Ep. 73: The Mars-Spangled Banner w/ Nick Page!

We've got a sense of déjà flew this week, as first and future guest Nick Page is back on the show! We talk about his new project—the Manned Mission podcast that you may have seen on our feed, which I do voice work on. Then, we go over several proposals for a future Flag of Mars, which there are more of than you'd think. Plus, some basketball talk???

SHOW NOTES HERE

Manned Mission Episode 1

Linktree

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/flagged-for-content--5732422/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
We got flagged and manners sweet if you might even Mistandard,
do you mind out what they read me saying the
stream my voice is man will try to understand how
this simple, honest.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Podcast can be flagged for Contentow, what's up? Beck, sads,
and Welcome to episode seventy three of Flagged for Content.
It's the only podcast that forgot to write a joke

(00:35):
for this part. Oh wow. It's also a flags for
Good podcast, and you can head on over to flagsfogod
dot com slash flagged for content for like the number,
uh and pick up some sweet flags. They got new
ones every day, they got a lot of no Kings ones.
There's some some some good interesting stuff here lately. When

(00:56):
you do check out, use code flagged for content again
for like the number, and you'll get yourself a sweet
ten percent off and help the show out as well.
As I always say, Okay, I don't want to get
too long on this intro. I know I always do,
whether I say that or not, but this one I
had Nick Page back on from episode one episode I

(01:18):
don't know, somewhere in the somewhere before we hit ten
somewhere else, uh and whose podcast I recently did some
voice work on called Manned Mission. You may have seen
it if you are a listener. I know that sounds counterintuitive,
but if you're a listener, it was on our feed.
If you're a viewer, it'll be here somewhere in the description,

(01:39):
so you can go to Nick's YouTube page and watch
it there. But Nick and I talk all about Manned
Mission the podcast, but also some flags for Mars considering
that's where this Manned Mission is supposedly going. So as
with any episode with Nick, it gets off the rails
pretty quick and a very fun way. This one was

(01:59):
a blaster word. They all are. But dang, yeah, I
missed recording with Nick. Let's see. Yeah, I don't think
I had any other notes on this one, So go
check out Manned Mission. Like I said, it'll be in
the show notes. And yeah, let's go ahead and get
into this episode with Nick Page. Vexads. We have got

(02:24):
a familiar face returning to the show this week. You
know him from episode one of this very show. You
know him from episode one of a different show, and
you know him as the guest on this episode since
his name was in the show. It's's Nick Page.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Hello, thanks for having what's up, Nick, Oh, not too much,
just hanging out with my buddy, talk about some flags.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I suppose, Oh, where's he at?

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Right around the corner?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Just had a frame, nice just to yeah, perfect, Yeah, dude,
so as the viewers can see behind and as you know,
the diehards will know already you are in slash from Ohio.
How are things up there right now?

Speaker 3 (03:08):
They could be better? Yeah, it's it's very hot, I suppose,
is the polite thing to say about the state of
Ohio right now? As uh yeah, fair, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Ay, Tennessee is not faring any better, and in fact
worse on a lot of those fronts I imagine.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
But yeah, hang in there.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah yeah, well, I mean this is kind of a
throwback one in a sense. I know in the first
couple episodes that you were on for anyway, actually the
first few that I did in general, I would always
ask the guest like, what are you drinking for this?
So I will start. I am drinking a Hutton and
Smith brewing company igneous ipa. This is local to Chattanooga,

(03:54):
and it's actually where my wife and I had our
first date at the brewery.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
So fantastic.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
And what about yourself?

Speaker 3 (04:01):
I am drinking the best beer of eighteen ninety three,
perhaps Blue Ribbon. Oh I'm not sure anybody's improved on
it since, or I guess they haven't won in the
awards that they want to put on the can since.
But yeah, well have some PDR.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
So one and done. You know, you can't improve on perfection,
as they always say.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
They probably stopped giving the award out in eighteen ninety four,
so probably probably.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Oh but dude, it's so good to see you again. This,
like I said, it's not going to be a complete
throwback to those first few where we did. I think
what was Do you remember the first one we did.
I think it was Denmark.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
It was generally like Nordic cross flags of that area,
that's right.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, yeah, I remember talking about the Yes, the the
Danish one, how like it was supposed to have like
come down from on high, yeah, and everything, and they
received it and then everyone kind of iterated on that.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
That's variations.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, yeah, Well how's your how's your flag journey? Ben?
Since then, mine's taking a quite a well, I guess,
quite a usual path.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Really, I suppose it's tough. It's been a while since then,
so I'm trying to remember the exact timeline of stuff.
I suppose I do remember I backed a kickstarter for
the Keystone flag that Terra Stark is a better flag
for Pennsylvanians.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Heard of it?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, yeah, that I I was happy to receive. And
I have been collecting some goofy in my opinion, flags
that I enjoy from the flags for good who make
great products. I got that one right here?

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, which is that? The one? Is that the one
where there's like the lines around it to cut out?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yep, little little scissor icon, cut out your own okay
yo Ohio. It's it's not burgee shaped, it's just rectangular,
and you know, cut it out the rest.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Of the way. Yeah, I love that. I that was
a limited run, but I might see if Michael can
do a one off for me.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Or I've got the American flag with the pride stripes
flying out in front of the house right now.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Oh nice? And uh you know somewhere you own a
flag for content? I think I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
well good, all right, all that pleasantness aside, let's get
into the unpleasantness. Uh. Here is what's on the flagpole today, folks.
We have our usual over and underrated flags, although it

(06:30):
being Nick, I doubt there's going to be too much
usual about them. We're gonna talk about a new project
that Nick started that he's letting me kind of tag
along with, and we'll talk about some flag proposals for
the planet Mars. And those last two may be related.
But anyway, Nick, before we get into that, I like

(06:50):
to ask my guests questions, and the first one I
like to ask is interrogative, okay, and it goes like this,
what is your favorite flag or the one that got
you into them?

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Honestly, I think it is the Ohio flag. Maybe not
the specific goofy one that I have behind me, but
I you know, I didn't get into flags early in
my life, but I being from Ohio, we had a
pretty unique one and that was always a bit of
a point of pride as an Ohio and of just
like we have one of the cooler flags, in my opinion,

(07:28):
out of all the states here in America, and it's
still I think probably my favorite. You know, it's it's
the one I had the most sentimentality about, and and
and certainly the first one that I really you know,
am I I'm not allowed to swear on this podcast.
Absolutely two shits about Uh.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
I think you and I were the ones that started
that trend of swearing on this podcast. So if anyone's
allowed to, it's you. Yeah, no, that makes total sense.
Like I mean, obviously, well, most of the people I
talked to, whether they're huge vacksades or not, look to
a local flag if they have a good enough like city.
It's rarely a county unless you're like in England or something.

