In a comedy sketch for NBC, why was a pop stars waste connected to a machine? The answer that at the end of the show, my name's Tom Scott and this is lateral. On today's show we welcome back a very popular group with our listeners, the team from Answering Progress. Nice! Yeah, we win. We're two for ourselves. And the last time they're on the show, Taha described the scripted introduction as rubbish. So please rest assured that the producer has not taken underage at this at all.
First someone with wit as sharp as a diamond encrusted scalpel who can explain complex concepts in such a way that even a toddler would nod sagely. It's Sabrina Cruz. Hello! Oh no! Oh no! Welcome back to the show Sabrina, how are you doing? I am so glad that I never beef with the crew! Okay. What are you working on at the Minute France in Progress? What's been going on behind the scenes?
I am currently working on a video about dark mode and then another one about the recorder, which one will be out, hopefully both of them by the time this episode's here. Well, thank you very much for heading back and seeing us again. Next, someone who's not just well read, they've practically inhaled the entire library. A charm and grace makes statues of the goddess Aphrodite cry. Welcome to Melissa Fernandez. What an introduction! Hello! How are you doing Melissa? I'm doing well.
I just finished up a video, so I'm feeling good, ready to move on to the next one. Just finished up a video about luxury candles and that was fun. I really enjoyed that video because I was gifted a very expensive scented candle and I did not understand it. Now I understand it. That's amazing. And the third member of Answering Progress, Tah-ha-kan! Yeah! That was better than anything I could have imagined. I was like, what could it be?
Like, always going to be about my wall that's always like this. Yeah. I will add that also in brackets, I have like chat, chat and then for Tah-ha-ha, I have chat if you must, which seems not the necessary thing to write when it's just a gag for me really, but I'm going to share that. How are you doing Tah-ha? What are you working on? I'm doing great. That gave me a great laugh. I still think it's rubbish. Do better. I'm fine with that. It's great for me.
What are you working on for the show at the moment? I'm working on a video about Foley. It's going to be with an award-winning Foley artist. If you don't know what Foley is, it's the... It's the sounds that are done after a film is made, the tapping and everything. So really excited for people to see that when it comes out. Are you getting to Foley your own film here? Maybe. Yes. We definitely Foley'd some shots already. So half of the video is already in the can.
The other half, we will see how good I can be with this Foley stuff. That's yet to be done. Well, good luck to all three of you. Thank you for coming back again to be on the show. It is always lovely to have you here. Good luck today. Are questions a bit like fireworks? Colorful, surprising and best not handled without a two-day training course. I've got a banger of a first question and here it is. When will Phil Helm make out his wife's wedding ring? In 1895, the world was never the same again.
Why? I'll say that again. When will Phil Helm make out his wife's wedding ring? In 1895, the world was never the same again. Why? I ask a silly question. Who is this? Which Wilhelm is it related to the war? Is it related to the scream? Oh! The scream? The Wilhelm's? The Wilhelm's scream? The Wilhelm's scream. It's been sound. Wow. Yeah, I truly have it. He saw his wife's wedding ring and screamed and that was he was in every movie since.
Okay. So none of us know who Wilhelm is, is that what we're establishing? Correct. I'm glad to be of the majority here. Okay. 1895. What was happening? Weir. That wasn't alive. Battle of Hastings is done. That was 1066. Yep. It's somewhere between the Battle of Hastings and World War II. That, I'll give you. Wilhelm has strong Habsburg energy. They did stuff. Okay. So if we ignore Wilhelm, maybe Wilhelm is just like old timey name for William. And it's a riddle rather than a historical...
Ooh. That's just a will, just a William. Uh, willy helm. I did pronounce just Will Helm. It's short for William, actually. Yeah. Okay. So I was thinking like smog. Oh, because he can see versus not see. And then all I was thinking like fog. Glasses. Uh, yes. Yeah, I think that's it, to be honest. I think they invented glasses and the world was not the same because the loads of people who were shortsighted had the ability to see further. What does this have to do with a ring, though?
