February 1, 2021 • 31 mins
It’s time for more listening mail! Robert and Joe use the Nightmare Key to unlock a boss battle with YOUR e-mails...
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
And today we're answering your listener mail. Or I don't
know how much answering we're gonna do. We're at least
gonna read your listener mail. We might offer thoughts about it,
we might just put it out there and let it
(00:23):
let it hang. But we're gonna get into some stuff
about our episode on the Lock and Key, some responses
to bug funerals, and we're going to address the ongoing
stream that maybe we'll never stop of listener mail about
robot jocks. It seems like people just can't get that
out of their heads. And it's been a pleasant surprise
because when I when I I think that was one
(00:45):
that I I selected, and I was thinking to myself, Man,
this one's so hard to find right now, perhaps I'm
the only one who out there who has any kind
of fond memories of this movie. Uh So it's been
nice to see that other folks remember it as well.
Now that's been an abso lute highlight of weird house
cinema for me so far. I I think about robot
jocks at least once a day. And we didn't even
(01:07):
realize the serendipity when we picked it that one of
the places it's actually streaming is called to be That's
oh man. I didn't even really really put that together,
but that's true. Yeah. Uh. Do you want to read
this first message about our bug funeral episode from Jim
(01:28):
in New Jersey. Yes, Jim in New Jersey, a longtime
Listener mail correspondent here right in and says, Robert and Joe,
you missed one of the best stories about E. O.
Wilson and the Scent of Death for Ants. Radio Lab
featured it a bit over ten years ago and include
included a link for this you can look it up
so by looking for Hey, I'm Dad, the story of
(01:49):
the very lively Aunt. Oh, and we should say the
subject line of Jim's email was Aunt's yelling I'm not
dead yet anyway, Jim continues once the signal of death
is an air which takes about two days. Any ant
that happens by grabs the corpse and carries it through
the colony to a refuse pile designated the graveyard and
dumps it on a mound of also dead ants. Wilson
(02:11):
wrote in his autobiography, I thought maybe with the right chemicals,
I could create an artificial corpse. Wilson discovered that oleic acid,
just a tiny, a teeny sorry drop of it was
all the ants had to sniff to think dead. One day,
he took a drop of the chemical and gently deposited
it on an ant that had the misfortune of walking by.
(02:33):
Wilson describes how as soon as he dabbed the ant,
the next ant that came near, grabbed his aunt, slung
it on its back, hiked over to the graveyard, and
though the aunt was still very much alive kicking you know,
says ed, flug it into the refuse pile. Dead is
what you smell, not what you see, if you were
an aunt. So though it tried to clean itself over
(02:54):
and over, the minute it returned to the colony, it
was grabbed, carried, and slung back on the pile. The
zombie aunt was eventually able to clean itself sufficiently and
rejoin the nest. Jim in New Jersey. Uh, that is morbid,
but yes, very funny. Actually, I don't know if this
was clear in the text of Jim's email, but I
think that middle section was actually a quote from that
(03:16):
NPR piece. We should just clear Okay. Yeah, and in
that case, yeah, definitely go back and listen to it.
Radio Lab has always been a wonderful show. Uh, And
there archives are are rich and deep, as is the
Aunt Graveyard. I would say, no resentment of rivalry whatsoever.
Please go listen to Radio Lab. Yes, okay. This next
(03:43):
message picks up from one of the tangents we went
on in our Funeral for a Bug episodes. You remember,
in that episode we started talking about some of the
weird ironyes of pastoral poetry. So pastoral poetry is a
you know, long running genre going back into the ancient
world but still continuing into recent times, where the main
(04:04):
thrust of it is that it sort of celebrates the
rural existence as a as a as a peaceful, beautiful
thing that is uncomplicated by all of the I don't
know the sin and complexity of of city life. And
so this message comes from Jacob and it picks up
on one particular comment we had there subject line pastoral
(04:28):
ism and YouTube. Jacob says, hey, Joe and Rob first
time writer a longtime listener. I was listening to the
January twenty one episode Funeral for a Bug and you
wondered if shows like The Great British Baking Show were
modern pastorals. I think there's something to that, but I
can do one better. Since the pastoral, according to poets
(04:49):
dot Org, idealizes a rural life and landscape, I couldn't
help but think of the sub genre of YouTube videos.
I've recently become addicted to building things, especially building things
by hand using traditional techniques like blacksmithing, hand tool woodworking,
timber framing, and so on. I've had quite a few
(05:10):
in my subscription feed. But if you stand out as
fitting the definition, primitive technology seems like the er example.
But Mr Chickadee, Dylan Iwakuni, and t A Outdoors are
some that I think also fit into the pastoral tradition.
They usually have minimal dialogue, are set outside, and focus
on the tool work. Unlike some other woodworking or maker
(05:32):
centered channels, there's no attempt to instruct. It's literally watching
someone build a cabin or a kiln or something out
of basic materials like stone, wood or clay using hand
powered tools. I'm struck by this comment from the poets
dot Org definition quote. Ironically, the conventions of the pastoral
genre were established by sophisticated urban poets whose beautific portrayals
(05:56):
of rural life perpetuated fantasies and misconceptions about the rural lifestyle.
And yeah, that that was definitely one of the ironies
we we touched on in the episode. It was like,
all this stuff about how how nice it would be
to be a shepherd, but you know, written by someone
who's never been a shepherd and doesn't realize what kind
of work is involved. But back to Jacob's message. Jacob says,
(06:16):
I've done a little woodworking and home renovation, and working
by hand is slow and physically demanding. It can be
fun the way a good workout is fun. But the
idealized notion that somehow this is the good life, the
simple life, is way off. Rural life meant subsistence farming
or labor, and that typically meant living on the edge
of starvation one bad season or one serious injury or
(06:39):
illness away from disaster. Hardly a desirable lifestyle, which makes
me wonder what the appeal is for these channels, Because
I'm hopelessly addicted, and judging by their subscribers, I'm not
the only one. It's soothing to watch and listen to us.
Some of them even tagged their videos as a s MR.
But more than that, I'm gil ty of romanticizing exactly
(07:01):
what I criticized above. I'm currently building a work bench
for the and the first thing I decided to do
was to do it all by hand. I don't have
a great explanation for why, other than that it takes
all my focus and as such puts me in a
sort of flow or zen meditation state. It's also a
bit of time travel learning a traditional craft. It helps
(07:22):
you understand an era not your own. But that's a
luxury of the relatively rich. If I were doing this
for a living and hoping to sell enough to feed
my family, I doubt I'd be calm or philosophical about it.