(08:12):
But if you have a good enough like city one
or something, then maybe state next that those are the
ones that connect to you the most. Another Raleigh guys,
but I talked about that. One of them said they
still really like the Raleigh flag despite wanting to replace
it or you know a join one onto the side
of it. I guess as it were. But yeah, so

(08:36):
any just just kind of like a local type.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Thing or yeah, it's unique. And you know, when I
was very little, it was cool that it, you know,
it reminded me. I was a big baseball fan growing up,
and I played baseball in like little League for a
long time, and it kind of felt like a pennant
and just you know, the it was it was cooler
to me than all the other state flags that I

(08:58):
saw when I was, you know, six years old, and
I developed an attachment and, like I said, sentimentality for it.
I suppose it's still it's still my favorite.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
I suppose. Yeah, No, I totally get that. I remember. Uh.
I think most of my Ohio guests, I don't know
how many there's been, but at least like three or
four have pretty much the same answer for the same reason.
I grew up in a state that especially like when
you leave Ohio and you go to states that don't
have like that cool shaped flag, you gain like even

(09:31):
more appreciation for it.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
I think sure.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
My dad, being from Ohio, we used to take trips
up there twice a year, once in the summer, once
for Thanksgiving, and I'd see a ton of them up there.
Obviously I was more tied to the Tennessee flag, but
I was like, damn, thad ain't a cool flag too?
Like I do love the the Burgee as it were.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Oh I mispronounced that earlier. My mistake, Well I do.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
I don't know. I honestly, that's one of the ones
that I've seen written more than like you might be
right sure anyway, all right, cool so I'm assuming that
in some sense of the words, you have an underrated
flag and an overrated flag. Sure, sure, honestly whatever fits

(10:15):
the weird narrative that you're probably gonna try and weave.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
All right, overrated flag Cooper Flag. I know the Hawks
are probably going to be taking him first overall tonight
in the draft, but I do think that Ace Bailey
and Dylan Harper both are gonna have better careers. I
think people are sleeping on these wreckers guards. I know
Duke's a bit more blue blood, but I think Cooper

(10:40):
Flag is severely overrated. That's that's my overrated flag for today,
and it's topical. I don't know. But the draft is tonight,
so oh yeah, this.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Is coming out like I'm gonna shoot for a quick
turnaround on this one. So not too much after that.
That is about the answer I expected somehow. I expected
I would know at least a single thing about what
you're talking about, and I guess I do. And it's sports,
but I don't even know what sport we're talking.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
About right that it's basketball. He's he's a college basketball player.
The ended a few days. Oh, I should have the
draft is tonight, I should have known what.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
You're saying, dude, blue blah, yeah, all that stuff. I
should I should have should have known that. It's not
like anybody's excited for duke football players or anything. So
all right, so that is your that's your overrated flag. Yes,
all right, we'll see how that shakes out for him.
Do you have any semblance of an underrated flag?

Speaker 3 (11:43):
I do. You may have to look this one up
how in production it is. But the bugish flag, that's
b O O g M. I s h W Are
you about to give me a real answer or am
I about to find out it's a half real answer.
Some good friends of mine, Eric and Heather, Uh, they

(12:04):
fly a Bugnish flag off the front of their house.
And I always love when I round the corner and
I see it, I know I'm gonna have a great evening.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
And I I think they deserve more appreciation than they get.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
That is that's also the it's the symbol for the
band Wien, the bug Nish, that is, the the demon
god that looks over them, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
So it's a cool little little logo that they have
flying on a flag in front of their house. And uh,
you know, I just wanted to show some appreciation for them,
and uh, and I do love the band Wien as well,
so you know it's a two fer. That's it needs
more appreciation. The bugnish flags lies on my friend's house.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Absolutely, and you got to get your friends to listen
to this too, then I will see, you know, kinda
kind of pump those numbers. You got to get the
band Wien to listen to this as well. You got
some homework, man.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
All right, Nah, that's gonna be tougher for sure.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I have not Uh. I never really got into Weed.
I never really like didn't, but I just never heard
much of them. I have seen this logo plenty. Uh,
But I'm gonna I'm gonna put you through what I
put in most guests through, which is explain this flag
visually for the listeners. Now you basically did, but explain

(13:24):
the logo that's at the middle of it if you will.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
It's a smiley face with some jagged you know, either
spiky hair or I don't know the exact etymology of it.
I do believe it was just a drawing that they
liked to do when they were younger. The people that
started Weed and they made up a backstory about it,
or perhaps it's true and there is a demon god

(13:47):
that looks like that that I have not personally seen.
But it's it's a it's a goofy, punk, rocky looking
smiley face. Maybe those are sunbeams. I don't know exactly
what the spikiness around the the upper half of it is,
but it's a I should be looking at it right now.
I could describe it better than trying to do it
for memory. But it's a it's a goofy smiley face

(14:08):
that Ween uses on an awful lot of their their
you know, their their own promotional stuff that I've seen
you for a long time.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, fair enough, did that help, listener? You can once
you pope holl over, once you're safely parked, maybe even
at a red light. Well no, don't look up b
O O G N I S H and you'll get it.
You'll find it or just Ween logo although yeah, same
character space though anyway, it's perhaps, Yeah, you're lucky I

(14:41):
didn't make you just like physically describe the overrated on
Like all right, man, physical white guy.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
I don't know actually how tall he is, but he's
very tall, and people think he's good at basketball, and
they're probably right. I don't watch much college basketball. I
just needed to have an overrated flag, and that's exactly
the first one that I thought of on the news today.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
And it's not going to be either proven right or
wrong until the season actually starts. So you know this
is just the draft send that man.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Of the G League? Oh sorry, right?

Speaker 2 (15:17):
All right? Man? So that was your favorite orated underrated? All,
as we mentioned, a little non traditional.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Topically, all very topical, well relevant for today, All very.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Topical and relevant today for today. Speaking of I always
ask my guests, for the those that have not been one,
basically what flags they would like for me to put
up in my background. So when I asked Nick, he
told me these three Uganda, the UN. Well, he told
me a couple that I didn't have, but I think
we landed on the best three regardless, Uganda, the UN

(15:52):
and we've got New York City the small version right
up here. Yeah, so did you want to go over
why you requested those?

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Well? Again, topical for today and hopefully this is out
soon enough that it still is. I should be specifically
New York City and the Uganda flag is a reference
to Zoron Mamdani winning the mayor mayoral primary for the
Democratic Party in New York City last night. He was

(16:22):
born in Uganda, I believe, moved here at seven or
eight years old. I believe, yeah, thirty three now, I think,
and maybe the next mayor of New York City, a
city that has just slightly under the population of the
entire state of Ohio. I don't know, if there's fewer
people in Tennessee. There might be more people in New
York City than the entire state of Tennessee for all.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Like I think so because you have more electoral votes
than we do. So yeah, you and Ohio.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
But he seems like a cool guy and I was
happy to see him beat Andrew Cuomo specifically. There were
a lot of candidates that was that was a my
least favorite of them. Regardless, I thought it would be
uh fitting to put the flag of of where mister

(17:15):
Mumdani was born. And then also you know where he
resides now and maybe leading soon. Uh best of luck
to him. He seems like he's got, in my opinion,
some some fun ideas that I hope are able to
be implemented and see if they you know, help the
people there and if and if that works, you know,
the grand experiment of America style that other cities and states,

(17:40):
uh you know, maybe also consider similar policies to help
their people.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah. Yeah, I think I can't speak for all the
listeners and viewers, but can speak for myself and I
agree with that wholeheartedly.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
Uh we hear it.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Flag for content, echo that sentiment a right, So so
also the U in one.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yes, I did also recommend that just because again topical,
there is a meeting of the NATO member nations. Oh,
I did say NATO, that is U.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
N You did say NATO, And I do not have
the NATO flag.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Well, you know, I've recognized it. No, I regret I should.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Have recognized it. I don't have the NATO flag. So
in my head, I was like, get that cut it
out blue flag that's got that thing in the middle
that isn't a state flag.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
I I do, you know, Okay, hey, it's relevant to
New York. I suppose I also hope that the United
Nations is able to do good for the world.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
That's you know, obviously their mandate what they're trying to do,
and it's not always easy. I I don't want to
get too politically on your.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Show, but we don't have to. But but is there
a specific reason you wanted the NATO one.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
There's a meeting of the NATO member nations right now
in the news. You know it's today, I believe is
that the the meeting? You know that?

