Listener Mail: Nightmare Key

let it hang. But we're gonna get into some stuff about our episode on the Lock and Key, some responses to bug funerals, and we're going to address the ongoing stream that maybe we'll never stop of listener mail about robot jocks. It seems like people just can't get that

out of their heads. And it's been a pleasant surprise because when I when I I think that was one that I I selected, and I was thinking to myself, Man, this one's so hard to find right now, perhaps I'm the only one who out there who has any kind of fond memories of this movie. Uh So it's been nice to see that other folks remember it as well. Now that's been an abso lute highlight of weird house cinema for me so far. I I think about robot

jocks at least once a day. And we didn't even realize the serendipity when we picked it that one of the places it's actually streaming is called to be That's oh man. I didn't even really really put that together, but that's true. Yeah. Uh. Do you want to read this first message about our bug funeral episode from Jim in New Jersey. Yes, Jim in New Jersey, a longtime Listener mail correspondent here right in and says, Robert and Joe, you missed one of the best stories about E. O.

Wilson and the Scent of Death for Ants. Radio Lab featured it a bit over ten years ago and include included a link for this you can look it up so by looking for Hey, I'm Dad, the story of the very lively Aunt. Oh, and we should say the subject line of Jim's email was Aunt's yelling I'm not dead yet anyway, Jim continues once the signal of death

is an air which takes about two days. Any ant that happens by grabs the corpse and carries it through the colony to a refuse pile designated the graveyard and dumps it on a mound of also dead ants. Wilson wrote in his autobiography, I thought maybe with the right chemicals, I could create an artificial corpse. Wilson discovered that oleic acid, just a tiny, a teeny sorry drop of it was

all the ants had to sniff to think dead. One day, he took a drop of the chemical and gently deposited it on an ant that had the misfortune of walking by. Wilson describes how as soon as he dabbed the ant, the next ant that came near, grabbed his aunt, slung it on its back, hiked over to the graveyard, and though the aunt was still very much alive kicking you know, says ed, flug it into the refuse pile. Dead is what you smell, not what you see, if you were

an aunt. So though it tried to clean itself over and over, the minute it returned to the colony, it was grabbed, carried, and slung back on the pile. The zombie aunt was eventually able to clean itself sufficiently and rejoin the nest. Jim in New Jersey. Uh, that is morbid, but yes, very funny. Actually, I don't know if this was clear in the text of Jim's email, but I think that middle section was actually a quote from that

NPR piece. We should just clear Okay. Yeah, and in that case, yeah, definitely go back and listen to it. Radio Lab has always been a wonderful show. Uh, And there archives are are rich and deep, as is the Aunt Graveyard. I would say, no resentment of rivalry whatsoever. Please go listen to Radio Lab. Yes, okay. This next message picks up from one of the tangents we went on in our Funeral for a Bug episodes. You remember, in that episode we started talking about some of the

weird ironyes of pastoral poetry. So pastoral poetry is a you know, long running genre going back into the ancient world but still continuing into recent times, where the main thrust of it is that it sort of celebrates the rural existence as a as a as a peaceful, beautiful thing that is uncomplicated by all of the I don't know the sin and complexity of of city life. And so this message comes from Jacob and it picks up on one particular comment we had there subject line pastoral

ism and YouTube. Jacob says, hey, Joe and Rob first time writer a longtime listener. I was listening to the January twenty one episode Funeral for a Bug and you wondered if shows like The Great British Baking Show were modern pastorals. I think there's something to that, but I can do one better. Since the pastoral, according to poets dot Org, idealizes a rural life and landscape, I couldn't help but think of the sub genre of YouTube videos.

