 1937, paleontologist Ralph von Koningswald travelled to Indonesia in search of early human skulls.

He paid the locals 10 cents whenever they found a genuine old skull fragment.

However, Ralph had to stop the payouts.

Why?

Once more, in 1937, paleontologist Ralph von Konigswald traveled to Indonesia in search of early human skulls.

He paid the locals 10 cents whenever they found a genuine old skull fragment.

However, Ralph had to stop the payouts.

Why?

Were they just

finding modern skulls through bad means

and trying to get the money?

I feel like I shouldn't just immediately start answering your questions.

Just, you know, roll through some ideas.

I was like, it sounds like there's some either grave robbing or like...

So you said specifically the fragments of the skull, so not like...

The whole skull.

Yeah, could.

Oh my God, could it you have been Caroline?

Could it have been like

they were smashing them

up?

I was thinking they were smashing the skulls because you said skull fragments, not skulls.

They're not paying by weight.

They're paying per fragment.

Yeah, I mean you've all you all got there pretty quickly.

The locals were smashing the fossils into smaller pieces.

Wow.

So G.H.

Ralph von Coningswald travelled to Sangaran Java and found a skull fragment of Pithocanthropus or Java man.

He showed this to locals offering up to one cent each for a tooth and ten cents for a skull fragment.

After a while, he realized that some of the pieces he was being offered by the Javanese locals were fitting together too perfectly.

Oh

man.

So in his book, Meeting Prehistoric Man, he wrote, too late, I realized that my opportunist friends were breaking up the larger pieces behind my back in order to get a bigger bonus.

The scheme apparently cost 700 gilders per month because the locals insisted on immediate payment until they'd search any further.

However, many of them ended up being worthless and thrown away anyway.

So you're getting just tons of skull fragments, which are maybe completely useless.

Some of them were useful though.

Thank you to Robert Grundelis for this question.

In 2004, the Northern Bank of Belfast was robbed of £26.5 million in cash.

How did the bank get its own back, even though the thieves and the money had long since disappeared?

I'll say that again.

In 2004 the Northern Bank of Belfast was robbed of £26.5 million in cash.

How did the bank get its own back even though the thieves and the money had long since disappeared?

When was this?

Sorry, 1920.

Oh 2004, okay.

I was like, maybe, you know, the bank got its own back because they changed to Euros and so the money was useless.

Although that wouldn't make sense.

Oh yeah, really.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Or like, was it like just old tender that wasn't used anymore?

Yeah, that would have been a...

They didn't realise.

It's pounds.

Belfast is like, no, Belfast is in Northern Ireland.

God, please don't come at me for my bad geography.

This is Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Yes.

So part of the United Kingdom.

They made a movie out of it and it was really cool.

And they got the rights to the movies because

the bank robbers aren't going to come back and be like, hey, hey actually this is my life rights story you can't use this um

huh oh god the currency conversion is a is a really really clever thought y'all I keep going down that line but Britain never joined the Euro no of course

but down the currency is it could it just be like old pound coins that were like not uh like um

I'm trying to think of like why they would be defunct at that point.

Miss prints or something like that?

It was actual money that was very difficult to trace.

Did y'all ever like get rid of a penny or something like that?

Well, we've we've had a turnover in types of money in the UK.

So our like coins have changed shape, I think all of them now, and our notes have also changed as well to be more durable mostly.

So it, but I think that's a lot earlier.

2004 is a lot earlier than any of this stuff coming.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, that wouldn't be the bank getting its own back.

Yes.

But you are closer than you might think.

Was the bank trying to get rid of that money in some way?

Oh, no, no, they got robbed.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Successful heist.

And the money was then could, you know, whoever robbed them could, they used the money afterwards.

Fine.

There was no like...

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah.

After they pulled the banknotes out,

they're banknotes.

The phrasing of like the bank got their own back.

Yeah.

It got their own.