It's a small detailed object. Yeah. And you get to look at it and you're like, wow, was it worth the money? Let me look with the glass. Tom has interrupted us. So I'm assuming we're wrong because he would have been like, and that's exactly right. I'm not interrupting because you are strangely inching towards the right answer here. No, you're not close yet. But certainly you've been talking about inventions and you've been talking about being able to see things and make things out.
So the world would be different if there was a microscope because you could identify the structures of a crystal identifying different gemstones. So then the value of different stones changed. Maybe that. I also just think inventing the microscope was just, that's enough. It doesn't need to be related to capital value. Yeah, it's not the microscope. You've basically identified everything except the invention. What? Does it have to do with gemstones? Is that on the right track?
Why might have been convenient for his wife to volunteer? Small hands, smaller bands. Gold? Diamond. I don't know anything about. What are you trying to get at? I assume that. Okay, so as somebody who like read a fair bit about the history of glasses and lenses, I do think that it predates 1895. I think people are able to wear glasses before that. Yes, definitely. It probably has to do with like the material structure of the ring. Oh, he's nodding. He's nodding on the podcast audio for Matt.
Well, if I just nod it makes you sound smarter. Oh, thank you, actually. He wasn't nodding. I just knew I was on the right track. What's different between a man and a woman's wedding rings? Usually like a big rock on it. Big? It's a bottom. So it doesn't have to do with, but we knew that diamonds were good. But we knew that they were hard and good, right? Well, what about cubic zalkanium? You think he invented the fake diamond?
Oh, I thought that was just, to be honest, I thought that was just another stone that looked like a diamond. That moisonite is a fake diamond. Cupid's circony is different, right? I don't know enough about rocks, my apologies. Yeah, me neither. You're right that he was looking at an image rather than the real thing. When you're talking about microscopes, that sort of thing. It's not a microscope, but it is an invention that certainly reveals something in the same. Is it an X-ray? X-rays.
What did they do with the finger? So what might Ville Halen have done? Okay, let's not live this. Let's not live. Let's go. Okay, let's go. Okay, he used the X-ray to look at guys. Look at guys. He's married. No, okay, I'm assuming that like he X-rayed, did he X-rayed his wife's hand? Did you get an injury or something? The very first X-ray was the left hand of Ville Halen Runchens' wife Anna.
That was the very first time there was a successful X-ray, so it showed the bones of her hand and the wedding ring completely blacked out. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. Why her hand? But also imagine you say to your significant other, hey, I'm working with some really experimental stuff right now. Could be dangerous. Do you want to volunteer your hand? Well, I mean, for a long time, they didn't realise it was dangerous. Classic. Danger was invented later.
I'm pretty sure that there would have been other tests first, but the first successful X-ray of inside the human body of seeing the bones, what his wife had. Oh, interesting. There were some early X-ray machines that just constantly illuminated a screen. So if you're having like your foot measured or your foot analysed, you would just put it in a beam of X-rays and the tube at the other end would glow and they would just analyse your posture in the shop.
And that did not survive the realisation that X-rays caused cancer. Today, I learned that makes sense. I'm not entirely sure how X-rays work. This is good. Can I have a guess? Yeah. I'm pretty sure they shoot the rays through you. They bounce off a backboard and then they get bounced back towards a camera that collects the X-rays in its photo. Not quite. The X-rays get sent. The cameras on the other side. The cameras on the other side.
Yes. So you have an X-ray source and then you have a camera on the other side. Or in, I think it was called a flora scope. You just have something that reacts to X-rays and you just look at it. And later on, they realise that the X-rays cameras might be a better idea. Nate, you'll learn something new every day. So yes, this was Wilhelm Runchan taking the first internal X-ray of a human in 1895. Very handy. Hey! Each of the answer in progress team has brought a question with them.
We're going to start today with Taha. Okay. This question has been sent in by Aaron Solomon. Lauren Sparry has two claims to fame. In 1914, he demonstrated the first autopilot system. Furthermore, he was one of the founding members of what? I'll say that again. Lauren Sparry has two claims to fame. In 1914, he demonstrated the first autopilot system. Furthermore, he is one of the founding members of what? Footwear company. Sparry shoes. This is a thing. They're both shoes, right? Yeah, okay.