Since it's a hobby, though, I can work at my
own slow pace and think deep thoughts or listen to
deep podcasts like Stuff to Blow your Mind while I
(07:43):
do it. Love the show, keep up the good work,
and you can absolutely read this on air with my
name if you choose. Thanks Jacob, Well, Jacob we're always
assuming we can read this on air with your name
with the we we tend to leave off last names
if you supply them. And if you're writing in about
something and you you would prefer no name attached at all,
that's perfectly cool. Just let us know that that's the case.
(08:04):
Oh yeah, and you can also write to us uh
with a message that you would prefer us not to
read on air. Just make sure you note that in
the email. But yeah, I thought this was a really
interesting message, and I think this is this is onto
something that is very interesting. So there there are multiple
threads to to pull on here. One is, yes, this uh,
this sort of idealization of traditional rural types of labor uh,
(08:29):
you know, farming type labor, woodworking type labor um and
and the difference between doing that labor as a hobby
where you have no time constraints really and you can
just explore it at your leisure versus doing that kind
of labor to survive, which is which is very different.
I often think about this difference, um with cooking. You know,
(08:50):
I do a lot of cooking at home, actually really
enjoy cooking. Uh. And sometimes people will say like, oh,
have you ever thought about, you know, being a chef
for working in restaurant. I have worked in restaurants, not
as a cook. I've worked as a you know server,
you know, bus boy and all that, and it's a
totally different thing. I think a lot of people don't
realize that if you're working in a restaurant kitchen, it
(09:12):
is not the same kind of leisurely recreational fun activity
as it would be if you're just sort of like
cooking on a week weekend at home. Uh. There you
have these intense time constraints, a lot of different types
of labor to manage and prioritize. It's often highly stressful. Uh.
And it's just a totally different experience than recreationally cooking
(09:35):
in a home kitchen. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is
often the case with with various hobbies and and uh
and activities like like, for instance, I engage in some
of the miniature and model painting and and you know,
it's really fun and calming. But if I were to
if if I were doing this exact task or something
like it, and I was having to crank something out,
(09:55):
you know, if I was part of a production line
or if I were I don't know, if you were
to apply it, say, um, you know, being a colorist
or something, um, you know for manuscripts or comics or something. Uh.
You know, if you potentially get into that situation where
you're just having to to just do so much of it,
you don't have that the potentials there to to to
lose hold of that zen state that you go into
(10:16):
when you do it. In fact, I've I've followed like
really skilled miniature painters before and uh, and in some
cases they've had to. They've they've done like a certain
amount of professional work, you know, like they're selling pieces
that they've painted and they're doing commissions. But then they
have to scale back and stop doing that. And part
of it is sometimes the fact that it it makes
(10:36):
the hobby less fun. You know, your hobbies become less hot,
less fun sometimes when they become your job, which is
one of the the disappointing facts of life. I guess
another thing I would say about that is, I think
what it's really I think the really crucial element is
not whether or not it's a job that you get
paid for, but it is about, um, whether there is
(10:59):
specific fically sort of like time and stress pressure on you.
Because the same dynamic that I talked about with restaurant
cooking can certainly be true for home cooking if you're
just like trying to you know, make meals on a
weeknight and you know you're trying to do it as
fast as you can to feed the family and that
kind of thing. There, there's just a big difference between
being able to do something at your own pace and
(11:20):
needing to do something on a timetable, yeah, and dealing
with outside stressors that aren't there necessarily if you're just
engaging in a hobby. Um. Now, interestingly enough, on the
the idea of videos about crafts, I've really enjoyed watching
some videos dealing with painting, and I found them very
calming in a similar way. Like there's there's one guy online,
(11:40):
uh these the moniker Sarastro, and he has all these videos,
has a very calming voice, and he's engaging and painting
different miniatures and you know, covering the basics and it's
just delightful content. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that.
I sometimes watch certain um types of process of deos
to relax, often like cooking videos. But also I've actually
(12:04):
watched some of these same types of videos that Jacobs
talking about and in his email here, just like people
building things or restoring things. It's nice if they're especially
if there's no talking, it's just kind of like uh
uh gentle, low volume environmental sounds while somebody is doing something,
(12:25):
uh efficiently, but not in a rushed way. Yeah, especially
on stuff like YouTube, you can you can definitely find
those videos that have that very YouTube feel and kind
of a disc jockey kind of narration. Like there's some
there's some miniature painting YouTubers that are are very good
at what they do and are very educational and informative
about the craft. But they're not as relaxing as this
(12:48):
guy in particular because they everything's maybe just a little
bit pushed further in that YouTube, you know, Starge direction.
All right, here's another one for us. This is Spinning
and Dizziness vestibular system plus a dash of robot jocks
from Jared, Hi, Robert, and Joe catching up on a
(13:12):
backlog that got built up this past fall. I had
an experience related to spinning, dizziness, etcetera. I've been motion
sensitive since my adolescence. I was more sensitive and pronto
dizziness when doing flat circles versus vertical circles. Think spinning
while standing up versus doing somersaults. When I was nineteen,
a group of friends made a day trip to a
local tourist attraction and we stopped at a city park
(13:33):
for our lunch. On the way back, a bunch of
them took to the merry go round round about and
I really got it going. I held back, knowing about
what what was about to happen. Thanks to peer pressure,
I eventually gave in and joined them. They got it
going really fast, and pretty soon I started to feel awful.
It was so evident that some of the group and
the one doing the pushing could actually see that I
(13:54):
was getting sick and stopped the spinning so I could
get off. I avoided getting physically ill, but it was loose.
I was also one who would ride the extreme roller
coasters at theme parks, but would have to rest between
rides to avoid getting sick. Earlier in my marriage, my
wife bought me a NASCAR ride along package for Christmas.
After doing half a dozen laps at speed, I think
(14:16):
my inner ear got a bit of a reset or recalibration,
because about a year later we went to a theme Park,
and I was able to ride the roller coasters with
barely any effect, And since then I have even been
able to ride the teacups at Disneyland. This is really interesting.
I wonder if the mechanism here, I guess what's being
implied by Jarrett is that it could be this kind
(14:37):
of vestibular plasticity that we talked about in the Spinning episodes.
Maybe sometimes with enough training, the brain can kind of
adapt and and desensitize itself somewhat to dizziness. Yeah, I
wonder if people have tried to make money off of
this with programs sort of like a couch to loop
to loop vestibular boot camp. But I'm interested, Jared, So
(15:00):
it seems like you you are motion sensitive, yet constantly
it sounds like you're seeking out extreme motion experiences. So
maybe you've got like a kind of a thrill seeking streak,
but also you get dizzy, or used to get dizzy.
That's a conundrum, all right. He continues, I also have
some thoughts about the plot and details of robot Shocks.