Yeah, that's that's really weird.

Oh, no, that is in the metaphorical sense.

It is a figure of speech.

How the bank got revenge.

Yeah, it's yeah, it's just really weird to be like they got revenge rather than like it was fine for the bank.

You know, they didn't mind too much or something like that.

Were the robbers punished in some way or did they get some comeuppance?

Or is it just the bank being all right?

I'm wondering.

Like.

Could these robbers specifically have because they were using this old currency for like a long time when it would have been recirculated, they could catch them.

Is it a thing of catching them, or is it a thing of like they the money becomes useless to them?

Let me try my strategy again.

Belfast

robbery.

I'm being very careful here.

Um,

this bank, the Northern Bank of Belfast, has something in common with some of the Scottish banks.

Oh, oh, they have, so in Scotland, they have their own notes.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Scottish notes, which in a lot of places, people, even though they are legal tender, I know because I've tried to spend a Scottish £20,

people will not accept that sometimes.

Yeah, yeah.

So maybe this money is like, was like an Irish or Northern Irish note

that's specific to Northern Ireland.

And then in this town or across Ireland, the bank lobbied to say, you can't accept that kind of money anymore in.

in stores.

You're nearly there.

Combine that with some of the other things you've said before.

Did they just just like fully get rid of this specific kind of note or this?

Yes, they did.

But how did the bank just is it?

How did the bank do that?

They made that.

The Northern Bank of Belfast is the one that prints those notes.

Right.

And they were like, oh, so they just stopped printing the money.

Everyone using that.

Now you have to hand it back in to get your actual money back or something along those lines.

Yep.

To reduce the value of the haul, the bank hit on the idea of taking the entire stock of banknotes out of circulation, reprinting a new set, issuing new notes with a different logo and color.

This is why at the start, you were talking about currency conversions and changes.

It is kind of what happened.

Yeah.

So anyone who for some odd reason had a large number of those old notes would have to go to a bank and change them.

Oh, yeah.

And if you legitimately have some old notes, Okay, that's fine.

If you have 20 million pounds worth of those notes,

there are going to be questions.

It was under my mattress.

I just found one.

That's also, I guess that's the problem of robbing such a big bank is you're like, you're going to get the money, but they can also just be like, okay, no.

Yeah, the Irish Independent reported that money launderers were putting £10 or £20 notes in car parking machines in order to get the change out.

Oh, wow.

And doing that for £20 million.

That's the thing.

You can do that for £10.

You can do that for £20.

There's a point at which it starts being a problem.

£20 million.

Similarly, automated checkouts across the UK will accept Scottish and Northern Irish notes.

They're all just programmed with the same thing.

But still, that's £20 million plus in banknotes you have to somehow launder when they're not accepted anymore.

Tomlum, whenever you're ready.

This question was sent in by Nicholas Mernier.

DJ is a Jamaican kickboxer in the Street Fighter games.

His trousers were supposed to spell the word mantis, but designers found it more convenient to use maximum instead.

What was the reason behind this change?

I'll say that one more time.

DJ is a Jamaican kickboxer in the Street Fighter games.

His trousers were supposed to spell the word Mantis, but designers found it more convenient to use maximum instead.

What was the reason behind this change?

Mantis.

I do love, quickly, one of the clues here is for the US, trousers are pants.

I appreciate that localization.

I appreciate that localization not going the other way.

That's that's good to know.

Yeah, yeah.

I just didn't know the Street Fighter games were a thing.

Yeah.

What?

Oh, yeah.

I did not know this was a thing.

They're like, you know, like Tekken.

There's Street Fighter and Tekken.

They're pretty.

No, like, it sounds like this is a mixed martial arts contest or something like that.

Yeah.

You've never heard of the Street Fighter games?

That's like a classic fighting arcade game, yeah.

Oh,

I thought, I genuinely, I thought I thought this too, Tom.

It's okay.