Okay. Not heard of those? Oh, North America? Yeah, I'm sorry. On to the history. Anyway, 1914, that's war times, right? Question mark. You're right. 1914 is the first year of the First World War. Yeah, what were playing as being used for at that point? It wasn't exactly taking tourist flights. I'm just going to remember that one thing about pigeons. Was he really in the birds? What's the bird society called? Which one thing about pigeons?
You know the thing about pigeons when they were training, like, homing stuff, like, they were like, oh, let's send them bomb this way and pilot it with a pigeon. Was the pigeon one of the first autopilot things? Oh! The pigeon bombs. Yeah, which always gets a laugh. No, it's just pretty horrific. They trained pigeons to tap on targets by training them with food. And that would guide the bomb. It didn't work well, but it was an experiment. I suspect that was Second World War.
That feels like a more important thing. Was the autopilot for the sky, do you guys think? Or for land or sea? I'm going to say it's for planes. Okay. Yeah. Kirstie Fair, autopilot for a boat is a bit of rump. You just kind of hold the wheel in position and it'll go. I would have been able to showcase that in 1914, makes us guys seem a lot less impressive. But okay. So 1914, planes, I'm going to say FAA, CAA, whatever the European equivalent of the FAA. The founding member of something.
So it's got to be like a club or an organization or... But it also has to be like pretty late in existence. Like I feel like the 1914s, a lot of organizations already existent. Is it international? Yes, but basically anyone could become a member of this club. Any one like, any like civilian or like you've got to be a... A child? A dog. Not a child. Not a dog. Okay. That was a little person. So something very niche. Is it the club of people killed by their own inventions?
No. Okay. Nice. Their first claim to fame made the second one possible. I was going to say, no, this doesn't make sense. I was going to say parachute club because you would be able to bail out. But you're not going to get back in the plane. The plane is still just going to go on autopilot and then crush. Right. Made sense in my head until I thought about it. The club is all the members in the club have done a thing rather than it being an institution of some sort.
Gotcha. Okay. Oh, no. It's not the mile high club, is it? I didn't want to stay with you. Don't want to be the one to bring that up. No. No. It is the mile high club. Oh my god. I was like, this wouldn't be the answer on this podcast, right? Oh, it is. I'm so disliked. I'm so disliked. I'm so disliked. That's from you by daring to say it. Honestly, I was also surprised that I was given this question. I was like, oh, the question writers.
I thought it was actually going to be like the club of people who have fallen asleep in a plane or something like that or been able to cross the Atlantic because they've been able to solo because they've been able to take naps. But no, it's the mile high club. That's fine. Okay. Wonderful. Would you like to explain that, Taha? Sure. Thank you for dubbing Taha in on that one. Not me. Appreciate it. So, two years after inventing autopilot, Lawrence Spherry took Cynthia Polk up for flying lessons.
While in flight, he turned on the autopilot so he and his student could get to know each other a little more intimate. Stop it off. Unfortunately, the autopilot system disengaged causing the plane to crash into the bay. When they were rescued, they were found stark naked. They tried making excuses since Miss Polk was married at the time. Oh, scandalous. A tabloid headline read, aerial petting ends in wetting. Yes!
Oh, my God. It is widely believed that the pair will first join this exclusive club. To demonstrate that his autopilot system worked, Spherry stood on the wing of his plane, winning a $10,000 prize for aeronautical safety. Wow. There you go. You've made me read a lot more about the mile high club than I ever wanted to in a public setting. Next question was sent in by David Lyle. Thank you very much.
Lake Hood in Anchorage, Alaska is less than 100 hectares in area and not connected with any other waterways. It's ringed with over 500 docks, many of which are used daily. Why is this small lake so popular? So who here knows what a hectare is? I was just going to ask, in relation to a football field, how big is that? I'm pretty sure it's 10 acres or maybe it's 100 acres. But what's an acre? An acre is the old imperial measurement. A hectare is the metric measurement.