(15:22):
Bring it on, regarding the discussion of combat by Champion
and why either side would choose this over on all
on all fight, all on all warfare. Considering the context
of the film, it is possible and maybe even likely,
that the market and the con fed could have been
numerically and or technologically equal or close enough. Also, in
the post apocalyptic context, both sides could have felt that
(15:45):
they couldn't afford to lose the number of people that
would die or be permanently disabled in combat, much less
the personnel and resources they would have been spent maintaining
a military. Also, you talked about the square cube law
coming into play in real world conditions round giant mechanical
war machines. In real life, the design would be focused
on stability and impact protection to avoid being crippled or
(16:07):
destroyed by falling, and in this type of warfare, being
able to shrink components without losing significant strength or power
would be the technological advantage. Imagine the Cold War and
both the US and NATO allies developed large mex suit
soldiers in the USSR and its warsaw packed allies did
the same. Knowing that physicists would be designing and building
(16:27):
around the square cube law, we would see the most
successful side be the one who could keep their suit
the smallest without suffering in armor or firepower. If you
made it through all that, thanks for entertaining my musings.
I love the show, Jared. Uh some really interesting thoughts, Jared. Yeah,
So if you were to take the robot Jock scenario
as real, where for some reason, these major superpowers in
(16:50):
a in an ongoing conflict are settling everything by mex
suit champion warfare, I can absolutely see because he, for example,
referred to this idea we talked about with JBS Haldane
and that famous essay about you know, if like a
mouse can fall down to mind shaft and survive, but
a larger animal falls down and splashes. And this just
because like as you scale up, the difference between between
(17:14):
your mass and the surface area of your body changes
in a nonlinear way, and thus, like larger falling objects
are more likely to get wrecked by falling. So if
you've got like a hundred foot tall robot, just falling
over is going to destroy it almost no matter what.
Uh So. Yeah, So the the impetus here in that
technological scenario would be on miniaturization. And it makes me
(17:34):
wonder if if that were real, Like if if as
much research and development as went into things like you know,
nuclear weapons, and rocketry and telemetry and all that kind
of stuff would actually just go into miniaturization of components.
That that is an interesting thought. All right, looks like
(17:57):
we have another bit of robot jocks related listener mail.
Do you want to take this one? Joe? Oh? Sure?
This comes from Joseph addressing the same question about a
robot jocks warfare and the logic of of champion combat.
We were saying, you know, why why would the force
with superior numbers and firepower agree to champion combat. It
seems like that that would just essentially be agreeing to
(18:20):
uh to lessening their odds and so and so like,
unless that the rules of champion warfare were imposed by
an alien civilization or something like that. It's it's hard
to imagine that actually happening. But Joseph has a thought. Uh,
he says. I had a minor comment to your review. Note,
I have actually seen this movie when I was younger.
You brought up the idea that a state with a
(18:42):
larger force would not have great pressure to accept having
single combat as a subscription, as the larger force had
the basic advantage. Here's one issue I see with that analysis.
This is stated after a nuclear war. Since a very
small group can use a nuclear weapon and destroy a
very large group, and since the damage to the civilian
population by nuclear weapons is also so massive and long lasting,
(19:05):
I think that most populations would enforce the ban on
war by fully refusing to participate. Even a very totalitarian
society can be brought to heal by a general public strike.
All right, here's another one. This one comes to us
from Sue, and this one is in regard to our
episode on the invention of the lock and key. Hello, guys,
(19:28):
I was listening to the listener mail where you mentioned
the idea that in video games you don't have universal
keys and are often guided in a way to navigate
you through the story. But I know a franchise that
goes against both concepts. In the Legend of Zelda series,
the main character Link collects small keys throughout the dungeons
in the game. While you generally get a small key
(19:49):
and then find a locked door shortly after, there are
a few levels in some of the games that allow
you to choose between more than one locked door. If
you don't break the game, you just end up completing
the in a slightly different order depending on your choices.
The only in dungeon exception most of the time is
the nightmare key or boss key, which is the only
(20:09):
one in a level that can unlock the boss in
the legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. You also
don't even truly have to go through the story in
any particular order. Once you leave the starting area, you
can actually complete the four main dungeons in any order
that you like, or choose from what seems like ten
trillion side quests. But if you're really not feeling that,
(20:31):
you can technically race all the way to the final
boss from the start of the game. I've never tried
this myself, but it appears to be documented online by others.
Also about keys. My mom took my brother and I
shopping as kids, and when we came out of the
store we got to her hun day she was absolutely
appalled that someone somehow threw a bunch of trash inside.
Then she got this look on her face and screamed run.
(20:54):
Apparently that was her first reaction to realizing that her
car was parked down the lot further, but her key
unlocked an identical car that's sat closer to the store,
same wide Hondai. While we uh We still laugh about this,
but it's also creepy to think someone could be waiting
in your car because their key happens to work in
your car. Thanks for a great show. Oh that is
(21:18):
a harrowing experience. I've never actually unlocked somebody else's car,
but I have like gone up to other people's cars
that looked like mine. Oh yeah, I've I've done that
quite a bit. And they don't even have to look
exactly like mine. If it's just it's like a silver car,
I'll just go up to it and attempt to drive
it home. It's four wheels, basically close enough, close enough,
(21:38):
you know. I want to say also, I have not
had a lot of time for video games lately, but
the one game that I have been playing a little
bit often on is uh is Legend of Zelda Breath
of the Wild. I finally got into it. I wanted
to play it for a long time, and I would
just like to underline uh Sue's comments that's a Breath
of the Wild is a beautiful game. I mean, actually
(21:59):
beautiful it is. It's like a work of art. It's
just an absolutely wonderful piece of game design. This is
like a switch game or something. Yeah, um, there's something
deeply soothing about it. It's it's just excellent. Okay. This
next message comes from Bert, also about locks and keys.
(22:22):
Bert says, I'm meant to send this story after your
lock episode, but I listened while on the road and
forgot by the time I could. When I was in college,
I went to visit a friend. While they're his neighbor
locked himself out of his apartment for some reason I
can't remember. We decided to try all of our keys.
Mine opened his door for the heck of it. We
tried it on my friends door. It opened. We knocked
(22:44):
on his other side. Neighbor explained what was going on
and tried it on her door. It opened it. My
apartment key was a master key to their apartment building
or maybe complex. We called our respective apartment managers and
my lock was changed that night. All of these lock
and key emails filmed me with such confidence. And Bert
(23:05):
goes on to say, also a little note about Blue
Oyster Cult. I don't remember how that came up. Maybe
it was a message in a previous listener mail episode,
but Bert says on Blue Oyster Cult, check out the
live album E T I Live, I believe it is
the story you were talking about, maybe the one that's
like some kind of science fiction fantasy concept album. Uh.
