161: A railway puzzle

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Speaker 3 Why did two people who knew each other change their surname to Gray on the same day? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 they're here again. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I can't believe this is happening to us.

Speaker 3 They just appear every three months, like clockwork.

Speaker 4 They're They're like roaches.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I wouldn't mind, but they make this little annoying sound.

Speaker 3 It's just like they're sitting there staring and mocking me.

Speaker 3 I've tried that, but they didn't take the hint. You know, they just turn up like they own the place, cause chaos, and leave.
So that'll get rid of the mosquitoes.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 All right, thank you, Jim. Thanks.
Bye. Sorry about that.

Speaker 3 A warm welcome to the folks from Let's Learn Everything.

Speaker 5 A warm welcome as always

Speaker 3 yeah thank you it's always good to have the three of you back there's very few guests where our producer feels confident enough to write a skit like that and feel like i can sell it and get away with it so it is always lovely to have you back

Speaker 3 caroline roper welcome back to the show how are you doing good thank you yeah Always so excited to be here.

Speaker 5 Please ignore where I was like, you know, taking the mick out of you mosquito thing.

Speaker 5 It wasn't me.

Speaker 4 It was just reacting.

Speaker 2 That was all our mosquitoes.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it was the mosquitoes.

Speaker 4 I'm just glad it was mutual. I'm really glad it was mutual.

Speaker 3 How have you been doing? How's the podcast going?

Speaker 5 It's been really fun. We've been talking about a lot of science and miscellaneous topics, keeping it, you know, really fresh for us.

Speaker 3 Tom Lotton, what sort of topics have you been working on?

Speaker 2 We have been talking about things like the placebo effect, the science of that,

Speaker 2 as well as stamps, just how much we love stamps,

Speaker 2 the evolution of eyes.

Speaker 2 We had that on with uh a friend of this podcast sabrina cruise um uh the most boring element i'll i don't want to list them all there's so many and you can go listen i did have the thought tom though where i was like you know this is probably someone's first episode and so i was like we should try to try to be uh uh we could pretend you can you can ask me how i've been doing and i'll pretend like uh it's the first time we've we've met each other I mean, I just don't think we could sell that, Tom.

Speaker 3 We've been getting on each other's nerves for so long now.

Speaker 2 Let's give it a give a try. Ask me how I'm doing.
Ask me how I'm doing.

Speaker 3 Welcome to the podcast, Tom Lum. Hey, how are you doing, you piece of s ⁇ ?

Speaker 3 Sorry, sorry.

Speaker 4 Sorry.

Speaker 4 Sorry. I couldn't.
I couldn't. Go on to Ella.

Speaker 2 Go on to Ella. Sorry.

Speaker 3 I'm the last member of the Let's Learn Everything team.

Speaker 3 I don't know if there's any shtick prepared here.

Speaker 4 Ella Hubber.

Speaker 5 How are you doing, you piece of s ⁇ ?

Speaker 4 Oh, we started badly.

Speaker 3 You should plug the podcast.

Speaker 4 You should actually plug where people can find it, what you'll do.

Speaker 5 We are the three co-hosts of Let's Learn Everything.

Speaker 5 And we talk about science, we talk about miscellaneous topics, and it's just as chaotic there as it is here.

Speaker 3 Well, good luck to all three of you. And while mosquitoes might suck, I hope our questions don't.
Let's see if you can swat question one. Thank you to Peter Ginnough for this question.

Speaker 3 Slayer's third studio album, Rain in Blood, is one of the most influential thrash metal albums of all time. When it was released for sale in 1986, why did most fans get two copies instead of one?

Speaker 3 I'll give you that one more time. Slayer's third studio album, Rain in Blood, is one of the most influential thrash metal albums of all time.

Speaker 3 When it was released for sale in 1986, why did most fans get two copies instead of one?

Speaker 2 This is a very interesting question. Hmm.

Speaker 5 This is, oh, these are records at this point, right?

Speaker 2 I was going to say, 1986, probably vinyl records. Or is this around the time when CDs were starting to? I don't believe so.

Speaker 5 I actually have no idea. It's crazy.
We've talked about the history of like music and the sound so many times, and I still don't know the answer to that question.

Speaker 2 You recorded sound, yeah. So I think it's, I mean, it's around.
Well, and that makes me wonder if that's what the key here is for like two copies. Because

Speaker 4 is it like on the precipice of a format change?

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's just as the changeover from records, from vinyl to C D or even like cassette tapes and things like that as well cassette tape Caroline was the most popular format at that time nice

Speaker 5 yeah LPs were fading away C D's were still relatively new cassette tape okay okay but that's not the answer is it is an important bit of the clue though although I really really like the way we did that guys well done beautiful

Speaker 2 as we continue to learn everything we'll eventually just just smash through this

Speaker 2 we'll know all about everything

Speaker 5 It's, I don't know. I'm just going to put like a really wild guess out there.
Is there like a lyric in there that says,

Speaker 5 like,

Speaker 5 rip up your cassettes, kids?