So it's difficult to get a handle on this thing, but a hectare is about one and a half football fields, more or less. So it's not a big lake. Now I don't know the answer, but I feel like I do. So I can throw in a guess and see if it's just immediately right. So it's Alaska. And I think maybe I learned this in a Tom Scott episode, but there are some places in Alaska that are weirdly Canada.
And so maybe this lake, they have to cross the lake so they don't like to get to the other side of the city. Because if they took land, they would have to go into Canada before they got to the other side of the city. So the lake is the only way to stay in America. That is Point Roberts in British Columbia and the northwest angle in the, I'm not sure which area, but the Atlantic coast. And I've never filmed either of them, but so many people have that I can see why you believed it.
Not in this case, those are all land borders to the best of my knowledge there isn't a water border like that. And this is Anchorage, Alaska. So this is not on the border. Maybe the water is really clear. I'm just going for the touristy angle. It's just good for the Instagram. It just reflects the sky like no other lake. They just like it. They have boats and they needed somewhere to put them. There's probably no fish in this lake. If there's nothing else that's connected to it and it's small.
Then is it like a mineral deposit maybe where it's just like, it's like a spa. Ooh, it wasn't going there, but oh, like a little ice plunge. Like a hot, like the weather, where the earth's mantle is thin. Or there's like so many minerals in it where you go in you like, I don't know, you just don't put your hair in it. That's an Iceland, but something similar to that lake, body of water, whatever that is. I don't know what it's called. What is it called?
It's like, is a body of water. No, but the sea is a hot spring. Are you trying to find the word for hot spring? There's one specific, this is nothing to do with Alaska, but there's this one specific place in Iceland where people go to like have face masks and can't put your hair in it because it's too like mineraly or salt. The blue lagoon near Cape Vick. That lagoon, that's, that was the fun. Yeah, we can't do that. Weirdly is not actually a natural thing.
It's the runoff from a geothermal power plant that people realize for so many minerals in there. It was good for the skin and it got turned into a tourist attraction. Did I learn this from a Tom Scott video? Yes, you did. Okay, great. Okay. So could you read like the first bit of the question again, like what is it about the docks and the rings of docks? Yeah, so this is lake hood in Anchorage, Alaska.
It is a small lake, not connected to any other waterways, but there are 500 docks all the way around it, many of which are used every day. Are they used for boats? That's my question. No. Sea plains. Keep going Sabrina. Like sea plains need a place to land. And like I've been to Alaska. There's like one airport and sometimes you just need to get to places. So maybe it's easier for like a plane to land in that lake.
And then you could just hop off on one of the docks rather than like flying into an airport and taking a long like drive to wherever you need to get. You can land a plane in water. It's called a sea plane. It's not a national treasure. I'm pretty sure they use a sea plane in there. I don't know. It's probably during some like action scene. I zone out on those. I only care about Nicholas Cage stealing declaration of independence. If you are absolutely right, lake hood is a base for sea planes.
It is the largest and busiest in the world. That's so wild. Well, how do you, I guess if you just got to get around. Yeah. It's fair. Wow. There aren't roads. There aren't really many interior runways. So if you want to quick and convenient way to get around in that bit of Alaska, a sea plane is honestly one of the better options. Has anyone here been in a sea plane? No, I, is it? No. Is it the plane Melissa? It's a plane because it has bits on the bottom. But how big is it?
Like an individual like a smaller plane size. Not a super big plane size. That's a really great question. No, you know that. It's got that energy. Yeah, they're not landing like a, they're not landing an Airbus. They're not landing an A380 in here. It's a little, I've been on one that does the run from Vancouver to Victoria. And it's just, you can fit maybe 10 people in there in some luggage. Okay. And it comes in at a terrifying angle. It's a bit tore here because they're really steep in there.
Genuine is a moment when I'm like, I can only see water out of the front of the plane right now. This is terrifying. Oh, no. The water scares me. I've come for respect, Harry Rayblade. Lake Hood is in Anchorage, Alaska. There are 200 sea plane flights from there on a typical day. It is a tiny lake that is the largest and busiest sea plane base in the world. Melissa, it is over to you for the next question. All right. So this question has been sent in by Alex Childs. Here we go.
