Listener Mail: Yearly Dad Joke Inundation

but it's it's endearing in a way, you know. Yeah, so so he It's all stuff like what do you call a turkey that goes to space? I don't know. What do you call a turkey the coast of space? Poo poo in the toilet? The answer? M hmm, okay. I have questions about the logic behind that one. But you know, that's the thing about artificial intelligence is that you let it run wild, and it begins operating on a level that we can no longer connect with. That's right.

You don't know if it's too stupid to be funny, or if it's so far over your head that you'll never catch up. Could be either way. Uh So, Luckily, Carney is still obeying his basic programming. He is still bringing us listener mail, and of course everybody out there, you're still sending us listener mail related to our stuff to blow your mind. Episodes are artifact episodes are weird, how cinema episodes. So once more we have a selection

of listener mail to consider. That's right, We've got the seasonal yearly inundation of Dad jokes and uh, and we're very excited to get right into them. Rob do you want to start off? Let's see, should I read this one from Brett about the Nile inundation? Go for it. Brett says, Hello, Joe and Robert. I hope this note finds you both well. I just wanted to write a quick note about the Nile episode and how you guys

were able to take it to a biochemical angle. You have had Daniel whiteson on your show before, and he has mentioned a quote about the ocean that I forget in detail. It goes something like, we left the ocean when we learned to take the water with us. Now it seems we should say we left the water's edge, not necessarily the ocean. H Now, I could be wrong about this, but I think we have had Daniel Whiteson on the show before. Daniel Whiteson is a physicist and

one of the hosts of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. Uh, and Daniel was a great guest on the show. But unless I'm mistaken, Brett, I think you're actually remembering us talking about Brian Green's book Until the End of Time, where Green in the book is explaining the role of water in biochemistry and he quotes the Nobel Laureate Albert sent Georgie, who said, quote water is life's matter and matrix,

mother and medium. There is no life without water. Life could leave the ocean when it learned how to grow a skin a bag in which to take the water with it. We're still living in water, having the water now inside. I should say it would be it would be easy to confuse these two interviews since they occurred so close together. Um, I remember we I think we talked to Daniel Whiteson and then basically the next episode of the next week was when we talked to Brian Green. Yeah.

I think that's exactly right, But but who knows. Maybe I'm forgetting something that we talked about with with Daniel that was very similar. But anyway, I think, yes, this makes a good point that what synt Georgie was saying is sort of true in a broad evolutionary sense, but it's also a little bit too simple because as we we talked about in the Nilon Inundation episode, Uh, you can't just have a cell be a bag of water.

A cell actually needs to very tightly control and regulate what happens to the water contents inside it because of how dangerous water can be too organic molecules or I guess especially the long chain molecules needed for life, like DNA, RNA and so forth. But anyway, Breath's message goes on. You mentioned organic chemistry and how water is the enemy,

which it can be for sure. As an organic chemist, we try to use an hydrus meaning free from water solvents and reagents daily because of the sensitivity of the reagents to something as polar as water. Water causes byproducts which we then need to remove. But this is more about how reactive our reagents could be to one another, which helps us design and synthesize drugs for disease. But I'm getting sidetracked here. The reason I write today is because of a basic process of life that all amino

acids undergo to form peptides. When two amino acids linked together, they form an amide bond from an amine and a carboxylic acid, and the waste product of this step a water molecule. As you can see, water is the essence of life because it is derived from the process of making life. It's very interesting. Our cells then had to learn to regulate how much water was in the cell as more and more peptide bonds were formed. But this is at a very small amount relative to the size

of a cell. Please keep the twists coming. I really enjoyed how you were able to start with crop growing for food and lead it to how life might have started. Definitely one of my favorite podcasts, and I look forward to what you guys will discuss next. Cheers Brett. Yes, our discussions are are are lawless affair. You never know where they're gonna go, what we're gonna end up talking about. Uh,

it's very very free form. Some of the time maybe chaotic, but I hope at least chaotic good one would hope. All Right, we received a lot of feedback from our Dad Jokes episode, which we knew would be the case, given how connected people are to the topic. Either, you know, parents making bad jokes are just bad jokes in general and humor itself. Uh so we're gonna get into some of these now. This first one comes to us from Mark.

