February 12, 2024 • 21 mins
Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener mail.
My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Monday, the day
each week that we read back messages from the Stuff
to Blow Your Mind mailbox. If you have never gotten
in touch before, why not give it a try. You
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com. We appreciate all the different kinds of
feedback we get. Of course, if you ever have corrections
(00:34):
you need to make, that's fair game. We really love
when people write in with something interesting to add to
a topic we've talked about on the show. But whatever
you want to send, it's fine. Send it on to
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see, Rob,
I'm going to kick things off today with this response
to our first episode on the illusion of control. This
(00:55):
comes from Ariel. All right, let's have it, Ariol, says
dear Robert and Joe. I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Ariel, a software developer from Argentina, and
I'm a huge fan of your podcast. This is the
first time I'm reaching out, and I wanted to share
(01:15):
some thoughts on your recent episode, The Illusion of Control,
Part one, especially regarding the thought experiment about someone else
pushing the slot machine button. Your discussion sparked my interest
because in the realm of computer software, the generation of
random numbers is a fascinating topic that's much more complex
than it may seem at first glance. Generally, the most
(01:36):
sophisticated algorithms for generating random numbers significantly consider the physical context,
including at the very least the precise timing of pressing
a button. The outcome, Specifically, the random number generated could
vary even with a delay of a few milliseconds in
pressing the button. That doesn't change the chance, but it
(01:57):
might change the outcome. So maybe it was what's the
lady's fault that the player lost the bet. While I
don't have specific insights into how slot machines are programmed,
the principle usually holds true across various applications. Random number generators,
or RNGs, play a crucial role here, producing vast sequences
of numbers every second without any discernible pattern. These RNGs
(02:20):
can be classified mainly into two types. True random number
generators or trngs and pseudo random number generators or PRNGs.
Trngs derive randomness from physical phenomena, making it virtually impossible
for attackers to predict the sequence of numbers. On the
other hand, PRNGs generate numbers based on algorithms and a
(02:43):
seed number, which could theoretically be reverse engineered, although the
likelihood is exceedingly low. This distinction is crucial because it
highlights how even seemingly insignificant factors like who presses the
slot machine button or the exact moment it's pressed, could
influence the game's outcome in a system that relies on PRNGs.
I thought this perspective might add an interesting layer to
(03:05):
your discussion on control and randomness, emphasizing how deeply intertwined
physical actions and digital outcomes can be, even in systems
designed to be as unpredictable as slot machines. Thank you
for the continuous effort you put into making such thought
provoking content. Your show has been a source of endless
fascination and learning for me, and I eagerly look forward
to each new episode. Please keep up the great work.
(03:26):
Best regards, Aril from Argentina. Well, thank you so much Aril.
This is a wonderful email, and it raises a great
question about what it really means to cause an outcome
and what it really means for an outcome to be random.
It's absolutely true what you say that random number generators
(03:46):
can be, for example, time based. I remember this is
a very primitive example, but I remember when I was
in middle school and I was trying to program weird
little computer games in que basic. I would use a
demand in the Cubasic code called randomized timer. And the
way I understood that is that the code I was
(04:07):
writing would use the computer's internal clock as a seed
to generate unpredictable pseudo random numbers. Because I think if
you try to get Cubasic to generate a random number
without doing a command like that, like to pick a
seed out from the timer, it would just give you
the same random number every time. Not very random.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So in that case, the exact time the code was executed,
down to some fraction of a second, would determine what
random numbers you got. Slot machines may work differently from that,
but it's at least possible that someone pressing the spin
button at a slightly different time could lead to different
physical electrical processes producing a different output, So a slightly
(04:51):
different trigger timing would in theory be the difference between
winning and losing. But I would still say it is
sufficiently random from the point of view the player, because
while there is a difference, that difference is not something
that the player could use to predict or control outcomes.
And this is what you meant Aariel when you said
that quote. This doesn't change the chance, but it might
(05:14):
change the outcome. So I think you could compare it
to how unless you're talking about like a practice cheet
or something, two regular people rolling a die will inevitably
roll the die differently, and in fact, the same person
rolling a die at different times will roll it differently,
but neither one is better than the other at getting
(05:34):
high dice rolls. There would be no way to predict
in advance which role will be better unless you know.