Speaker 4 I thought you were going to say, like, go on, Tom.

Speaker 2 Good, because mine was just a joke.

Speaker 2 It would be one of those, like, I feel like this is the around the era. I mean, you were saying, like, slash metal or whatever,

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 there was like a hidden message played backwards where it's like

Speaker 5 oh sorry yeah that's no i need to join the navy

Speaker 3 it just occurred to me that

Speaker 3 even when i was a kid like playing something backwards you know you it's on a computer you hit the reverse thing on like windows 3.1 sound recorder

Speaker 3 Playing it backwards on a record player involves like physically rotating the disc unless you have something.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
Which is a lot more fun.

Speaker 3 On a cassette tape, you couldn't do that.

Speaker 3 So maybe

Speaker 3 that's how more of the rumors spread.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because it makes it harder. Whether something's harder to play in writing this down.

Speaker 2 I don't know for what, but that's not actually relevant to the question at all.

Speaker 4 It's just there. Yep, yeah.

Speaker 5 It wasn't something.

Speaker 5 I'm going off the lyric thing that Ella just went. It wasn't so that people could have like a PG version to play in front of their family and then one that they could have in private or something.

Speaker 2 Good, Caroline.

Speaker 5 You know, because we get told on our podcast that Tom Lum specifically swears too much. So is it like us censoring ourselves and putting two podcast episodes out?

Speaker 2 That's also that's a joke because we all famously swear.

Speaker 4 It's weird that they picked me out.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so is that

Speaker 2 I like that idea. Is that is that?

Speaker 5 No reaction from Tom Lump.

Speaker 3 No reaction from me, I'm afraid. It's not to do with that.

Speaker 3 It is to an extent to do with the content of it.

Speaker 2 Could there be a bonus track I know sometimes records will do like

Speaker 2 bonus tracks for like Japan releases and stuff like that so maybe

Speaker 2 are do we can you confirm or not if they are two different mediums or if they're

Speaker 5 like is one a is one a cassette one a record no this was this was just most fans would get two copies most fans not all fans you're not confirming that Tom

Speaker 5 well are the copies identical or is there a a difference is my question and how are they getting them is my other question are they being posted or are people going out buying them and then getting two in the packaging is one recorded from the radio and one is like an actual copy of the album I think Caroline's closest there was posted

Speaker 3 No, not with not with the posted thing with the with the going out and they're just getting two copies.

Speaker 5 Were they unintentionally Trasha really encouraged people to steal them.

Speaker 3 Unintentionally is right, Tom.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 3 Most fans probably didn't realize they were buying two copies.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 2 Were they like stuck together or something? Like the pressings were like sticky, and then you'd pick one up and then you'd accidentally get two.

Speaker 4 Kind of.

Speaker 3 In a very real sense, yes.

Speaker 3 Cassette tape, remember, not vinyl.

Speaker 2 Right. Oh, wait.
Were they like.

Speaker 3 Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 2 was it like printed twice on the A side and B side or something like that?

Speaker 4 Yes it was.

Speaker 3 Yes. Rain in Blood clocked in at only 29 minutes late.

Speaker 2 Oh my god. Oh god.

Speaker 4 Because it's thrash metal.

Speaker 3 They had 10 songs in 29 minutes. So they had a bit of spare space on the cassette tape and just put it on both sides.

Speaker 4 Fair enough.

Speaker 3 As always, our guests have brought questions along with them. We will start today with Ella.

Speaker 5 This question has been sent in by Anonymous from California. One evening, a group of people gather around a public health billboard on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Why?

Speaker 5 Say that again. One evening, a group of people gather around a public health billboard on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Why?

Speaker 4 I think I know that.

Speaker 3 I've seen this video. Sorry.

Speaker 5 Oh, if... So that's two people.
I do not know this, and I don't think I can figure it out on my own.

Speaker 4 1v1.

Speaker 3 Normally, normally in a situation like this, we'd throw out the question. We'd start with something else.
Caroline, how do you feel about tackling this one solo?

Speaker 4 You're like a 1v1 lateral, final destination, no items.

Speaker 5 You can do this. You can do this.
I believe in you.

Speaker 5 I practice these on one person.

Speaker 4 Oh, true.

Speaker 5 And he did it.

Speaker 3 You practice these?

Speaker 4 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 We love being on the show, Tom. It's an honor.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 4 We all put our homework into being here, okay?

Speaker 5 So you haven't specified like a year for this. Is that important?

Speaker 5 It's every year. So some sort of public health thing that comes around every single year, specifically in Los Angeles, nowhere else, just in Los Angeles.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 This billboard might exist in other places, but like it's... It's important here.
It's an event here. That makes me think like something that travels around.

Speaker 5 Is it like, obviously, I'm also thinking about stuff that you might have to have regularly, like vaccinations, or

Speaker 5 is it even something like an environmental thing of like, watch out, this environmental thing might get you?