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah? We are recording this on June twenty fifth, so yep,
uh yeah, yeah, some important stuff going on at NATO,
which is definitely the flag I have in my background
right now right for the listeners, uh.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
And for the viewer to Andy's and switched it.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, it's just a short jaunt.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
All right, Nick, Well, this chaotic part one needs to
be put down, I think, okay, and give birth to
an even better part two. Uh. When we do get
back from this ad break, Nick and I are going
to be talking about Manned Mission, which a lot of
you will have seen or heard anyway rather on our feed. Yeah,

(19:56):
that's an exciting new podcast that he's been writing that
I'm unquote co starring in. Anyway. We'll get to all
that on the other side of this break. Stay tuned.
We'll see in a second. All right, and we are

(20:21):
back with Part two. More with Nick Page, and as
people probably picked up from the intro, we're gonna be
getting into some weird flag proposals for Mars. And I
did promise to explain why. What I didn't tell them
is I was gonna basically have you explain why. But

(20:42):
so I will give the brief rundown. But Nick has
written produced a brand new scripted show, limited series. You
can explain it better as soon as I start letting
you talk again called Demanned Mission that is co starring
myself and our friend Devin and and your voice, your
friend's voice. Anyway, tell us a little bit about what

(21:06):
is manned Mission the podcast.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Sure, well, I hate to correct you right off the jump,
but it is pronounced that's right. I'm sorry about that.
I had to play with my little pedals, so man Mission.
I could probably talk about this too much because it
has been in my brain for at least fifteen years
at this point. My very good friend since high school,

(21:32):
Zach Holloway, and I originally co wrote it as a
cartoon series, and we even tried to film in a basement,
some of us acting it out. We were planning to
rotoscope it. We thought that would be the easiest way
and it turns out it's so much work to try
to make a cartoon, which is one or two people.

(21:54):
I don't know how Matt Parker and Trey Stone ever
did it, but they did obviously as a South Park
laver in chef Ade all right. Anyway, So we did
try to make it as a cartoon, you know, back
in like two thousand and six or something, right, and
it didn't work.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Oh yeah, I'm thinking like, all right, two thousand and
six is telling me like flash animation type or well
you can well you did say rotoscoping, so a little
bit I.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Did pour when I realized the cartoon was out of
my scope, and I tried to turn it into a
video game because I loved point and click adventure games,
and I thought, you know, in a cartoon, if there's
just you know, two minutes of people walking down a
halloway talking, you gotta animate that pretty well or people
will hate it. But if it was a video game,

(22:43):
it could be a looped animation and people will kind
of forgive it a little bit. And even that was
still too much visual art, and the scope was too
big to try to do it as a video game.
And back around early twenty twenty I realized that I
am reasonably proficient with with audio, and maybe it could

(23:06):
be done as a podcast rather than a cartoon show
or a video game.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
And so Nick is very proficient at audio. And then
so so anyway, Zach and I asked for it. I
asked for it.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
Zach and I got together and we started to, you know,
go through our old scripts that were very old at
that point, and it would be to reconsider how the show.
You know, there were a lot of visual gags. As
a cartoon, that's half the point. So we had to
kind of rethink not just the style of the show,

(23:46):
but the general scope of it. You know, times had changed.
There's some stuff that I thought we were brilliant about,
you know, almost twenty years ago when we were originally
brainstorming and writing this. Such that if you've listened to
the pilot episode, it's not a governmental space mission that

(24:06):
I should just actually first, this is a podcast that
is a fictional narrative about two people on the first
manned spaceflight to Mars. And while they are on that
mission to Mars, they are making a podcast to beam
back to Earth about the mission. Yes, sensibly to support

(24:27):
and fundraise for the mission. But back to what I
was saying, it's not a government that's running the mission.
It's a billionaire who has his own space program.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
I can't And where'd you get that idea?

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Well, that was just something that we thought was very
funny to consider twenty years ago. And now it's just unfortunately,
how all of our space stuff is I guess between
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and what doesn't Richard Grandson
have a space program to Probably it's just it seems

(25:03):
like verticalactic I think virgin Yeah, and there's probably more
than I'm forgetting about. And I don't like it. I
don't I don't want.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Again not to get political. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
I do want to just slightly get political.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Now this is the place for it.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
NASA was one of the like few things during tougher
times in this particular country that I could still feel
patriotic about. And it seems like we as a country
have decided to commercialize an outsource what NASA has historically done.
And I don't like it. So in our fiction from

(25:43):
forever ago and and and it lasted until the current day,
it's just not it's not funny anymore. It's just reflective
of what's that We imagined that it was an Amazon
type company, it wasn't. You know, we named the character
Bill because they're a billionaire and we're not very creative,
but act that's not true. We have a lot of
naming characters in ways that are supposed to indicate their

(26:06):
personalities or place in the story. But there's a word
for when you do that, and I am not smart.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Enough to nominative determinism.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Probably that might be related. But yeah, so you know,
as we were going back and rehashing this, there was stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
That we we we kind of just had to keep
and it's like, well, this isn't really a joke anymore,
but at least we can try to make jokes out
of how it's reality now. But that's still messed up.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
So so, the general like narrative of it is, there
are two pilots that are flying on a manned mission.
As the title tells you to mars create. One of
them at a certain point decides I want to create
a podcast out of all of this. The other one
kind of like reluctantly goes along. At least that's like

(27:00):
where we are as of now.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Well, I maybe could have explained it in the beginning
of the script a little bit. It's more that the
commander of the mission, who's in charge, already knows that
they're making a podcast, and the ship it's actually doing
it automatically, like they don't have a choice in the matter.
The subordinate, who's you know, the only other person but
on the ship they're not in charge, played excellently by

(27:26):
Andy here. They are unhappy to be surprised right before
liftoff with the information that hey, we're actually making a podcast,
and like, every single part of your existence on this
spaceship for the next however long this will take, probably years,
is being recorded. So yeah, yeah, and I think but

(27:50):
in the fiction, the ship's computer is what's capturing everything
and essentially like AI editing it together to send back, right,
and what did your money on the ship, that's that's
sitting down and deciding what's going to be on the
show and not it's it's all out of their hands
and against their will. The captain's very excited about it,
the commander, I should say, and the subordinate is less excited.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yes, and I think I did a great job of
portraying how unexcited my character was.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Absolutely, You and Devin were both fantastic, as was as
was as our friends Adam and Pete, who also let
their voices to that pilot episode. And assuming that we
make anymore, well, we'll for sure be back for more.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, and we will, because I'll make sure that we do,
because I want to, because there's a couple of parts
I was unhappy with and I just want to do
better in episode two. You know, Okay, okay, so assume me.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
You can cut this out if you'd like. But did
you read the script I sent you of episode two? No?