Every afternoon, Tabatha opened a can of cola while at work. When she forgot to do this one day, someone hurt themselves that evening. How? One more time. Every afternoon, Tabatha opened a can of cola while at work. When she forgot to do this one day, someone hurt themselves that evening. How? She's just dedicated to the Diet Coke lifestyle. And when she realized that she was devastated, broke her heart. She's not like herself without the code.
None of you are going to remember the 1990s Diet Coke advert that just had a load of female office workers ogling the men cleaning the windows or the construction workers outside. No. Well, no. No. I think I would have been, what, two? One. I think I might have been like negative two, just in the 90s. Oh my God. Yes. But you have someone with a female name opening a can of cola. Okay, that's someone's hoaxed themselves at the end of the day because they did not get ogled out the window.
That advert is still stuck in my head. I see. Ah. Yeah, I see. Because the advert was actually a documentary. I cannot express just how much pop culture revolved around that for just one summer when the advert was on. That got paraded in a lot of places. So this is your version of the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad. Making peace. So she's a diet coke early. I'm just assuming. We haven't established that. By the way, other, other colders are available. No, no, no, no. Right. Right. Right.
Someone got hurt. Right. My question is, is who is the one doing the hurting? Is it the absence of the Coke can or is it the woman herself? Or somebody else? A mysterious third party. Okay, let me play out a scenario here. Every single day she opens her regular afternoon kind of coal, just to get some caffeine in drinks it puts in the recycling bin. Nothing else is in the recycling bin.
Someone is someone that night is so used to their being that kind of color there that they just overextend and and and hurt their fist on the bottom of the trash. Someone helped me here. I was really hoping someone's going to help workshop this. Going in the same direction. I was assuming like maybe she's diabetic and she's just used to consuming sugar regularly and to not have that sugar could could lead to injury on account of the diabetes. Todd, did you want to say something?
Dang, you're real quick. Tom, you and I have rejected. Most of us are. Yeah. Oh, maybe, maybe she was sponsored by Coca-Cola and then when she didn't drink the coke they sent hitman to her house as consequence of breaking their contracts. This is the one. There's got to be some unusual reason she's opening this can. Surely you're having this can. Like, does she do product testing? She's feeding hummingbirds. How about this? The can is used to like prop up something.
Like, you know, sometimes sometimes you know when I go to Pakistan you'll see people use like bits of trashed and like mold it into like something for like structural integrity in very sketchy marketplaces and things. So maybe every day she like puts it somewhere. I mean, we're getting a little warmer. She's using it for something. So she's using the can. I think we should clarify her. She's not drinking it. Oh, okay. She's not consuming the coke.
Oh, because I had the idea that someone was so used to that single empty can of coke that she just throws away. She doesn't put it in the trash. It's just down on the ground. And they just habitually just kick it into the bin every night. And then it's a full can one day. And they just break their toe. Yeah. You've made it a masterpiece story there. Okay. So she's using either she's not drinking the liquids, but she cracks open the can. So that's going to attract like insects and.
I was thinking hummingbirds originally like that's going to attract insects and things to the mosquitoes. Yeah. And then they don't get malaria. But then they malaria is bodily harm. The type of injury was not related to getting malaria or a disease. It was probably more likely that someone was going to get a spring dangle or something. And something of that variety. Go ahead to how you snapped really confidently. I'm going to get that too.
Okay. Is it that the empty can is on the floor like Tom said, but someone basically expects it to be empty. So they stamp on it. But it's full. So then it rolls and they fall over like it's a banana peel. Not exactly like that. Okay. But does her job matter? Does she work in like a recycling plant or something where she has to like empty out cans? Her job does matter to this. She's not recycling them. I don't want to give it away, but let me. Don't give it away. Don't give it away then.
