June 3, 2014 • 33 mins
Venice, Italy has a problem. It's sinking, and the water around it is rising. Thankfully, some engineers are working hard on the MOSE project - huge gates that keep high tide from happening. Learn all about Venice in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. NOAs with us again and
it's another morning edition. Yeah, we got an email. I
(00:21):
think we had our last morning thing that session not
to want ago, and someone wrote down said, please don't
do that again. I didn't think it was that bad.
You guys are clearly like really tired and not the same.
So what I say is, if you have a choice,
is saved this one for the morning and just pretend
like where your local NPR station or a cup of
Joe like Josh is drinking. Yea, and yeah, it's all
(00:44):
so good and let's let's do this morning style. Let's
do it man, um, let's do this morning style in Italian. Yeah,
this is gonna be a fan favorite, I predict because
there's some Italian pronunciations that I'm sure you will do
for every buddy. Right, I'm gonna do it. My best
was good, good little taste of it. Yes, that's one
(01:05):
of the accidents you can have a great time with
without people saying that you're offensive. That's a T shirt. Yeah,
so Chuck you heard about them sea levels yeah and fallen. Yeah,
due to climate change. I'm saying, well, it's climate change.
To the big bone of contention is whether it's human
(01:28):
cause or anthropogenic. Uh. The thing is there are there,
It is undeniable. The sea levels are rising at a
rate of about three millimeters a year, which doesn't sound
like much, But buddy, if you live for a thousand years,
you'd see the sea levels rise by three meters, which
is almost ten ft in America. Yeah, not the biggest
(01:51):
deal in some parts of the world. Big deal in Venice. Yeah.
And you know, if you're waiting a thousand years to
watch it rise three meters, that's the current rate of
sea level rise, it could speed up tremendously. And while
three millimeters might not sound that much to you out
in the Rockies, yeah, because it's nice and dry there
(02:14):
in the middle of the mountain. They're all stoned, right, Yeah,
because it's legal there. Who cares. If you're in a
place like um, the Maldives, you're saying, wow, my country
is probably not going to exist in the next like
twenty years. That's scary. If you're in New Orleans worried
about the same thing, and a little town known as Venice,
(02:34):
Italy is facing the same problem. It has been for
a very long time. And you say little town, Uh,
it is getting smaller, not only physically, but the population
because Venice is such a mess, has declined down to
about sixty people now over the years from like a
hundred and eighty. Yes, because people are tired of everything wet.
(02:57):
They are they used to get wet um back in
they would get wet about ten times a year due
to flooding. They could expect ten noteworthy floods a year.
And when we say noteworthy floods, we mean like the
squares in the throughout the city or flooded up to
maybe your knees, kind of like the whole ground floor
of Venice. Yeah, it gets flooded like you're slogging around,
(03:19):
which I mean sounds kind of fun when you're a kid,
but it's not that fun, especially when you're an adult
who maybe a germophobe. Because Venice has an antiquated sewer
system that's antiquated is the perfect word. Yeah, by antiquated,
we mean all of the um sewer pipes go right
out into the canals and they have along the um
(03:41):
along the years added like septic tanks to treat the
stuff first, but not everybody has those um and sometimes
they get backed up too. But the raw sewage or
septically treated sewage in Venice goes into those canals that
you float around in um boats. And when you're around
in the flood, like a tourist, you're swimming around in
(04:04):
fequal material. The tourist get in that water. There's a
picture of it um on a oh Man, I can't remember.
I think like a Bloomberg article about Venice or maybe wired.
But it's like, if you know about Venice, you'll think
these people are crazy for swimming in this flood water.
And it shows a couple of tourists like swimming in
a flood in the middle of the square, um the
(04:25):
San Marco, the San Marco Square. Yeah. Yeah, And now
that you know it's it's gross to see, they're like
it tastes briny and sort of ou mommy, right, why
are my lips swollen? Yeah, it's uh, it's That's one
of many many problems facing Venice right now. An antiquated
sewer system, and a lot of the problems are unique
(04:48):
just because of the city and how it's created. Yeah,
let's talk about this, because Venice is not something I
knew a ton about. I knew it was on the water.
I knew it was sinking. Shout out by the way
to Venice is sinking Athens band and stuff. You should
know fans. Um, well, then I like them already, Yes, no,
(05:09):
you know those guys he does. In fact, no old
talks Jerry doesn't like. Oh yeah, yeah, they're great. He
launches into like a five minute discourse. Uh So I
knew a little bit about Venice, very little though I've
never been there. But when I watched this awesome video
that Josh found, Um, we should go ahead and plug
it because it's just super cool. Yeah. It's called um
(05:31):
Venice Backstage Period, how does Venice work? And it was
created by the Insula SPA, which is I guess the
production arm of the city of Venice. Yeah, so it's
like a locally produced video about Venice. But it's one
of the most fascinating, like eighteen minute videos I've ever seen. Yeah,
I mean they pack a lot of learning into that
(05:53):
eighteen minutes. Um. So if you don't know much about Venice,
imagine if you do know something about New York City.
Imagine like the Greenwich Village. Uh. And I use Greenwich
Village because it's not on like the direct like north
southeast West Grida. They got all those crazy diagonal streets.
Imagine if it's so hot right now. Yeah, um, imagine
(06:14):
Greenwage Village if every block was an island. And that's
essentially what Venice is. It is a hundred and twenty
four tiny little islands all packed together, and instead of streets,
you have water, a hudred and eighty three canals and
it's all connected by little foot bridges and real bridges.
(06:35):
Uh and yes, canals by boat. Yeah. I mean it's
crazy when you've never even seen like the big zoom
in from above bird's eye view of what Venice looks like.
And I was like, that's what's going on. Yeah, it's
crazy because I mean when, especially when you're in the city,
like you're walking over canals, but you don't give too
much thought to him. You're just like, oh, that's so quaint. Yeah,
(06:56):
you're almost thinking like they dug that out on purpose
or something to get tourists. Now, those are necessity. It's
it's odd. It was an odd and different way for
a city. To form. They didn't start from a city
center and grow out. Each little block in section was
its own little thing. Yeah, it was kind of its
own little municipality. Um. And the reason that these people
(07:19):
set up shop hundreds and hundreds of years ago on
these islands was for for protection. Venice was a very
well protected municipality or cluster of municipalities. Right. Yeah. It
sits in a lagoon and there are three waterways that
flow water in and out every day, twice a day
(07:40):
with the tides. Yeah, the Adriatic flows in um to
the lagoon and uh brings it out, brings the water
back out at low tide, right yeah, yeah, high tide,
it brings water in low tide, it takes the water out,
which is why they're not that worried about their sewage
going into the canals because because the the water comes
in and kind of brings all the trash out to
(08:01):
the sea and then no one sees it. It's the
self a flushing system. Yeah, well, I mean it pretty
much is. So that's how they've been able to put
up with that for so long because twice a day, um,
the waters exchange, there's there is a big exchange to it.