I've recently become addicted to building things, especially building things by hand using traditional techniques like blacksmithing, hand tool woodworking, timber framing, and so on. I've had quite a few in my subscription feed. But if you stand out as fitting the definition, primitive technology seems like the er example. But Mr Chickadee, Dylan Iwakuni, and t A Outdoors are some that I think also fit into the pastoral tradition. They usually have minimal dialogue, are set outside, and focus

on the tool work. Unlike some other woodworking or maker centered channels, there's no attempt to instruct. It's literally watching someone build a cabin or a kiln or something out of basic materials like stone, wood or clay using hand powered tools. I'm struck by this comment from the poets

dot Org definition quote. Ironically, the conventions of the pastoral genre were established by sophisticated urban poets whose beautific portrayals of rural life perpetuated fantasies and misconceptions about the rural lifestyle. And yeah, that that was definitely one of the ironies we we touched on in the episode. It was like, all this stuff about how how nice it would be to be a shepherd, but you know, written by someone who's never been a shepherd and doesn't realize what kind

of work is involved. But back to Jacob's message. Jacob says, I've done a little woodworking and home renovation, and working by hand is slow and physically demanding. It can be fun the way a good workout is fun. But the idealized notion that somehow this is the good life, the simple life, is way off. Rural life meant subsistence farming or labor, and that typically meant living on the edge of starvation one bad season or one serious injury or

illness away from disaster. Hardly a desirable lifestyle, which makes me wonder what the appeal is for these channels, Because I'm hopelessly addicted, and judging by their subscribers, I'm not the only one. It's soothing to watch and listen to us. Some of them even tagged their videos as a s MR. But more than that, I'm gil ty of romanticizing exactly what I criticized above. I'm currently building a work bench for the and the first thing I decided to do

was to do it all by hand. I don't have a great explanation for why, other than that it takes all my focus and as such puts me in a sort of flow or zen meditation state. It's also a bit of time travel learning a traditional craft. It helps you understand an era not your own. But that's a luxury of the relatively rich. If I were doing this for a living and hoping to sell enough to feed my family, I doubt I'd be calm or philosophical about it.

Since it's a hobby, though, I can work at my own slow pace and think deep thoughts or listen to deep podcasts like Stuff to Blow your Mind while I do it. Love the show, keep up the good work, and you can absolutely read this on air with my name if you choose. Thanks Jacob, Well, Jacob we're always assuming we can read this on air with your name with the we we tend to leave off last names

if you supply them. And if you're writing in about something and you you would prefer no name attached at all, that's perfectly cool. Just let us know that that's the case. Oh yeah, and you can also write to us uh with a message that you would prefer us not to read on air. Just make sure you note that in the email. But yeah, I thought this was a really interesting message, and I think this is this is onto something that is very interesting. So there there are multiple

threads to to pull on here. One is, yes, this uh, this sort of idealization of traditional rural types of labor uh, you know, farming type labor, woodworking type labor um and and the difference between doing that labor as a hobby where you have no time constraints really and you can just explore it at your leisure versus doing that kind of labor to survive, which is which is very different.

I often think about this difference, um with cooking. You know, I do a lot of cooking at home, actually really enjoy cooking. Uh. And sometimes people will say like, oh, have you ever thought about, you know, being a chef for working in restaurant. I have worked in restaurants, not as a cook. I've worked as a you know server, you know, bus boy and all that, and it's a

totally different thing. I think a lot of people don't realize that if you're working in a restaurant kitchen, it is not the same kind of leisurely recreational fun activity as it would be if you're just sort of like cooking on a week weekend at home. Uh. There you have these intense time constraints, a lot of different types of labor to manage and prioritize. It's often highly stressful. Uh. And it's just a totally different experience than recreationally cooking

in a home kitchen. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is often the case with with various hobbies and and uh and activities like like, for instance, I engage in some of the miniature and model painting and and you know, it's really fun and calming. But if I were to if if I were doing this exact task or something like it, and I was having to crank something out, you know, if I was part of a production line or if I were I don't know, if you were to apply it, say, um, you know, being a colorist

or something, um, you know for manuscripts or comics or something. Uh. You know, if you potentially get into that situation where you're just having to to just do so much of it, you don't have that the potentials there to to to lose hold of that zen state that you go into when you do it. In fact, I've I've followed like really skilled miniature painters before and uh, and in some

cases they've had to. They've they've done like a certain amount of professional work, you know, like they're selling pieces that they've painted and they're doing commissions. But then they have to scale back and stop doing that. And part of it is sometimes the fact that it it makes the hobby less fun. You know, your hobbies become less hot, less fun sometimes when they become your job, which is

one of the the disappointing facts of life. I guess another thing I would say about that is, I think what it's really I think the really crucial element is not whether or not it's a job that you get paid for, but it is about, um, whether there is specific fically sort of like time and stress pressure on you.