Unless your Laplace's demon and you can like algorithmically calculate
the future by knowing the position of every particle and
photon in the universe, which we're not that demon. We
can't do that. So if somebody rolls your dice for you,
in one sense, you could say they caused you to
(05:57):
win or lose because they physically set the dice in motion,
so they physically caused whatever the role was. But the
way we would normally understand someone to cause you to
lose would mean that they did something that could have
been predicted to lead you to losing or could be
predicted to decrease your chance of winning. And so somebody
(06:17):
rolling the dice for you or pressing the slot machine
button for you would not be that kind of cause
because no matter who does it, the outcome of each
roll or spin is not predictable. Okay, So again I
think this really plays on like different ideas of understanding
what it would mean to cause an outcome or for
that outcome to be random, you know, questions of quantum
(06:38):
physics aside. I think you can argue that nothing on
the macroscopic scale in the universe is actually random. It's
all physically determined by preceding causes. But lots of stuff
is functionally random from our point of view, and functional
randomness just means that there's no way for the party
in question to predict each outcome in a pattern. There's
(06:58):
like no predictable pattern into it, even though there might
be predictable overall percentages. It's like, you know, when you
flip a coin. You can predict the outcome of a
series of coin flips in a way because over time
those coin flips will converge on a fifty to fifty
of heads and tails. So you can predict the overall
pattern of outcomes, but you cannot predict with better than
(07:20):
fifty percent confidence what each individual flip will be.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, Like, overall, you know that in your career, our
life of playing Dungeons and Dragons, you know the D
twenty rolls are all going to even out, but maybe
you're only going to roll five of them tonight. What
are those going to look like?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Right? Right? Exactly In the same way you can know
exactly what your true odds of winning on a slot
machine are. I think in some sense they're probably that
those odds are public or posted, and they do reflect
your true odds of winning. But that's not very helpful
in determining what's going to happen on your next spin,
except I mean in the sense of telling you that
you know most spins you're gonna lose, you will probably,
(08:00):
and also in letting you know that you know your
odds are low enough that you will eventually run out
of money and stop being able to play, and so
that's the end of the game for you.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
All right. Well, now that we've gotten the serious listener
mail out of the way, let's get to the weird
house cinema listener mail. This first one I'm going to read.
This one is I guess, half listener mail response and
then half weird house cinema response. This one comes to
us from goth mom Light. Hey, fellas number one. As
(08:34):
a long time Durani, I was delighted that you named
January's listener mail episodes after Duran Duran tunes. However, I'm
puzzled as to why I listened to each of these
episodes but didn't catch any other Duran Squared related stories
or references. What am I missing? Is there something I
should know? Whether, No, there's nothing you should know other
(08:55):
than I too. Am a longtime durand Ran fan since
I first saw the music videos for Wild Boys and
View to a Kill on MTV or I don't even
think it was MTV, it was a it was a
Canadian channels to the CBC. Once I saw those videos,
I like got they got their Hooks in early and
(09:17):
I've remained a fan, you know, at least a casual fan,
my whole life. But I got to see them in
concert just last year. My wife and I went, and
they put on such a great show. It like it
invited me to go deeper into their discography and discover
some really great tunes that I wasn't that familiar with,
to rediscover my appreciation for other songs. So that's about
(09:40):
all there is to it. And in general, some months
for listener Mail episodes, I'll just randomly choose titles. Well
not completely randomly, since we're talking about randomization, but I
will I'll say pick an artist and be like, Okay,
this month, all the titles are going to be based
on track titles by this particular artist.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I don't always know what these are going to be,
but it's a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, generally a lot of thought does not go into it.
I just kind of go with the guy, we got
to name them something. And you know, sometimes you can
name a listener mail episode because you know, you have
a lot of listener mail related to a particular topic
and you can kind of, you know, theme it a
little better. About other times you just have to have
to go with something that's going to stand out, and
you know it's not going to be mistaken for an
actual episode. Right. But that's not all that goth mom
(10:25):
Light has to share. She continues here quote I have
a weird house cinema suggestion for you. Ramikin from twenty eighteen.