I thought it was like the

Arctic Winter Games or the Olympic Games.

Oh, like some sort of martial arts activity.

I genuinely did not parse that as the video game series Street Fighter.

Oh, in the Street Fighter games.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

That's embarrassing.

That's embarrassing.

Okay.

This is a good story.

No, it's a me question.

It's going to be something.

This question was assigned to me.

It's a dorky one.

My brain was like, is he getting a wedgie?

And the wedgie is like spelling Mantis in some way rather than like anything else.

The first thing that came to my head is you said that this is a Jamaican.

character.

Not relevant.

Not relevant.

God damn.

I was hoping it was like something to do with the flag shape and the way you can spell

maximum versus mantis using using the flag.

That's interesting.

It's, I mean, you're thinking about Mantis and Maximum, and some of this.

I'll say no more.

Oh, which annoyingly, the switch to video games means I've got enough nerd knowledge that I think I've put this one together.

So

I'm going to hand over to the other two.

I love, that's funny.

We've never had, I love a delayed, I've got this because of your confusion at first.

Okay, Tom not getting it makes me think it's something to do with the technical side of the games rather than the visual

side of it in terms of like programming it in some way that it's harder to do mantis than it is maximum.

Is the S shape difficult?

Like, is that the problem?

I know why he's being quiet now.

Is it the way that it moves?

Like, what the, if it's spelling it, where do we need to know how it's printed on the trousers?

Is that important?

That will help you.

I'm just guessing maybe it's the way the character moves.

And so when he's

easier, you said, and not like ruder for some reason.

Because it's like maybe

when he kicks in the air, it spells a naughty word, mantis.

It's like a Mad Magazine cover where you like.

Yeah, exactly.

The same gag on Top Gear.

Anytime they put decals with words on the side of their cars, it will be something rude when you open open the door in the right way.

Okay, so not that.

Yeah, is it something to do with like the symmetry of the word?

Or?

I hope it is.

Otherwise, I'm coming back into this question.

Yes, but how?

I will say.

Is it the M's at each end of the word?

of maximum?

Is it spelled like maximum like max on one leg, E on the butt, mum down the side?

Someone designed designed these pants.

We're gonna sell on hot jackets.

No, you guys, you guys have the pieces, and I think you'll get it.

It does have to do with the symmetry of the word.

How does that fit in?

How would that fit into making this easier or for this game?

I've no bloody clue.

Think about how, yeah, how would the how you were saying how the words are on the pants.

How do you envision them in your mind?

Up one leg is how you would normally do that kind of thing, I suppose.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Okay, and then, so, like, was it the letters were sideways going down the leg, or were they like upright going?

Because if they're upright going down the leg, then that is symmetrical each way.

Whereas every letter in there has bilateral symmetry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, oh, but

why is that helpful?

And you could just mirror it rather than like reanimating the whole other side.

Exactly.

I feel so smart right now.

Oh my gosh, Caroline.

Nail it, Caroline.

These were 2D sprites in this, in the very early Street Fighter games.

And so when you were facing the other direction, for most characters, you can just mirror them.

Yeah.

Exactly.

But if the word is mantis and you mirror that, it doesn't work.

But if the pants say maximum and you mirror it, it just so happens to spell the same way both ways.

So yes, video games at the time were using 2D sprites.

And to save...

First of all, memory also and having to draw them a second time, the sprites were simply flipped horizontally when the character moved in the other direction.

The word maximum was written vertically down a trouser leg.

And since the word is made up of letters that have vertical symmetry, the word still reads maximum even if the sprite is flipped over.

Our next question comes from Kieron Cooling.

One day in 2025, at the Middleton Distillery in Cork, Ireland, 70,000 bottles worth of whiskey went missing.

Despite this, the police weren't called and no member of staff looked for it.

Why?

I'll say that again.

One day in 2025 at the Middleton Distillery in Cork, Ireland, 70,000 bottles worth of whiskey went missing.