The problem is when that water comes in, especially when
you include sea level rises and now up to six
(08:24):
times more flooding per year. Remember it was like ten
times a year and now that's up to about sixty floods. Um,
you have kind of a problem. Now you've got the
You have a sinking city essentially, is what it's what
it amounts to. Yeah, I mean it's it's two things.
It's the water rises in Venice itself. The buildings are sinking.
(08:48):
So those are two bad things that go, you know,
that don't taste great together. The reason that sinking is
because they extract freshwater from beneath the city, right, Yeah,
so there's less of a solid foundation now and um
there's also drilling nearby, like for natural gas or um
(09:10):
fossil fuels, and uh, it's also just a roading well, yeah,
they've done a lot of things over the year. When
you've got seawater lapping up against well, let's step back,
it's not just dirt and stuff. They realized pretty early
on we're not gonna be around unless we in case,
the entire city basically in brick below the waterline, and
(09:31):
they came up with some really ingenious construction methods that
you can super ingenious in that Venusbeck stage video on Vimeo. Yeah,
but even though they have been ensconce to the whole
city and brick as a foundation, that's was laughing salt
water and it's you know, these canals are busy. It's
not just the gondolier singing the song like there. If
(09:53):
you see real footage and that movie footage, they're packed
with boats, motor boats, cruise ships, all sorts of stuff.
And that action creates a lot of movement in the
water and it just whittles away at those bricks little
by little over the years, over hundreds and hundreds of years,
and then that's why Venice is sinking. Um. Part of
the other problem too, is a sediment builds up in
(10:15):
the canals. They're supposed to close them down on a
fairly regular basis, basically damn them up, drain them and
then remove the sediment, and basically, um, they stopped doing
that as frequently as before, and there there's been a
problem as a result. Plus saltwater uh permeates bricks. Bricks
are um semipermeable and they have capillary action, so it
(10:39):
draws saltwater up into the bricks, which I mean, as
long as bricks are connected by mortar, that water, that
saltwater will rise all the way to the top of
a building. And when the water evaporates, the water is gone,
but the salt stays, and it apparently increases in volume
tremendously and basically crushes the bricks from the inside out. Yeah,
and they've they've been taken steps and measures a little
(11:01):
by little in different ways over the years to help.
But they're they're kind of fighting a losing battle though,
like inject resin into the between the bricks and into
the bricks with hydraulics a barrier. But you know, they're fighting,
like I said, they're fighting mother nature here, right. So
finally they've said, let's turn our attention from these um
these piecemeal measures of you know, kind of of treating
(11:25):
bricks and go to where the problem is. Let's go
to the doorstep of the problem, which is the Adriatic
and the three inlets into the lagoon. And they turn
their attention to that. And now they've come up with
a pretty great plan for dealing with rising tides and floodwaters.
And I think we will get to that plan right
(11:47):
after this break I knew you're gonna say, all right,
so there's a plan. You know one thing on that
video too quickly that amazed me. You're talking about the
building construction. Um, the walls in Venice. The exterior walls
have a tendency to bow out at the top, and
uh so they have these these basically hooks that pull
(12:12):
from the inside the walls in and then those long
metal hooks travel into the floor where they're spiked into
the floor. So they're trying to pull it in there.
And then the roofs of the buildings in Venice aren't
just like hey, let's keep the water out there, literally
like caps that locked the walls in at the top.
(12:33):
So it's, uh, it's not just like a weather protector roof.
It's it's actually like if the roof wasn't there, the
walls would bow out. And then the interior walls don't
even connect rigidly to the exterior walls. Yeah, it allows
some gifts so that they can move back and forth.
Is the wave action basically moves the walls. So, I mean,
we we're saying Venice is a mess, but it's really
(12:54):
an ingenious city of just engineering. The fact that it's
still there at all. You know. Another construction point that
kind of stuck out to me was that buildings in
Venice are built on piles of steaks, like wooden steaks,
driven into the ground to kind of reinforce the mucky
ground to build on first. It's really a remarkable place
(13:16):
when you look at all the things they've had to
do just to make that what shouldn't even be a city.
I mean, let's let's get real, but it's a very neat,
beautiful city. Have you been. You me and I went
last summer, and it is gorgeous. Yeah, very neat. Yeah yeah.
Just walking around and all of a sudden, you're like, oh,
I'm next to three thousand year old ruins just basically
(13:37):
part of the cityscape, right, whereas here in Atlanta you're like, oh,
there's a Burger king, right, but it's from the sixties exactly, Alright.
So we we had a pretty good cliffhanger that they
had an idea. So let's we'll go ahead and announce it. Okay, Well,
the idea is called mosa or you should do this, chuck,
(13:59):
the modulo spadimentale elector electro mechanico. So that's the experimental
electro mechanical module. Which is the reason that that has
that clumsy name is because the M O S E.
The acronym is also the Italian spelling from Mosa or
(14:22):
Moses and basically what the what Moses was well known for.
One of his many hits was parting the Red Sea. Right, Well,
they thought that was very clever hit. They were coming.
I don't know, he did a lot of stuff in Commandments.
That was a pretty big hit, Burning Bush. I would
say the Red Sea was his American pie or no, yeah,
(14:44):
that was his Baker Street. The Ten Commandments was his Uh,
right down the line, who did Jerry rafferty Baker Street?
That was the saxophone one right and right down the
lane was his other hit. So I've never heard that one.
You have? You just don't know, Okay, says you was
just about to bust it out too early. So anyway,
(15:05):
Mosa Moses in Italian. Uh, it's a that's a clever
use of an acronym because this thing, the contraption they
came up with, it's pretty ingenious and clever. To defend
against these rising high tides, which are known as aqua
alta aqua alta Yeah, and this is one of those
things where you say ingenious and clever, but I would
(15:27):
add in its simplicity. These are my favorite kinds of projects.
When man looks at something and says, well, why don't
we just build a big gate? And that's pretty much
what it is. Yeah, but it is more complicated than that.
And let's let's talk about the mosa So. Um. Remember
we said sea levels are rising in general, but high
(15:47):
tides are a really big problem in Venice because they're
getting higher. Um. So the Mosai project, uh is it
consists of a bunch of gates that can be broad
up and raised on command. They have a magician who
commands the gates to rise, and um, the gates come
(16:09):
up and basically separate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Yeah.
So imagine a big, huge steel door that lays flat
on the bottom of the ocean, and uh, they fill
it with air and it's got two hinges on one side,
So that big steel door just raises up as it
fills with air, obviously becoming more buoyant, and until it
(16:33):
looks like about a forty five degree angle, uh, facing
out into the sea away from the city. And that's it.
It's just a barrier. It just swings up and I
think there's about a two foot differential in the water levels.