If you don't, you don't have to give it away. Why would you open a can of cold or not drink it? Where was the coke being put? What was it used for? The cola liquid is the key element here then. We've been focusing on the can. We're getting warmer now. We're getting warmer. What are the uses for coke? We should drink. Drinking. Okay. Glue. Tell me more about that chase that thought. Cola gets a little sticky. Oh. Any condition quite honestly, it's devastating.
You think that there's just a little bit on the bottom of your glass and you lift it up and everything. It's adhesive for the rest of time. But every day. Every day. And remember, an ankle sprain, some sort of sprain. How would that be the injury? Are we creating casts out of Coca-Cola? Is the floor meant to be sticky for some reason? And this is a cheap way of doing it? Keep going. What? What do you do? What do you do? I don't know what floor this would be.
But there's some reason that this floor needs to be sticky. And the cheap way of doing that to whatever consensus is just to wipe it with cola. So later on, someone who is expecting the floor to be sticky for their job, whatever that is, actually goes flying. Roller skating? Oh! Tap dancing? Or like a dance on a stage, something like that? That is correct. Took us a little bit to get there. What is correct? So basically, Tabatha works at a ballet studio.
So they would pour the sugary cola on the floor so that the floor wouldn't be a slippery. So that when the dancers are on there, they wouldn't risk breaking their ankle. That's so neat. That's so disgusting. Everything I learned about ballet, which when I was younger, I was like, oh, this is the peak of elegance. Everything must be so fancy and pristine. And then have you ever seen a ballerina prep their point shoes? Yeah, it's gnarly. It's a murder. It's gnarly.
But yeah, Tommy, you were right before as well. It's the traditional low-tech solution to put cola in the bucket before mopping the stage, which is known as cooking the stage. Wow. It's fun little surprise. This is a very neat. This is a cool thing. This is also, there must be so many ants. I mean, they do clean the stage every night, apparently. They're enough. They do clean it. But that's why she's got a port every day. Wow. She really messed up that.
But she doesn't even know worse than just like not being a diet goat girlie for a day. The next question was sent in by Nunchevol. Thank you very much. In 2013, why did Google release noto to prevent frustration from tofu? I'll say that again. In 2013, why did Google release noto to prevent frustration from tofu? I'm, I'ma just say it. Noto Sans is a font. Oh. So, were people just even with like a default, default Google font named tofu?
And they release noto Sans with just like, it's like, it has a few tweaks. So it's a little less than going to use. You've got the first half of the question immediately. This is noto and noto Sans, the fonts that Google released. But you haven't got the tofu yet. What's a tofu keyboard? Is that different? Oh. That's the only non-food related tofu thing that I know of. But I don't know what that really means on a deeper level.
Other than potentially it's a keyboard name or a type of keycap or type of. How would that relate to fonts? Because depending, like the keyboard doesn't get messed up by a font. If it was a comic Sans, it's not going to work better. Maybe the letter is on the keyboard? It wasn't reflecting properly. Could it have been, so it is tofu a font? Like, it might not necessarily be like a Latin, is Latin, Latin characters in it. But is it like other language font? Other characters?
Yeah, I see what you mean. Because I think Noto has a stupid amount of glyphs. Like, it covers basically every language. Yes. This is some good knowledge here, Sabrina. You're running through the additional notes I've got here that more than 77,000 different characters in the various versions of Noto supports 1,000 languages, 150 writing systems. Yes. So tofu. What's tofu, the predecessor to the people who universalise the emoji?
Because I know that there was like four or five different emoji standards in Japan. In the old days. So maybe Noto covers those in the glyphs. You're close there, Taha. But not quite. You're right that tofu is not a specific font. There's not a cap on this. Tofu is just referring to something. Because I know that there was a, like with other writing systems, because they have so many more glyphs and characters in it, it takes, like, it can take a really long time for them to load.
And I know that Noto was like this whole thing where they just made everything a little bit more efficient, and they have it all in one font package, so that you could just use every character from any of this. I'm just stuck on what tofu is. Yeah. So what problem did Noto solve? Wasn't, wasn't vegan tofu was. Yeah. What are some problems that, that Noto solved then? Curning. That's usually a problem with fonts. That's all sort of change.