Good evening, gentlemen. I hope this finds you well. I loved your episode on dad jokes and thought I would share one of my own creation. I am assuming the rule of infinite probability predicts either some one has already made it or will soon enough. Anyway, here it goes question, what do you call a questionable toilet? Answer? A skeptic tank. I hope you enjoyed my lame joke. Thanks for all the knowledge. Mark. Why does Mark get a voice a

voice for a listener before? I don't know, just because he's I don't know, good evening gentleman's tended to demand it. So it just happened. Good evening to you, Mark. A skeptic tank. Okay, uh okay, close, Yeah, yeah, I like it. I think it'll work. I would tell it to my son, except I'm not sure he knows what a what a septic tank is. At this point. I'd have to first school him in that then wait, wait a few days, and then release the joke on him. Um, so just

educating him as a precursor to sharing humor. Dad, why the six hour lesson about septic tanks? Just wait until Thursday. It'll come together, alright. This next message comes from Jim in New Jersey. Jim says Robert and Joe, the purpose of dad jokes is to embarrass your adolescent children in front of their adolescent friends. If you can embarrass your children in public from time to time, why even bother

to have them. Jim in New Jersey PS, I didn't get the assassin joke until I listened to it for the second time. Oh. Yeah, that one is rather tricky, isn't it. Uh this is a good point, Uh, the Jim raises, and I think one that I don't know how much we've got into it, but I think this does fall into the category of like the teasing joke. Um, you know, the joke as a way of teasing. Parental teasing as one of the categories of teasing that humans

engage in. Yeah, And one of the things we talked about in the episode was the possibility that sometimes when you make bad jokes at like an adolescent or teenager. It can at least elicit some kind of noticeable reaction from them when not much else does. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, all right. Here's another one. This one comes to us from Sebastian Hi, Rob, Joe, and Seth for the recent dad jokes episode. I just wanted to add a couple

of bits of information. The first is that in French, or at least in Canadian French, the equivalent term to dad jokes is uh and forgive me my I'm terrible. With the French uh le jokes demons uncle or um or uh leblas de mon monacle, depending on your region.

This translates not to dad jokes, but rather too uncle jokes, with the understanding that dad jokes in French are a lot more brown and blue than in English, and that it's considered to be the responsibility of the uncles to corrupt their nieces and nephews when the sister or sister in law isn't there to shoot them. Many a Christmas dinner have led to comparisons of gravy to diarrhea as

soon as the matriarch's attention is diverted. In a French household, this is what we hear about that sophisticated French sense of humor. The Americans, you know, just we can't get there, yeah, Uncle Pierre. Anyway, they continue. The second thing is that I take mild exception to you are using the army's sleeve's joke as an example of a dad joke. Maybe it's more of a Canadian thing, but dad jokes here

are usually considered more contextual and opportunistic. They tend to be cheap and fast and lack structure, and to be tied directly to observations in the immediate environment, such as pointing out things that look like a butt, or deliberately mishearing things. Oh god, this is a big one. Mom says you should thank your dad, causes the dad to say, I should shank the cat for this angle. Dad jokes are more like riffing, albeit a more infantile type of

riffing based on crafts humor. Yes, the mishearing things was, um what was pretty big in my household, and also from I think from my dad, But I always I didn't know it was universal. I was kind of chalked it up to the fact that my dad's hearing was a little like his hearing was a little bit damaged, so I think he oftentimes did not hear things all the way and found humor in them and then kind of past that form of humor on to all of

us so that we're all intolerable in conversations with other people. Now, I think that is more universal that uh. I think that's a kind of classic movie riff, where whatever is in the dialogue is hard to hear, and then you can you can go off of it. I can't think of a perfect example right now, but I know there's a lot of that on Mystery Science Theater. Yeah. Um, anyway, they continue. Similarly, there's a growing concept of mom jokes that I've seen more and more, at least among Canadians.