In this indie horror comedy quote, a college girl is
terrorized by a ramikin. Ramikin, of course, is a small
little container. We use them all the time in the
(10:45):
house for just any time you need to, like, put
a snack mix in it, put a small amount of
soup in it, you know, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I use a lot of ramikins in cooking, like if
I'm making a stir fry, and I have several small
amounts of things that I want to add to the
pan at different points, so I have them in a
little ramikins.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I've gotten aware if I'm doing something with eggs, I'll
break my eggs into a ram can, either one by
one or a few at a time, because that way
I need to pick a bit of eggshell out of there.
I'd rather do it out of the ramikin than out
of a bowl with other ingredients or out of an
active frying pan.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yes, I also break eggs into a ram can. In fact,
I always do that if I'm going to poach the eggs,
because I don't trust myself to like crack it and
then drop it into the water right without like piercing
the olk and all that. It's a much easier You
put it in aramicin first, and you can just gently
lower the ramikin into the water.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Oh that's an advanced technique. I don't even try that,
it's too much, but anyway, Yeah, aramikin is very useful.
It's the kind of thing that would never ever try
to destroy us, and I guess it makes sense that
somebody would put it in a horror movie at some point.
Goth momlike continues here a college girl terrorized by a
ramkin for reasons anyone who's ever endured obnoxious roommates can
(11:57):
readily understand. Also Cupcakes, director Cody Clark made it and
it is available on YouTube for free. High fives, y'all,
goth momline.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
I've never seen this movie. I love the premise of
being terrorized by aramican, though I am a little confused.
IMDb says this movie is over an hour long. I'm
curious how that works with an hour plus runtime, but
I want to trust it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, it's kind of an outrageous idea, so sometimes you
got to go for it.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Okay. This next message comes to us from Mike. It's
in response to our Weird House Cinema episode on Blackula
subject line Blacula in the show Psych. Mike says, Hi,
Robin Joe in the Psych episode, that's Psych, it's TV show.
In the Psych episode, this episode sucks. The two main
characters are trying to go undercover at a vampire club,
(12:55):
so they dress like Blacula and Lestat from Interview with
a Van Empire. Love the podcast. Thanks Mike, and I
looked this up. So I've never seen the show Psych,
though I do know about it for a strange reason,
I can mention it in a minute. But I looked
at the screenshot that Mike shared here and I checked in, Well,
(13:18):
that's Delay Hill as Mama Walde there, and I really
got to say, the costumes are dead on both of them,
down to Mama wal Day's like bushy eyebrows and sculpted sideburns.
They really did their research to match these movie characters.
The La stat costume is also very close. As I said,
I've never seen the show Psych, but I'm well aware
(13:40):
of it because Robert, I suspect this must have happened
to you at some point. Also, it's an example of
where I had an idea for the premise of a
story that I wanted to write, but I did a
quick check to see if there was already something out
there with this premise, and there was, and it was
the show Psych. So the idea was, I was like,
what if there was a story where a character was
(14:04):
like an amateur detective who wanted to work as a
detective but didn't have credentials, and so they just pretended
to be a psychic using their actual, like you know,
logically derived insights, but presenting them as one of these
psychics who consults with police departments on cases, which has
happened in reality in some cases strangely. So that was
(14:27):
my idea, but I looked it up and that's apparently
exactly the premise of Psych.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, I think I've only ever watched like one episode
of it, and I don't remember what my thoughts on
it were one way or another, So I don't maybe
I should revisit it. I know a lot of people
love it.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well, I'll say, at least their costume department is crushing it.
All right.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
This one comes to us from Chris, Robert and Joe.
You said you wanted to have listeners tell their stories
about seeing weird house films, including ones featured in earlier appisodes.
Now you have done it, setting off an old cogres
I mean, early elderly man's descent into nostalgia with the
(15:07):
potential for blather. Is this what you two wanted when
you became shills for big video rental. It's true we
have become kind of shills for big video rental, or
at least locally owned video rental. Especially it's big. I
mean it's big to me. It's important to me. But yeah,
it's not like corporations at all. I mean, is there
(15:28):
big video rental anymore? I'm not sure. I don't think,
but I will say, yeah, support your local video rental
stores if you were lucky enough to have them. Still
they need you, and deep down you need them, and
you know it. Especially again we've discussed the advantages of
physical media when it comes to films. You know you
(15:50):
can count on your video store as long as it's
around to have those films for you. If you own
those discs, you own them and you can watch them
whenever you want. It's very I think to everyone at
this point that you just can't count on streaming sources
to have the films you want to watch in the
cuts you want to watch them when you need them,
(16:10):
without even getting into like cool extras and so forth.