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Not yet.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
That's fine. That's fine. So the show as a podcast
is it was planned as six episodes. I have a
story arc and an outline a limited series. Yeah, most
of the scripts were written and finished, and at a

(29:13):
certain point I realized, much like the cartoon or the
video game, that it is not just a lot of work,
more manageable work that I can do, but it required
more help from other people as well, and more commitment
from other people. Whereas you know, if I was making
a cartoon, I could have you know, tried to mel
blank and throw my voice into every character and done

(29:34):
it all myself, assuming as I would draw everything. I
just couldn't draw. But I really that was the biggest
hindrance in making the podcast for me, was like, I
need to get like six other people on board that
are willing to put in a lot of work without.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
It's always easy. It's like how how easy it is
to schedule like a D and D game or something
like that, you know, just easy shit like this. I
need to get more people on board, make get like,
I don't know, more human overhead here basically, and uh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
It's tough, and you know, I feel guilty that I
can't exactly compensate anybody for all of the work that
they are doing, which is why at this point more
or less there hasn't been another episode made. I'm not
opposed to it. There are scripts ready to go. Uh,
it's just that I don't know the There's a plot

(30:32):
point in the very first episode where during a making
a theme song for the show, they say repeatedly, we'll
do more if we can figure out a way to
get paid. And I'm not saying the show won't ever
get finished unless people give me a bunch of money,
but it is very difficult to commit not just a

(30:55):
lot of my time, but a lot of other people's time. Yeah,
it is something that maybe there's there's no audience for.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, this is the part of the the YouTube where
I put your cash app, your venmo, all that stuff
up at the bottom.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
I don't have any of those. You have to go
slide cash into my mailbox. It's true.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
It's true, folks. First, and whatever, if episode he was on,
I drove all the way up to Columbus, I could
have done it in one trip. I didn't know I
was going to have him on like three episodes later.
How to do it again sucked? Columbus is uh No.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
I do hope that we that we make more just
a peek behind the curtain. Perhaps. I put it up
on YouTube the first episode. I figured, rather than trying to,
you know, make and manage an RSS feed and all
of the different things that go along with that, that
I would put it on my own personal YouTube channel.
I considered making one specifically for the show, but it's

(31:54):
on my own personal YouTube channel, and after the first
twenty four hours of it being up, I do believe
it had eight views for a total of fourteen minutes.
And it is a twenty eight minute long episode. So
I was like, oh, everybody that checked it out made
it about two minutes in, and you know, that doesn't
really make me feel like anybody wants me to make

(32:16):
a second episode.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Trust me, as someone who looks at those numbers a lot,
they they lie to you if.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
That's too personal or too depressing.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
I mean, you're the one that said it. You must
be comfortable with it being on air, and I totally
I am.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
I will say like, I'm very proud of how it
turned out.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Sure. First off, yes. Secondly, as you know, and as
I mentioned, I did put it in the audio feed
for this show, and it got a I couldn't tell
you an exact number, although I did. I do think
I sent you some like screenshots. It got a lot
of listens, and honestly, that's that's true of the show,

(33:00):
like my show in general. The numbers that you can
see on YouTube, I'm not gonna say in every case,
but usually you can probably like double them for the
audio yours. You can more than double that eight. It
was a lot more than sixteen. But it actually, like
I don't know, like it was. I think I had

(33:23):
released an episode the week before that then that one,
and then one not too too long after the one
with Carlos, and like it's been on a like good
like not even a plateau and an upward moving than
yours was in the middle of Urmand mission was in
the middle of that. So yeah, I you know, I'm
definitely down to record a second episode. I will try

(33:45):
and hopefully we don't have to sing again. Nope, Nope,
that's all done because oh Lord knows, I'm not a singer. Actually,
I might need you to do it one more time,
but that's okay, Okay, that's all right. I know, create
it up. But I was gonna say the audience knows
that I'm not a singer, which is why I have
handily replaced the intro to this episode with Nix. So, uh,

(34:10):
you know, you're welcome everyone, But all right, Nick, So
I think kind of off of that, let's we can
touch on some more manned mission stuff later. Sure, but
we wanted to get into some fictional well I guess
they're all fictional, some proposed flags of Mars today, and

(34:31):
to that end, we both looked up a few. There's
a surprisingly robust list of them on the Vexillology wiki
and I think the let's see, I think the first
one I was going to go over, if you don't
mind me starting, please, is this flag of Mars that

(34:53):
was proposed by Thomas O. Paine. And that's not oh apostrophe,
that is, oh, just to distinguish him from the one
we all know and have strong feelings for anyway. So yeah,
so Thomas Opaine's design. Are you looking at it? Or
do you know which one I'm talking about on your screen?

Speaker 3 (35:14):
I do?

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yes, yeah, the mostly yellow field, yeah, yeah, Actually I'll
describe this to the listeners. It is a mostly yellow
field bottom left, so like hoist side bottom it has
a blue I guess, yeah, a quarter of a circle
with a white fimbriation, which doesn't do much to help
it on the yellow, but whatever at the very middle

(35:37):
is more or less a red circle, although the top
and bottom have kind of like a little like lemon
slice out of them that's white, and a little arrow
that's going diagonally up toward the fly side that's pointing
at a white star. Again on that yellow background, not
doing itself many favors. I'll start with my thoughts on

(36:00):
this one. It's it's fucking weird it's plunky. It the
description the you know, the words that are next to
it describe accurately what they were going for. But I
don't think the image does this to me, doesn't really

(36:21):
say anything other than the middle part looks like it
looks like a kid's like project or something like a
school project. The middle looks a little bit like an
apple for teacher, with like maybe a bite taken off
on the on the top and sides, and like the
blue thing and the stars seem like afterthoughts it's supposed

(36:42):
to I'll just give the very briefly. The description of
what it's supposed to represent is there's Earth, that blue
orb down at the bottom on hoyside, then Mars. Then
the arrow off of Mars points towards the stars. And
also the Mars sign is the one you're thinking of

(37:03):
as the sign for like the male sign. The circle
and the arrow going up like diagonally to the viewer's
top right a.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Relative to it's a very small arrow relative on this
particular that.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Too, it's it's unsatisfying as a flag or just a
fucking image.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
I like the idea. I also, you know, it's supposed
to be Mars in the center of the red circle,
and I like the idea of you know, are those
supposed to be frozen water at the top and the bottom?
Is that supposed to be like a polar cat?

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Oh? It probably is? Which it probably is. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
I'm not sure if if any water has been discovered
on Mars, and I haven't looked at a picture lately
to see if they if they have a white top
and bottom. I got to get my telescope out, which
I thought was in this room, but it's in my
basement now. Actually, uh no, we got time.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
We'll take you. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
I I like what this flag is trying to represent. Yeah,
but it does confuse me because when I first looked
at it without reading a description, I very clearly thought
that's supposed to be Earth and our atmosphere, the blue,
you know, quarter of a circle, a little white around it,
and obviously Mars. I did not get the Mars symbol

(38:20):
with the arrow, and my thought process was actually that
that star was supposed to represent our sun. The description
I'm reading is it says it's supposed to represent that
Mars is not our destination. It's a waypoint on our way.
Further out into the stars, which is a good concept,
but I kept thinking about in this I don't believe
was ever a flag as a space nerd. I don't

(38:43):
know if you could have guessed that from me writing
three different versions of a single show about space. But
now I was reminded a lot of the Carl Sagan
diagram that's on the voyager probes. Are you familiar with
those at all?