Whereas dad jokes are innocent and crass, mom jokes tend to be more exhausted and beset upon and oftentimes rather dark. So when a kid might say I don't like broccoli, a mom joke would be to reply with you're gonna die of scurvy if you don't learn to ram that in your face, Or if you say I don't think those shoes will go with that dress, and they reply with welp, I guess I should just go lay in a ditch and wait for the cold grip of death.

In other words, whereas the dad joke is exceedingly immature, the mom joke tends to be exceedingly mature jokes about death, disease, abandonment and isolation and other darker topics, and usually with cartoonish hyperbole and either a dead pan or over the top delivery. But most importantly, mom jokes, like dad jokes, are contextual and can't be repeated unless in a similar context.

Now this is that this is interesting, UM I wonder I mean, one would be tempted to sort of take like sort of traditional stereotypical um like gender roles and apply that and think, well, okay, if you have if you have a mom who maybe is around the kids more like they're forced to speak and even employ humor at a child's level, and then you you want the release of making a joke that is more sophisticated or darker.

And whereas it might be the reverse with the sort of the stereotypical dad right like the dad has been at the I guess like the Madman era office all day making all sorts of body and sophisticated jokes and when he comes home, he just wants to make like crude, dumb, but ultimately innocent jokes. I don't know. I I like I said, that's probably a I'm sure that's a very simplistic way to look at it, and it's ultimately more complicated than that. But but I don't know. This is interesting.

I'm very familiar with this kind of humor, but I guess I've never heard of it conceptualized as a mom joke before. That's interesting. Yeah, anyway, they close out here with I think the point of dad and mom jokes is that they are the unwanted punch line to a set up that nobody made, like a parasite of laughs on a tense situation. A traditional joke with a standard set up and a standard punch line feel like they fall outside of this kind of humor domestic improv in

other words, at least to me hope things are. Sebastian, well, that was a searing assault on my use of the army sleeves joke as as an example. So, according to Sebastian, a joke with a setup and a punch line is not a dad joke and can never be a dad joke, speaking of the Army sleeps joke, I try after you shared it with me. I tried it out on my own son and he already knew the punch line and

thought it was hilarious. Um. Now, I don't know how much of that was the fact that he knew the punch line and therefore it was not my joke, it was his. But but he thought it was just high humor. Well, there's no higher praise than making a child laugh or not phrase? Uh? What was it? No higher honor than making a child laugh? One last one about dad jokes here.

This one comes from Danny. She says, Hi, I'm a mother and love making my son grown with dad jokes, simply because it's fun to be able to annoy him a little bit. Kids can be quite annoying at times, and here is a small childish way to annoy them back. And sometimes he even laughs at how much my jokes annoy him. Love from Switzerland, Danny, You know the revenge factor? We didn't even think about that. All right, are you

ready for some spoons? Let's do it? Okay. This one picks up after we read a message from a listener on previous listener mail about a spoon that was designed to discourage left handedness, and it could only be easily used at least with the right hand, because the bowl

part of the spoon bent to the left. And we talked briefly about how I remembered at least one of my teachers in elementary school telling me that when they were growing up, left handedness was bullied out of them by adults who thought that there was something wrong with it. I don't know if it was a religious thing or just a sort of cultural uh you know, No, you need to suck it up and learn to use your

right hand like you're supposed to. I'm not sure what that was, but Darren Darren has a story along those same lines. So Darren says, Hi, gents, I've listened for years, but the latest Listener Mail episode really spoke to me. Back in nineteen eighty one, growing up in South Yorkshire, England, our class teacher of German descent told us stories of him having his left hand tied closed as a child. He told us this almost apologetically, as he was aware

his now right handed writing was sometimes difficult to read. Ironically, then at school there would be an incident only a few weeks later, where we were in the dinner hall having school lunch, the head mistress singled me out for having my knife in my left hand. She berated me, saying that I needed to eat right handed, and I tried but couldn't. Embarrassed to the point where I took a stand as a nine year old, I walked out of school, the head mistress furious at me, and my