Despite this, the police weren't called and no member of staff looked for it.

Why?

Is this one of the most like up-to-date or like modern ladder things I've ever heard?

Someone must work there then.

Someone's sent this question in.

Or they did this to be Ladder.

Announcing your heists through the medium of trivia podcasts.

A detective listening to Ladder or being like, hey, I'm just relaxing.

Wait a second.

That's where the 26 million from the Belfast Bank went.

Yeah.

You know what?

I've done so badly this episode.

I don't even want to guess.

I know I'm doing it.

Oh, no.

No.

Okay, no, no, it's lateral.

It's fine.

I can get the juices flowing.

Is missing a key word here?

Or could it be like, you know, broken or lost or, you know, misplaced?

A few other words would work in there, yes.

Ella, I was going to say, you can have the honor of saying it slowly if you would like.

Thank you.

I mean, I wonders if it's like the alcohol was close or was like past its sell-by date or something, and therefore staff were told, we must dispose of this, we must get rid of it, and just like took it home.

I feel like if

the idea of a winery being like, oh my God, this is so old.

We've got to toss it.

It's like, I don't think that happens with alcohol.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, is it like if it wasn't sealed properly and they all evaporated, you know?

Oh, that would be.

You know, when you get like kind of close, Tom goes like, there's like a different serious face that he has.

Well, my thought, kind of maybe related to that thought, Ella, is, well, what you said, and this is the phrasing, 70,000 pounds or dollars worth of bottles.

Bottles.

Bottles worth, but what if it's just one bottle?

Oh, that's the last one.

So, yeah, yeah.

And then I don't know how that, that, that's like one part, but I don't know how that would get us to like why they didn't also went missing, right?

Maybe this is a brand that is like particularly

expensive and difficult to come by.

So you want to remove more from the market to drive up the price.

Ella, you know how early on you were like, I don't have any ideas.

I've not been doing well this episode.

You hit a keyword in there.

You replaced went missing with a very key word there.

Was it evaporating?

It was.

It was.

Evaporated.

It just literally evaporated.

70,000 bottles worth.

Was it like...

And you said it was like an alcohol distillery.

Yes.

Specifically.

So it wasn't like a hand gel manufacturer or something.

No, no, this is a whiskey distillery.

Okay,

cool.

Did someone just leave it open, leave like a cask open, and then it just all evaporated?

Did they leave it?

Did they not?

Yeah, did they not store it properly?

Did they leave it in somewhere that was slightly too warm?

Oh, they stored it just fine.

Maybe it's like part of the process

of like aging the barrels.

They let it evaporate out of the barrels until the barrels are age for another round of whiskey to come in.

Come on, this is a bad thing.

Yeah, it's like a loss that you have to do to retain something.

Yes, basically.

Oh, Ella, what on earth?

It's a duh.

Oh,

you're basically right that it's part of the process.

It just matters.

Which part of the process is the bit that we need to hammer down?

Yes.

What's one of the important parts of making whiskey?

Is it storing it in barrels?

Yes.

Yes, you do.

Well, so it's not what I said.

It's not like to, because

with wine, so with wet milk, when you make wine, you can make like orange wine by putting white grapes into barrels that have previously been used to age red grapes, red wine.

And that's like a part of the process.

So

you can do things to the cask itself to try and change the flavours or the, you know, whatever.

Are you like priming the barrels with like an initial coat that sleeps in or something?

That wouldn't really be evaporating.

That wouldn't be.

Right, right.

You're right to talk about what it's stored in.

You kind of touched on that.

Wine

is matured in bottles.

Whiskey's matured in barrels.

Does it just go through the wood organically?

It just goes through the wood.

Oh.

Middleton Distillery has the largest stock of maturing whiskey in Ireland.

It holds 2 million barrels across many, many warehouses.

And that means that every single day

about 70,000 bottles worth of whiskey just evaporates as it ages.