And uh, it essentially prevents high tide from happening within
the Venice Lagoon. That's exactly right. And um, these these
(16:57):
basically walls, floating walls is what they amount to. Like
you said, they have hinges on the bottom. Uh. And
there's all sorts of pictures of the Mose project, the
mosa A project, um, all over the internet. I found
it exponentially easier to understand when I saw what they
were talking about. It's like, oh, that's all it is.
But allow us to clumsily try to get this across.
(17:22):
So you've got the hinges, um hinge, the metal wall
to the bottom of the sea floor right, well, not
to the sea floor, well to a concrete trench within
the sea floor that the thing sits in when it's
not in use. Yeah, they tried to pound it right
into the sand and they were like, it's not a
working right, get us some concrete. So they these trenches
(17:43):
also provide a place for engineers to go underneath and
basically fix things and fiddle with stuff. And it also
provides the delivery system for the compressed air that the
hollow metal walls gates basically um fill up with air
so that they start to stand upright, Yeah, And how
long does that take? Like twenty minutes or thirty minutes,
and then uh, it takes about the same time for
(18:06):
it to fill them with seawater again to return them
back to their laying position on the floor. It was
a little quicker going down, but which makes sense. Yes,
but that's pretty much it. When the high tides coming,
they fill them with air so that the gates stand
up above water. And then on the lagoon side, the
sea level stays low. On the sea side, it can
get as high as it likes. And because they're hinged
(18:28):
and filled with air, they're not rigid, which means that
they can take a pounding and they can sway back
and forth a little bit and still not give. So
it is, like you said, it's it's ingenious in its simplicity.
It is and it's uh officially launched in two thousand three,
and that was and this was after years and years
of um I guess ideas and bids and plans, and
(18:53):
the Mosai project is what finally went out. They said
it was gonna be two to three billion dollars and
would be on Uh it's still not done. They're looking
at now. Um. They did the first successful test late
last year, and like with every big project, city project
like that, it's going to be over budget and over
(19:13):
uh schedule. Yes, but there's a lot of accusations of corruption.
Really yeah, Southern Italy a big public project, so corrupt.
The the group that suggested the thing in the first
place is called the you want to take it? Someone's
gonna be offended by me, by the way. Maybe I'll
(19:33):
bet they're not Italian. The Consortio then no EVA, So
that's basically the new Venice Consortium. It's a group of
companies and construction companies that said, hey, we've got an
idea for this problem. Let's try this. Yeah, and we'll
build it for you. We had all the companies under
our banner that can provide everything you need, and they said,
(19:56):
we'll build it for you for two to three billion
dollars and every but you want what which sounds like
a lot, including to people in Venice, is that American
dollars or is that euros? That's American dollars As far
as I'm seeing right here. Um, but if you go
to Venice like uh, martinis like fifteen dollars, it's like
(20:18):
twenty or five bucks for like a little tiny martini
at Harry's Bar. I know. So it sounds like a lot,
But all you have to do is go open the
cash register at Harry's Bar in a Tuesday afternoon and
you can get two to three billion dollars to pay
for this project. You know, Alright, someone's a little salty
about their business. It was really expensive. It was neat,
(20:39):
but it's also like really expensive. Epe is not cheap. No. Um.
So there was a lot of a lot of accusations
of corruption, of kickbacks, the other thing being artificially expensive.
Apparently there was a study that found like this thing is,
they've padded this tremendously. But by the time this came
(21:00):
amount um public opinion apparently wasn't enough to stop at
construction had started. They did their first test in two
dozen twelve apparently was successful. And the Mosai project continues,
and I believe they're they're tracking for two thousand sixteen
to have all of the gates across all three of
the inlets operational. Yeah, and you said multiple gates. So
(21:23):
each of these uh inlets. You have the Leado, uh,
the Malamoco, and then I pronounce this Cheogia, but I
heard it much much differently on the video, so I
know that's not right. But those are the three inlets,
and um, well that was a British student. They just
pronounced things however they want, and then we assume because
they're European they know you're right. Uh. So it's not
(21:47):
like one big gate for each of these things because
it's on a curve and you can't just have one
huge gate. So the um, the Malamoco and the Cheogia
have Uh, the Malamoco is nineteen gate, that g has eighteen,
and they're all in one row. And then the big daddy,
the Leado has two rows, one with twenty gates and
(22:07):
with one gates. Yeah, and we're not all the same
same they're the same width, but they're not all the
same height, right, And I mean they don't need to
be summer taller than others. They're all about sixteen ft thick.
So these are huge, huge walled gates. So yeah, I
think we should I don't know if we've gotten across
how big they are you said there's sixteen ft or
(22:27):
about five meters thick. Um, they're the the deepest amount
of water is a hundred feet, which is like thirty meters. Uh,
so these things are taller than that or if need be. Yeah,
uh and then they're uh what about three d and
fifty tons. I think that's just for like one of
(22:50):
the gates. Yes, like one single panel could weighs as
much as a seven thirty seven seven seven And they
they are using something that Rolls Royce makes that is
basically an elevator for ships to convey each of the
gates out to the sea floor. Yeah. And it takes
three days to move a gate. Yeah. So they're really
(23:13):
really big gates, but they are going to be very
nimble when filled with compressed air and smacked around by waves.
Plus they're in water, so that helps with the weight.
That reminds me that this project faces a lot of
problems that that the project faces. So there's there's some
people have said, maybe this is a good idea in theory,
but practically this may or may not work. What it's
(23:35):
sea levels rise faster than we think, then these things
are going to basically be very expensive, totally obsolete gates,
like the water would just go right over the top
of the exactly. That's a nightmare scenario. Yeah that when
I when I saw what I saw, it didn't look
like to me they came out of the water enough.
I was like, I would add another five feet. Yeah,
(23:56):
just to be safe, Just to be safe, you know. Um,
So that's one possible problem. Another one that apparently they
haven't addressed is the build up a sediment. Remember we
said that you have to clean out the canals pretty
frequently because sediment builds up backs up septic systems, that
crumbles brick walls. Well, it will also fill in these trenches,
(24:16):
which apparently need to be totally flat, and as sediment
builds up, then these things aren't going to lay flat again,
and you may have some problems. Apparently that's something that
hasn't been addressed by the Mosai project. How to deal
with sediment build up. Well, I know they've got about
a hundred and fifty people that will just be full
time caretaking staff. Uh, And I guess part of their
(24:40):
job will be to clean that stuff up. Huh. I
would guess. Uh. And some of the other problems. Um,
anytime you're undertaking a project like this has to interact
with the elements and mother nature, they're going to be
environmental concerns and uh. They range the spectrum here from
(25:01):
we don't really know how this is going to affect things,
uh and disrupt the ecosystem too. Well, wait a minute,
we need this constant flow in and out of water
twice a day two flush our giant toilet that we're
living in, right Uh. And proponents will say it's gonna
be better actually because and it sort of makes sense
(25:24):
if there's, um, if you have three holes going into
something and you plug up two of them, you're gonna
have a stronger flow in the one hole, right exactly.