classmates cheering all the way back home. Yes, walking from school was a thing. My parents at first were annoyed I was home early, but when I explained why, my dad went down to the school, and let's just say that, he made it clear that I'd continue using my knife with my left hand. I tell my daughter this story and she is amazed that this was only really a generation ago. Thank you for hopefully taking time to consider this email, and thanks for continuing to blow mine in

my daughter's minds. Kind regards, Darren. Yeah, I mean, it's that's it's crazy that that sort of thing took place. I mean, if them now, it seems crazy, and I don't know, it's hard to imagine at the time how that would have how that was was was allowed. I don't know, it's just crazy to think about. Okay, I'm getting more convinced that maybe we should do this as an episode and look into like, why is it that

they were doing. I mean, was it just the idea that, well, a lot of things are designed for right handed people and it will be easier if kids learned how to use the right hands for things. Or is it more like a I don't know, superstitious religious thing where it's like the left hand is the hand of the devil. Yeah, I remember there being at least a little bit of that mixed in. Yeah, it's been a while since I looked at it, so yeah, we should we shoul think

about coming back to this as a topic. Al Right, here's another one. This one comes to us uh from Maybe, and it is about spoons once more. Dear Robert and Joe, I just finished listening to your excellent spoon episodes. Regarding the fancy silvil ware that never gets used, I have a story. My mother hated silver ware because polishing the silver had been one of her household chores when she

was young. However, she and my father were rather badly off financially for many years, so they used sterling silverware because they couldn't afford to buy a set of stainless flatware. The silverware had been a wedding gift. When I was about ten. They bought stainless and we never used the silver again, not even for holidays. It just amuses me that the stainless flatlet where was the aspirational purchase, given how expensive real silverware is. They gave me a nice

set of stainless steel flatware when I got married. Also, I submit that sports are the perfect utensil for baked potatoes and for mango has. Thanks for all the great content, Mayve, rob do I need to stop you from exploding with invective against may Have for defending the use of sports. Um, I mean, I guess if if they want to use them, fine, but I would argue, I mean of spoon works perfectly fine out a baked potato. I don't know why anybody needs a fork to get in there. And uh, mango has,

I guess mango. The thing about mango, I will admit is it does tend to be a bit slippery. Um So, I guess that is that is where one might insist upon having some some prongs on your utensil. Um So, I've certainly never used a sport to eat them, maybe trying. I think I've just used a spoon to eat mango that has been like properly cut up in all, but I don't know. It's rare I get my hands on a mango in this household because my son eats them all.

I didn't include the full message, but we did also get a piece of email from somebody who wanted to talk about grapefruit spoons. Yes, now that I will, I will argue strongly that a grapefruit spapoon is not a spork. But I I do believe in grape fruit spoons. I think they are They're very handy. I prefer to use one when I eat a grape fruit, though I was once. This was when we were, you know, more properly. I

guess when we were how stuff works. I remember eating a grape fruit with a grapefruit spoon, and there's somebody else, like they worked in the office, and they they began they were getting on my case saying, no, the grape fruit spoon is not the way to go. You need a grape fruit knife. You need a special knife for eating your grape fruit. That is the only way to eat them the spoon is malarkey? Is this strickland? No? I don't remember who this individual was. They weren't like

in our department. I think they were more of a technical role in the cup. But it was one of those where like they were coming on kind of strong, and I think I kind of like backed out of the room with my grape fruit and spoon. I mean, maybe the argument was like, this is a better way to eat your grapefruit at your computer, because certainly, like when you eat a grape fruit, when I eat a grape fruit with a grape fruit spoon, it still makes kind of a mess, like you're gonna get some sprays

of citrus. So maybe the knife cuts down on that to a certain extent. I don't know, but you know, that was back in the glorious time when we had cubicles, and those cubicle walls could protect your next door neighbors from the citrus spray. That's right. At least it's only you and your stuff that are getting doused in citrus juice in you in your dink cave of bones. And we remember you had some really weird decorations when I first moved in. Well, you know, stuff kind of accumulated. No,

I mean it was good. I was like, I could see your desk and I was like, that's good people. Okay, This next message comes to us from Paul. It is about sun dogs and halos. Paul says, Hi, Robin Joe just had to throw this link your way regarding halos and sundogs. One of the most impressive I've ever seen. Thanks for the great comment. And then Paul attaches a link to an Astronomy Picture of the Day UH entry.