All right, that's a tangent. But anyway, Chris continues, at
least you could make it up to me by doing
an episode on creation of the Humanoids, which I seem
to recall Robert swearing to do on a stack of
credit cards. This is what you get for triggering survivors
of the VHS Beta Max Wars of the mid seventies
(16:31):
to mid eighties. Even so, thank you for introducing me
to Carol Zaemon's Invention for Destruction. I enjoyed watching it tremendously.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Chris. That is a wonderful one. Chris. I think you're
the same one who keeps asking for creation of the humanoids.
We have considered it, we will do it at some point.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
There you go. You just swore to do it, so no,
now we have to.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I don't have any credit cards here, but should be
coming down the road.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
And finally, this is little listener mail. Let's see I
guess the way that these are publishing. I will refer
to this again in the core episode tomorrow that we
recorded before we recorded this listener mail episode. So slight repetition,
but I think it all pans out. This is from
an individual on discord. Their user name is Passey Sish
(17:17):
or something to that effect. Sorry if I'm missing something here,
they said. I think slash guests trying to influence the
dice result is not the main reason for rolling important checks. Differently,
in Dungeons and Dragons, building suspense is fun, and you
(17:38):
might roll it more properly to ensure that there is
no argument about the result. On the other hand, there
are a lot of fun rituals like praying to the
almighty dice God or sending quote unquote bad dice to jail.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This is a great point. So this is touching on
something we talked about in the first Solution of Control
episode that sometimes people appear to be concentrating over a
ice throw, as if like it'll make a difference to
them getting rolling the number they want, and that I
do think that is actually operative in how people behave.
But there are other reasons people might appear to be
(18:12):
concentrating over a dice throw, for example, to make sure
that the dice throw is legal like this, you know,
they throw it in the right area, doesn't bounce off
the table or something and get an invalid result, or
maybe hit something and displace it. If you've got like
miniature set up on a tabletop RPG, so you know,
you might roll carefully so you don't hit that. So
there are legitimate reasons to concentrate on a dice throw,
(18:36):
I guess, apart from thinking it will help you get
the number you want, though, I do still think people
do it to try to get the number they want.
And then the second thing you say is about building suspense.
I think that's a legitimate thing too. Yeah, it's like
a drum roll. It's like a you know, acting it
out so everybody at the table can have fun anticipating
the result of this this pivotal event.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, there's a lot that goes into it. And
you know, we didn't in touch on the use of
dice towers and so forth. There's a and even sometimes yeah,
physical dice jail in which to punish a particular a
fencing roll and so forth.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I've never done that, But do you literally have a
dice jail?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I've I don't. I don't go that far, but I
see the examples of it. You can buy like little
three D printed dice jails and so forth, and yeah,
people seem to have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
You should have like a pit of scorpions you can
drop the dice into.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, if it's fun, I say go for it. I've
also seen people engage in this when they have a
lot of dice, they bring like multiple air Like me,
I tend to just have the one set. I have
the one D twenty I always use, and I probably
get a little I'm a little attached to that one,
Like this is the D twenty that is you know,
it's failed me plenty of times, but it's also rolled
(19:50):
some great twenties. It's I don't know, it's just part
of the ritual. And I can't punish this particular D twenty.
It's it's been with me a long.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Time, all right. Should we call it there for today?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, we'll go ahead and close the mail bag here,
but hey, keep them coming. Keep writing in. We'd love
to hear from you. Speaking of Discord, if you want
to access the Discord, shoot us an email and we'll
send you the invite. In fact, I just did it
just now. I just remember that somebody had just requested
it via email, and I went in and sent that
to them while we were recording this episode. And uh yeah,
(20:23):
as usual, will remind you that Listener Mail's air on Monday,
Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday, short form episode on Wednesday,
and Weird House Cinema on Fridays, in which we set
aside most serious concerns to just talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
A weird film, huge things as always to our excellent
audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get
in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or
just to say hello, you can email us at contact
at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener mail.