Oh my god.

Oh that's wild.

About 2% of their stock every single year goes to what they call the angel's share.

The angels' share.

That's great.

I'm surprised they're not trying to find like innovative ways to capture the

alcohol from the air.

I was going to say, let the teens hang out on the roof and get a contract.

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Caroline, take it away.

Lovely.

This question has been sent in by Anonymous.

On a zoo trip in 1965, George and Charlotte Blonsky saw an elephant pacing around while giving birth.

This inspired them to patent a new birthing table to make labour easier.

How was it meant to work?

One more time, on a zoo trip in 1965, George and Charlotte Blonsky saw an elephant pacing around while giving birth.

This inspired them to patent a new birthing table to make labour easier.

How was it meant to work?

All that's in my head is, have you ever seen one of those tables that you strap yourself down to and it like rocks back and forth?

Like you get tipped upside down?

Oh, for like POTS diagnosis?

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

It's like a medical thing.

It is a kind of medical table, like an

it fully is, yeah.

And they use it to, if your blood pressure changes drastically, they use it to diagnose pots and things like that, basically.

So, if you have blood pressure issues, oh, gosh, it stands for a thing, and it's to do with the heart.

Got it.

Yeah.

It's also for Batman training.

It's great if you want to hang upside down.

It tips you upside down, though.

I don't think that would be great for labor.

No.

Against gravity doesn't sound like the best idea.

Thank you, producer David.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

There we go.

And people get it.

So, like, if you stand up and you feel like a little bit faint, it's basically a worse version of that.

Hence, flipping you upside down on a table would be good.

Yeah.

So, they're not flipping the birthing women upside down.

No.

Well,

but and and

well, I actually have a contact.

No,

it sounds like I'm going to pitch the craziest thing.

What if?

No.

But actually, though, and I could be completely wrong.

When you think about the anatomy of an elephant, they're on all fours.

So their stomach is facing downwards, right?

And that is flipped versus a human laying on their back when they're giving birth, right?

I mean,

you're still...

you know, not upside down, though.

Right.

Well, well,

your front, I guess, is, what's the front of an elephant, right?

Is facing downwards.

That birthing position isn't necessarily the only way that humans can be positioned for giving birth.

You can sort of, in whatever, that's like, it's a whole thing.

Oh, actually, really?

So the birthing position people typically associate with giving birth now on your back with your like legs open is something that happened later and is like part of a kind of not so great medical history associated with having giving birth.

It's much, it's typically just thought to be much better to, you know, be like squatting

or

in water, for example.

So, oh, so is it something where they somehow are on all fours, maybe moving their arms to like an elephant walking, or is it just like a treadmill?

You know, I think you get those machines, you know, the kind of you pull them with your arms and your feet move at the same time.

Yeah, the walking machine.

Cross trainers.

Cross trainer, yes.

A cross trainer, cross trainer, trainer, and an elliptical.

One of those for birthing.

If we all do the action, we're not going to be able to do that.

I'm just doing the movement right now for the listeners.

Giving birth is generally not a dignified operation, but I feel like that's not adding much more dignity to it.

Okay, not that either.

Then, well, Tom, we should Tom Long, we should go into some kind of business together and come up with some more birthing tables.

We can be the best snake oil salesman.

I mean,

birth in the world.

Huh.

Have any of these been...

Are we on

A-track, Tom?

Hold on, hold on.

You said they patented this.

You didn't say it actually went into common use.

I did not.

What a fabulous observation.

So it is the thing.

It can be ridiculous.

Or did it go into common use

for another purpose or was just never used?

No, this was never used.

Okay.

Well, I didn't think like the elliptical trainer for birthing was an actual real thing, just to be clear.

I want y'all, this is 100% transparency.

I literally forgot that Tom Scott was also answering this question with us because we spent the last few minutes, Tom, just looking at me and Ella, coming up with wild ideas in this brief.