A p o D is a thing that NASA does where they collect cool photographs of natural phenomenon and photographs from space and stuff. This one was by a photographer named Let's see Magnus ed Back and it's from the twenty one December two thousand eighteen if you want to look it up. The caption UH title was extraordinary solar halos and this one is fantastic. The caption explanations says quote captured at lunchtime on a cold December fourteenth near

Ute and Doll, Sweden. The image includes the relatively ordinary twenty two degree halo, sun dogs or par helia, and sun pillars, the extensive array of rarer halo those has been identified, along with previously unknown features. All the patterns are generated as sunlight or moonlight is reflected and refracted in flat six sided water ice crystals in Earth's atmosphere.

In this case, likely local contributors to the atmospheric ice crystals are snow making machines operating at a nearby ski center. That's interesting, but the yeah, this picture is worth looking up. It is gorgeous and it looks almost like the Earth is plummeting down a tunnel made of sun's. Yeah, this is impressive. It looks I'm it kind of seems like a cosmic church window to me, or indeed like some sort of angelic visitation. It almost has like the makings

of some sort of inhuman face. It's this is gorgeous, But that's hilarious that this may well be aided by the utter artificiality of a snow making machine. It is angered the gods. Alright, for this next one, if you're listening on a device that has a way to speed up things, uh, speed up our voices. Go ahead and speed us up to about three eggs because it will be appropriate. This one comes to us from Jesse, Dear

Robert and Joe. On the most recent listener Mail episode one, someone wrote in mentioning that they listen to podcast up to three times speed. Robert, you mentioned that while you were listening to sped up audio, you feel like your mind speeds up to keep pace, and you find it unsettling. Joe, you notice that it affects the way you perceive the speed which someone is speaking in regular conversation. I too,

have sped up podcast to get through backlogs. I noticed that when I listened to podcasts at a higher speed, I feel increased stresses. My mind has to work harder and pay closer attention so I don't miss anything. But more than that, if I listen at increased speeds for a few days or more, I feel like it starts to affect my own speech. I notice I tend to speak more quickly, which means my mind can't always keep

up and I end up tripping over my words. Another thing I've noticed is when I slowed down a conversational podcasts such as Stuff to Bow Your Mind to around point eight times, it has a subtle relaxing effect. This intuitively makes sense. I don't notice it's slowing down my speech, but I suspect this is because I do this exclusively for podcasts that I put on to help me get

to sleep. This is not when I do most of my podcast listening, so perhaps it doesn't have to have as much of a chance to mess with my head as it would during the day. One last thing, As other listeners have admitted, I too have listened to stuff to bow your mind to get me to sleep when it is your turn. Though it is a vault episode that I turned to that way, I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Please know that you're

not boring, just common, relaxing, stay brilliant, Jesse. Oh thanks Jesse. Oh my god, I can't imagine listening to us at

zero point eight speed. Yeah, that sounds so drunk, just hammer. Yeah, if you if you heard me laughing a little bit or through my reading of that, it's it's uh not not because there's I'm I'm I'm judging Jesse for doing this, but I'm just imagining that if I did that, it would be kind of like nightmare juice, because I have like literally had nightmares in which voices are slowed down. So it's not something I really I really like, but I could second see where it could be relaxing for

someone else. I mean, you and I both have Tennessee speech anyway, which is already on the slower side of accent pace, and oh man, that that would be rough. But anyway, it's interesting to hear to hear from everyone, you know, just there's so many nuances to how people listen to podcasts that it's always interesting to pick up on what the trends are. And I guess it what used to be not as easy to do this, right? I mean when did iPhones and so forth start getting