And then Bird also says it includes more more Cock
(23:28):
songs that's Michael moorecock, such as black Blade Love the
Show Bert. Oh, that that must be uh, referencing to
l Rick's Sword. Yeah, I know nothing of this. Oh,
I mean I have. There are a whole bunch of Morelock.
I'm sorry, they're a whole bunch of more Cock Michael
more novels. I think he may have written about more
(23:49):
Locks at some point. He he wrote quite a bit.
I've only ever read the one, uh Elric book that
I have a bunch of the paperbacks sitting around here,
but I remember whichever one I read. I guess it
was el Rik of Melanimity. I remember it being a
lot of fun. Do you want to read this next
(24:10):
message from Matt? Yes, Matt says, Hey, guys, I just
wanted to chime in about keys. While as you would guess,
there is a lot of variants in number of keys
and key types and the evolution of how complex they
actually are. That's said, I'm going to be and I'm
going to be narrow minded. Here and just focus on
the Ford Motor Company. Ford was one of the worst
with key security for almost a century. Although today with
(24:31):
chips and modern tech your chances of finding a matching
car are pretty much zero. Back in the day that
was not the case. Though. In nineteen o eight Ford
had a total of two key types, so you had
a fifty fifty shot. Hold on, in nineteen o eight
they had keys at all. That's surprising, Yeah, okay, anyway,
(24:53):
it continues. In nineteen that was changed to three, and
then in nine Ford went to a nickel key instead
of brass and up the key total to a whopping five.
I know this was a long time ago, but in
nineteen seventy the total key types for Ford stood at sixteen.
This kept gradually rising in there were forty two versions
(25:14):
of the Ford Mustang key. The nineties brought about a
sharp rise in car theft and also security, and the
numbers rose sharply to the point where today your chances
of an identical key are pretty much zero. But just
thinking that you had a one and forty two shot
is rather funny. While Ford was far behind in key
tech for years, and other car makers actually did much better,
(25:35):
but I'm not trying to write a novella, so that's
just some fun info for you. Uh So, next time
you see an old Ford, just break out the old
key drawer and you might just get lucky. Thanks guys
for making life a little more interesting and helping me
seem smarter than I actually am. Have a wonderful day
and keep up the good work. Matt great Infomat. Thank you. Yeah. Okay,
(26:00):
we got one last message here. This one's from Aiden.
Aiden says, Hi, Robert and Joe. Oh and sorry, this
one is about our Vault episode on horseshoe crabs. But
actually Aiden says that, so I didn't really need to
pressage it. So Aiden says, I just heard your latest
Vault episode about horseshoe crabs. Um. As you were discussing
the extremely long history of horseshoe crabs and other stabilia morphs,
I was reminded of a recent episode where you discussed
(26:23):
search algorithms. One way to look at the evolutionary success
of horseshoe crabs could be in the terms of an
evolutionary search algorithm. Maybe they have stayed so consistent because
they are stuck in a local maximum of the evolutionary
fitness function. If we visualize this using the finding the
top of a mountain analogy that you mentioned in the
(26:44):
Search Algorithms episode, I think the horseshoe crabs mountain would
be very tall and very steep. The longevity of the
species would indicate that they have very high evolutionary fitness,
so I imagine their mountain peak is much taller than
that of many other organisms on Earth. Secondly, the consistency
of their body plan over such long time scales could
(27:05):
suggest that the slopes of their evolutionary mountain peak are
very steep. I e. For some reason, minor variations incur
a great evolutionary cost, preventing any changes from taking hold
within the population. It is also amusing to consider the
possibility that the humble horseshoe crab has not only found
a very stable local maximum, but has in fact found
(27:26):
the global maximum of the evolutionary fitness function, making it
the most fit organism on the planet or perhaps in
the universe. Maybe they're up there on the peak looking
down at all other organisms with their ten serious, little
compound eyes. Thanks for another great episode, best Aiden. That's
some some wonderful content there. I would like to suggest
(27:46):
to Planet Fitness that that you acquire the horseshoe crab
as a mascot immediately and have it featured on all
of your branding. Right, you are not fit until you're
a horseshoe crab. Keep keep pumping until you got those
uh what were their eyes made of? I've forgotten now
some some kind of interesting mineral eyes. Yeah, I mean
(28:07):
the horseshoe crab would make a good I mean, the
horseshoe crab is instantly identifiable. I think it would make
a great mascot for for any purpose, be at a logo, um,
for a business or a sports team mascot. I mean
that would be great white and horseshoe crabs. Yeah, somebody
out there must be. There's a there's a banana slugs, right,
somebody's gonna be horseshoe crabs. Yeah. Text somebody from that
(28:29):
that college sent some merch way back in the day.
They were like they were really proud of their their
bananas slugs, and banana slugs are great. They're having having
seen them in the wild now I could say they're
they're tremendous. Wait, who was like you see Santa Cruz
or something. I think so, you know, I'd have to
have to look it up. But yeah, you go into
into you know, into the big forest there, uh, and
(28:49):
you you see them there, and there their little you know,
yellow golden spirals there amid the leaf litter and all.
It's pretty great. Yeah, I was right. It's it's Santa Cruz. Yeah,
very a good mascot. But somebody out there, if you
don't already have uh the Horseshoe Crabs, go for it. Yeah.
I'm you know, I'm not a huge team sports uh person,
(29:11):
but I do enjoy whenever there is a a mascot
choice that kind of flips the script a little bit.
Like there there is a basketball team where they're the Wizards, right,
so they have an actual wash. Yeah. So I mean
I don't know to what extent they're really taking advantage
of that, but I think that's pretty cool where your
(29:32):
mascot is like an aged sorcerer or something. You know, Yeah,
there's so much you could do with that. And then
you got the raptors. I mean, that's really cool. I
remember being a kid and there was pressure to like football,
like NFL football, and I remember looking around and I'm like, well,
which of these mascots excites me. I guess it's the Vikings.
(29:52):
That's the only thing that is even halfway um, you know,
jumping out at me. So I think I bought a
Vikings pencil, um, and that was as far into NFL
post I got. Oh wait, no, if if no team
out there has yet adopted the slime mold as their mascot,
that's got to be that like the Peak. Yeah, they're
(30:13):
they're slow, but they're thorough, you know. Okay, should we
wrap it up there? Yeah, let's go ahead and wrap
it up for this week. But we'll be back next
week with more listener mail. So right in, you know,
right in in response to episodes that we've recorded, episodes
you think we should record new episodes, old episodes, your
responses to other listener mails you've heard, um, praise, corrections,
(30:34):
what have you. Uh, we'd love to hear from you.