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Oh? Lord, yes, but I'm gonna need a visual reminder.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
It's a I actually have it on a shirt. I
don't know if there's anybody that makes it on a flag,
but it's a it's a a rough, uh drawing of
a nude man and a woman that you know, shows
what we look like, as well as a diagram of
I believe, all of the like pulsars that are within

(39:23):
the Milky Way, so that from an outside observer you
could pinpoint amongst those clusters of of blinking stars as
they or each other, regardless where Earth is. It was
a it's a it was a representation, and there's also
a drawing of the probe itself that is relative to

(39:44):
the size of the humans. I believe, Uh. It was
intended to be a message too, you know, any a
picture message that did not use words or language to
convey like if if, if any intelligent life finds this probe.
Here's a picture of the probe next to you know,

(40:05):
a to scale what the people that sent it out
looked like, and then where in the local part of
the universe it originated from. And I think it's a
really cool Uh, it's a really cool image that conveys
a lot of information without using any Flags aren't supposed
to have any words on them, and they're supposed to

(40:26):
convey a lot of information too. Uh this, huh, maybe
would not make a good flag, but it is a
cool image that I've I've enjoyed for I suppose all
of my life that I've been aware of its existence.
The voyager probes were launched before I was born, I believe.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Uh. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
And this yeah, this this this flag of Mars by
Thomas o'paine, third Administrator of NASA. I do believe it says, uh.
It reminds me a lot of trying to convey some
information about the actual people that created it, more than
the thing itself. I don't think this represents more obviously,

(41:06):
it represents humanity on Earth. And our ambitions. Uh yeah,
that was reminded me of that a lot.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Not have put that in a better way you Yeah,
damn yeah, enough said also, yeah, I have been looking
at that, Carl say, since you've brought up Sagan and
the image of I.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
Think there's more on it.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
I think perhaps, well, there's whatever it's like shows like
a little bit of a diagram where like where the
third dot and that's where this thing comes from.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
I have the planets and the sun, and there's.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
The Golden Record with it too, that like actually is
presumably playable, right, But I think it's like it's like
got the sounds of like all or not all, but
like a lot of wildlife or like people talking, or.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
I have a copy of it on my vinyl shelf.
There's a lot of stuff it does. It includes greetings
from like every spoken language on earth that like they
were able to collect all over the world, people you know,
more or less saying hello and hope you're well and
such in their native tongues. And yes, sounds of different

(42:18):
animals in wildlife. But I believe also weather it was,
and I do believe also some songs and other I
think you can also decode different visual artworks off of
it based on it's it's a really cool stairway on there.
I don't know for a fact, but I bet it. No,

(42:40):
I don't think it is, but I think it's. Yeah.
The the Golden record that was on the Voyager probes
is a really cool artifact.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
That is.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
I go in.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
I don't go and look it up before Nick talks
for ten more minutes about it. No, love you, is
there which one would you like to go over next?
I picked that one I think as a good starting point,
but you've got the same ones as me.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
I will go ahead and jump down because it's the
only one that I think I have anything halfway coherent
to say about it. To the International Flag of mars
By Hey, Mario Mimoso.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yes, and we have that. Yeah, I sent you the Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
I do not know anything about this. I've only looked
at the image and then the accreditation to the person
that created it. But it is an orange field with
a number of different circles intersecting with each other and
overlapping each other. I don't know what they represent, but

(43:46):
I will say it reminds me a lot of the
I think it's the called the International flag of Earth
that was proposed and I and I have bought from
flags for They stock that as well, and reminded me
a lot of a Mars colored version of that. The

(44:07):
Earth one is blue, this one is orange. I don't
know if they have the same author, maybe Mario Mao
Moss were created both. It reminded me a lot of
that good of that international flag of Earth, which was
blue with different circles representing each continent.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
I believe, yes, okay, that's what I was trying to
trying to pull up here. I do think it's funny,
like if you go to the like the website for
Flagoplanet Earth dot com, which is their like official website
for the one that's related to this, it uses and
I don't know how stock of an image this is,
but the same exact image of like the female black

(44:46):
astronaut holding the helmet with the like arm patch over here,
the exact same image as the one that they've got
on the international flag of Mars one, which makes sense
because like, if it's an image, people know enough sure
just like swap like this onto there and see how
see how it works. Trying to remember I know, okay, yeah, man,

(45:09):
the thing by flags for good is like the third
thing down on the flag of planet earth dot com website.
But I could not I can't remember what you said
seven continents, but I'm trying to remember what the ones
for Mars could be, because obviously they don't have continents.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
I've counted. It's it's eight smaller circles that are slightly
interlinked in their own larger circle. It's not quite Olympic
rings style of the layout. They are. You making a
complete circle, and then there is a larger circle that's
more or less going through the center of each of
the eight circles, and a smaller circle that is connected

(45:51):
to the other eight at their extreme end in the
middle of the larger one. It does look like a
bit of a drawing of a flag of some kind,
perhaps almost Yeah, don't okay any of it represents, but
it reminds me a lot of the flag of Earth.
So I picked that one when you asked me which
one to talk about.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
No, yeah, I did want to talk make sure and
touch on this one for sure. The uh like can
you see the three images below, the like main flag
image on that behinds dot net, the Mars one where
it's got like the up I was gonna say. The
only thing I can think of that it means is

(46:35):
not like ten of anything necessarily other than it does
mimic the kind of like pod layout that they have
as an image underneath that, where there's like a central
pod that I imagine, I don't know, houses most of
the life support and X, Y and Z, and then
like these like other ones out there that probably are

(46:56):
for like some kind of farming or research purposes or
I'm talking cletely out of my ass right now, but
it does look like how they are, at least in
this author's mind. Planning on setting up a Martian colony.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Could very much look like a spaceship from the top
with all of its engines boosters, or yeah, a colony
of space pods that are interconnected to make a community.
I like both of those ideas. I do see on
this website now that I have it open, that it
does say in this can correct something that I said earlier.
The flag has been designed in the style of Oscar
Pernophelt's proposal for the international flag of planet Earth. So

(47:33):
I was right, it was very similar, but it was
not the same person who made it. I said. I
didn't know if it was. It's not shout out to
Oscar Pernafelt Oh.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Yeah, in the style of but yeah, I mean, I
don't know. Out of the two, this one's definitely better
than the one I described. All right, I'm going to
go to let's see, let's do one more, and then
got a commercial break. I think, okay, let's go ahead

(48:04):
and do the Pascal Lee one. I'm sure you have
that up on at least a screen of yours or
somewhere on there. But for listeners, it is the one
that actually the colors have been revised to be a
little bit lighter, but it is broadly speaking, on the
hoyside it's kind of like a dark red, think of

(48:25):
Martian Earth or Martian ground. I yes, right, and then
in the middle it is a dark green. On the
fly side it is a dark blue, and so it's
a tricolor like looks you know, it could be uh yeah,
like if the green were white. Well that's a lot

(48:46):
of work, but you know, it's a tricolor red, green, blue,
and it's supposed to represent terraforming Mars. So it goes
from Martian red to green to blue as in you know,
plant and water life, I guess, yeah, represent the transformation
of Mars from a lifeless planet's one teeming with life,

(49:07):
as inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy of novels.
I did not know was inspired by novels somehow. But
what I mean, there's not a whole lot of other
design notes to go into. That's pretty much it. Uh,
it makes me think.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
It makes me think of pixels as also a computer nerd,
just because you know the coloring and the way that
if you zoom in really close on a screen, it's
actually you know, very very small red, green and blue
lights that are shining at different intensities to make what

(49:48):
you see as the image on your computer or television screen.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, now that you mentioned it, it's kind of all
I can see.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
I've got the Radiohead song videotape stuck in my head now,
which is also not about the Martian flag but about
the you know, watching something in red blue green, red
blue green. Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
So this one's done you a solid.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Yeah. Yeah, it's unremarkable, but it does elicit feelings in
me in the same well, it's not unremarkable. I apologize,
Pascal Lei. That was flippant of me to say, I
I really enjoyed learning just now that it is the
process of fairforming that makes complete sense. Yeah, I'm here