And I assumed he was the one answering the question.

No, I was like, just now.

I wasn't getting involved in that mess.

A few minutes ago, I literally, I asked Tom, I was like, did we get the question right?

And then I realized you weren't the one.

It was just your judgment and disbelief made me assume you were the one.

You were both busy making cross-trainer gestures with your hands.

And I'm going to leave them to it.

I cannot believe it was the disbelief was so strong.

I assumed you were asking us the question.

I'm so sorry.

Sorry.

Come on, let's roll it back.

Let's get back in.

We can do this.

I believe in us.

So this is a never widely used invention.

They just saw an elephant giving birth and were like, humans should do that.

Not necessarily that humans should do that

because it was like...

It was inspired by the motion that the elephant was doing rather than the purpose of why the elephant was doing birthing.

Wait, what?

So it's not...

I thought this is to help women give birth.

Yeah, it is, right?

Oh, was it moonwalking?

Wait, wait, wait.

The elephant was not giving birth here.

The elephant was just pacing around.

The elephant was giving birth.

Okay.

And this inspired them to patent a new birthing table.

So it's the movement, it's the movement of the elephant that is inspired.

Was it moving in a moving in a particular way that isn't normal for an elephant?

I've heard of this.

I think I know.

You've bothered.

Is this?

Is centripetal force involved?

Yes.

This has dredged something from Tom and My memories.

We've seen this somewhere.

And I'm so shocked that it took this long to get to this point because

this is such a commonly memed on thing, I think, that it's so.

This is the centrifugal birthing table.

Yes, it is.

What?

What in the world?

Have you never heard of this?

No!

What?

Wow.

This is a force assist.

So honestly, those spinning tables we were talking about earlier weren't that far off.

It wasn't even that far off.

Yeah, for sure.

The elephant was just pacing around in circles, I guess.

So elephants in the wild will walk in circles whilst birthing to sort of deter predators.

Other elephants will join in in this behavior.

Um,

and that inspired the circular motion that they were doing inspired the Blonkskis to devise a spinning birthing table.

Um,

sorry, I just love that it wasn't even inspired by the thing they were trying to do, it's by what it they thought it might be looking like.

When you say, I must know when you say spinning birthing table, what that actually entails a woman having to do, like sitting there and like rotating violently around, or woman lying on her back, giving birth, being spun around, a literal net at the other end of the, like in front of her, to then catch the baby as the centrifugal force helps the process of giving birth.

That's a torture device.

That's that's that's give it give uh dystopia another few years, and that'll be the wheel of fortune.

Just don't land on bankrupt, baby.

And yeah, you'll all be like relieved to hear that although the patent was granted, it was never built or even tested in real life.

It was purely considered.

Because it doesn't need to be good, it just needs to be new.

Can I just check something, the physics of this very quickly?

If you're

undergoing

centrifugal force, you're like being pushed back, right like you get pushed back against

oh no yeah so

or you get pushed in an a direction so surely the baby is like that's not you know when you're on a playground roundabout

and you're going around quite fast you're being pushed towards the outside of it yeah yeah that's what i mean so so so it really this is the opposite of what you'd want in a birthing situation is for the baby to be pushed being pushed back.

No, no, no.

You've got

the woman sitting in the middle facing out.

The person giving birth is is in the center

yeah there's a net a giant net around

the table yeah uh-huh uh-huh it's insane okay i mean it still doesn't work but no

at least there is at least there is some messed up logic in it in comparison my and ella's ideas were tame yeah no for sure compared to the centrifugal birthing table absolutely let's just say we gotta go to the patent office you and me ella yeah

We have unlocked the shiny bonus question because there were some quick solves there.

So, who would be wary of a strip of plasticine that is 122 centimeters long, seven millimeters wide, and seven millimeters high?

I'll say that again.