I know, but what I'm saying is they may be released something that was easier to like, because isn't Noto the one that's like monospace? They've got all sorts of versions of Noto. Wait, so tofu is not a font. We've established that. Tofu is not a font. Is it, it's not a food product? It's not a food product. What does a piece of tofu often look like? A cube. A brick. Mmm, maths. Was it a file type? If you don't have a font with this many glyphs, what might you see?
Oh, the question mark with the square in it. No, sorry, the square with the question mark in it. Fill that out a bit. Like, it's like an era basically. It just gives a placeholder of like, hey, we don't know how to render this thing in this font. So maybe tofu is a glyph. Is it an error message? No way. Is that just what it's called? Is that a little thing? Call the... Is the box. What? No way! Yeah, it's not always got a question mark, but that's a default rectangle.
That is twice as high as it is wide. That just blank square that gets substituted in when there isn't a glyph in a particular font. That is called tofu. All the imagination. One loves it. One loves to see it. Wow. So then no to correct it that problem. It's all the tofu problem because it just has an absurd array of glyphs and characters. Yeah. The name no to is short for no tofu. What? Wow. That's cool. So yeah, you got most of that very early on.
Like you knew what no to was, it was just the weird rectangular glyph that says, I don't know what this character is that used to be a much bigger problem. Google's big stack of no to fonts got rid of that tofu for a lot of people on mobile phones. Sabrina, the next question is yours. All right, everyone. This question has been sent in by Eli Kofur. How did a Mexican Robocop, French Nutella, and Icelandic Queen have a different fate to a Swedish Metallica? After an argument. I'll say it again.
How did a Mexican Robocop French Nutella and Icelandic Queen have a different fate to a Swedish Metallica? After an argument. Are these video game characters? Because this sounds like in an alternate universe, like the Super Mario Bros. You got it. We got a lot of French Nutella from Bowser. All one of those fighting games, you just have Mexican Robocop, this French Nutella. I want to say an Icelandic Queen and a Swedish Metallica. That is just a roster for a fighting game.
That is the worst version of Tekken. So Metallica is an entity. Robocop is a person. Nutella is a food. And a queen is a position. So it doesn't get us anywhere. But thank you for trying. This is not like alternative chess lingo or something. I'm really latching onto the word queen. And that's the only thing. Icelandic Queen. It doesn't have anything to do with chess. Maybe a game, though? A game. Not a game, either.
I've just got Mexican Robocop as being one of those low-budget clones of Hollywood movies. And somewhere. Yeah. Somewhere there is just a guy in a really bad Robocop costume who just regrets that he helped out on a movie someday. Oh no. I will say that this question does refer to four people. Ah, okay. Mexican Robocop. French Nutella is the thing that's really thrown in. Right. So French Nutella. Sorry, that just sounds like a name to me. That's because I'm thinking French Stewart, the actor.
What was the other two? French Nutella Icelandic Queen? Correct. Mexican Robocop and a Swedish Metallica. Swedish Metallica. Are these candies? And the Swedish Metallica was the different one, right? Yes. It has a different fate after an argument. After an argument. Okay. Are these four people in an argument? They're not in an argument together. I say, ah, as if that clarifying anything. Is this like some food company? Are these food companies? Are these food companies?
Not food companies, they are people. They're straight up people. If I hear like the names of languages, this could be languages as well as countries. And I hear argument. I just assume this is some translation thing. So like, maybe there was a translation of Robocop. No, we'd say Spanish, not Mexican. Damn. I was sure about that. Nope, that's not right. Like maybe in the tele translation to French had to have some lengthy description added to it because you couldn't use Nutella.
That isn't quite it. But you did mention like those, the start Mexican, French, Icelandic, Swedish, rather than languages or just countries, they could just prefer to nationalities. Okay. Does Iceland have a queen? I don't think so. Do Iceland has a rule of family? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so. I will say that it doesn't really matter in this scenario. Okay, one of these are trademarks. There is a Mexican version of Robocop. And there is a French version of Nutella.