(50:34):
for it. I was gonna guess that that kind of
not exactly red, not exactly orange on the fly side,
I get that right. No, the hoys side was to
represent Mars, but I was not positive what the rest
was supposed to be for. But it makes complete sense
now that you've explained it.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's who still not particularly inspiring it And
now that I think of that and am reading.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Okay, so that's the colors one twice and also put
a cool bird in the middle of them, like, oh yeah,
flag could have I could see that.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
I can see that. Why don't know, that's going to
be a really really stretch of a pun that I
was about to make. So I'm not going to do that,
but I will say the ones that I've brought up.
Uh that Thomas Opaine one in this Pascal Lee one
both designed. So Thomas o'paine, third admin of NASA nineteen

(51:33):
eighty four, Pascal Lee a former NASA research engineer. Okay,
so you know, yeah, well yes, but the listeners can
a lot of the listeners are noting right now that Okay,
neither of these guys was anywhere near graphic design or
heraldry or uh you know, anything that really goes into

(51:53):
informing good flag design typically. Uh you know, this is
kind of like a Tampa, Florida's flag was made by
an accountant and you're like, okay, yeah, I can tell
that like some guy that deals with spreadsheets made this totally.
Totally these look like some engineer or you know, an

(52:15):
admin or something made them. Anyway, we have a couple
more flags to get into. We've got a little bit
more after that and a surprise news segment, So come
back after the break and yeah, Nick doesn't even know
what it is, honestly, come back after the break and
check all that out. We will see you that all right,

(52:49):
Beck said, thanks for sticking around. We are back with
part three. There's one more flag I wanted to go over.
Thank you, Nick. There's a proposal blike Calder Calder Hanson
and I don't know if you have this up on
your screen. It's one of the ones I sent you
in discord, but it's it's called the new and Unofficial

(53:12):
in parentheses Flag of Mars and I'll just really quick
describe this one. Basically, it is a white field with
a orangish red chevron facing upwards. Think of Glamorgan and Wales,
but there's only one of them, Think of a lot
of I don't know this. This does remind me of

(53:33):
some kind of like English Welsh heraldry, and I'm sure
it does you too, Nick, I can see that. Yeah, yeah,
but it's not a bad design. I don't hate it
as a design. I don't know if it quite fits Mars.
But I'll read a few kind of quick blurbs from
their site, which for the viewers listeners is Flagofmars dot com.

(53:55):
Simple as that they got to that domain and they
are sitting on it. So, oh, why does Mars need
a flag? There are many plans to colonize Mars soon,
possibly within the next decade. If there is a colony,
it'll need a flag, and even if there isn't, a
flag will be important as a way to represent the
exploration and or colonization of Mars. So what does it represent?

(54:16):
I already went into the design the what they're calling
the red kind of red orange. But yeah, rusty, I
guess color, Yeah, yeah, represents well won the color of
Martian soil, So whatever color you were picturing, just picture
that and the bravery of humanity and going to Mars. Okay,

(54:38):
sure on that one. The white represents the ice caps
of Mars, an important source of water for future human
it says, I guess Matt Damon just the one, and
our peaceful intentions for the exploration of Mars. Not really
sure who we would declare war on. Yeah, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
I gave the the collar pool of confusion because I
was like, even if there's nobody there, I'm not sure
us going is gonna be peaceful.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
Than that too. If there's nobody to declare war on,
we will find a way, damn it. Yeah. And then
the chevron shape represents the mountains of Mars, especially Olympus Malins,
the tallest mountain in the Solar System. Case you didn't know.
And the upward pointing arrow symbolizing humanity's journey into space.
Now that makes sense to me. Oh, I can appreciate

(55:30):
a good aspect ratio. I love this. Yeah. The aspect
ratio hype to width of the flag seventeen to thirty
two width is almost exactly the ratio of an Earth
year to a Mars year. That is cool.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
That is freaky cool for sure.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Yeah, that's literally like my personal flag we deal or
it's less the aspect ratio than the proportions of colors.
But I do love like a kind of almost hidden
little math thing like that.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Love. I love math. I do love that. I do
think much like the water for future human that this
is a typo slightly I think could be the ratio
of an Earth year two a Mars year would not
be seventeen to thirty two. It would be thirty two
to seventeen, would it not. We are closer to the
Sun and therefore we orbit it more times each time

(56:26):
we go around. Takes Mars longer to go around.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Let me ask my very eager mother. It just served
us nine. Nothing's anymore, say, And I think the.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Orbital period of Mercury is like eighty eight days or something,
and it's three hundred and sixty five and a quarter
give or take for Earth. I don't know the number
for Mars, but it's not It doesn't go around the
Sun faster than the Earth, so it would be seventeen.
It says, the ratio of years on Earth to the
ratio of years on Mars, and I think they just

(56:59):
got the numbers awards. I'm pretty sure it takes thirty
two Earth years to equal seventeen Mars orbits, if that
makes sense.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Again, I could be wrong. That does make sense, but
I was kind of against you until you explained it
at the very last and I was like, oh, yeah,
it does take seventeen of those to make their Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Right, it does say height colon with seventeen colon thirty two,
and that's right. It is seventeen units tall for every
thirty two units wide. So then when it also says
it's the ratio of Earth years to Mars years, I
think that they actually just swap those two. Yeah, I
think it's Mars years to Earth years.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Well yeah, I mean who cares, well, yes, who cares.
Half the people pronounce it as heighth anyway, So uh no,
but I do. I do. I think we both do
appreciate the detail.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
They won't see us swaving from such great Mars.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
We can't go back into that. That was over the
commercial break. Damn, I should just like, we don't have
to go into a bonus episode. I'll just release what
we said to Sorry, No, you're right, I won't release
any of this u the site the same thing, Like

(58:15):
right under that, it does go down to say why
use this flag instead of another that already exists? And
then it has that one designed by Pascal Lieu, which,
as a reminder, is that like rusty red orange than
the green, than the blue. It is using his older
variation with the more dulled colors, which he has since updated.
But point taken says, there's four main reasons that the

(58:39):
new one is better than that one one. It stands
out from other flags. I'll give him that, Like, what
do you think on that one? Like the Pascal Lee's
one is a tricolor, it's a bit different than most
Earth tricolors, and well, actually, you know what, the more
I think about it, I've got an opinion on this.

(59:00):
I don't know that a tricolor is that much different
than a chevron as far as things that are recognizable
from Earth from Earth like flags and heraldry.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
I completely agree.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Now the more than I think about it, this.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
Doesn't feel all that different than the Nordic cross as
we went over in episode one, to be honest, like
especially the ones that were just two color like iterations. Yeah, yeah,
I know the shape of the line is different, but
it's I would say that they're both equally in terms
of their design normal.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
I think so too. Like I guess the point that
they're trying to make is that the try band. More
national flags have a try band, but that chevron is
not unknown to like European flags of like subdivisions and
sure heraldry and things. It's not you know, it strikes
me as.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
More marshal than Martian. I picture that there we go, Yeah,
I picture that, you know, on the uniform of somebody
in the military. I don't. That doesn't strike me as
as alien or other worldly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
No, no me, neither me neither. We'll go to the
second point. The color values provide contrast. Now, I will
absolutely give them this one. And just to sum up
it says common design principles to use both light and
dark colors rather than only light or only dark, principles
supported by NAVA, which says contrast is important, use light

(01:00:27):
colors on dark and vice versa, and then says Lee's
flag only uses dark colors of a similar value, not
providing much contrast. The new flag us a dark color
red on a light color white, resulting in a contrast
that enlivens it and draws one's eye. Yeah, that's true,
I will say, like, to Lee's credit, he has sense
lightened those colors, like you can even just check the Wikipedia.