So they're saying, we can actually use this to manipulate
this flow of water artificially and make a better toilet
flusher exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that Hopefully the
ones who are like, well, but why don't we just
(25:46):
use this as a an opportunity to update our septic
system as a whole or sewer system as a whole,
Hopefully those guys will win out. But pollution, increased pollution
levels are definitely an issue that environmentalists are looking at.
And uh, I just get the picture in southern Italy.
It's a tough Uh, it's tough game, you know. It
(26:07):
seems to be a lot of fighting. Like this is
a very controversial project, but it still remains so Yeah,
and it seems to be marching on. They they One
of the other criticisms was that they they basically just
ignored easier, less expensive options that have proven effective elsewhere
the Netherlands. Yeah, are like building barrier islands, underwater dikes.
(26:31):
But although apparently they have a lot of this stuff
already and it's not necessarily helping. It's mainly just reinforcing
the natural um barriers that already exist. I guess they're like,
why don't we just put up more of that? Yeah,
I think it's interesting to Uh, it's gonna be interesting
to see how this plays out. I really hope it works,
(26:52):
because they've sunk a lot of money into this and
they I mean, they moved all in on this mosa system.
Like they can't wrap it and say, well, it didn't work,
Let's think of something new. Yeah, And I wonder how
how much it would be to just like that. You
can't just add a new gate, a new taller gate.
If the sea levels do rise faster, and they these
(27:14):
these the ones they have proved too short because it
has to sit flush in the trench. So you'd have
to create a whole another trench to accommodate this larger
gate would be a real problem. That's the worst case
scenario to me is if it's uh yeah, if they're
too short, the water lefts and surely they thought of that.
It didn't look right to me. But they know what
(27:34):
they're doing, right, I hope, so pretty neat and hopefully
you know, they had all this in that that great video,
a lot of footage where it looked like it looked
like some parts of Venice on a daily basis with
high tide is slightly underwater. Yeah. They to show people
walking to work through water and delivering stuff to places
through water, and and everyone looks very sick of it. Yeah.
(27:56):
Go check out um on vimeo Venice x stage. Uh,
that is definitely worth watching. Venice backstage period. How does
Venice work? I think they meant to put a cole
in there. The period bugs me a period in a
title dif from England. Josh, No, these are the Venetians
that made this diffrom Venice, Josh um, they know what
(28:16):
they're doing. Yeah, and check out stuff on the MOSE
project Mose Mose. I just want to say, moves from
Paper Moon your favorite movie, right boom uh. And if
you want to learn even more about the MOSE project,
you can type in m O s E Project in
the search bar how stuff works dot Com and that
will bring up this article. Yeah, and hey, check out
(28:39):
Venice is sinking from Appens, Georgia. Yeah, that's nice. My
one buddy is no longer in the band, but you're
still friendly with the other guys. They haven't been in
touch actually, but they said they said record and they're
good folks. Well, and if you ever get a chance
to go to Venice, I recommend you do it because
it is in Neat Town. But don't go to Harry's Bar.
(29:01):
You have to go to Harry's Bar. Is that the
legendary place, that's where the Bellini was created? Why didn't
you have a Bellii? She had a Billiini? I had
a Martini? What a Bellinis? A peach juice, peach pure
in champagne. Very good, but again it's like basically a
shot for I think it was like twenty five dollars
(29:22):
or maybe even more. Yeah, but you have to you
have to go. You walk past the seat that Hemingway
used to drink at, right, you know it's a neat place. Yeah,
there's a lot of those seats around the world, though,
you know, find a cheaper one. I think we already
went through the whole rigamar role that leads us up
to listener mail. So now it's time for listener mail.
(29:44):
I'm gonna call this murderer in our myth midst murder
the mist you're thinking of guerrillas in the Midst. Hey,
guys have a boring job. So I binge listen. Uh
several days a week to your show. Was listening to
the Insanity Defense episode and I heard a very familiar name.
(30:04):
I happened to have met John Delling during his killing spree.
I used to manage a coffee shop and a guy
was oddly peering in the window with his hand pressed
against the glass though the store was clearly open. Uh.
He paced around the building for a while. I thought
it was pretty weird, so I sent the girl working
with me pretty brave. If you Josh, his name is
(30:25):
Josh Okay. I sent the girl working with me in
the back. Oh, no, okay, I take it all back.
He was trying to protect her, and that was me.
I sent her in the back and told her to
hang out there until he left. He came in, looked
the menu over and asked where ice cream was any good?
I gave him a free sample. Here you go, we
(30:45):
don't want any trouble. He liked it. He liked it
and said he had to go to his car to
get some money. He literally said, I'll be right back.
Then he went out to his car for a while
and drove away. A couple of days later, the girl
I was working with that night called crying and told
me to find a newspaper. Well, no wonder he sent
it back. She's clearly fragile. She's crying that like the
guy was at the front door. She seen that Sunday
(31:07):
New York Times is six dollars now. On the front
page was a large mug shot of our guy from
a couple of nights previous. Turns out he had actually
left the store and murdered someone and um because the
ice cream drove him. No, I guess so, and he
stole something. I sold her car that same evening. Anyway,
just thought it was an interesting connection. The guy was
definitely in need of some help, and, as you mentioned,
(31:29):
had no shot at getting it in the legal system
here in Idaho is clearly a tricky ethical area. Thanks everybody.
And then it's from Josh knowl that's from way back
kind of the insanity defense. Yeah, that was a good one,
though it turned out we learned a lot. So he
fed a guy ice cream anyone out and killed someone. Man,
is really scary stuff. And his coworker, who was around
(31:51):
for none of it, cried when she read the paper. Yeah,
apparently she never got any work done because anytime a
customer came in, she gets sent to the back, you know,
uh crazy. What was the dude's name? Josh and Hole?
Oh yeah, Josh. Thanks Josh. It's always good to hear
from another Josh, because we are the greatest names on
the planet. Josh. That's such a great name. It is,
(32:13):
especially if you say it in other ways like yosh
or hush. There's all sorts of ways you can say Josh,
but really the only right way to say it is Josh.
And it's a verb. Yeah, you can Josh and it's
a it's a friendly verb too, because you're making fun
of somebody, but in a non hostile way. Yeah, chuck
is a verb too, how about that? Yeah, look at us, right,
(32:34):
Josh and chucking. Yeah, that's good stuff. Chuck. I can't
believe it's taking us this many years to come up
with that. If you want to tell us to shut up,
you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash stuff
you Should Know, drop us a line via email at
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. And wait, wait,
(32:55):
don't press stop yet. Go check out our awesome website.
It will be your new favorite home on the web.