And there is an Icelandic version of the band queen, like a tribute act. And they lost their trademarks, but somehow Sweden kept their knockoff Metallica. Yes. I was really confident about that at the start. Now I'm not liking my odds. I think that you guys are on something of the right track by understanding the nationalities component to it. And the fact that there is legal complications to this. But remember, we are talking about people, not trademarks. Oh, yeah. Okay. What?
Consider the shock that you feel when I say that we're talking about people. And try and chase that rabbit. How is Nutella a person? Or is the French part the person? That certainly is a question that the French are asking. Oh, in Iceland, there is a limited list of names that it's possible to give to a child. Because grammatically, the names only work in certain ways. You cannot name a child certain things because it doesn't work in the language.
Did someone Icelandic try to name their child Queen? Correct. Keep it going. Okay. Let's go. Someone Mexican Robocop. Who's maybe their child's Robocop? What's going on in there? What's going on in France? That's what I want to know. Someone in France is trying to name their child Nutella and the French government said no. Oh, so correct. But there is someone named Metallica in Sweden. In Sweden? Yes. We got there, gang. Metallica. A Swedish child was allowed to keep their name.
Wow. And I think that's beautiful. I think I don't think that's going to be an incredible question. Can we rewind though? Someone wanted to name their child Robocop? I am judging. Okay. So in 2014, officials in Sonora, Mexico banned several names, including Robocop, to avoid bullying in school. In a similar vein in 2015, a judge in France ruled that parents could not name their baby Nutella because it would make her the target of derision. The baby was subsequently renamed to Ella.
Chocolate spread. And, Tom, you were right that Queen is a band name in Iceland because the Icelandic language does not have a Q or C, W or Z. Oh, it's not a grammatical thing. It's just it's not a... It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Okay. Sure. Interesting. But yeah, in 2007, local officials in Gothenburg, Sweden reversed a previous ban on the name Metallica, allowing Michael and Carolina tomorrow to commemorate their favorite rock band.
Wow. They got a judge to overturn a previous argument about this exact name. That's a wild. I think it's a beautiful name. Which brings us to the question I asked right at the start of the show in a comedy sketch for NBC. Why was a pop stars waste connected to a machine? So, I'm assuming this is an SNL musical act. And if I'm wrong, everything falls apart. It's an up SNL, but it's very much that genre. Is it a 30 rock act?
I think it's like the studio next door or down the hall or like the story under in 30 rock. Something like that. Okay. They're just attached to a machine, lower half torso. They're waste. They're waste. Were they being spooned by Jeff in the Craig Ferguson late, late show? This is a deep cut. No. That really unfortunately, and I don't know why I know this, is CBS not NBC. Oh no. But excellent deep cut. We all miss that iteration of the late show compared to the current one, you know.
What would you be measuring? Who said I had to think about measuring? Maybe it was a big claw and the person was being spun around. I don't know why they would do that. They were trying to investigate a famous but unlikely claim. A pop star. A pop star. What are they investigating? You will know this pop star and you will know the song their referencing. Is it how long they can hold a note for? Is it Shakira? Oh, is it Ryan? So what was the sketch? That's funny. So it's like a lie detector.
That's so good. Yes, this is Jimmy Favon's tonight show along with Drew Barrymore, wiring Shakira's hips to a polygraph so they could test if they were lying. Oh. Absolutely right. Congratulations to all the team, France and progress, running the gauntlet again. Where can people find you? What are you working on? You can start with Melissa. You can find us on youtube.com forward slash answer in progress. What sort of things can you find there?
Taha. You can find videos about fake buildings that we try and explore or why you can't, why you're always tired or why candles are so expensive. And what's coming up on your channel, Sabrina? We are making videos about Foley, about dark mode, about why the recorder took over the school system. That's awful. Subscribe. Oh, it's awful. To be clear, that's the recorder, not the idea. Or both. I will be playing it. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com.
We are also at lateralcast basically everywhere. And there are regular video highlights at youtube.com slash lateralcast. Thank you very much to Sabrina Cruz. Tahakam. Well, that's a badam dance. I've been Tom Scott. That's been lateral. Woo! Woo!