My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Monday, the day
each week that we read back messages from the Stuff
to Blow Your Mind mailbox. If you have never gotten
in touch before, why not give it a try. You
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com. We appreciate all the different kinds of
feedback we get. Of course, if you ever have corrections
(00:34):
you need to make, that's fair game. We really love
when people write in with something interesting to add to
a topic we've talked about on the show. But whatever
you want to send, it's fine. Send it on to
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see, Rob,
I'm going to kick things off today with this response
to our first episode on the illusion of control. This
(00:55):
comes from Ariel. All right, let's have it, Ariol, says
dear Robert and Joe. I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Ariel, a software developer from Argentina, and
I'm a huge fan of your podcast. This is the
first time I'm reaching out, and I wanted to share
(01:15):
some thoughts on your recent episode, The Illusion of Control,
Part one, especially regarding the thought experiment about someone else
pushing the slot machine button. Your discussion sparked my interest
because in the realm of computer software, the generation of
random numbers is a fascinating topic that's much more complex
than it may seem at first glance. Generally, the most
(01:36):
sophisticated algorithms for generating random numbers significantly consider the physical context,
including at the very least the precise timing of pressing
a button. The outcome, Specifically, the random number generated could
vary even with a delay of a few milliseconds in
pressing the button. That doesn't change the chance, but it
(01:57):
might change the outcome. So maybe it was what's the
lady's fault that the player lost the bet. While I
don't have specific insights into how slot machines are programmed,
the principle usually holds true across various applications. Random number generators,
or RNGs, play a crucial role here, producing vast sequences
of numbers every second without any discernible pattern. These RNGs
(02:20):
can be classified mainly into two types. True random number
generators or trngs and pseudo random number generators or PRNGs.
Trngs derive randomness from physical phenomena, making it virtually impossible
for attackers to predict the sequence of numbers. On the
other hand, PRNGs generate numbers based on algorithms and a
(02:43):
seed number, which could theoretically be reverse engineered, although the
likelihood is exceedingly low. This distinction is crucial because it
highlights how even seemingly insignificant factors like who presses the
slot machine button or the exact moment it's pressed, could
influence the game's outcome in a system that relies on PRNGs.
I thought this perspective might add an interesting layer to
(03:05):
your discussion on control and randomness, emphasizing how deeply intertwined
physical actions and digital outcomes can be, even in systems
designed to be as unpredictable as slot machines. Thank you
for the continuous effort you put into making such thought
provoking content. Your show has been a source of endless
fascination and learning for me, and I eagerly look forward
to each new episode. Please keep up the great work.
(03:26):
Best regards, Aril from Argentina. Well, thank you so much Aril.
This is a wonderful email, and it raises a great
question about what it really means to cause an outcome
and what it really means for an outcome to be random.
It's absolutely true what you say that random number generators
(03:46):
can be, for example, time based. I remember this is
a very primitive example, but I remember when I was
in middle school and I was trying to program weird
little computer games in que basic. I would use a
demand in the Cubasic code called randomized timer. And the
way I understood that is that the code I was
(04:07):
writing would use the computer's internal clock as a seed
to generate unpredictable pseudo random numbers. Because I think if
you try to get Cubasic to generate a random number
without doing a command like that, like to pick a
seed out from the timer, it would just give you
the same random number every time. Not very random.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So in that case, the exact time the code was executed,
down to some fraction of a second, would determine what
random numbers you got. Slot machines may work differently from that,
but it's at least possible that someone pressing the spin
button at a slightly different time could lead to different
physical electrical processes producing a different output, So a slightly
(04:51):
different trigger timing would in theory be the difference between
winning and losing. But I would still say it is
sufficiently random from the point of view the player, because
while there is a difference, that difference is not something
that the player could use to predict or control outcomes.
And this is what you meant Aariel when you said
that quote. This doesn't change the chance, but it might
(05:14):
change the outcome. So I think you could compare it
to how unless you're talking about like a practice cheet
or something, two regular people rolling a die will inevitably
roll the die differently, and in fact, the same person
rolling a die at different times will roll it differently,
but neither one is better than the other at getting
(05:34):
high dice rolls. There would be no way to predict
in advance which role will be better unless you know.