Just bookmark it and do yourself a favorite. Make it
your homepage. The U R L is H T T
P colon slash slash www, dot stuff you should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(33:20):
is it how stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. NOAs with us again and
it's another morning edition. Yeah, we got an email. I
(00:21):
think we had our last morning thing that session not
to want ago, and someone wrote down said, please don't
do that again. I didn't think it was that bad.
You guys are clearly like really tired and not the same.
So what I say is, if you have a choice,
is saved this one for the morning and just pretend
like where your local NPR station or a cup of
Joe like Josh is drinking. Yea, and yeah, it's all
(00:44):
so good and let's let's do this morning style. Let's
do it man, um, let's do this morning style in Italian. Yeah,
this is gonna be a fan favorite, I predict because
there's some Italian pronunciations that I'm sure you will do
for every buddy. Right, I'm gonna do it. My best
was good, good little taste of it. Yes, that's one
(01:05):
of the accidents you can have a great time with
without people saying that you're offensive. That's a T shirt. Yeah,
so Chuck you heard about them sea levels yeah and fallen. Yeah,
due to climate change. I'm saying, well, it's climate change.
To the big bone of contention is whether it's human
(01:28):
cause or anthropogenic. Uh. The thing is there are there,
It is undeniable. The sea levels are rising at a
rate of about three millimeters a year, which doesn't sound
like much, But buddy, if you live for a thousand years,
you'd see the sea levels rise by three meters, which
is almost ten ft in America. Yeah, not the biggest
(01:51):
deal in some parts of the world. Big deal in Venice. Yeah.
And you know, if you're waiting a thousand years to
watch it rise three meters, that's the current rate of
sea level rise, it could speed up tremendously. And while
three millimeters might not sound that much to you out
in the Rockies, yeah, because it's nice and dry there
(02:14):
in the middle of the mountain. They're all stoned, right, Yeah,
because it's legal there. Who cares. If you're in a
place like um, the Maldives, you're saying, wow, my country
is probably not going to exist in the next like
twenty years. That's scary. If you're in New Orleans worried
about the same thing, and a little town known as Venice,
(02:34):
Italy is facing the same problem. It has been for
a very long time. And you say little town, Uh,
it is getting smaller, not only physically, but the population
because Venice is such a mess, has declined down to
about sixty people now over the years from like a
hundred and eighty. Yes, because people are tired of everything wet.
(02:57):
They are they used to get wet um back in
they would get wet about ten times a year due
to flooding. They could expect ten noteworthy floods a year.
And when we say noteworthy floods, we mean like the
squares in the throughout the city or flooded up to
maybe your knees, kind of like the whole ground floor
of Venice. Yeah, it gets flooded like you're slogging around,
(03:19):
which I mean sounds kind of fun when you're a kid,
but it's not that fun, especially when you're an adult
who maybe a germophobe. Because Venice has an antiquated sewer
system that's antiquated is the perfect word. Yeah, by antiquated,
we mean all of the um sewer pipes go right
out into the canals and they have along the um
(03:41):
along the years added like septic tanks to treat the
stuff first, but not everybody has those um and sometimes
they get backed up too. But the raw sewage or
septically treated sewage in Venice goes into those canals that
you float around in um boats. And when you're around
in the flood, like a tourist, you're swimming around in
(04:04):
fequal material. The tourist get in that water. There's a
picture of it um on a oh Man, I can't remember.
I think like a Bloomberg article about Venice or maybe wired.
But it's like, if you know about Venice, you'll think
these people are crazy for swimming in this flood water.
And it shows a couple of tourists like swimming in
a flood in the middle of the square, um the
(04:25):
San Marco, the San Marco Square. Yeah. Yeah, And now
that you know it's it's gross to see, they're like
it tastes briny and sort of ou mommy, right, why
are my lips swollen? Yeah, it's uh, it's That's one
of many many problems facing Venice right now. An antiquated
sewer system, and a lot of the problems are unique
(04:48):
just because of the city and how it's created. Yeah,
let's talk about this, because Venice is not something I
knew a ton about. I knew it was on the water.
I knew it was sinking. Shout out by the way
to Venice is sinking Athens band and stuff. You should
know fans. Um, well, then I like them already, Yes, no,
(05:09):
you know those guys he does. In fact, no old
talks Jerry doesn't like. Oh yeah, yeah, they're great. He
launches into like a five minute discourse. Uh So I
knew a little bit about Venice, very little though I've
never been there. But when I watched this awesome video
that Josh found, Um, we should go ahead and plug
it because it's just super cool. Yeah. It's called um
(05:31):
Venice Backstage Period, how does Venice work? And it was
created by the Insula SPA, which is I guess the
production arm of the city of Venice. Yeah, so it's
like a locally produced video about Venice. But it's one
of the most fascinating, like eighteen minute videos I've ever seen. Yeah,
I mean they pack a lot of learning into that
(05:53):
eighteen minutes. Um. So if you don't know much about Venice,
imagine if you do know something about New York City.
Imagine like the Greenwich Village. Uh. And I use Greenwich
Village because it's not on like the direct like north
southeast West Grida. They got all those crazy diagonal streets.
Imagine if it's so hot right now. Yeah, um, imagine
(06:14):
Greenwage Village if every block was an island. And that's
essentially what Venice is. It is a hundred and twenty
four tiny little islands all packed together, and instead of streets,
you have water, a hudred and eighty three canals and
it's all connected by little foot bridges and real bridges.
(06:35):
Uh and yes, canals by boat. Yeah. I mean it's
crazy when you've never even seen like the big zoom
in from above bird's eye view of what Venice looks like.
And I was like, that's what's going on. Yeah, it's
crazy because I mean when, especially when you're in the city,
like you're walking over canals, but you don't give too
much thought to him. You're just like, oh, that's so quaint. Yeah,
(06:56):
you're almost thinking like they dug that out on purpose
or something to get tourists. Now, those are necessity. It's
it's odd. It was an odd and different way for
a city. To form. They didn't start from a city
center and grow out. Each little block in section was
its own little thing. Yeah, it was kind of its
own little municipality. Um. And the reason that these people
(07:19):
set up shop hundreds and hundreds of years ago on
these islands was for for protection. Venice was a very
well protected municipality or cluster of municipalities. Right. Yeah. It
sits in a lagoon and there are three waterways that
flow water in and out every day, twice a day
(07:40):
with the tides. Yeah, the Adriatic flows in um to
the lagoon and uh brings it out, brings the water
back out at low tide, right yeah, yeah, high tide,
it brings water in low tide, it takes the water out,
which is why they're not that worried about their sewage
going into the canals because because the the water comes
in and kind of brings all the trash out to
(08:01):
the sea and then no one sees it. It's the
self a flushing system. Yeah, well, I mean it pretty
much is. So that's how they've been able to put
up with that for so long because twice a day, um,
the waters exchange, there's there is a big exchange to it.