Who would be wary of a strip of plasticine that is 122 centimeters long, seven millimeters wide, and seven millimeters high?

So, it's like a it's like a square extrusion.

It is.

Because it's

seven by seven on the seven mil by seven mil extruded to just over 1.2 meters.

What does extruded mean?

Like a Play-Doh machine.

You like push through a frame.

Yeah.

A light breeze if this was put in front of your door?

Yeah.

Is it an who who is who are...

Who are people, frames?

Who are people?

An animal.

Oh, a people.

Wary of animals.

A person.

Wary of...

Oh, so it's some kind of thing in your job, perhaps, that you...

it's a task or a job you carry out where if you see this, it says don't go further than this.

Oh, is it like um a runners, uh, sprinters, you or something like that?

It's like the start line.

What

Ella, you said earlier you were having a rough episode, you're really not, you're getting very close here.

Oh, we were,

yeah, so like this,

oh, or like um uh

wary of uh a triple jumper, Ella, yes,

talk us through it talk us through it what what's you thinking okay so in in the triple jump you do like one two and then you jump on the last bounce um but you cannot like your foot cannot go over that line even slightly um the the marking before you go into the sand yeah i i have long jumper here not triple jump but same same basic thing uh in the long jump an athlete commits a foul if their foot encroaches beyond the edge of the take-off board.

And so to ensure fair play, there is a thin strip of plasticine lining the edge of the board.

So if there's an indent found there, the foot has gone too far.

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

Thank you to Jeffrey Harris for sending this in.

What sort of competitors might employ strategies such as Avalanche, Bureaucrat, or Toolbox?

Does anyone want to take a quick guess at that before I give the answer for the audience?

Avalanche, Bureaucrat, Toolbox.

Well, my mind immediately went to Sudoku because it and the Sudoku championships because you get like tactics like the swordfish and X-Wing.

But I know it's not that.

Yeah.

My brain goes to like chess as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Honestly, kind of both close.

It's that sort of competitor.

This is definitely a mental game.

Go.

Something like go.

This is going to be another listing thing.

We haven't done one of those this whole episode, so maybe we can just...

Yeah.

What words might you associate with avalanche or bureaucrat or toolbox?

Well, like scrabble, great scrabble words, or scrabble, um,

password.

Um, the bureaucrat strategy is sometimes called confetti, where you oh, so you

sprinkle something over.

Um,

what would you sprinkle in a board?

Is this a board game?

Is it like Monopoly?

What's what's confetti made of paper, little bits of paper,

scrapbooking, uh,

Scrapbooking.

They're using the avalanche.

That's not allowed.

Competitive origami.

Oh.

There's another mind game that includes paper.

Rock, paper, scissors.

Keep going, Ella.

Rock, paper.

Oh.

What?

Oh, so confetti.

Confetti is just like, or Bureaucratians is just playing like...

Paper over and over and over again.

Yes, it is.

What's the avalanche?

Rock over and over and over again.

And the toolbox?

Scissors over and over and over again.

Absolutely right.

These are gambits employed by rock, paper, scissors players.

Ella.

Wow.

What a comeback.

This has been your episode.

Gambit is a stretch.

Gambit is such a stretch of a word for what that is.

Hey,

there's game theory around rocks, taper, scissors.

Thank you very much to all of our players.

Where are you all from?

Ella Hubbard.

We are Let's Learn Everything, a science and miscellaneous podcast.

We cover literally everything.

Caroline Roper, things like.

We have talked about autumn leaves and swearing, or former cryptids and scary stories.

It literally can be anything.

All of those are paired together in episodes as well.

So it really is a mixed bag of stuff.

And where can people find your Tom Lum?

You can find us all at let'slearnEverything.com.

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.

There are video highlights at youtube.com/slash lateralcast and full video episodes on Spotify.

Thank you very much to Tomlum.

Woo!

Caroline Roper.

Thanks.

Ella Hubber.

Thanks, Mae.

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