Speaker 3 If I remember what this billboard is about correctly,

Speaker 3 then something you have regularly is

Speaker 3 actually kind of close.

Speaker 2 My hint I was going to give Caroline that was a little less cryptic was

Speaker 2 it's a modern billboard. Can I say that? That there's something, I believe it, it

Speaker 5 like I think you thinking about what kind of thing is on the billboard is important, and it's definitely a negative thing. Oh, oh, people are like, uh-oh.
No, no, no. The people are fine.

Speaker 5 The people looking at the billboard are happy. The thing on the billboard is negative.
The descriptions I've just received makes me think it's like...

Speaker 5 It's talking about something along the lines of like sex or something like that that people are like, no?

Speaker 4 Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 I got the wrong thing.

Speaker 3 A vice would be a way of doing that.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Oh.

Speaker 5 So, oh, is it something to do with like drinking around like a big annual event?

Speaker 4 Pushing down drinking.

Speaker 3 But keep going with big annual event.

Speaker 4 Yes. Oh.

Speaker 4 Oh. Three pounds.
People doing the clues. This feels cruel.
This feels cruel. Come on.
Come on, Carolyn. Come on.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's not drinking, but

Speaker 5 it's a vice like that.

Speaker 5 A recreational vice. Nothing too hard, I can't imagine.
So is it like smoking or yes, it's smoking.

Speaker 4 Ooh. Oh, okay.

Speaker 5 Around an event. It's not like trying to prevent wildfires or something like that.

Speaker 5 No, no, no. So then the billboard doesn't have anything to do with the event.
They use the billboard for the event. They use the billboard for the...

Speaker 5 And is it giving advice of like the impact that smoking can have? It is, yeah, but a very specific impact.

Speaker 3 But not necessarily on you.

Speaker 4 Oh, what would it display?

Speaker 5 And this is to put people off from smoking.

Speaker 4 Yes, yes. What would it display?

Speaker 5 To put people off of smoking, and it's not necessarily about you, it's about people around you. And it's to do with an event.
Is it like how many...

Speaker 4 I'm trying to get it. No, no, keep going.
Keep going. Keep going.
Go saying how many.

Speaker 5 Is it like,

Speaker 5 I'm trying to just like, if it was say like a cycling event, how many cyclists are in the area that could be impacted by your smoking? Is it something like that?

Speaker 4 I mean, it's not far away.

Speaker 5 It's not to do with the event. Forget about the event.
It's just an impact of smoking. Air quality? Or like.

Speaker 3 It's actually pretty bleak.

Speaker 2 How many.

Speaker 5 Is it to do with people like passing away? Or

Speaker 4 don't worry about that. Don't put that out of context.

Speaker 3 Is it to do with people passing away?

Speaker 2 Well, actually, our celebration is kind of similar to then the second half of the club.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's the celebration.

Speaker 5 So is it like the annual celebration of how many people have passed away that year, but like it's gone down?

Speaker 5 When would it go down?

Speaker 3 In fact, this is, I think, the one time where you can guarantee what the number will be.

Speaker 5 It happens at a really famous version that happens at not a version. An event that happens in Edinburgh and at the London Eye

Speaker 5 once a year. Once a year.

Speaker 3 If I tell you the date is January 1st.

Speaker 5 Wait, is it people like doing their New Year's resolution or something like that then?

Speaker 3 What will happen to that billboard?

Speaker 5 Oh my god, it reset!

Speaker 4 Literally, it resets! It resets!

Speaker 5 It goes back to zero.

Speaker 4 Oh,

Speaker 5 it's been so unfair. It's been so unfair to you.

Speaker 2 I hope we all enjoyed this

Speaker 4 bizarro version, alternate version of lateral. I feel guilty.
Did we pilot some changes? I feel actively guilty about that question.

Speaker 5 That was so mean. I'm sorry.
I feel great. I got there in the end.
I have a lot of support.

Speaker 4 Thank you all.

Speaker 5 Well done, Carolyn. Okay, so

Speaker 5 the answer is that it's new year when the smoking deaths counter resets to zero. So the billboard says smoking deaths this year with the number and counting.

Speaker 5 And then obviously the number is increasing as the year progresses. And so the crowd gathers to watch the counter reset to zero, indicating that it's midnight.

Speaker 5 At New Year, one person ironically called it the Los Angeles version of the ball drop in New York City.

Speaker 4 I love it.

Speaker 5 I love how morbid this is.

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Speaker 3 Thank you to Emily and Ellika in New York City for this question. Bobby and Beth are bored while sitting at Washington Square Park in New York City.

Speaker 3 They decide to see if they have $4.76 between them, and soon they literally do.

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 3 One more time. Bobby and Beth are bored while sitting at Washington Square Park in New York City.
They decide to see if they have $4.76 between them, and soon they literally do.

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 2 Sorry, the phrasing of this is just so lateral.

Speaker 4 Yeah, literally.