And in the meantime, if you want to check out
other listener mail episodes. Other episodes of Stuff to Blow
your Mind are Friday episodes of Weird House Cinema or
those core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find
us wherever you get your podcasts. Just look for the
Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed huge thanks as
always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
(30:55):
you'd 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. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
(31:16):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
And today we're answering your listener mail. Or I don't
know how much answering we're gonna do. We're at least
gonna read your listener mail. We might offer thoughts about it,
we might just put it out there and let it
(00:23):
let it hang. But we're gonna get into some stuff
about our episode on the Lock and Key, some responses
to bug funerals, and we're going to address the ongoing
stream that maybe we'll never stop of listener mail about
robot jocks. It seems like people just can't get that
out of their heads. And it's been a pleasant surprise
because when I when I I think that was one
(00:45):
that I I selected, and I was thinking to myself, Man,
this one's so hard to find right now, perhaps I'm
the only one who out there who has any kind
of fond memories of this movie. Uh So it's been
nice to see that other folks remember it as well.
Now that's been an abso lute highlight of weird house
cinema for me so far. I I think about robot
jocks at least once a day. And we didn't even
(01:07):
realize the serendipity when we picked it that one of
the places it's actually streaming is called to be That's
oh man. I didn't even really really put that together,
but that's true. Yeah. Uh. Do you want to read
this first message about our bug funeral episode from Jim
(01:28):
in New Jersey. Yes, Jim in New Jersey, a longtime
Listener mail correspondent here right in and says, Robert and Joe,
you missed one of the best stories about E. O.
Wilson and the Scent of Death for Ants. Radio Lab
featured it a bit over ten years ago and include
included a link for this you can look it up
so by looking for Hey, I'm Dad, the story of
(01:49):
the very lively Aunt. Oh, and we should say the
subject line of Jim's email was Aunt's yelling I'm not
dead yet anyway, Jim continues once the signal of death
is an air which takes about two days. Any ant
that happens by grabs the corpse and carries it through
the colony to a refuse pile designated the graveyard and
dumps it on a mound of also dead ants. Wilson
(02:11):
wrote in his autobiography, I thought maybe with the right chemicals,
I could create an artificial corpse. Wilson discovered that oleic acid,
just a tiny, a teeny sorry drop of it was
all the ants had to sniff to think dead. One day,
he took a drop of the chemical and gently deposited
it on an ant that had the misfortune of walking by.
(02:33):
Wilson describes how as soon as he dabbed the ant,
the next ant that came near, grabbed his aunt, slung
it on its back, hiked over to the graveyard, and
though the aunt was still very much alive kicking you know,
says ed, flug it into the refuse pile. Dead is
what you smell, not what you see, if you were
an aunt. So though it tried to clean itself over
(02:54):
and over, the minute it returned to the colony, it
was grabbed, carried, and slung back on the pile. The
zombie aunt was eventually able to clean itself sufficiently and
rejoin the nest. Jim in New Jersey. Uh, that is morbid,
but yes, very funny. Actually, I don't know if this
was clear in the text of Jim's email, but I
think that middle section was actually a quote from that
(03:16):
NPR piece. We should just clear Okay. Yeah, and in
that case, yeah, definitely go back and listen to it.
Radio Lab has always been a wonderful show. Uh, And
there archives are are rich and deep, as is the
Aunt Graveyard. I would say, no resentment of rivalry whatsoever.
Please go listen to Radio Lab. Yes, okay. This next
(03:43):
message picks up from one of the tangents we went
on in our Funeral for a Bug episodes. You remember,
in that episode we started talking about some of the
weird ironyes of pastoral poetry. So pastoral poetry is a
you know, long running genre going back into the ancient
world but still continuing into recent times, where the main
(04:04):
thrust of it is that it sort of celebrates the
rural existence as a as a as a peaceful, beautiful
thing that is uncomplicated by all of the I don't
know the sin and complexity of of city life. And
so this message comes from Jacob and it picks up
on one particular comment we had there subject line pastoral
(04:28):
ism and YouTube. Jacob says, hey, Joe and Rob first
time writer a longtime listener. I was listening to the
January twenty one episode Funeral for a Bug and you
wondered if shows like The Great British Baking Show were
modern pastorals. I think there's something to that, but I
can do one better. Since the pastoral, according to poets
(04:49):
dot Org, idealizes a rural life and landscape, I couldn't
help but think of the sub genre of YouTube videos.
I've recently become addicted to building things, especially building things
by hand using traditional techniques like blacksmithing, hand tool woodworking,
timber framing, and so on. I've had quite a few
(05:10):
in my subscription feed. But if you stand out as
fitting the definition, primitive technology seems like the er example.
But Mr Chickadee, Dylan Iwakuni, and t A Outdoors are
some that I think also fit into the pastoral tradition.
They usually have minimal dialogue, are set outside, and focus
on the tool work. Unlike some other woodworking or maker
(05:32):
centered channels, there's no attempt to instruct. It's literally watching
someone build a cabin or a kiln or something out
of basic materials like stone, wood or clay using hand
powered tools. I'm struck by this comment from the poets
dot Org definition quote. Ironically, the conventions of the pastoral
genre were established by sophisticated urban poets whose beautific portrayals
(05:56):
of rural life perpetuated fantasies and misconceptions about the rural lifestyle.
And yeah, that that was definitely one of the ironies
we we touched on in the episode. It was like,
all this stuff about how how nice it would be
to be a shepherd, but you know, written by someone
who's never been a shepherd and doesn't realize what kind
of work is involved. But back to Jacob's message. Jacob says,
(06:16):
I've done a little woodworking and home renovation, and working
by hand is slow and physically demanding. It can be
fun the way a good workout is fun. But the
idealized notion that somehow this is the good life, the
simple life, is way off. Rural life meant subsistence farming
or labor, and that typically meant living on the edge
of starvation one bad season or one serious injury or
(06:39):
illness away from disaster. Hardly a desirable lifestyle, which makes
me wonder what the appeal is for these channels, Because
I'm hopelessly addicted, and judging by their subscribers, I'm not
the only one. It's soothing to watch and listen to us.
Some of them even tagged their videos as a s MR.
But more than that, I'm gil ty of romanticizing exactly
(07:01):
what I criticized above. I'm currently building a work bench
for the and the first thing I decided to do
was to do it all by hand. I don't have
a great explanation for why, other than that it takes
all my focus and as such puts me in a
sort of flow or zen meditation state. It's also a
bit of time travel learning a traditional craft. It helps
(07:22):
you understand an era not your own. But that's a
luxury of the relatively rich. If I were doing this
for a living and hoping to sell enough to feed
my family, I doubt I'd be calm or philosophical about it.