The problem is when that water comes in, especially when
you include sea level rises and now up to six
(08:24):
times more flooding per year. Remember it was like ten
times a year and now that's up to about sixty floods. Um,
you have kind of a problem. Now you've got the
You have a sinking city essentially, is what it's what
it amounts to. Yeah, I mean it's it's two things.
It's the water rises in Venice itself. The buildings are sinking.
(08:48):
So those are two bad things that go, you know,
that don't taste great together. The reason that sinking is
because they extract freshwater from beneath the city, right, Yeah,
so there's less of a solid foundation now and um
there's also drilling nearby, like for natural gas or um
(09:10):
fossil fuels, and uh, it's also just a roading well, yeah,
they've done a lot of things over the year. When
you've got seawater lapping up against well, let's step back,
it's not just dirt and stuff. They realized pretty early
on we're not gonna be around unless we in case,
the entire city basically in brick below the waterline, and
(09:31):
they came up with some really ingenious construction methods that
you can super ingenious in that Venusbeck stage video on Vimeo. Yeah,
but even though they have been ensconce to the whole
city and brick as a foundation, that's was laughing salt
water and it's you know, these canals are busy. It's
not just the gondolier singing the song like there. If
(09:53):
you see real footage and that movie footage, they're packed
with boats, motor boats, cruise ships, all sorts of stuff.
And that action creates a lot of movement in the
water and it just whittles away at those bricks little
by little over the years, over hundreds and hundreds of years,
and then that's why Venice is sinking. Um. Part of
the other problem too, is a sediment builds up in
(10:15):
the canals. They're supposed to close them down on a
fairly regular basis, basically damn them up, drain them and
then remove the sediment, and basically, um, they stopped doing
that as frequently as before, and there there's been a
problem as a result. Plus saltwater uh permeates bricks. Bricks
are um semipermeable and they have capillary action, so it
(10:39):
draws saltwater up into the bricks, which I mean, as
long as bricks are connected by mortar, that water, that
saltwater will rise all the way to the top of
a building. And when the water evaporates, the water is gone,
but the salt stays, and it apparently increases in volume
tremendously and basically crushes the bricks from the inside out. Yeah,
and they've they've been taken steps and measures a little
(11:01):
by little in different ways over the years to help.
But they're they're kind of fighting a losing battle though,
like inject resin into the between the bricks and into
the bricks with hydraulics a barrier. But you know, they're fighting,
like I said, they're fighting mother nature here, right. So
finally they've said, let's turn our attention from these um
these piecemeal measures of you know, kind of of treating
(11:25):
bricks and go to where the problem is. Let's go
to the doorstep of the problem, which is the Adriatic
and the three inlets into the lagoon. And they turn
their attention to that. And now they've come up with
a pretty great plan for dealing with rising tides and floodwaters.
And I think we will get to that plan right
(11:47):
after this break I knew you're gonna say, all right,
so there's a plan. You know one thing on that
video too quickly that amazed me. You're talking about the
building construction. Um, the walls in Venice. The exterior walls
have a tendency to bow out at the top, and
uh so they have these these basically hooks that pull
(12:12):
from the inside the walls in and then those long
metal hooks travel into the floor where they're spiked into
the floor. So they're trying to pull it in there.
And then the roofs of the buildings in Venice aren't
just like hey, let's keep the water out there, literally
like caps that locked the walls in at the top.
(12:33):
So it's, uh, it's not just like a weather protector roof.
It's it's actually like if the roof wasn't there, the
walls would bow out. And then the interior walls don't
even connect rigidly to the exterior walls. Yeah, it allows
some gifts so that they can move back and forth.
Is the wave action basically moves the walls. So, I mean,
we we're saying Venice is a mess, but it's really
(12:54):
an ingenious city of just engineering. The fact that it's
still there at all. You know. Another construction point that
kind of stuck out to me was that buildings in
Venice are built on piles of steaks, like wooden steaks,
driven into the ground to kind of reinforce the mucky
ground to build on first. It's really a remarkable place
(13:16):
when you look at all the things they've had to
do just to make that what shouldn't even be a city.
I mean, let's let's get real, but it's a very neat,
beautiful city. Have you been. You me and I went
last summer, and it is gorgeous. Yeah, very neat. Yeah yeah.
Just walking around and all of a sudden, you're like, oh,
I'm next to three thousand year old ruins just basically
(13:37):
part of the cityscape, right, whereas here in Atlanta you're like, oh,
there's a Burger king, right, but it's from the sixties exactly, Alright.
So we we had a pretty good cliffhanger that they
had an idea. So let's we'll go ahead and announce it. Okay, Well,
the idea is called mosa or you should do this, chuck,
(13:59):
the modulo spadimentale elector electro mechanico. So that's the experimental
electro mechanical module. Which is the reason that that has
that clumsy name is because the M O S E.
The acronym is also the Italian spelling from Mosa or
(14:22):
Moses and basically what the what Moses was well known for.
One of his many hits was parting the Red Sea. Right, Well,
they thought that was very clever hit. They were coming.
I don't know, he did a lot of stuff in Commandments.
That was a pretty big hit, Burning Bush. I would
say the Red Sea was his American pie or no, yeah,
(14:44):
that was his Baker Street. The Ten Commandments was his Uh,
right down the line, who did Jerry rafferty Baker Street?
That was the saxophone one right and right down the
lane was his other hit. So I've never heard that one.
You have? You just don't know, Okay, says you was
just about to bust it out too early. So anyway,
(15:05):
Mosa Moses in Italian. Uh, it's a that's a clever
use of an acronym because this thing, the contraption they
came up with, it's pretty ingenious and clever. To defend
against these rising high tides, which are known as aqua
alta aqua alta Yeah, and this is one of those
things where you say ingenious and clever, but I would
(15:27):
add in its simplicity. These are my favorite kinds of projects.
When man looks at something and says, well, why don't
we just build a big gate? And that's pretty much
what it is. Yeah, but it is more complicated than that.
And let's let's talk about the mosa So. Um. Remember
we said sea levels are rising in general, but high
(15:47):
tides are a really big problem in Venice because they're
getting higher. Um. So the Mosai project, uh is it
consists of a bunch of gates that can be broad
up and raised on command. They have a magician who
commands the gates to rise, and um, the gates come
(16:09):
up and basically separate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Yeah.
So imagine a big, huge steel door that lays flat
on the bottom of the ocean, and uh, they fill
it with air and it's got two hinges on one side,
So that big steel door just raises up as it
fills with air, obviously becoming more buoyant, and until it
(16:33):
looks like about a forty five degree angle, uh, facing
out into the sea away from the city. And that's it.
It's just a barrier. It just swings up and I
think there's about a two foot differential in the water levels.
And uh, it essentially prevents high tide from happening within
the Venice Lagoon. That's exactly right. And um, these these
(16:57):
basically walls, floating walls is what they amount to. Like
you said, they have hinges on the bottom. Uh. And
there's all sorts of pictures of the Mose project, the
mosa A project, um, all over the internet. I found
it exponentially easier to understand when I saw what they
were talking about. It's like, oh, that's all it is.
But allow us to clumsily try to get this across.
(17:22):
So you've got the hinges, um hinge, the metal wall
to the bottom of the sea floor right, well, not
to the sea floor, well to a concrete trench within
the sea floor that the thing sits in when it's
not in use. Yeah, they tried to pound it right
into the sand and they were like, it's not a
working right, get us some concrete. So they these trenches
(17:43):
also provide a place for engineers to go underneath and
basically fix things and fiddle with stuff. And it also
provides the delivery system for the compressed air that the
hollow metal walls gates basically um fill up with air
so that they start to stand upright, Yeah, And how
long does that take? Like twenty minutes or thirty minutes,
and then uh, it takes about the same time for
(18:06):
it to fill them with seawater again to return them
back to their laying position on the floor. It was
a little quicker going down, but which makes sense. Yes,
but that's pretty much it. When the high tides coming,
they fill them with air so that the gates stand
up above water. And then on the lagoon side, the
sea level stays low. On the sea side, it can
get as high as it likes. And because they're hinged
(18:28):
and filled with air, they're not rigid, which means that
they can take a pounding and they can sway back
and forth a little bit and still not give. So
it is, like you said, it's it's ingenious in its simplicity.
It is and it's uh officially launched in two thousand three,
and that was and this was after years and years
of um I guess ideas and bids and plans, and
(18:53):
the Mosai project is what finally went out. They said
it was gonna be two to three billion dollars and
would be on Uh it's still not done. They're looking
at now. Um. They did the first successful test late
last year, and like with every big project, city project
like that, it's going to be over budget and over
(19:13):
uh schedule. Yes, but there's a lot of accusations of corruption.
Really yeah, Southern Italy a big public project, so corrupt.
The the group that suggested the thing in the first
place is called the you want to take it? Someone's
gonna be offended by me, by the way. Maybe I'll
(19:33):
bet they're not Italian. The Consortio then no EVA, So
that's basically the new Venice Consortium. It's a group of
companies and construction companies that said, hey, we've got an
idea for this problem. Let's try this. Yeah, and we'll
build it for you. We had all the companies under
our banner that can provide everything you need, and they said,
(19:56):
we'll build it for you for two to three billion
dollars and every but you want what which sounds like
a lot, including to people in Venice, is that American
dollars or is that euros? That's American dollars As far
as I'm seeing right here. Um, but if you go
to Venice like uh, martinis like fifteen dollars, it's like
(20:18):
twenty or five bucks for like a little tiny martini
at Harry's Bar. I know. So it sounds like a lot,
But all you have to do is go open the
cash register at Harry's Bar in a Tuesday afternoon and
you can get two to three billion dollars to pay
for this project. You know, Alright, someone's a little salty
about their business. It was really expensive. It was neat,
(20:39):
but it's also like really expensive. Epe is not cheap. No. Um.
So there was a lot of a lot of accusations
of corruption, of kickbacks, the other thing being artificially expensive.
Apparently there was a study that found like this thing is,
they've padded this tremendously. But by the time this came
(21:00):
amount um public opinion apparently wasn't enough to stop at
construction had started. They did their first test in two
dozen twelve apparently was successful. And the Mosai project continues,
and I believe they're they're tracking for two thousand sixteen
to have all of the gates across all three of
the inlets operational. Yeah, and you said multiple gates. So
(21:23):
each of these uh inlets. You have the Leado, uh,
the Malamoco, and then I pronounce this Cheogia, but I
heard it much much differently on the video, so I
know that's not right. But those are the three inlets,
and um, well that was a British student. They just
pronounced things however they want, and then we assume because
they're European they know you're right. Uh. So it's not
(21:47):
like one big gate for each of these things because
it's on a curve and you can't just have one
huge gate. So the um, the Malamoco and the Cheogia
have Uh, the Malamoco is nineteen gate, that g has eighteen,
and they're all in one row. And then the big daddy,
the Leado has two rows, one with twenty gates and
(22:07):
with one gates. Yeah, and we're not all the same
same they're the same width, but they're not all the
same height, right, And I mean they don't need to
be summer taller than others. They're all about sixteen ft thick.
So these are huge, huge walled gates. So yeah, I
think we should I don't know if we've gotten across
how big they are you said there's sixteen ft or
(22:27):
about five meters thick. Um, they're the the deepest amount
of water is a hundred feet, which is like thirty meters. Uh,
so these things are taller than that or if need be. Yeah,
uh and then they're uh what about three d and
fifty tons. I think that's just for like one of
(22:50):
the gates. Yes, like one single panel could weighs as
much as a seven thirty seven seven seven And they
they are using something that Rolls Royce makes that is
basically an elevator for ships to convey each of the
gates out to the sea floor. Yeah. And it takes
three days to move a gate. Yeah. So they're really
(23:13):
really big gates, but they are going to be very
nimble when filled with compressed air and smacked around by waves.
Plus they're in water, so that helps with the weight.
That reminds me that this project faces a lot of
problems that that the project faces. So there's there's some
people have said, maybe this is a good idea in theory,
but practically this may or may not work. What it's
(23:35):
sea levels rise faster than we think, then these things
are going to basically be very expensive, totally obsolete gates,
like the water would just go right over the top
of the exactly. That's a nightmare scenario. Yeah that when
I when I saw what I saw, it didn't look
like to me they came out of the water enough.
I was like, I would add another five feet. Yeah,
(23:56):
just to be safe, Just to be safe, you know. Um,
So that's one possible problem. Another one that apparently they
haven't addressed is the build up a sediment. Remember we
said that you have to clean out the canals pretty
frequently because sediment builds up backs up septic systems, that
crumbles brick walls. Well, it will also fill in these trenches,
(24:16):
which apparently need to be totally flat, and as sediment
builds up, then these things aren't going to lay flat again,
and you may have some problems. Apparently that's something that
hasn't been addressed by the Mosai project. How to deal
with sediment build up. Well, I know they've got about
a hundred and fifty people that will just be full
time caretaking staff. Uh, And I guess part of their
(24:40):
job will be to clean that stuff up. Huh. I
would guess. Uh. And some of the other problems. Um,
anytime you're undertaking a project like this has to interact
with the elements and mother nature, they're going to be
environmental concerns and uh. They range the spectrum here from
(25:01):
we don't really know how this is going to affect things,
uh and disrupt the ecosystem too. Well, wait a minute,
we need this constant flow in and out of water
twice a day two flush our giant toilet that we're
living in, right Uh. And proponents will say it's gonna
be better actually because and it sort of makes sense
(25:24):
if there's, um, if you have three holes going into
something and you plug up two of them, you're gonna
have a stronger flow in the one hole, right exactly.