Speaker 3 I really enjoyed saying Bobby and Beth are bored. It's really, it's a really pleasing idea.

Speaker 5 Okay, so let's go really like literal with it because you said literally do. There's in Washington Square Park in some paving stones, they have like old money

Speaker 5 like pressed into the paving stones. And so when Bobby and Beth walked a certain distance between each other, that's how much the monetary value between them added up to.

Speaker 3 I love that as an idea.

Speaker 4 But no.

Speaker 3 You are right to pick up. This is literally the money is between them.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 If you put $4.76 worth of like notes and pennies, like what that distance would be in between, it's sort of similar to what Ella said, actually.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Does the amount in, like, is it all in pennies? Is that relevant? Is this going to be, or is this going to be like, because

Speaker 2 it can't just be like, I don't know, they like go go busking and then they get the change is this i just maybe this is like a famous moment where or like they're doing it for specific like like a charity where you have to like line up pennies i don't know there's a sculpture made of pennies in washington square park you're right that the money is all coins and it's physically literally there it's not a a sculpture it's does is washington square park important is it like this like something that is yes

Speaker 2 that i don't know why that would help me because i'd never been there it's no no well i'm close it's like a 25 minute bike ride so i'll just be right back

Speaker 3 well i mean if you've been there tom you it wait is tom committing to the bit tom tom has actually left the call

Speaker 3 and is actually okay

Speaker 3 with a bike helmet all right yep

Speaker 5 oh i have an idea you've there's a fountain there's a fountain there that you can throw coins into oh yeah

Speaker 3 and some other things there as well. Tom, if you've been there, you will probably have seen this.

Speaker 2 Washington Square Park.

Speaker 4 There's the Arch, right?

Speaker 2 Am I thinking of the right one?

Speaker 2 Then there is the fountain.

Speaker 5 Is this the one where everyone busks and does like a performance art?

Speaker 2 I mean, there's a lot of shops. There's a lot of people.
Yeah. Yeah, it's mostly that there's like a

Speaker 2 fake look. I don't know the history of it, but it sort of looks like a smaller Arc de Triomphe.
I don't believe that's going to be relevant.

Speaker 3 Maybe it is.

Speaker 4 It is.

Speaker 3 No, it's not. Sorry.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 2 And then, yeah, it's a pretty big fountain. And sometimes people like hop in there on a hot day, which you should show that.

Speaker 3 Bobby and Beth are bored and sitting down in the park.

Speaker 5 Is there like a synonym for bored? We're supposed to get here, or

Speaker 5 they are like, they're being waterboarded.

Speaker 5 But yeah, they're looking for something to do, and this is the thing that they end up doing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they're sitting down. Although there are tables where they're sitting as well.

Speaker 5 Oh, there's their chess.

Speaker 3 Keep going. Because the one thing, Tom Lum, you didn't remember about Washington Square Park is the chessboards there.

Speaker 5 Oh, they're using the

Speaker 5 change as the pieces.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And the different values add up.
So pennies are the pawns.

Speaker 4 And then

Speaker 4 I don't know the maths, but ultimately the stacking.

Speaker 3 Yes, absolutely right.

Speaker 3 This is a personal anecdote from Emily who sent the question in.

Speaker 3 Yeah, 16 pennies as pawns, four nickels, four dimes, four quarters as bishops, knights, and rooks, two half dollars as queens, two dollar coins as kings, and that is $4.76.

Speaker 5 Brilliant.

Speaker 3 How did they tell the pieces apart?

Speaker 4 Heads or tails. Correct, yes.

Speaker 3 Spot on Tom Lamb.

Speaker 4 Cool.

Speaker 3 I'm not saying it's a good way to play chess, but it is, according to Emily, a way to play chess if you're bored in Washington Square Park and you don't have chess pieces.

Speaker 3 But you do have, for some reason, just a lot of coins.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Caroline, after that last question that you took on solo, I think it's only fair that we go to you next for your question whenever you're ready.

Speaker 4 And torment us. Give us nothing.

Speaker 3 In 1347 in Azerbaijan.

Speaker 2 Instead of reading it twice, I'm going to read half of it.

Speaker 5 In 2015, an eBay user in Germany was selling off their possessions, including a car, sofa, phone, and bike.

Speaker 5 On the modified Apple MacBook for sale, it was possible to type stewardess, but not most of pilot. Why?

Speaker 5 One more time. In 2015, an eBay user in Germany was selling off their possessions, including a car, sofa, phone, and bike.

Speaker 5 On the modified Apple MacBook for sale, it was possible to type stewardess, but not most of pilot.

Speaker 4 Why?

Speaker 3 It would be really funny if we all knew this immediately.

Speaker 2 Is it a regional keyboard? That's my assumption. My first guess.

Speaker 2 Because you wouldn't be able to type a certain thing and it's Germany.

Speaker 5 I'm pretty sure Germans have the same keyboards as...