Since it's a hobby, though, I can work at my
own slow pace and think deep thoughts or listen to
deep podcasts like Stuff to Blow your Mind while I
(07:43):
do it. Love the show, keep up the good work,
and you can absolutely read this on air with my
name if you choose. Thanks Jacob, Well, Jacob we're always
assuming we can read this on air with your name
with the we we tend to leave off last names
if you supply them. And if you're writing in about
something and you you would prefer no name attached at all,
that's perfectly cool. Just let us know that that's the case.
(08:04):
Oh yeah, and you can also write to us uh
with a message that you would prefer us not to
read on air. Just make sure you note that in
the email. But yeah, I thought this was a really
interesting message, and I think this is this is onto
something that is very interesting. So there there are multiple
threads to to pull on here. One is, yes, this uh,
this sort of idealization of traditional rural types of labor uh,
(08:29):
you know, farming type labor, woodworking type labor um and
and the difference between doing that labor as a hobby
where you have no time constraints really and you can
just explore it at your leisure versus doing that kind
of labor to survive, which is which is very different.
I often think about this difference, um with cooking. You know,
(08:50):
I do a lot of cooking at home, actually really
enjoy cooking. Uh. And sometimes people will say like, oh,
have you ever thought about, you know, being a chef
for working in restaurant. I have worked in restaurants, not
as a cook. I've worked as a you know server,
you know, bus boy and all that, and it's a
totally different thing. I think a lot of people don't
realize that if you're working in a restaurant kitchen, it
(09:12):
is not the same kind of leisurely recreational fun activity
as it would be if you're just sort of like
cooking on a week weekend at home. Uh. There you
have these intense time constraints, a lot of different types
of labor to manage and prioritize. It's often highly stressful. Uh.
And it's just a totally different experience than recreationally cooking
(09:35):
in a home kitchen. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is
often the case with with various hobbies and and uh
and activities like like, for instance, I engage in some
of the miniature and model painting and and you know,
it's really fun and calming. But if I were to
if if I were doing this exact task or something
like it, and I was having to crank something out,
(09:55):
you know, if I was part of a production line
or if I were I don't know, if you were
to apply it, say, um, you know, being a colorist
or something, um, you know for manuscripts or comics or something. Uh.
You know, if you potentially get into that situation where
you're just having to to just do so much of it,
you don't have that the potentials there to to to
lose hold of that zen state that you go into
(10:16):
when you do it. In fact, I've I've followed like
really skilled miniature painters before and uh, and in some
cases they've had to. They've they've done like a certain
amount of professional work, you know, like they're selling pieces
that they've painted and they're doing commissions. But then they
have to scale back and stop doing that. And part
of it is sometimes the fact that it it makes
(10:36):
the hobby less fun. You know, your hobbies become less hot,
less fun sometimes when they become your job, which is
one of the the disappointing facts of life. I guess
another thing I would say about that is, I think
what it's really I think the really crucial element is
not whether or not it's a job that you get
paid for, but it is about, um, whether there is
(10:59):
specific fically sort of like time and stress pressure on you.
Because the same dynamic that I talked about with restaurant
cooking can certainly be true for home cooking if you're
just like trying to you know, make meals on a
weeknight and you know you're trying to do it as
fast as you can to feed the family and that
kind of thing. There, there's just a big difference between
being able to do something at your own pace and
(11:20):
needing to do something on a timetable, yeah, and dealing
with outside stressors that aren't there necessarily if you're just
engaging in a hobby. Um. Now, interestingly enough, on the
the idea of videos about crafts, I've really enjoyed watching
some videos dealing with painting, and I found them very
calming in a similar way. Like there's there's one guy online,
(11:40):
uh these the moniker Sarastro, and he has all these videos,
has a very calming voice, and he's engaging and painting
different miniatures and you know, covering the basics and it's
just delightful content. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that.
I sometimes watch certain um types of process of deos
to relax, often like cooking videos. But also I've actually
(12:04):
watched some of these same types of videos that Jacobs
talking about and in his email here, just like people
building things or restoring things. It's nice if they're especially
if there's no talking, it's just kind of like uh
uh gentle, low volume environmental sounds while somebody is doing something,
(12:25):
uh efficiently, but not in a rushed way. Yeah, especially
on stuff like YouTube, you can you can definitely find
those videos that have that very YouTube feel and kind
of a disc jockey kind of narration. Like there's some
there's some miniature painting YouTubers that are are very good
at what they do and are very educational and informative
about the craft. But they're not as relaxing as this
(12:48):
guy in particular because they everything's maybe just a little
bit pushed further in that YouTube, you know, Starge direction.
All right, here's another one for us. This is Spinning
and Dizziness vestibular system plus a dash of robot jocks
from Jared, Hi, Robert, and Joe catching up on a
(13:12):
backlog that got built up this past fall. I had
an experience related to spinning, dizziness, etcetera. I've been motion
sensitive since my adolescence. I was more sensitive and pronto
dizziness when doing flat circles versus vertical circles. Think spinning
while standing up versus doing somersaults. When I was nineteen,
a group of friends made a day trip to a
local tourist attraction and we stopped at a city park
(13:33):
for our lunch. On the way back, a bunch of
them took to the merry go round round about and
I really got it going. I held back, knowing about
what what was about to happen. Thanks to peer pressure,
I eventually gave in and joined them. They got it
going really fast, and pretty soon I started to feel awful.
It was so evident that some of the group and
the one doing the pushing could actually see that I
(13:54):
was getting sick and stopped the spinning so I could
get off. I avoided getting physically ill, but it was loose.
I was also one who would ride the extreme roller
coasters at theme parks, but would have to rest between
rides to avoid getting sick. Earlier in my marriage, my
wife bought me a NASCAR ride along package for Christmas.
After doing half a dozen laps at speed, I think
(14:16):
my inner ear got a bit of a reset or recalibration,
because about a year later we went to a theme Park,
and I was able to ride the roller coasters with
barely any effect, And since then I have even been
able to ride the teacups at Disneyland. This is really interesting.
I wonder if the mechanism here, I guess what's being
implied by Jarrett is that it could be this kind
(14:37):
of vestibular plasticity that we talked about in the Spinning episodes.
Maybe sometimes with enough training, the brain can kind of
adapt and and desensitize itself somewhat to dizziness. Yeah, I
wonder if people have tried to make money off of
this with programs sort of like a couch to loop
to loop vestibular boot camp. But I'm interested, Jared, So
(15:00):
it seems like you you are motion sensitive, yet constantly
it sounds like you're seeking out extreme motion experiences. So
maybe you've got like a kind of a thrill seeking streak,
but also you get dizzy, or used to get dizzy.
That's a conundrum, all right. He continues, I also have
some thoughts about the plot and details of robot Shocks.