that that speed up slow down option? Oh I don't know. I feel like that's apt dependent for me. It depends on what I used to listen Google podcast, So we'll let you pick pretty much any speed you want. Yeah, but of course they're also like trying to shame you and to listen to everything. I noticed, like when I use it and it's like I go to a podcast I haven't listened to in a few days and it's like, have you given up on this podcast? You still want to be subscribed at all? And I'm like, yes, I

just wasn't in the car for a few days. I said, don't want to keep up with it. Don't make me feel bad just because I just because I'm like, you know, a few dozen episodes behind. I'm gonna get to it. But seriously, we love you Apple. Okay, let's go on to our next one. What do we have for us here, Joe? Okay, now, we got some messages about Weird House Cinema. All right, some very substantive messages about Weird House. So we'll say this first one comes from John. John says, Hi, Robert

and Joe. I just listen to your Weird House Cinema episode on Hands of Steel, and I enjoyed it a lot. I actually passed through Page, Arizona last week and after leaving town, walked on the Navajo footbridge where the finale took place. It's a great but vertigo inducing view of the Colorado River before the canyon really widens out. I'm also writing because I noticed a funny connection between the movie and it's real world setting. Although I can't speak

for acid rain. Remember in the movie, there was a there was like a stationary acid rain hazard. There's like a sign on the highway there's like warning you're about to drive through acid rain, which is pretty great. Um, uh sorry, John goes on. Although I can't speak for acid rain, the state of Arizona does have an ongoing history of water and land pollution from mining, including groundwater

pollution by the acid waste of copper mines. Southern Arizona has a high concentration of large open pit copper mines, and in order to extract the copper from or strong acid solutions are often used, along with other toxic chemicals. These waste products can leach into the surrounding environment, including

into groundwater, endangering surrounding communities. A good resource on this is the book Boom Bust Boom, who's author Bill Carter, recalls being poisoned by the vegetables in his own garden in Bisbee, Arizona, a mining town, and learning that his house was built on the arsenic and lead lace tailings from a nearby copper mine. Wow and John attached some photos, one an aerial photo and one from the ground level of one of these open pit copper mines that has

been partially filled in. It is a It is a truly dystopic site. Looks kind of like a like a colosseum for earth elementals. Though I guess if you're an earth elemental. I'm not sure what kind of animals they would throw you too, maybe like some kind of rock dissolving fungus or something. I don't know. Well, we'll come back to that idea, um. But then John goes on. I briefly lived in Aho, Arizona, which has its own

open pit copper mine. The now retired pit still has a turquoise and toxic pool at the bottom, and the tailings pile from the mine dominates the landscape images attached to both though that's what these images are, Okay. While there, I was told that the tap water had more arsenic than would be ideal, but I can't say whether this

was from the mind or some other environmental factor. It was fun to see a connection between the film's vision of dystopian environmental degradation and the stuff that goes on in the real world. Sometimes American truth is stranger than Italian fiction. For a future weird house cinema, could I suggest Altered States. Given that the podcast has discussed Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna at length, this movie might be appropriate.

It seems like the writers did some brief reading about traditional uses of psychedelic mushrooms and sensory deprivation, did mushrooms themselves, and then wrote a script. Thanks for all the fun and interesting conversations, Best John with Altered States? Am I wrong in thinking that was written by Patty Chaievsky the same person who wrote Network? Uh that sounds familiar? Yes, yes, that is correct. U. Yeah, so it has an interesting writer.

And then of course it's a kin Russell film. Um So, I mean I feel like we probably do need to take on a kin Russell film at some point. I assume you've seen Altered States, right, I have? I have. It's been a long time since I watched it in its entirety. Uh so it would it would totally be a different experience watching it now, but uh, it could be a pretty fun one. It's got some neat connections in it. John Lara Catt, isn't it as an X ray technician? Oh? That's funny. Uh So My main memory

of it is that William Hurt is the main character. Yeah, and he plays a I don't know, Timothy Leary type some a A an academic who becomes interested in the use of psychedelics and in sensory deprivation tanks. And he starts to discover that as he like does more and more sensory deprivation, he like regresses to some kind of pre previous state of existence, and which is an interesting idea, but I think it sort of ends up with him

just like turning into a werewolf. Yeah, he's sence some sort of like caveman monster mode towards the end, as I recall. But in an interesting coincidence, this next piece of listener mail also concerned sensory deprivation. Alright, this one comes to us from Dan. Dan rights to Robert and Joe.