Because the same dynamic that I talked about with restaurant cooking can certainly be true for home cooking if you're just like trying to you know, make meals on a weeknight and you know you're trying to do it as fast as you can to feed the family and that kind of thing. There, there's just a big difference between being able to do something at your own pace and needing to do something on a timetable, yeah, and dealing with outside stressors that aren't there necessarily if you're just

engaging in a hobby. Um. Now, interestingly enough, on the the idea of videos about crafts, I've really enjoyed watching some videos dealing with painting, and I found them very calming in a similar way. Like there's there's one guy online, uh these the moniker Sarastro, and he has all these videos, has a very calming voice, and he's engaging and painting different miniatures and you know, covering the basics and it's just delightful content. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that.

I sometimes watch certain um types of process of deos to relax, often like cooking videos. But also I've actually watched some of these same types of videos that Jacobs talking about and in his email here, just like people building things or restoring things. It's nice if they're especially if there's no talking, it's just kind of like uh uh gentle, low volume environmental sounds while somebody is doing something,

uh efficiently, but not in a rushed way. Yeah, especially on stuff like YouTube, you can you can definitely find those videos that have that very YouTube feel and kind of a disc jockey kind of narration. Like there's some there's some miniature painting YouTubers that are are very good at what they do and are very educational and informative

about the craft. But they're not as relaxing as this guy in particular because they everything's maybe just a little bit pushed further in that YouTube, you know, Starge direction. All right, here's another one for us. This is Spinning and Dizziness vestibular system plus a dash of robot jocks from Jared, Hi, Robert, and Joe catching up on a backlog that got built up this past fall. I had an experience related to spinning, dizziness, etcetera. I've been motion

sensitive since my adolescence. I was more sensitive and pronto dizziness when doing flat circles versus vertical circles. Think spinning while standing up versus doing somersaults. When I was nineteen, a group of friends made a day trip to a local tourist attraction and we stopped at a city park for our lunch. On the way back, a bunch of them took to the merry go round round about and I really got it going. I held back, knowing about what what was about to happen. Thanks to peer pressure,

I eventually gave in and joined them. They got it going really fast, and pretty soon I started to feel awful. It was so evident that some of the group and the one doing the pushing could actually see that I was getting sick and stopped the spinning so I could get off. I avoided getting physically ill, but it was loose. I was also one who would ride the extreme roller coasters at theme parks, but would have to rest between

rides to avoid getting sick. Earlier in my marriage, my wife bought me a NASCAR ride along package for Christmas. After doing half a dozen laps at speed, I think my inner ear got a bit of a reset or recalibration, because about a year later we went to a theme Park, and I was able to ride the roller coasters with barely any effect, And since then I have even been able to ride the teacups at Disneyland. This is really interesting.

I wonder if the mechanism here, I guess what's being implied by Jarrett is that it could be this kind of vestibular plasticity that we talked about in the Spinning episodes. Maybe sometimes with enough training, the brain can kind of adapt and and desensitize itself somewhat to dizziness. Yeah, I wonder if people have tried to make money off of this with programs sort of like a couch to loop

to loop vestibular boot camp. But I'm interested, Jared, So it seems like you you are motion sensitive, yet constantly it sounds like you're seeking out extreme motion experiences. So maybe you've got like a kind of a thrill seeking streak, but also you get dizzy, or used to get dizzy. That's a conundrum, all right. He continues, I also have some thoughts about the plot and details of robot Shocks.

Bring it on, regarding the discussion of combat by Champion and why either side would choose this over on all on all fight, all on all warfare. Considering the context of the film, it is possible and maybe even likely, that the market and the con fed could have been

numerically and or technologically equal or close enough. Also, in the post apocalyptic context, both sides could have felt that they couldn't afford to lose the number of people that would die or be permanently disabled in combat, much less the personnel and resources they would have been spent maintaining a military. Also, you talked about the square cube law coming into play in real world conditions round giant mechanical

war machines. In real life, the design would be focused on stability and impact protection to avoid being crippled or destroyed by falling, and in this type of warfare, being able to shrink components without losing significant strength or power would be the technological advantage. Imagine the Cold War and both the US and NATO allies developed large mex suit soldiers in the USSR and its warsaw packed allies did

the same. Knowing that physicists would be designing and building around the square cube law, we would see the most successful side be the one who could keep their suit the smallest without suffering in armor or firepower. If you made it through all that, thanks for entertaining my musings.

I love the show, Jared. Uh some really interesting thoughts, Jared. Yeah, So if you were to take the robot Jock scenario as real, where for some reason, these major superpowers in a in an ongoing conflict are settling everything by mex suit champion warfare, I can absolutely see because he, for example, referred to this idea we talked about with JBS Haldane and that famous essay about you know, if like a mouse can fall down to mind shaft and survive, but

a larger animal falls down and splashes. And this just because like as you scale up, the difference between between your mass and the surface area of your body changes in a nonlinear way, and thus, like larger falling objects are more likely to get wrecked by falling. So if you've got like a hundred foot tall robot, just falling over is going to destroy it almost no matter what. Uh So. Yeah, So the the impetus here in that

technological scenario would be on miniaturization. And it makes me wonder if if that were real, Like if if as much research and development as went into things like you know, nuclear weapons, and rocketry and telemetry and all that kind of stuff would actually just go into miniaturization of components. That that is an interesting thought. All right, looks like we have another bit of robot jocks related listener mail. Do you want to take this one? Joe? Oh? Sure?

This comes from Joseph addressing the same question about a robot jocks warfare and the logic of of champion combat. We were saying, you know, why why would the force with superior numbers and firepower agree to champion combat. It seems like that that would just essentially be agreeing to uh to lessening their odds and so and so like, unless that the rules of champion warfare were imposed by an alien civilization or something like that. It's it's hard

to imagine that actually happening. But Joseph has a thought. Uh, he says. I had a minor comment to your review. Note, I have actually seen this movie when I was younger. You brought up the idea that a state with a larger force would not have great pressure to accept having single combat as a subscription, as the larger force had the basic advantage. Here's one issue I see with that analysis.

This is stated after a nuclear war. Since a very small group can use a nuclear weapon and destroy a very large group, and since the damage to the civilian population by nuclear weapons is also so massive and long lasting, I think that most populations would enforce the ban on war by fully refusing to participate. Even a very totalitarian society can be brought to heal by a general public strike. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Sue, and this one is in regard to our

episode on the invention of the lock and key. Hello, guys, I was listening to the listener mail where you mentioned the idea that in video games you don't have universal keys and are often guided in a way to navigate you through the story. But I know a franchise that goes against both concepts. In the Legend of Zelda series, the main character Link collects small keys throughout the dungeons

in the game. While you generally get a small key and then find a locked door shortly after, there are a few levels in some of the games that allow you to choose between more than one locked door. If you don't break the game, you just end up completing the in a slightly different order depending on your choices. The only in dungeon exception most of the time is the nightmare key or boss key, which is the only one in a level that can unlock the boss in

the legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. You also don't even truly have to go through the story in any particular order. Once you leave the starting area, you can actually complete the four main dungeons in any order that you like, or choose from what seems like ten trillion side quests. But if you're really not feeling that, you can technically race all the way to the final boss from the start of the game. I've never tried this myself, but it appears to be documented online by others.

Also about keys. My mom took my brother and I shopping as kids, and when we came out of the store we got to her hun day she was absolutely appalled that someone somehow threw a bunch of trash inside. Then she got this look on her face and screamed run. Apparently that was her first reaction to realizing that her car was parked down the lot further, but her key unlocked an identical car that's sat closer to the store,

same wide Hondai. While we uh We still laugh about this, but it's also creepy to think someone could be waiting in your car because their key happens to work in your car. Thanks for a great show. Oh that is a harrowing experience. I've never actually unlocked somebody else's car, but I have like gone up to other people's cars that looked like mine. Oh yeah, I've I've done that quite a bit. And they don't even have to look

exactly like mine. If it's just it's like a silver car, I'll just go up to it and attempt to drive it home. It's four wheels, basically close enough, close enough, you know. I want to say also, I have not had a lot of time for video games lately, but the one game that I have been playing a little bit often on is uh is Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. I finally got into it. I wanted to play it for a long time, and I would just like to underline uh Sue's comments that's a Breath

of the Wild is a beautiful game. I mean, actually beautiful it is. It's like a work of art. It's just an absolutely wonderful piece of game design. This is like a switch game or something. Yeah, um, there's something deeply soothing about it. It's it's just excellent. Okay. This next message comes from Bert, also about locks and keys. Bert says, I'm meant to send this story after your lock episode, but I listened while on the road and forgot by the time I could. When I was in college,

I went to visit a friend. While they're his neighbor locked himself out of his apartment for some reason I can't remember. We decided to try all of our keys. Mine opened his door for the heck of it. We tried it on my friends door. It opened. We knocked on his other side. Neighbor explained what was going on and tried it on her door. It opened it. My apartment key was a master key to their apartment building or maybe complex. We called our respective apartment managers and

my lock was changed that night. All of these lock and key emails filmed me with such confidence. And Bert goes on to say, also a little note about Blue Oyster Cult. I don't remember how that came up. Maybe it was a message in a previous listener mail episode, but Bert says on Blue Oyster Cult, check out the live album E T I Live, I believe it is the story you were talking about, maybe the one that's

like some kind of science fiction fantasy concept album. Uh. And then Bird also says it includes more more Cock songs that's Michael moorecock, such as black Blade Love the Show Bert. Oh, that that must be uh, referencing to l Rick's Sword. Yeah, I know nothing of this. Oh, I mean I have. There are a whole bunch of Morelock. I'm sorry, they're a whole bunch of more Cock Michael more novels. I think he may have written about more Locks at some point. He he wrote quite a bit.

I've only ever read the one, uh Elric book that I have a bunch of the paperbacks sitting around here, but I remember whichever one I read. I guess it was el Rik of Melanimity. I remember it being a lot of fun. Do you want to read this next message from Matt? Yes, Matt says, Hey, guys, I just wanted to chime in about keys. While as you would guess, there is a lot of variants in number of keys and key types and the evolution of how complex they actually are. That's said, I'm going to be and I'm

going to be narrow minded. Here and just focus on the Ford Motor Company. Ford was one of the worst with key security for almost a century. Although today with chips and modern tech your chances of finding a matching car are pretty much zero. Back in the day that was not the case. Though. In nineteen o eight Ford had a total of two key types, so you had a fifty fifty shot. Hold on, in nineteen o eight they had keys at all. That's surprising, Yeah, okay, anyway,

it continues. In nineteen that was changed to three, and then in nine Ford went to a nickel key instead of brass and up the key total to a whopping five. I know this was a long time ago, but in nineteen seventy the total key types for Ford stood at sixteen. This kept gradually rising in there were forty two versions of the Ford Mustang key. The nineties brought about a sharp rise in car theft and also security, and the numbers rose sharply to the point where today your chances

of an identical key are pretty much zero. But just thinking that you had a one and forty two shot is rather funny. While Ford was far behind in key tech for years, and other car makers actually did much better, but I'm not trying to write a novella, so that's just some fun info for you. Uh So, next time you see an old Ford, just break out the old key drawer and you might just get lucky. Thanks guys for making life a little more interesting and helping me

seem smarter than I actually am. Have a wonderful day and keep up the good work. Matt great Infomat. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, we got one last message here. This one's from Aiden. Aiden says, Hi, Robert and Joe. Oh and sorry, this one is about our Vault episode on horseshoe crabs. But actually Aiden says that, so I didn't really need to pressage it. So Aiden says, I just heard your latest

Vault episode about horseshoe crabs. Um. As you were discussing the extremely long history of horseshoe crabs and other stabilia morphs, I was reminded of a recent episode where you discussed search algorithms. One way to look at the evolutionary success of horseshoe crabs could be in the terms of an evolutionary search algorithm. Maybe they have stayed so consistent because they are stuck in a local maximum of the evolutionary

fitness function. If we visualize this using the finding the top of a mountain analogy that you mentioned in the Search Algorithms episode, I think the horseshoe crabs mountain would be very tall and very steep. The longevity of the species would indicate that they have very high evolutionary fitness, so I imagine their mountain peak is much taller than

that of many other organisms on Earth. Secondly, the consistency of their body plan over such long time scales could suggest that the slopes of their evolutionary mountain peak are very steep. I e. For some reason, minor variations incur a great evolutionary cost, preventing any changes from taking hold

within the population. It is also amusing to consider the possibility that the humble horseshoe crab has not only found a very stable local maximum, but has in fact found the global maximum of the evolutionary fitness function, making it the most fit organism on the planet or perhaps in the universe. Maybe they're up there on the peak looking down at all other organisms with their ten serious, little compound eyes. Thanks for another great episode, best Aiden. That's

some some wonderful content there. I would like to suggest to Planet Fitness that that you acquire the horseshoe crab as a mascot immediately and have it featured on all of your branding. Right, you are not fit until you're a horseshoe crab. Keep keep pumping until you got those uh what were their eyes made of? I've forgotten now some some kind of interesting mineral eyes. Yeah, I mean the horseshoe crab would make a good I mean, the

horseshoe crab is instantly identifiable. I think it would make a great mascot for for any purpose, be at a logo, um, for a business or a sports team mascot. I mean that would be great white and horseshoe crabs. Yeah, somebody out there must be. There's a there's a banana slugs, right, somebody's gonna be horseshoe crabs. Yeah. Text somebody from that that college sent some merch way back in the day. They were like they were really proud of their their

bananas slugs, and banana slugs are great. They're having having seen them in the wild now I could say they're they're tremendous. Wait, who was like you see Santa Cruz or something. I think so, you know, I'd have to have to look it up. But yeah, you go into into you know, into the big forest there, uh, and you you see them there, and there their little you know, yellow golden spirals there amid the leaf litter and all. It's pretty great. Yeah, I was right. It's it's Santa Cruz. Yeah,

very a good mascot. But somebody out there, if you don't already have uh the Horseshoe Crabs, go for it. Yeah. I'm you know, I'm not a huge team sports uh person, but I do enjoy whenever there is a a mascot choice that kind of flips the script a little bit. Like there there is a basketball team where they're the Wizards, right, so they have an actual wash. Yeah. So I mean I don't know to what extent they're really taking advantage of that, but I think that's pretty cool where your

mascot is like an aged sorcerer or something. You know, Yeah, there's so much you could do with that. And then you got the raptors. I mean, that's really cool. I remember being a kid and there was pressure to like football, like NFL football, and I remember looking around and I'm like, well, which of these mascots excites me. I guess it's the Vikings. That's the only thing that is even halfway um, you know, jumping out at me. So I think I bought a Vikings pencil, um, and that was as far into NFL

post I got. Oh wait, no, if if no team out there has yet adopted the slime mold as their mascot, that's got to be that like the Peak. Yeah, they're they're slow, but they're thorough, you know. Okay, should we wrap it up there? Yeah, let's go ahead and wrap it up for this week. But we'll be back next

week with more listener mail. So right in, you know, right in in response to episodes that we've recorded, episodes you think we should record new episodes, old episodes, your responses to other listener mails you've heard, um, praise, corrections, what have you. Uh, we'd love to hear from you. And in the meantime, if you want to check out other listener mail episodes. Other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind are Friday episodes of Weird House Cinema or

those core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Just look for the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you'd like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production

of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.