So they're saying, we can actually use this to manipulate
this flow of water artificially and make a better toilet
flusher exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that Hopefully the
ones who are like, well, but why don't we just
(25:46):
use this as a an opportunity to update our septic
system as a whole or sewer system as a whole,
Hopefully those guys will win out. But pollution, increased pollution
levels are definitely an issue that environmentalists are looking at.
And uh, I just get the picture in southern Italy.
It's a tough Uh, it's tough game, you know. It
(26:07):
seems to be a lot of fighting. Like this is
a very controversial project, but it still remains so Yeah,
and it seems to be marching on. They they One
of the other criticisms was that they they basically just
ignored easier, less expensive options that have proven effective elsewhere
the Netherlands. Yeah, are like building barrier islands, underwater dikes.
(26:31):
But although apparently they have a lot of this stuff
already and it's not necessarily helping. It's mainly just reinforcing
the natural um barriers that already exist. I guess they're like,
why don't we just put up more of that? Yeah,
I think it's interesting to Uh, it's gonna be interesting
to see how this plays out. I really hope it works,
(26:52):
because they've sunk a lot of money into this and
they I mean, they moved all in on this mosa system.
Like they can't wrap it and say, well, it didn't work,
Let's think of something new. Yeah, And I wonder how
how much it would be to just like that. You
can't just add a new gate, a new taller gate.
If the sea levels do rise faster, and they these
(27:14):
these the ones they have proved too short because it
has to sit flush in the trench. So you'd have
to create a whole another trench to accommodate this larger
gate would be a real problem. That's the worst case
scenario to me is if it's uh yeah, if they're
too short, the water lefts and surely they thought of that.
It didn't look right to me. But they know what
(27:34):
they're doing, right, I hope, so pretty neat and hopefully
you know, they had all this in that that great video,
a lot of footage where it looked like it looked
like some parts of Venice on a daily basis with
high tide is slightly underwater. Yeah. They to show people
walking to work through water and delivering stuff to places
through water, and and everyone looks very sick of it. Yeah.
(27:56):
Go check out um on vimeo Venice x stage. Uh,
that is definitely worth watching. Venice backstage period. How does
Venice work? I think they meant to put a cole
in there. The period bugs me a period in a
title dif from England. Josh, No, these are the Venetians
that made this diffrom Venice, Josh um, they know what
(28:16):
they're doing. Yeah, and check out stuff on the MOSE
project Mose Mose. I just want to say, moves from
Paper Moon your favorite movie, right boom uh. And if
you want to learn even more about the MOSE project,
you can type in m O s E Project in
the search bar how stuff works dot Com and that
will bring up this article. Yeah, and hey, check out
(28:39):
Venice is sinking from Appens, Georgia. Yeah, that's nice. My
one buddy is no longer in the band, but you're
still friendly with the other guys. They haven't been in
touch actually, but they said they said record and they're
good folks. Well, and if you ever get a chance
to go to Venice, I recommend you do it because
it is in Neat Town. But don't go to Harry's Bar.
(29:01):
You have to go to Harry's Bar. Is that the
legendary place, that's where the Bellini was created? Why didn't
you have a Bellii? She had a Billiini? I had
a Martini? What a Bellinis? A peach juice, peach pure
in champagne. Very good, but again it's like basically a
shot for I think it was like twenty five dollars
(29:22):
or maybe even more. Yeah, but you have to you
have to go. You walk past the seat that Hemingway
used to drink at, right, you know it's a neat place. Yeah,
there's a lot of those seats around the world, though,
you know, find a cheaper one. I think we already
went through the whole rigamar role that leads us up
to listener mail. So now it's time for listener mail.
(29:44):
I'm gonna call this murderer in our myth midst murder
the mist you're thinking of guerrillas in the Midst. Hey,
guys have a boring job. So I binge listen. Uh
several days a week to your show. Was listening to
the Insanity Defense episode and I heard a very familiar name.
(30:04):
I happened to have met John Delling during his killing spree.
I used to manage a coffee shop and a guy
was oddly peering in the window with his hand pressed
against the glass though the store was clearly open. Uh.
He paced around the building for a while. I thought
it was pretty weird, so I sent the girl working
with me pretty brave. If you Josh, his name is
(30:25):
Josh Okay. I sent the girl working with me in
the back. Oh, no, okay, I take it all back.
He was trying to protect her, and that was me.
I sent her in the back and told her to
hang out there until he left. He came in, looked
the menu over and asked where ice cream was any good?
I gave him a free sample. Here you go, we
(30:45):
don't want any trouble. He liked it. He liked it
and said he had to go to his car to
get some money. He literally said, I'll be right back.
Then he went out to his car for a while
and drove away. A couple of days later, the girl
I was working with that night called crying and told
me to find a newspaper. Well, no wonder he sent
it back. She's clearly fragile. She's crying that like the
guy was at the front door. She seen that Sunday
(31:07):
New York Times is six dollars now. On the front
page was a large mug shot of our guy from
a couple of nights previous. Turns out he had actually
left the store and murdered someone and um because the
ice cream drove him. No, I guess so, and he
stole something. I sold her car that same evening. Anyway,
just thought it was an interesting connection. The guy was
definitely in need of some help, and, as you mentioned,
(31:29):
had no shot at getting it in the legal system
here in Idaho is clearly a tricky ethical area. Thanks everybody.
And then it's from Josh knowl that's from way back
kind of the insanity defense. Yeah, that was a good one,
though it turned out we learned a lot. So he
fed a guy ice cream anyone out and killed someone. Man,
is really scary stuff. And his coworker, who was around
(31:51):
for none of it, cried when she read the paper. Yeah,
apparently she never got any work done because anytime a
customer came in, she gets sent to the back, you know,
uh crazy. What was the dude's name? Josh and Hole?
Oh yeah, Josh. Thanks Josh. It's always good to hear
from another Josh, because we are the greatest names on
the planet. Josh. That's such a great name. It is,
(32:13):
especially if you say it in other ways like yosh
or hush. There's all sorts of ways you can say Josh,
but really the only right way to say it is Josh.
And it's a verb. Yeah, you can Josh and it's
a it's a friendly verb too, because you're making fun
of somebody, but in a non hostile way. Yeah, chuck
is a verb too, how about that? Yeah, look at us, right,
(32:34):
Josh and chucking. Yeah, that's good stuff. Chuck. I can't
believe it's taking us this many years to come up
with that. If you want to tell us to shut up,
you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash stuff
you Should Know, drop us a line via email at
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. And wait, wait,
(32:55):
don't press stop yet. Go check out our awesome website.
It will be your new favorite home on the web.
Just bookmark it and do yourself a favorite. Make it
your homepage. The U R L is H T T
P colon slash slash www, dot stuff you should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(33:20):
is it how stuff Works dot com.
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