Unless your Laplace's demon and you can like algorithmically calculate
the future by knowing the position of every particle and
photon in the universe, which we're not that demon. We
can't do that. So if somebody rolls your dice for you,
in one sense, you could say they caused you to
(05:57):
win or lose because they physically set the dice in motion,
so they physically caused whatever the role was. But the
way we would normally understand someone to cause you to
lose would mean that they did something that could have
been predicted to lead you to losing or could be
predicted to decrease your chance of winning. And so somebody
(06:17):
rolling the dice for you or pressing the slot machine
button for you would not be that kind of cause
because no matter who does it, the outcome of each
roll or spin is not predictable. Okay, So again I
think this really plays on like different ideas of understanding
what it would mean to cause an outcome or for
that outcome to be random, you know, questions of quantum
(06:38):
physics aside. I think you can argue that nothing on
the macroscopic scale in the universe is actually random. It's
all physically determined by preceding causes. But lots of stuff
is functionally random from our point of view, and functional
randomness just means that there's no way for the party
in question to predict each outcome in a pattern. There's
(06:58):
like no predictable pattern into it, even though there might
be predictable overall percentages. It's like, you know, when you
flip a coin. You can predict the outcome of a
series of coin flips in a way because over time
those coin flips will converge on a fifty to fifty
of heads and tails. So you can predict the overall
pattern of outcomes, but you cannot predict with better than
(07:20):
fifty percent confidence what each individual flip will be.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, Like, overall, you know that in your career, our
life of playing Dungeons and Dragons, you know the D
twenty rolls are all going to even out, but maybe
you're only going to roll five of them tonight. What
are those going to look like?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Right? Right? Exactly In the same way you can know
exactly what your true odds of winning on a slot
machine are. I think in some sense they're probably that
those odds are public or posted, and they do reflect
your true odds of winning. But that's not very helpful
in determining what's going to happen on your next spin,
except I mean in the sense of telling you that
you know most spins you're gonna lose, you will probably,
(08:00):
and also in letting you know that you know your
odds are low enough that you will eventually run out
of money and stop being able to play, and so
that's the end of the game for you.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
All right. Well, now that we've gotten the serious listener
mail out of the way, let's get to the weird
house cinema listener mail. This first one I'm going to read.
This one is I guess, half listener mail response and
then half weird house cinema response. This one comes to
us from goth mom Light. Hey, fellas number one. As
(08:34):
a long time Durani, I was delighted that you named
January's listener mail episodes after Duran Duran tunes. However, I'm
puzzled as to why I listened to each of these
episodes but didn't catch any other Duran Squared related stories
or references. What am I missing? Is there something I
should know? Whether, No, there's nothing you should know other
(08:55):
than I too. Am a longtime durand Ran fan since
I first saw the music videos for Wild Boys and
View to a Kill on MTV or I don't even
think it was MTV, it was a it was a
Canadian channels to the CBC. Once I saw those videos,
I like got they got their Hooks in early and
(09:17):
I've remained a fan, you know, at least a casual fan,
my whole life. But I got to see them in
concert just last year. My wife and I went, and
they put on such a great show. It like it
invited me to go deeper into their discography and discover
some really great tunes that I wasn't that familiar with,
to rediscover my appreciation for other songs. So that's about
(09:40):
all there is to it. And in general, some months
for listener Mail episodes, I'll just randomly choose titles. Well
not completely randomly, since we're talking about randomization, but I
will I'll say pick an artist and be like, Okay,
this month, all the titles are going to be based
on track titles by this particular artist.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I don't always know what these are going to be,
but it's a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, generally a lot of thought does not go into it.
I just kind of go with the guy, we got
to name them something. And you know, sometimes you can
name a listener mail episode because you know, you have
a lot of listener mail related to a particular topic
and you can kind of, you know, theme it a
little better. About other times you just have to have
to go with something that's going to stand out, and
you know it's not going to be mistaken for an
actual episode. Right. But that's not all that goth mom
(10:25):
Light has to share. She continues here quote I have
a weird house cinema suggestion for you. Ramikin from twenty eighteen.