(01:00:50):
Seems like they might be nitpicking with the old one here,
but I don't love the new one either, so or
the new Lee one. I mean, what do you think
as far as on that point. I think they're right
on that point. I'll give it to him.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
I can't aside from saying it doesn't seem unfamiliar to me,
I still kind of harken back to the pascal Leaflag
reminds me a bit of like the subpixels on a
display of a television.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
It's hard to get past.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
It's it strikes me if anybody's ever seen, you know,
under a microscope, what it is that makes your phone
look like the way it does.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
It's oh man, yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Red green blue, red green blue, record like just it's
just a bunch of strips of that next to each other.
It looks like that flag kind of like, yeah, I
think the order is slightly different.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
But when I was like, uh, yeah, we're you're maybe
a couple years older. But like growing up in the
early in the mid nineties, Like my parents told me
I would get blind if I sat too close to
the TV. So I was like all about testing that theory.
I be like, all right, let's find out. So I
got as close to it as possible. And yeah, the
little diodes do look or I don't even know if

(01:02:03):
they're called diodes back then or now, but looked about
like that. But that was back when I was having
to plug my Super Nintendo into the back with like
an RF adapter and then had to set it to
channel three and all that stuff. Like that's the age
of that TV.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
I searched for it, and this is you know, it's
it is red green blue, red green blue. I guess
it's flipped in this video right now, but uh, it's
it's only frame order that's fair, and the listeners can't
see what I just held up to the camera. But
it is the same order. It goes red green, blue,
red green, blue, red green, blue, just.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Very similar.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
So it is strikingly similar to Pascal Lee's flag.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Of Bars Scally's wager. Pascal Lee was wagering on this
flag and he fucked up all right. Three past represents.
This is one of my more unhinged episodes. And you
know what, I'm just gonna have this as a bonus.
Who knows. Point three it represents more. The new flag

(01:03:12):
represents multiple aspects of Mars itself and humanity's relationship with Mars.
And this actually goes really big to your point, not
really about Lee's flag, but about that first one that
we looked at from Thomas O Pain. Yeah, but it
represents multiple aspects of Mars itself and of humanity's relationship
with Mars. Lee's flag represents just one thing, the process

(01:03:35):
of terraforming Mars. I think a flag should ideally represent
multiple aspects of whatever it's for. I also think the
flag of Mars should at least in part represent Mars
and its natural state, rather than what humans want to
change change it into. And then in parentheses it does
say Pascal Lee might agree. I think as he says,
he is not actually a big plan a big fan

(01:03:56):
of terraforming.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
Yeah, although I would.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
This one seems almost a little self contradictory it okay, yeah, well, okay,
seeing it in its natural state rather than terraforming it.
I get that part. But if I'm comparing it to

(01:04:21):
the Thomas Opaine one, Thomas Paine's just this one, and
the Thomas Opaine one draw in what we well actually,
all three draw in human like Earthian plans for Mars.
And I don't know that this one transcends that. I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
I think you're right. I'm sorry I got hung up
on the joke I was trying to make my bad.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Oh I just missed it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Oh, I just said I think Thomas Paine's flag makes
common sense.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
All right, all right, I won't say I missed it then, okay, okay,
but no, I don't know it does. Still didn't he
say that the kind of upward chevron represents an upward
pointing arrow symbolizing humanity's journey into space. So he says

(01:05:11):
that in one sentence, and then later he's like, it
should just be about Mars and not like human designs
on what Mars should be. And I guess you can
straddle that line in that we just have designs into
space in that other sentence. But perhaps, I mean, I'm
not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I don't know

(01:05:33):
if it can check their losses.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
At the same time, as a as a lifelong fan
of space stuff, and also a person that does believe in,
you know, the conservation of the natural world as best
as we can. I like the sentiment of you know, representing,
as it says, Mars in its natural state rather than
what humans want to change it into. And coming back

(01:05:55):
to billionaires running our space programs now in to the governments,
it seems like the people that want to go to
Mars do really want to change it and monetize it
and do other disgusting things to a planet that as
of yet has not been ruined by humanity and our
worst vices the way that Earth has been for the

(01:06:20):
entirety of what the anthracn era.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Yeah literally word for yeah, yeah, the error error era
error both. Uh, we've done fucked up. We made people
all right, onto the next one. They're gonna, oh my god,
and like I swear to God, billions of years. They're

(01:06:45):
gonna have podcasts. It's gonna be just two beardy white
guys talking to each other about god knows what flags
or something. Probably yeah, let's let's let's start over.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
I like the sentiment of not ruining a second planet.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
To come back to that, absolutely, I do agree with
that and showing it and it's a natural state. Yeah,
I think it does a much better job of doing that.
I'll just touch on the fourth point here actually, and
then we'll go into the one after that. But its
meaning doesn't depend on the order of its parts. I
don't really even need to read all that one out.
But basically the other one was terraforming. So it's like,

(01:07:29):
you know, the burnt red orange to the green to
the blue. This one doesn't quite have that. I will say, no, okay. Actually,
when I was reading this earlier, they made an interesting
point that they again kind of rebut later. The meaning
of the flag comes from looking at the stripes from
left to right, going from red to green to blue.

(01:07:52):
If you speak a language that's written written from right
to left, such as Arabic or Hebrew, you'll read it
and the opposite order in the meaning will be a
revert Okay, no, In like the next sentence, almost exploring
Mars is an international endeavor, so everyone should be able
to understand the flag's meaning. Additionally, one often sees a
flag from behind, which would cause the same reversal of

(01:08:14):
meaning in Lee's flag, but would not cause a problem
with the new flag. Okay. Agreed on the it would
not cause a problem with the new flag because it's
the same probing back. But I would argue, if you
speak a language that goes right to left Hebrew Arabic,
plenty ah. And you know we're also talking about it

(01:08:34):
flying the opposite direction. Okay, that's the direction it makes
sense to you. Swivel it completely around. That's the way
it makes sense to people that do languages left right.
I don't know, like.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
You're saying that those people are backwards. I will not
agree with you. I'm sorry, No, you're canceled now.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
That's what they're saying. I mean that's what somebody else
is fair enough, fair enough, No, I just think it's
weird to be like, okay, so like if you speak
Hebrew Arabic, you're gonna misinterpret it unless it's flown backwards,
in which case everyone else is going to misinterpret it.
It's like, okay, well, what are we even doing with

(01:09:20):
tribands like at all? Then? Or tricolors like.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
I would like to argue as a sci fi nerd
that there are I would say, potentially valid theories that
Mars actually used to have an atmosphere and water and
perhaps even foliage vegetation.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Yeah, the ica, even life.

Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
I have no idea. So you know, hey, maybe it
was blue and green and over time became rust red.
It can work both ways. We want to, you know,
make it habitable again and it can be a history
of it it potentially used to be and now it's not.
I don't see a problem with that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. They brought language into it,
not you not me, right, Like, yeah, that could go
either way. Last point on this one, and it's it's
basically a point to call out other flags and not
really to bump their own up as much. But it

(01:10:25):
does say and when Nick and I were like kind
of researching this a little bit and looking through just
different Mars flags, it's as many other proposals for flags
of Mars focus on just one aspect of Mars, either
the fact that it's the fourth planet from the Sun
or that it has two moons. Again, I think the
author of this that the flag should represent more than that.
Other flags are based on the astronomical symbol from Mars,

(01:10:47):
which most viewers and listeners will know as the like
broadly male sign the circle with the arrow going up
to the viewer's upper right. This is unsad factory for
two reasons. First, the symbol doesn't relate to any feature
of Mars, the planet, or humanity's relationship with Mars. Instead,

(01:11:07):
it's based on the shield and spear of the Roman
god Mars. And second, this symbol is also used as
like I mentioned, the male symbol, which would lead to misinterpretation.
So yeah, Nick, and I like I sent over. We
sent a few flags back and forth, and a lot
of them had just this what we broadly interpret as
the male symbol on them, and I'm like, I can't

(01:11:28):
be that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
I agree, like, that's that's not that's not doing it
for me, because I mean, if for.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
No other reason, then it goes It goes to what
we've talked about a few times on this show, of
what you are trying to symbolize versus how everybody actually
reads it. And so you could argue all day like, no,
this is the symbol for Mars, and the one you
think is for women, that's the symbol for Venus mercury

(01:11:57):
as a third one, and they're all, you know, you
can argue that until you're blue in the face, but
like ninety plus percent of people are just gonna be like, oh,
it's a flag for guys.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
Yeah, exactly. I before we began recording, called it the
Austin Powers flag just because he wore a giant one
of those around his neck. Uh. And that's the first
thing that came to mind.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
No, honestly, oh man. Yeah. And it does tie into
like were they trying to know? Do they try to
go to them? I cannot remember the movies.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
I don't believe any of the Austin Powers movies were
about Mars.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
They were launching a non Jewish space laser. I do
remember that perhaps, but other than that, yeah, I guess
they didn't really attempt to go to Mars. Well weird anyway.
To close all of this out and for the viewers,
I'll have them all up on screen and the listeners
they're in the show notes of the flags that we've

(01:12:59):
talked about today, Nick, do you have a favorite, not
just design wise, but like a favorite to represent Mars.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
You're not gonna like this. I like the Thomas Opaine
I okay, even even Uh, this current flag of Mars
that we most recently discussed, the white with the chevron,
says that the white is to represent the was it
the more or less hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Holder, the ice craft and our peaceful intentions.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
Yeah, yeah, ice exactly, the ice.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
So I I speculated that that was what you said
looked like bites out of an apple or slices of
a lemon out of the top and the bottom of
the representation of Mars. And I, you know, I said,
I think that might be just supposed to be frozen water.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
And apparently that's also what this white partially is supposed
to represent on this current flag. I initially, when I
looked at that flag thought again that the star that
represents our ambition to go beyond Mars and further into space,
which I support. But I initially thought that's supposed to
be the Sun, and it should be on the other

(01:14:11):
side because it goes yeah, for you know, at least
from a heliocentric perspective, if you're into that sort of
thing where you think that the Earth orbits the Sun
and not the other way around. You know, it goes
the Sun and then the Earth and then Mars. And
I was like, well, you know, they should be on
the opposite sides if this, if Mars is in the middle,

(01:14:33):
Earth shouldn't be over here on the hoist side. And
the sunshine. It's not representing the sun, so I'm wrong
about that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
But I it's I'm not going to say it's I'm
not gonna say it's.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
I'm not going to say that it's the best design
or that it's the best representation, but it it was
the one that made me the happiest, the one that
made me think the most, the one that reminded me
the most of other space iconography that I I have
enjoyed throughout my life, as referenced with the diagram on
the Voyager probes, that's my personal favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, well, thank you for asking, Nick,
I think I think out of the ones we both
did and didn't get to, regardless of yeah, yeah, I
don't think there's one I like more that we didn't
get to. I'm gonna have to pick the Mario Mimoso one,
which is weird for me, but only because I don't

(01:15:33):
really love the who Oscar Pernafelt's Earth flag. I don't
know why I don't really love that Earth flag, but
I do like this Mars flag. And yeah, no further
questions your honor. I guess no, I don't know. Maybe

(01:15:54):
it's something about a blue field maybe it's something about
being living here in the US and so many of
our state flags a blue field with a white ish
thing in the middle that blah blah blah. Uh. And
honestly most of the Earth ones do too. Uh. It's
tough to get an Earth flag.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
That well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
Shit, do I like the Earth flag? Am I discovering
that about myself right now? I don't know, man, I
don't know. I will say, I will say it's maybe
mostly aesthetics. It's probably mostly aesthetics. But I like the
Mario Mimoso one the best. I think the second one
to me would be calder Hanson's. It doesn't do a

(01:16:38):
lot for me, but I like it better than the
others that we see here. So I don't know. So yeah,
the thomas O Pain for you, Mario Mimoso for me,
it almost sounds like does almost sound like drinks? Can
I get thomas O Pain. I don't love the Mario
Mimoso for sure anyway. Okay, so the only thing we

(01:17:03):
have time for left is plugs and our new special segment,
which Nick is hearing about for the first time. This
is called let Me Check Nick's Questions. Oh so okay,
so this one is for you. Nick. There's no rules stated,
so it seems like you just get to ask a question.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
All right, I've got one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Hmm. Oh okay, Andy, sure did you know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
That between Mars and Jupiter there's a gap for another planet?
Hold on?

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
No, Well that was Nick's questions, I guess, followed up
by Andy's answers. These are when we got some really
good new segments here anyway. Okay, so after all those
non obvious edits that didn't happen just right here, we
are ready to do some plugs and kind of fade

(01:18:12):
this thing out, kind of kind of put it to bed,
as it were. So, Nick, where can we find you?
Follow you anything?

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
You want?

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Our eyes and ears on.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
Oh I I live in Columbus, Ohio. You can find
me there. I I post on Twitter very rarely. That's
about the only social media that I use. I don't
remember what my Twitter handle is because I think it's exclamation.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
Nick also smart and I do have.

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
A YouTube account where you can find the pilot episode
of the man Mission podcast if you search I presumably
Manned Mission podcast, or maybe also include my name Nick
Page if that doesn't work, I don't know. Yeah, no,
I mean probably somewhere in the description of this perhaps the.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
Links will be both in the description and for the
viewers on screen as well. So yes, go check out
Manned Mission podcast. Nick has told me there is an
episode two that is written. He's actually even sent me
the script. I just haven't read it yet.

Speaker 3 (01:19:25):
It's funnier than I remember I wrote it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
Well, we'll see about that when I'm done with it.
But in any case, yes, definitely go check out any
and all things Manned Mission for anything related to my show.
Flag for content you can find us at the link tree,
which is just linktree dot com slash flag for content
all spelled out. That has basically everything you need to know,

(01:19:50):
how to join the Patreon, how to join the discord,
all that good stuff. We're having some good conversations over
on both, so go ahead and join those. And yeah,
I think that's pretty much all I've got here. You know,
I thought of so much this episode, but the one
thing that I left out was how to end it.

(01:20:12):
So Nick, any and all ideas are welcome here.

Speaker 3 (01:20:19):
Thank you for listening, and remember, if you see a
flag waving, wave back, it's the polite thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Bye bye, y'all, hie, and then we'll fade.

Speaker 3 (01:20:37):
Out on that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Flag for Content is proud to be sponsored by Flags
for Good. Go to flagsfogod dot com for more information.
Flag for Content is hosted, produced, edited, occasionally written, and
always nitpicked over by me Andy Richardson. Catch you all
on the fly side, vexheads,