(15:22):
Bring it on, regarding the discussion of combat by Champion
and why either side would choose this over on all
on all fight, all on all warfare. Considering the context
of the film, it is possible and maybe even likely,
that the market and the con fed could have been
numerically and or technologically equal or close enough. Also, in
the post apocalyptic context, both sides could have felt that
(15:45):
they couldn't afford to lose the number of people that
would die or be permanently disabled in combat, much less
the personnel and resources they would have been spent maintaining
a military. Also, you talked about the square cube law
coming into play in real world conditions round giant mechanical
war machines. In real life, the design would be focused
on stability and impact protection to avoid being crippled or
(16:07):
destroyed by falling, and in this type of warfare, being
able to shrink components without losing significant strength or power
would be the technological advantage. Imagine the Cold War and
both the US and NATO allies developed large mex suit
soldiers in the USSR and its warsaw packed allies did
the same. Knowing that physicists would be designing and building
(16:27):
around the square cube law, we would see the most
successful side be the one who could keep their suit
the smallest without suffering in armor or firepower. If you
made it through all that, thanks for entertaining my musings.
I love the show, Jared. Uh some really interesting thoughts, Jared. Yeah,
So if you were to take the robot Jock scenario
as real, where for some reason, these major superpowers in
(16:50):
a in an ongoing conflict are settling everything by mex
suit champion warfare, I can absolutely see because he, for example,
referred to this idea we talked about with JBS Haldane
and that famous essay about you know, if like a
mouse can fall down to mind shaft and survive, but
a larger animal falls down and splashes. And this just
because like as you scale up, the difference between between
(17:14):
your mass and the surface area of your body changes
in a nonlinear way, and thus, like larger falling objects
are more likely to get wrecked by falling. So if
you've got like a hundred foot tall robot, just falling
over is going to destroy it almost no matter what.
Uh So. Yeah, So the the impetus here in that
technological scenario would be on miniaturization. And it makes me
(17:34):
wonder if if that were real, Like if if as
much research and development as went into things like you know,
nuclear weapons, and rocketry and telemetry and all that kind
of stuff would actually just go into miniaturization of components.
That that is an interesting thought. All right, looks like
(17:57):
we have another bit of robot jocks related listener mail.
Do you want to take this one? Joe? Oh? Sure?
This comes from Joseph addressing the same question about a
robot jocks warfare and the logic of of champion combat.
We were saying, you know, why why would the force
with superior numbers and firepower agree to champion combat. It
seems like that that would just essentially be agreeing to
(18:20):
uh to lessening their odds and so and so like,
unless that the rules of champion warfare were imposed by
an alien civilization or something like that. It's it's hard
to imagine that actually happening. But Joseph has a thought. Uh,
he says. I had a minor comment to your review. Note,
I have actually seen this movie when I was younger.
You brought up the idea that a state with a
(18:42):
larger force would not have great pressure to accept having
single combat as a subscription, as the larger force had
the basic advantage. Here's one issue I see with that analysis.
This is stated after a nuclear war. Since a very
small group can use a nuclear weapon and destroy a
very large group, and since the damage to the civilian
population by nuclear weapons is also so massive and long lasting,
(19:05):
I think that most populations would enforce the ban on
war by fully refusing to participate. Even a very totalitarian
society can be brought to heal by a general public strike.
All right, here's another one. This one comes to us
from Sue, and this one is in regard to our
episode on the invention of the lock and key. Hello, guys,
(19:28):
I was listening to the listener mail where you mentioned
the idea that in video games you don't have universal
keys and are often guided in a way to navigate
you through the story. But I know a franchise that
goes against both concepts. In the Legend of Zelda series,
the main character Link collects small keys throughout the dungeons
in the game. While you generally get a small key
(19:49):
and then find a locked door shortly after, there are
a few levels in some of the games that allow
you to choose between more than one locked door. If
you don't break the game, you just end up completing
the in a slightly different order depending on your choices.
The only in dungeon exception most of the time is
the nightmare key or boss key, which is the only
(20:09):
one in a level that can unlock the boss in
the legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. You also
don't even truly have to go through the story in
any particular order. Once you leave the starting area, you
can actually complete the four main dungeons in any order
that you like, or choose from what seems like ten
trillion side quests. But if you're really not feeling that,
(20:31):
you can technically race all the way to the final
boss from the start of the game. I've never tried
this myself, but it appears to be documented online by others.
Also about keys. My mom took my brother and I
shopping as kids, and when we came out of the
store we got to her hun day she was absolutely
appalled that someone somehow threw a bunch of trash inside.
Then she got this look on her face and screamed run.
(20:54):
Apparently that was her first reaction to realizing that her
car was parked down the lot further, but her key
unlocked an identical car that's sat closer to the store,
same wide Hondai. While we uh We still laugh about this,
but it's also creepy to think someone could be waiting
in your car because their key happens to work in
your car. Thanks for a great show. Oh that is
(21:18):
a harrowing experience. I've never actually unlocked somebody else's car,
but I have like gone up to other people's cars
that looked like mine. Oh yeah, I've I've done that
quite a bit. And they don't even have to look
exactly like mine. If it's just it's like a silver car,
I'll just go up to it and attempt to drive
it home. It's four wheels, basically close enough, close enough,
(21:38):
you know. I want to say also, I have not
had a lot of time for video games lately, but
the one game that I have been playing a little
bit often on is uh is Legend of Zelda Breath
of the Wild. I finally got into it. I wanted
to play it for a long time, and I would
just like to underline uh Sue's comments that's a Breath
of the Wild is a beautiful game. I mean, actually
(21:59):
beautiful it is. It's like a work of art. It's
just an absolutely wonderful piece of game design. This is
like a switch game or something. Yeah, um, there's something
deeply soothing about it. It's it's just excellent. Okay. This
next message comes from Bert, also about locks and keys.
(22:22):
Bert says, I'm meant to send this story after your
lock episode, but I listened while on the road and
forgot by the time I could. When I was in college,
I went to visit a friend. While they're his neighbor
locked himself out of his apartment for some reason I
can't remember. We decided to try all of our keys.
Mine opened his door for the heck of it. We
tried it on my friends door. It opened. We knocked
(22:44):
on his other side. Neighbor explained what was going on
and tried it on her door. It opened it. My
apartment key was a master key to their apartment building
or maybe complex. We called our respective apartment managers and
my lock was changed that night. All of these lock
and key emails filmed me with such confidence. And Bert
(23:05):
goes on to say, also a little note about Blue
Oyster Cult. I don't remember how that came up. Maybe
it was a message in a previous listener mail episode,
but Bert says on Blue Oyster Cult, check out the
live album E T I Live, I believe it is
the story you were talking about, maybe the one that's
like some kind of science fiction fantasy concept album. Uh.
And then Bird also says it includes more more Cock
(23:28):
songs that's Michael moorecock, such as black Blade Love the
Show Bert. Oh, that that must be uh, referencing to
l Rick's Sword. Yeah, I know nothing of this. Oh,
I mean I have. There are a whole bunch of Morelock.
I'm sorry, they're a whole bunch of more Cock Michael
more novels. I think he may have written about more
(23:49):
Locks at some point. He he wrote quite a bit.
I've only ever read the one, uh Elric book that
I have a bunch of the paperbacks sitting around here,
but I remember whichever one I read. I guess it
was el Rik of Melanimity. I remember it being a
lot of fun. Do you want to read this next
(24:10):
message from Matt? Yes, Matt says, Hey, guys, I just
wanted to chime in about keys. While as you would guess,
there is a lot of variants in number of keys
and key types and the evolution of how complex they
actually are. That's said, I'm going to be and I'm
going to be narrow minded. Here and just focus on
the Ford Motor Company. Ford was one of the worst
with key security for almost a century. Although today with
(24:31):
chips and modern tech your chances of finding a matching
car are pretty much zero. Back in the day that
was not the case. Though. In nineteen o eight Ford
had a total of two key types, so you had
a fifty fifty shot. Hold on, in nineteen o eight
they had keys at all. That's surprising, Yeah, okay, anyway,
(24:53):
it continues. In nineteen that was changed to three, and
then in nine Ford went to a nickel key instead
of brass and up the key total to a whopping five.
I know this was a long time ago, but in
nineteen seventy the total key types for Ford stood at sixteen.
This kept gradually rising in there were forty two versions
(25:14):
of the Ford Mustang key. The nineties brought about a
sharp rise in car theft and also security, and the
numbers rose sharply to the point where today your chances
of an identical key are pretty much zero. But just
thinking that you had a one and forty two shot
is rather funny. While Ford was far behind in key
tech for years, and other car makers actually did much better,
(25:35):
but I'm not trying to write a novella, so that's
just some fun info for you. Uh So, next time
you see an old Ford, just break out the old
key drawer and you might just get lucky. Thanks guys
for making life a little more interesting and helping me
seem smarter than I actually am. Have a wonderful day
and keep up the good work. Matt great Infomat. Thank you. Yeah. Okay,
(26:00):
we got one last message here. This one's from Aiden.
Aiden says, Hi, Robert and Joe. Oh and sorry, this
one is about our Vault episode on horseshoe crabs. But
actually Aiden says that, so I didn't really need to
pressage it. So Aiden says, I just heard your latest
Vault episode about horseshoe crabs. Um. As you were discussing
the extremely long history of horseshoe crabs and other stabilia morphs,
I was reminded of a recent episode where you discussed
(26:23):
search algorithms. One way to look at the evolutionary success
of horseshoe crabs could be in the terms of an
evolutionary search algorithm. Maybe they have stayed so consistent because
they are stuck in a local maximum of the evolutionary
fitness function. If we visualize this using the finding the
top of a mountain analogy that you mentioned in the
(26:44):
Search Algorithms episode, I think the horseshoe crabs mountain would
be very tall and very steep. The longevity of the
species would indicate that they have very high evolutionary fitness,
so I imagine their mountain peak is much taller than
that of many other organisms on Earth. Secondly, the consistency
of their body plan over such long time scales could
(27:05):
suggest that the slopes of their evolutionary mountain peak are
very steep. I e. For some reason, minor variations incur
a great evolutionary cost, preventing any changes from taking hold
within the population. It is also amusing to consider the
possibility that the humble horseshoe crab has not only found
a very stable local maximum, but has in fact found
(27:26):
the global maximum of the evolutionary fitness function, making it
the most fit organism on the planet or perhaps in
the universe. Maybe they're up there on the peak looking
down at all other organisms with their ten serious, little
compound eyes. Thanks for another great episode, best Aiden. That's
some some wonderful content there. I would like to suggest
(27:46):
to Planet Fitness that that you acquire the horseshoe crab
as a mascot immediately and have it featured on all
of your branding. Right, you are not fit until you're
a horseshoe crab. Keep keep pumping until you got those
uh what were their eyes made of? I've forgotten now
some some kind of interesting mineral eyes. Yeah, I mean
(28:07):
the horseshoe crab would make a good I mean, the
horseshoe crab is instantly identifiable. I think it would make
a great mascot for for any purpose, be at a logo, um,
for a business or a sports team mascot. I mean
that would be great white and horseshoe crabs. Yeah, somebody
out there must be. There's a there's a banana slugs, right,
somebody's gonna be horseshoe crabs. Yeah. Text somebody from that
(28:29):
that college sent some merch way back in the day.
They were like they were really proud of their their
bananas slugs, and banana slugs are great. They're having having
seen them in the wild now I could say they're
they're tremendous. Wait, who was like you see Santa Cruz
or something. I think so, you know, I'd have to
have to look it up. But yeah, you go into
into you know, into the big forest there, uh, and
(28:49):
you you see them there, and there their little you know,
yellow golden spirals there amid the leaf litter and all.
It's pretty great. Yeah, I was right. It's it's Santa Cruz. Yeah,
very a good mascot. But somebody out there, if you
don't already have uh the Horseshoe Crabs, go for it. Yeah.
I'm you know, I'm not a huge team sports uh person,
(29:11):
but I do enjoy whenever there is a a mascot
choice that kind of flips the script a little bit.
Like there there is a basketball team where they're the Wizards, right,
so they have an actual wash. Yeah. So I mean
I don't know to what extent they're really taking advantage
of that, but I think that's pretty cool where your
(29:32):
mascot is like an aged sorcerer or something. You know, Yeah,
there's so much you could do with that. And then
you got the raptors. I mean, that's really cool. I
remember being a kid and there was pressure to like football,
like NFL football, and I remember looking around and I'm like, well,
which of these mascots excites me. I guess it's the Vikings.
(29:52):
That's the only thing that is even halfway um, you know,
jumping out at me. So I think I bought a
Vikings pencil, um, and that was as far into NFL
post I got. Oh wait, no, if if no team
out there has yet adopted the slime mold as their mascot,
that's got to be that like the Peak. Yeah, they're
(30:13):
they're slow, but they're thorough, you know. Okay, should we
wrap it up there? Yeah, let's go ahead and wrap
it up for this week. But we'll be back next
week with more listener mail. So right in, you know,
right in in response to episodes that we've recorded, episodes
you think we should record new episodes, old episodes, your
responses to other listener mails you've heard, um, praise, corrections,
(30:34):
what have you. Uh, we'd love to hear from you.
And in the meantime, if you want to check out
other listener mail episodes. Other episodes of Stuff to Blow
your Mind are Friday episodes of Weird House Cinema or
those core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find
us wherever you get your podcasts. Just look for the
Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed huge thanks as
always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
(30:55):
you'd 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. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production
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