Speaker 5 Germany has most of those letters.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Also, most of pilot is yeah quite a wording

Speaker 4 oh wow they're really giving us nothing yet

Speaker 4 oh yeah i'm giving you nothing for a little bit at least

Speaker 5 well i mean on at least on a query keyboard stew all of stewardess is on on one side and all of pilot is on at the other like they don't have a they don't overlap stewardess is left-handed isn't it

Speaker 2 Great, great shout.

Speaker 4 Left and right side.

Speaker 5 Fantastic shout, Ella. And is very along the right lines.
Left-handed, like you say. Maybe it's a...

Speaker 3 Maybe the MacBook has just been sliced in half.

Speaker 4 No, that's not. Hey.
Tom. No.
Hey. That's exactly the answer.
No.

Speaker 4 That was a comedy answer. No one's.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 3 So, cool. I've got some of that.
We still need to work out why?

Speaker 4 Oh, hold on. Wait.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to wonder. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Is this like, I'm wondering if this is like a specific person in Germany, like a YouTube channel that cuts stuff in half or anything like that?

Speaker 5 It's it's not a YouTube channel, but it is a specific person in Germany did this. And I'll let you try and figure out why.

Speaker 4 Like an artist?

Speaker 5 No, not an artist. It wasn't artistically done.
Can you tell us, are the other things they sell relevant here? Cut in half. All of the other things were cut in half as well.

Speaker 4 Cut in half. Okay.

Speaker 5 Sort of something to do with the Berlin Wall.

Speaker 2 Is this for like commercial work? Because I know sometimes folks need to like do like a bisect of a thing or like they do all kinds of stuff to like do these effects. To um,

Speaker 2 no,

Speaker 5 when else would you need to divide things in a divorce, yeah, this person, Ella.

Speaker 2 We have got to stop joking.

Speaker 5 It wasn't a divorce, but it was a really bad breakup.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 That spite.

Speaker 5 Right, it's so good. So, a German man had broken up with his girlfriend after 12 years of being together.
He made a video showing himself cutting all of their possessions in half.

Speaker 5 This includes mobile phones, chairs, beds, the mailbox, and of course, uh, this modified, heavily modified uh Apple MacBook.

Speaker 5 Um, and of course, as you guys said, on a QWERTY keyboard, all of the letters for stewardess are on the left-hand side, and most of Pilot, except for the T, are on the right.

Speaker 5 I have a really great quote

Speaker 5 from that man.

Speaker 2 Sorry for audio listeners, mouth just agape from me.

Speaker 4 I'm just

Speaker 5 the German man in the caption of the video, which was called for Laura.

Speaker 4 Oh,

Speaker 4 wow. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Oh, that little detail has made me really not like this guy.

Speaker 5 It seems sinister.

Speaker 3 Well, it would. It's the left side of it.

Speaker 4 Oh, Oh my God.

Speaker 5 Ella, I think it is maybe a little bit more left-handed.

Speaker 5 He said in the caption, thank you for 12 beautiful years, Laura. You've really earned half, which is brutal.
Wow.

Speaker 2 I wish upon every listener to never have, to never feel so much spite, you end up in a lateral question.

Speaker 4 And to never feel that level

Speaker 4 of spite in your soul. Yep.

Speaker 3 The next question is from Andrew M. Thank you very much.
Two trains are at either end of a straight single track.

Speaker 3 They both set off towards the opposite end and make it safely without crashing into each other or derailing. How?

Speaker 3 I'll say that one more time. Two trains are at either end of a straight single track.
They both set off towards the opposite end and make it safely without crashing into each other or derailing. How?

Speaker 2 I think your wording makes this impossible, but just double tracking real quick. It's not like they were facing away to begin with and then they just kept going.

Speaker 3 Oh, no. I think the wording would make that impossible.
No,

Speaker 3 they are facing each other. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I just love that.

Speaker 2 I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something like that.

Speaker 3 I just love that after however many episodes...

Speaker 3 We finally got a question that is, two trains depart at the same time?

Speaker 5 When you started saying it,

Speaker 5 my brain immediately started shutting down. Like, this is maths.
This is maths.

Speaker 4 This is maths. It's gone.

Speaker 2 Amy has two apples.

Speaker 4 has three

Speaker 5 and okay as per usual i will throw out my immediate thought which is that

Speaker 5 one of the trains has a has a track on its back leading up it that's where my brain went yeah and then when they pass each other one goes over the other

Speaker 2 have i ever said you have such a beautiful mind

Speaker 5 my brain went to like one train goes like it like splits in half and it goes up and then the other train oh yeah one's got one's on still

Speaker 4 and it goes under. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Caroline, I've never ever talked to you. You have a beautiful market.

Speaker 4 Ella?

Speaker 4 Yes. No.

Speaker 4 No. Yes.
We can't do this twice in a row.

Speaker 4 So. No.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 3 And we don't need a little bit more detail about what might be going on here, but you are right. Both of these trains have tracks

Speaker 3 up from the nose and across and down the other side.

Speaker 2 Like Wiley Coyote style. Yep.

Speaker 5 Who thought that was a good idea? Who designed that and made it?

Speaker 2 Now, are these real trains? Are they model trains?

Speaker 3 These are real trains.

Speaker 4 Who made this?

Speaker 3 I mean, I can tell you that. It's Stern's Duplex Railway or the Leapfrog Railroad.

Speaker 5 Where is this? Did you say?

Speaker 3 Well, I'm going to ask you to take some guesses at that because that might be a clue to what's going on here.

Speaker 2 Now, is this a real train, but like at an amusement park or something like that?

Speaker 4 Yes, somewhere novelty.

Speaker 5 Well done.

Speaker 5 I was going to say, is it on the side of a mountain? And therefore, it's a really narrow passing, but your suggestion is more sensible.

Speaker 3 Yeah, this was at the Dreamland amusement park at Coney Island in New York in the 1900s.

Speaker 4 Okay, okay.

Speaker 4 Good. I almost got on my bike.

Speaker 5 And how many people died riding it?

Speaker 3 So it was billed as the uncrashable train, which is both.

Speaker 4 Famously horrible, I think,

Speaker 4 something like that.

Speaker 5 The unsinkable ship.

Speaker 3 It was quite a short ride, and so passengers would get in, and one of the trains would go over the other quite slowly.

Speaker 3 We're talking like one, two miles an hour here, and kind of go over up, across, and down.

Speaker 3 And then presumably would get to go the other way. on the way back.

Speaker 3 This was also patented, I think, by various inventors in various countries as the idea of a railway that combined the actual transit and kind of the thrill of a ride.

Speaker 3 And I think they were originally thinking that perhaps this could be used on single rails. But

Speaker 3 if you are building the Transcontinental Railroad

Speaker 3 and you only have a single track and you need to have trains meeting, you don't have modern signalling,

Speaker 3 maybe that's actually a good idea. Maybe.

Speaker 5 Did anyone ever try that?

Speaker 3 Outside of the amusement park, not as far as I know.

Speaker 4 Probably for the best.

Speaker 3 Yes, this was Stern's Duplex Railway or the Leapfrog Railroad at Dreamland, Tony Island in the 1900s.

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Speaker 3 We are rattling through these questions, so hopefully the next one is a bit of a stump. But Tom, it is over to you.

Speaker 2 This question has been sent in by Mist Mage. In episode 46 of the TV adaptation of the anime Magical Princess Minky Momo, the main character is killed by a truck full of toys.

Speaker 2 Why did the head writer choose to do this? I'll say that again. In episode 46 of the TV adaptation of the anime Magical Princess Minky Momo, the main character is killed by a truck full of toys.

Speaker 2 Why did the headwriter choose to do this?

Speaker 3 Again, it would be really funny if we all knew this.

Speaker 2 Big, big Minky Momo heads in

Speaker 4 the call.

Speaker 3 There was an old British TV show that would pull pranks on celebrities, you know, bring them in for like fake TV shows, things like that, or would

Speaker 3 prank someone who was running a quiz or something like that by having two contestants who knew all the answers or some contestants. And just for a moment, I'm like,

Speaker 3 I'm hoping that never gets pulled on me. It's just like, but if it was ever going to get pulled, it would be by producer David talking to you three.

Speaker 4 So.

Speaker 2 Also, I will say, this happens to us too. Every time, Tom, you like pull something off screen or like take a bit too long, I'm like, this is a bit, this is a bit.

Speaker 5 I have nothing on this one. And I've been really killing it this episode.

Speaker 4 So actually, I'd like you guys to pull away a bit.

Speaker 4 Ella! Ella! I mean, you have. I'm a whole one on my own.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 3 This is on me and Tom Lum, isn't it?

Speaker 5 This is, this is. Yeah.
Yeah, this is your

Speaker 4 fan.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 Killed by a truck hauling toys.

Speaker 5 It wasn't like an anti-consumerism messaging or something crazy like that, was it?

Speaker 4 Don't

Speaker 3 do this to us, Tom.

Speaker 4 Don't do this.

Speaker 3 It's a bit. This is a bit.
He's just waiting for ages to say no.

Speaker 2 That is a good bit. I'm writing that down.
It's not exactly that, but I mean.

Speaker 5 Oh, like maybe the

Speaker 5 creator, so the people who own the network were making loads of toys of her or something. And the creator was like, absolutely didn't like her commercialization.
So

Speaker 5 killed her off with a truck full of toys of her or something. Gosh, that's brutal.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 2 You guys,

Speaker 4 I can't believe this.

Speaker 4 You're very close.

Speaker 2 You're not there. And because we're so close, I'm not going to say much more.

Speaker 4 Okay, okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Thanks.

Speaker 5 Being about anti-capitalism.

Speaker 4 So it was only a lot of time.

Speaker 2 There's no question about that, if you think about it.

Speaker 5 My thinking is the creators of the show producing these toys, these toys produced, they have them in their hand and they go, ah, shoot. This does not look like the main character at all.

Speaker 5 We're going to have to kill off the main character and bring in a different character that does look like

Speaker 5 the dolls and therefore problem solved.

Speaker 4 No, no, no.

Speaker 4 No, no, to be clear, no. That was the bit.
I wasn't calling. No, no, no, no, no.
That wasn't the bit.

Speaker 3 I was amazed at Caroline's mind.

Speaker 4 I was not.

Speaker 2 No, farther. You're getting farther.

Speaker 3 Tonight on is it a bit?

Speaker 2 I mean, the motivations of like selling toys is

Speaker 2 part of it. It's definitely a big part of it.

Speaker 3 We have assumed that the main character being killed off is a bad thing.

Speaker 3 What if the main character is an anti-hero or the main character is someone the audience is meant to dislike

Speaker 3 or it's part of the plot and now they get to ascend to somewhere, or they get to return somewhere. Like, this is this is anime.
This is, this does not have to be realistic.

Speaker 5 Yeah, did this end the show?

Speaker 2 Um, I, I love those ideas, Tom, but in this case, Ella is right.

Speaker 4 This

Speaker 2 was written because the show was coming to an end.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 4 not

Speaker 2 as sort of a hint there, because you have all the pieces.

Speaker 3 You just need the exact like do we know what year this was?

Speaker 3 I think it's around the 80s or 90s that sort of era of the anime about the time when Pokemon merchandise and everything was starting to become a thing when merchandise was starting to become important

Speaker 3 Like when the US children's shows were all kids toys like just basically toy commercials

Speaker 5 toy sales is a big is a big motivation here So did killing off the main character create some sort of like

Speaker 5 scarcity around the toy or like oh we should go and buy the

Speaker 3 Here's a deep children's animation cut because I know we're running short on this episode. Um, there was a British series called Captain Scarlet and the Mistrons.

Speaker 4 Oh, whoa.

Speaker 5 Oh, I hate Captain Scarlet. Oh, I hate dotted.
I hate puppets.

Speaker 3 Okay, it was a super marination series, so like marionettes. It is basically the style that Americans will know because Team America parodied it.

Speaker 4 Oh, that was one of the shows that was Scara Child.

Speaker 2 For some reason, that really does.

Speaker 3 I love them because they put them back on in the 90s.

Speaker 4 This was back in the 60s.

Speaker 3 But anyway, the deep-cut thing here

Speaker 3 is that they had the comic book tie-in.

Speaker 3 And like,

Speaker 3 you could write in and you could get like a pack back. And whichever captain you were assigned was your region of the country.

Speaker 3 Because it was Captain Scarlet, Captain Okre, Captain, whatever.

Speaker 3 They messed up the allocation of the regions and one was way, way more than the others.

Speaker 3 They were getting so many in from Captain Purple's region that they killed him off in the comic book, so they have an excuse to not reply to the children from that region for a long time.

Speaker 4 Whoa!

Speaker 5 That's evil.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sorry, that's a deep, irrelevant cut, but we've answered so many questions so quickly here.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I'll say...

Speaker 2 To go back to what you were saying, Tom, that, you know,

Speaker 2 the intention was to sell toys with this show.

Speaker 3 It wasn't a protest against.

Speaker 5 That wasn't, yeah, that wasn't the head writers had the anti-intention of that. He was like, we can stop selling as many toys if the toys kill her.

Speaker 3 I was thinking it was more like, we're being cancelled in favor of Pokemon or whatever is going to sell the merch. So actually,

Speaker 3 he's this is.

Speaker 2 Closer there.

Speaker 5 They cancelled the show because they weren't selling enough toys. And so that, and so the head, it's just bringing you what you're saying together.
So the head writer, you said the toys killed her.

Speaker 4 Exactly.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, the TV show was devised purely as a way to sell toys. However, the toy company, Poppy, wasn't impressed with the series and canceled it.

Speaker 2 And so the head writer, Takeshi Shudo, heard the series had been canceled while the final episodes were still in production.

Speaker 2 And so he enacted a preconceived plan to kill off the main character so that the series could be concluded swiftly.

Speaker 2 And of course, the character being killed killed by a truck delivering toys was a jab towards the sponsor and the toy company.

Speaker 4 Incredible.

Speaker 4 Nice.

Speaker 2 I've seen a version. And again, I think there are multiple versions, maybe because

Speaker 2 some regionalizations were like, this is bad. So maybe they changed it.
I saw one version that was so wild where it's literally like...

Speaker 2 A baseball gets thrown into the street from like a field and then she goes runs up to get it. And then you hear a car go beep, beep, and you're like, oh no.

Speaker 2 And then you realize it's just like a kid in like a toy car.

Speaker 4 And you're just like, whoo! And then a truck goes,

Speaker 4 comes around the corner. This is a kid child.
Oh my god. What? And seven times.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 2 moments later, the parents like go to the child's grave.