In this indie horror comedy quote, a college girl is
terrorized by a ramikin. Ramikin, of course, is a small
little container. We use them all the time in the
(10:45):
house for just any time you need to, like, put
a snack mix in it, put a small amount of
soup in it, you know, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I use a lot of ramikins in cooking, like if
I'm making a stir fry, and I have several small
amounts of things that I want to add to the
pan at different points, so I have them in a
little ramikins.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I've gotten aware if I'm doing something with eggs, I'll
break my eggs into a ram can, either one by
one or a few at a time, because that way
I need to pick a bit of eggshell out of there.
I'd rather do it out of the ramikin than out
of a bowl with other ingredients or out of an
active frying pan.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yes, I also break eggs into a ram can. In fact,
I always do that if I'm going to poach the eggs,
because I don't trust myself to like crack it and
then drop it into the water right without like piercing
the olk and all that. It's a much easier You
put it in aramicin first, and you can just gently
lower the ramikin into the water.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Oh that's an advanced technique. I don't even try that,
it's too much, but anyway, Yeah, aramikin is very useful.
It's the kind of thing that would never ever try
to destroy us, and I guess it makes sense that
somebody would put it in a horror movie at some point.
Goth momlike continues here a college girl terrorized by a
ramkin for reasons anyone who's ever endured obnoxious roommates can
(11:57):
readily understand. Also Cupcakes, director Cody Clark made it and
it is available on YouTube for free. High fives, y'all,
goth momline.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
I've never seen this movie. I love the premise of
being terrorized by aramican, though I am a little confused.
IMDb says this movie is over an hour long. I'm
curious how that works with an hour plus runtime, but
I want to trust it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, it's kind of an outrageous idea, so sometimes you
got to go for it.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Okay. This next message comes to us from Mike. It's
in response to our Weird House Cinema episode on Blackula
subject line Blacula in the show Psych. Mike says, Hi,
Robin Joe in the Psych episode, that's Psych, it's TV show.
In the Psych episode, this episode sucks. The two main
characters are trying to go undercover at a vampire club,
(12:55):
so they dress like Blacula and Lestat from Interview with
a Van Empire. Love the podcast. Thanks Mike, and I
looked this up. So I've never seen the show Psych,
though I do know about it for a strange reason,
I can mention it in a minute. But I looked
at the screenshot that Mike shared here and I checked in, Well,
(13:18):
that's Delay Hill as Mama Walde there, and I really
got to say, the costumes are dead on both of them,
down to Mama wal Day's like bushy eyebrows and sculpted sideburns.
They really did their research to match these movie characters.
The La stat costume is also very close. As I said,
I've never seen the show Psych, but I'm well aware
(13:40):
of it because Robert, I suspect this must have happened
to you at some point. Also, it's an example of
where I had an idea for the premise of a
story that I wanted to write, but I did a
quick check to see if there was already something out
there with this premise, and there was, and it was
the show Psych. So the idea was, I was like,
what if there was a story where a character was
(14:04):
like an amateur detective who wanted to work as a
detective but didn't have credentials, and so they just pretended
to be a psychic using their actual, like you know,
logically derived insights, but presenting them as one of these
psychics who consults with police departments on cases, which has
happened in reality in some cases strangely. So that was
(14:27):
my idea, but I looked it up and that's apparently
exactly the premise of Psych.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, I think I've only ever watched like one episode
of it, and I don't remember what my thoughts on
it were one way or another, So I don't maybe
I should revisit it. I know a lot of people
love it.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well, I'll say, at least their costume department is crushing it.
All right.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
This one comes to us from Chris, Robert and Joe.
You said you wanted to have listeners tell their stories
about seeing weird house films, including ones featured in earlier appisodes.
Now you have done it, setting off an old cogres
I mean, early elderly man's descent into nostalgia with the
(15:07):
potential for blather. Is this what you two wanted when
you became shills for big video rental. It's true we
have become kind of shills for big video rental, or
at least locally owned video rental. Especially it's big. I
mean it's big to me. It's important to me. But yeah,
it's not like corporations at all. I mean, is there
(15:28):
big video rental anymore? I'm not sure. I don't think,
but I will say, yeah, support your local video rental
stores if you were lucky enough to have them. Still
they need you, and deep down you need them, and
you know it. Especially again we've discussed the advantages of
physical media when it comes to films. You know you
(15:50):
can count on your video store as long as it's
around to have those films for you. If you own
those discs, you own them and you can watch them
whenever you want. It's very I think to everyone at
this point that you just can't count on streaming sources
to have the films you want to watch in the
cuts you want to watch them when you need them,
(16:10):
without even getting into like cool extras and so forth.