I made the unfortunate mistake of watching the Janet um Agrin video of Teddy Bear that Robert posted on his Commuta Music blog, and now I am trapped in the hell Raiser Laborath dimentioned, just as Joe had warned, I should have listened. While the pain and anguish has been unbearable and my suffering soon to be legendary. My cinebye masters have permitted me to send you this listener mail.

By the way, they're big fancy show. Earlier this week, I was going through the show's archive and listened to the Creepy Pasta Experiments episode that Robert did with Christian and this episode you discussed one creepy pasta about a Russian sleep experiment that descended into violence and madness and related it to your own experiences with sensory deprivation and

isolation tanks. It made me think about how the last twelve months since the covid vandemic forced me to start remotely working from home, that in order to get through my day I need to listen to a lot of podcasts to keep me focused on my job. Ironically, if I don't have some kind of auditory stimuli, I lose concentration, focus and find I cannot function in a complete, in

complete silence. Perhaps this is related to how I used to work in a very noisy office with a lot of phones ringing, people talking, laughing at various machines going off, and I need to replicate the illusion of being in the company of a lot of people to maintain some sense of normalcy. I wonder if you've had similar experiences since transitioning to your home offices. Apologies for the lengthy email, but I must now be going CD rom Centebyte is

calling such sites to show me. Keep up the great work, Dan Well I'm so glad. Dan remembers there is a c D cinemyte c D cinembyte shows up in the third one that's in that weird club. Yeah, I think he's a what is He's like several ideas kind of slammed together, right, he's us. I think bartender and a

DJ and like a c D face. Um. At times we may have to do uh how Raiser three Hell on Earth at some point because it is kind of like the Gremlins too of Hell Raiser films, you know, um, or every everybody at the writing table gets to design their own cinemabyte for the movie. That movie is just a ladle full of vegetable shortening. It is gross. Okay, what was I gonna say? Oh? Yeah, well this is

an interesting idea, Dan. Yeah. I sometimes find that certain types of music and noise can help me focus on tasks, but not any kind of music or noise, And I don't know, I guess it depends on what kind of work I'm doing. But yeah, there can certainly be a thing I think for some people where it can be harder to focus if you have less stimulation, because if you have less stimulation, you're more likely to let your mind start to wander, you know, people who are prone

to rumination, and then you get distracted by your thoughts. Yeah, I mean I I can't take silence at all. Like I'll I'll be listening to Deepeche Mode and they're like, enjoy the silence, and I'm like, no, That's why I put you on depeche Mode. So I don't have to hear the silence. Now, just keep singing, so I don't think too hard, uh for something that effect. I don't know, you know, it varies. There's different depending on where I am during the day. I might need something more ambient

or or or something a little more um complicated. But then also it's like we live in such an area that I'm setting out on the front porch working like I don't really need any music. There's plenty of noises going on, like they're multiple trains going by, there's traffic, their dogs, their lawnmowers. There's plenty of of auditory stimuli. Uh to keep me on task. You know. I gotta say one of my all time now productivity albums is an album that I never heard until you shared it

with me. It's Biosphere The Petrified Forest. Oh, Yeah, that was so good. I put that one onto work all the time. I mean all the time. That's a that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, uh, you can't beat Biosphere. Play play a lot of Biosphere. Also play a lot of Steve Roach. Um. Yeah, listeners out there, let us know, do you have particular ambient or even not so ambient tracks or artists that you turn to, uh to to work, either during the pandemic or you know, just in general.