Speaker 4 It's really like, oh my God.

Speaker 2 The truck, I think, tumbles and like toys fall out dramatically on the ground, like rosebud style.

Speaker 4 Like, it's really,

Speaker 2 yeah.

Speaker 2 But you guys got it.

Speaker 3 We have perhaps unsurprisingly unlocked the shiny bonus question here. So, good luck to you all with this.
Thank you to Estella for sending it in.

Speaker 3 In 2023, a pre-release version of Microsoft Windows referred to non-existent postcode files.

Speaker 4 Why?

Speaker 3 I'll say that again. In 2023, a pre-release version of Microsoft Windows referred to non-existent postcode files.

Speaker 4 Why?

Speaker 2 Just AI?

Speaker 4 Was there some

Speaker 2 written that it didn't exist?

Speaker 2 Non-existent. I assume that wouldn't be the answer, that it's just some

Speaker 2 AI copywriter or something.

Speaker 3 But copywriter is a good clue there.

Speaker 4 Postcode files.

Speaker 5 It's just an anagram for something.

Speaker 5 a different thing that is supposed to be there.

Speaker 5 There's this thing in science that I'm sometimes called tortured phrases, where

Speaker 5 people who do not natively speak English, um, they'll write their uh papers in their own language, or um, and they'll copy quite a lot of it from somewhere else, and then they'll, they'll put it through a translator, and the translator and but they'll try and change it enough, and the translator will just replace the words.

Speaker 5 Like, for example, if it was um statistics or like it was significant, which is a really important word in science, it would change it to something like really important instead of significant, right?

Speaker 4 As like a,

Speaker 5 you know, just change it just enough to make it seem different and like you wrote it yourself.

Speaker 2 Instead of like our findings show, it's like, oh, we're looking around because we found something.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 There's a thing in the UK newspaper industry called popular orange vegetables,

Speaker 3 which is where you need to use the word carrots twice in a sentence and you find some tortured way because you have been told that using the same word twice in a sentence is bad.

Speaker 3 And you end up with those are the popular orange vegetables. Like, just use carrots.

Speaker 4 Just look at that screen.

Speaker 3 Once you spot that, you spot it everywhere. It's like, oh, you've just looked in a thesaurus for

Speaker 5 you do see it all the time. The popular something, something

Speaker 4 constantly. So

Speaker 5 I'm bringing this up along the lines of maybe the word postcode is kind of like very similar to something that actually exists.

Speaker 3 It really is. And I think you're right with find and replace.

Speaker 3 You're right with all of this. You're very, very close here.

Speaker 5 Zip files.

Speaker 4 Zip files.

Speaker 4 Absolutely right.

Speaker 4 Oh my God. That was slammed.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 2 And this should have been mine.

Speaker 4 I'm the computer science guy. Wow.

Speaker 3 In File Explorer, the menu option compress to zip file

Speaker 3 was replaced with compress to postcode file in the British edition.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 2 I, then this is my computer science brain was tripping me up. I thought this meant like a post, like posting to a database a code or something like that.
That's my, okay.

Speaker 3 That tripped me up. No, we just call zip codes postcodes.

Speaker 2 The only thing more cryptic than computer science is is the British language.

Speaker 3 Which means we just have that question from the top of the show. Thank you to Ethan for sending this in.
And thank you to Unashamedly Enthusiastic for confirming it.

Speaker 3 Why did two people who knew each other other change their surname to Gray on the same day? Before I give the audience the answer, do any of the panel want to take a shot at it?

Speaker 5 They got married.

Speaker 3 That is why people change their name, but they both changed their name.

Speaker 5 Well, people can, you can both change your name.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, one of them's last names was black and the other's last name was white.

Speaker 3 Scott, Tom Love.

Speaker 3 Miss White and Mr. Black got married to each other and they blended their surnames by becoming Mr.
and Mrs. Gray.
Thank you very much to our players. Where can people find you?

Speaker 3 What's going on with the podcast? We will start with Tomlum.

Speaker 2 We are Let's Learn Everything. It's a comedy and science podcast where we learn about science and miscellaneous topics on the Maximum Fun Network.

Speaker 3 Where can people find you? Ella Hubber.

Speaker 5 Let'slearnEverything.com, baby.

Speaker 4 That's it. That's all we got.

Speaker 3 And what sort of topics are you covering, Caroline Roper?

Speaker 5 Oh my goodness. It is everything from

Speaker 5 blood and its uses through to digital piracy. We ask questions like, Can trees talk and what did Shakespeare's accent sound like?

Speaker 5 All sorts of stuff in this wonderful mix of science and miscellaneous topics.

Speaker 3 And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We are at lateralcast basically everywhere, and there are full video episodes every week on Spotify.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much to Caroline Roper.

Speaker 4 Yay!

Speaker 5 Ella Hubber. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 Shamlam. Yay.

Speaker 3 I've been Tom Scott, and that's been lateral.