All right, that's a tangent. But anyway, Chris continues, at
least you could make it up to me by doing
an episode on creation of the Humanoids, which I seem
to recall Robert swearing to do on a stack of
credit cards. This is what you get for triggering survivors
of the VHS Beta Max Wars of the mid seventies
(16:31):
to mid eighties. Even so, thank you for introducing me
to Carol Zaemon's Invention for Destruction. I enjoyed watching it tremendously.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Chris. That is a wonderful one. Chris. I think you're
the same one who keeps asking for creation of the humanoids.
We have considered it, we will do it at some point.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
There you go. You just swore to do it, so no,
now we have to.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I don't have any credit cards here, but should be
coming down the road.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
And finally, this is little listener mail. Let's see I
guess the way that these are publishing. I will refer
to this again in the core episode tomorrow that we
recorded before we recorded this listener mail episode. So slight repetition,
but I think it all pans out. This is from
an individual on discord. Their user name is Passey Sish
(17:17):
or something to that effect. Sorry if I'm missing something here,
they said. I think slash guests trying to influence the
dice result is not the main reason for rolling important checks. Differently,
in Dungeons and Dragons, building suspense is fun, and you
(17:38):
might roll it more properly to ensure that there is
no argument about the result. On the other hand, there
are a lot of fun rituals like praying to the
almighty dice God or sending quote unquote bad dice to jail.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This is a great point. So this is touching on
something we talked about in the first Solution of Control
episode that sometimes people appear to be concentrating over a
ice throw, as if like it'll make a difference to
them getting rolling the number they want, and that I
do think that is actually operative in how people behave.
But there are other reasons people might appear to be
(18:12):
concentrating over a dice throw, for example, to make sure
that the dice throw is legal like this, you know,
they throw it in the right area, doesn't bounce off
the table or something and get an invalid result, or
maybe hit something and displace it. If you've got like
miniature set up on a tabletop RPG, so you know,
you might roll carefully so you don't hit that. So
there are legitimate reasons to concentrate on a dice throw,
(18:36):
I guess, apart from thinking it will help you get
the number you want, though, I do still think people
do it to try to get the number they want.
And then the second thing you say is about building suspense.
I think that's a legitimate thing too. Yeah, it's like
a drum roll. It's like a you know, acting it
out so everybody at the table can have fun anticipating
the result of this this pivotal event.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, there's a lot that goes into it. And
you know, we didn't in touch on the use of
dice towers and so forth. There's a and even sometimes yeah,
physical dice jail in which to punish a particular a
fencing roll and so forth.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I've never done that, But do you literally have a
dice jail?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I've I don't. I don't go that far, but I
see the examples of it. You can buy like little
three D printed dice jails and so forth, and yeah,
people seem to have a lot of fun with it.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
You should have like a pit of scorpions you can
drop the dice into.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, if it's fun, I say go for it. I've
also seen people engage in this when they have a
lot of dice, they bring like multiple air Like me,
I tend to just have the one set. I have
the one D twenty I always use, and I probably
get a little I'm a little attached to that one,
Like this is the D twenty that is you know,
it's failed me plenty of times, but it's also rolled
(19:50):
some great twenties. It's I don't know, it's just part
of the ritual. And I can't punish this particular D twenty.
It's it's been with me a long.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Time, all right. Should we call it there for today?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, we'll go ahead and close the mail bag here,
but hey, keep them coming. Keep writing in. We'd love
to hear from you. Speaking of Discord, if you want
to access the Discord, shoot us an email and we'll
send you the invite. In fact, I just did it
just now. I just remember that somebody had just requested
it via email, and I went in and sent that
to them while we were recording this episode. And uh yeah,
(20:23):
as usual, will remind you that Listener Mail's air on Monday,
Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday, short form episode on Wednesday,
and Weird House Cinema on Fridays, in which we set
aside most serious concerns to just talk about.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
A weird film, huge things as always to our excellent
audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get
in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or
just to say hello, you can email us at contact
at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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