Let us know. We're always always looking for listening suggestions. Oh. Another good one that I've been listening too lately to work is cluster Zucker site. Yeah. Oh that's good. Yeah, older, older stuff, but but great, still stands the test of time. Okay, one last message here. This comes to us from Kenny. Kenny says, Dear Robert and Joe High there from Scotland. I'm a longtime listener who, like many others, enjoys your podcasts in the evenings, often letting them play as my

wife and I go to sleep. This leads to some very confusing blended episodes, as we fall asleep to a discussion about Jovian moons and wake up in the night to a debate about ancient fungus. I recently listen to Your Weird House Cinema episode about Ewoks the Battle for Indoor, and Joe made an observation that the gas giant around which Indoor orbits being depicted on the horizon as absolutely enormous,

apparently taking up half the sky. The point was accurately made that even from the vantage point of an observer on Io, Jupiter's innermost moon, the gas giant would only appear to be a fraction of the size of Tanna indoors planet, and that this was done for dramatic effect rather than accuracy. However, this got me thinking about how our own moon appears when it is high in the sky compared to how it does when it's on the horizon. The Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it often appears

to us as if it does. As far as I'm aware, The mechanism by which this occurs is not fully understood, but this is referred to as the moon illusion and as puzzled observer since antiquity. It is now commonly accepted to be a psychological rather than a physical phenomenon. The Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it fools us into thinking that it does. This effect seems to have something

to do with context. When the moon is high in the sky and there's nothing around it to give its scale and help us judge distance, we see it as relatively small because our brains interpret it as being very far away. When it is on the horizon. However, the moon often appears to be much larger, and it may be that when there are other objects in our field of view, this tricks our brain into perceiving the Moon

is significantly closer. Perhaps an observer on io would perceive Jupiter to be truly vast as it rises and sets, but smaller and ever so slightly less intimidating when it was higher in the sky, That is, if they lasted long enough to perceive anything at all before they succumbed to their radiation. Bath yours, Kenny, And of course if the moon is to the left, it's a part of your thoughts, right yeah, And a part of my thoughts

is a part of me? Is me? Uh well? Uh so, Kenny, raise some wonderful points here, uh this that I will just jump in real quick. This has nothing to do with their content, but they mentioned the indoor movies. Battle for Indoor the e Walks movies. If if you out there listening are not aware, these are finally coming to

Disney Plus, uh next month. I'm very excited by this because when we recorded that episode on the Battle for Indoor, one of the things we stressed was you sadly have to go to like Russian YouTube to watch these things right now, or you know, pick up a used DVD. But soon that that that battle will be over. These will be available on Disney Plus along with the the excellent uh Tartarkovski Clone Wars series, So I'm excited for that.

Oh and the animated segment from the Holiday Special with Boba Fette in it, but not the whole Holiday special, right that couldn't know? I mean, I think it just could not be allowed. It needs to remain in its prison. That's where the gods put it. This is a good choice. Yeah, so they're uploading the e walk So now are we going to be able to get the Wicked the Ewalk

manson Family Eyes in four? Yeah? Yeah, hopefully so. I haven't heard anything about them restore it doing any kind of restoration on it, are certainly adding any effects to it, so I'm guessing it'll be in It's in all its glory. Now one wonders on the on the question of um of possible cursing in the film, if Wilford Brimley actually did anything like cursing, which has been an argument that's been made. I wonder if they're going to go in

and remove anything. I wonder if they're gonna make any changes. Be interested to find out if they take out Wilford Brimley saying the F word, that is that is censorship that will not be tolerated. Um Allegedly. We don't know that for sure that he seasoned Afford, but some have made that that case. If they take out the Brimley Ffford, this is stall in a Strussia absolutely unacceptable. Well we

we shall see, we shall see. All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close the book on everything right here. But this has been your weekly listener mail episode. Uh so, yeah, right in. Let us know, do you have responses to what we talked about in this episode? You have responses to our core stuff to blow your mind episodes or two Weird House Cinema. Let us know we'd love to hear from you. We don't have time to read everything in these episodes, but we do read everything that comes in.

If you would like to follow our podcast, check out the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed wherever you find that. Just make sure you rate, review, and subscribe, and don't don't let whatever whatever you're listening platform is, you know, don't let them try and shame you. Don't let them give you a hard time about skipping an episode or we're having to catch up, or and certainly listen at any speed that your brain can bear. Huge things.

As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would 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 iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows