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The number 44 has great significance. It is the atomic number of ruthenium; the 44th Roman emperor was Claudius Gothicus, and the 44th pope was Sixtus III.
Perhaps most importantly, 44 was the number worn by the great Milwaukee Braves player, Hank Aaron.
In his honor, I give to you the 44th installment of questions and answers on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Let’s jump into the questions, the first of which was emailed by Sean Pratz. He writes.
As I’m sure you know, because you’ve mentioned your affinity for the Foundation series, Isaac Asimov was an amazingly prolific writer. He penned over 500 books over the course of his career. All told, estimates of his total published word count, not counting books he edited or letters he wrote, come in at around 7.5 million words.
By your own estimate, you’ve written over three million words for Everything Everywhere Daily. Assuming you’re still going strong into the next decade, you should surpass Asimov’s word count somewhere around episode 5000, or roughly 14 years after your first episode.
It took Isaac Asimov an entire lifetime to write seven and a half million words. You’ll do it in only 14 years. So my question is this: Are you a cat person or a dog person?
The answer to the literal question is dog person. The answer to the implied question is that I could surpass Asimov, but since I hired writers, the amount I write has decreased.
Asimov was publishing honest-to-goodness books, although he was sort of a machine and could pretty much get whatever he wrote published. I can publish whatever I want whenever I want.
If you include everything I wrote before I started the podcast, that is probably another million words easy.
I have no intention of stopping what I’m doing, so it should continue for the foreseeable future, albeit not at the same rate as the first five years.
So, I think it is possible I could write more than Isaac Asimov, but it’s under totally different circumstances. I think if he had lived in the internet era, he might have been even more prolific.
CGHDUN asks, Have you seen an international rugby match, and if so, what was your favorite?
Not only have I been to an international rugby match, but I was at the semifinals and finals of the 2011 World Cup in Auckland…a fact that I love to taunt kiwis with.
I was invited by Qantas, who were there to support the Wallabies, and I got a bunch of Wallaby swag.
I saw New Zealand beat Australia and France beat Wales, and then I saw the All Blacks beat France in the finals. I was glad that New Zealand won because I feared there would be mass suicides in New Zealand if they lost.
It was a great experience, and I’d do it again.
Andrew Greig asks, Hey Gary, I’m curious: with so many episodes, are you able to remember what you have covered? Or do you ever have an idea for a show pop into your head only to realize you have already done it?
For the most part, yes, but there have been a few instances where I went down the path of starting an episode only to realize that I’d done it earlier.
Pretty much the first stage in researching any episode, for the other writers and me, is checking whether there is already an episode on the topic.
That being said, there are often different ways to tackle the same subject. There are many topics that I could do again, but in a completely different way. We are in no danger of running out of new episode ideas. I suggest you listen to Everything Everywhere Weekly on Patreon, where Joel and I, in the course of almost every episode, will come up with new episode ideas just talking about the episode of the previous week.
Steve Augustino asks, Gary, since the chapters of the Completionist Club are dispersed and maintain their own records, I wonder if you have an estimate of the total number of Completionist Club members? It cannot exceed the number of downloads of your least-listened-to episode, but other than that, is there any helpful information for sizing the club?
The honest answer is that I don’t know, and there is no way to know. Podcast stats are very imperfect, and I have no idea who listened to every episode because IP addresses change frequently, and you listen on a mobile device.
Based on feedback, and the vast majority of listeners do not give any feedback, I’d say that there are several hundred members of the completionist club, and maybe over a thousand.
At the end of the day, that is just a guess. Absent perfect reporting, there is no way to know. The good news is that if you are a podcast listener, your privacy is more secure listening to podcasts than it is browsing the web.
Jarom Nelson on Facebook asks Hey Gary, you seem like a guy that would prefer to fix your own electrical problems around the house. Any success or epic fail home improvement stories? Jarom from Livermore, DOE National Labs completionist club.
Actually, I wouldn’t screw around with the wiring where I live. First of all, I rent, so I’d have the building do it. Second, I know just enough to be dangerous, which is the worst sort of knowledge to have.
I think knowing your limitations is important. Could I figure out how to properly fix my own electrical issues? Probably. But I haven’t, and I wouldn’t want to take the risk when I can hire someone who has experience and expertise.
Max Feng asks, I don’t remember if this has already been asked, but do you have advice for running a podcast/researching for it? I have one called Musical Vitamins; I just started, and I think it’s really fun, but research can be a little hard, and so can social media/distribution. Any advice on this? Thanks so much. Oh, also, to add to that, how did you find good theme music?
First, I got the theme song from Stockmusic.net. It was very affordable. I just found something I liked, and that was that.
I did check out your podcast. Its a good idea, and there are other successful podcasts out there that have similar premises.
You have discovered the biggest thing with podcasting. Creating something that people want to listen to isn’t easy. There is no shortcut. The premise of this podcast was that if I covered topics I was interested in, others would probably be interested as well.
One thing I’d do is give some attention to the albums considered among the greatest of all time. You might get more traction on Spotify than on other platforms, since Spotify is a music platform and people searching for music might come across your episode.
Also, don’t limit yourself to one genre of music.
Michael Tervo asks, I read a book called “Natural Born Heroes” that, among many things, posits that ancient “pankration” fighters from the island of Crete traveled with Alexander the Great’s army into Asia and planted the seeds for what eventually became King Fu. What do you think? ?
Without having done any research into this topic, my gut says that this is probably not true. There are all sorts of historical theories that involve nothing more than vague coincidence, and this strikes me as one of them.
To prove the theory, you’d need to show some sort of transmission from west to east. Why aren’t there similar martial arts between Greece and China? How was this knowledge transmitted? How long did it take?
Again, not having researched it, it seems more plausible that martial arts were independently discovered than that it was transmitted that far that long ago.
Tim Manchester asks: What are your favorite educational TV shows for adults?
First, educational TV shows are not just for adults. I can’t think of any off the top of my head which wouldn’t be suitable for children.
Second, given the nature of online media, I wouldn’t look for a single show, but rather services that have a wide variety of shows.
There are multiple streaming services that have tons of educational content, many of which are extremely cheap.
I’d recommend CuriosityStream, Nebula, and The Great Courses Plus. All of these have great educational content and are rather affordable compared to most streaming services.
Friso Pas asks Hi Gary, do you listen back to your episodes áfter you’ve recorded and edited them, so just before you put them on the podcast app? The reason I’m asking is that this week, even though I’m not English or American (I’m Dutch), I think I heard you mispronounce a word 2 episodes in a row. I could be wrong though, as it’s not my native language. In Ep. 2211, you said ‘preferable’ with the emphasis on …fer… , not on the first syllable. And in the intro of Ep. 2212, you said ‘divisive’, with the second syllable pronounced with a ‘short i’ sound, not as in I, which I also never heard before. In short, in what way is there quality control for each episode?
Most episodes are recorded hours before they go live. Once an episode is recorded, my focus is on getting the next episode out.
What you are noticing might, as someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language, seem odd. There are often multiple ways to pronounce the same word, and they are often regional variations.
Preferable and preferable are both acceptable. Likewise, divisive and divisive are both legitimate pronunciations.
I’ve found that many non-English-speaking Europeans learn British or American English depending on where they live. What they learned isn’t wrong, but it is also not complete.
English is a weird language. There is no one correct way to speak English. It is a language with many different accents and dialects, and the language evolves, often at a rapid pace.
I speak a midwestern American dialect, and that’s how I speak.
Crystal D asks Do you record in one take or have to do many? What happens if there is a word stumble or a sneeze?
I’m glad that you think I can record an episode in one take. I have never done that. Each episode is recorded in multiple segments, often dozens. I record until I flub up or want to do it over. I stop, go back, and start where I left off.
The longest single uninterrupted segment I’ve probably ever recorded is about five minutes.
It takes me about 30 minutes to record 15 minutes of content.
Drew “Dr.C” Clinkenbeard asks, The recent Timur episode really hooked me (I feel like I shoulda known about it already). I have 2 questions: 1: how do you think it would have gone if he’d have made it to China? 2: it seems like China did everything first; I feel like it should be the dominant culture- why not? (My assumption: Mongols.) Anyway, keep on going Gary; I’m getting close to wanting to join Patreon… I like your work that much.
I think Timur would have gotten bogged down. Ghengis Khan didn’t conquer China. That was left to his grandson, Kublai Khan. China was big, and conquering it would have taken a long time.
As for why China didn’t dominate the world, I think it is more a cultural thing. China viewed itself as the center of the world. The Middle Kingdom.
During the Ming Dynasty, they abruptly stopped the voyages of exploration by Admiral Zheng He. When Europeans arrived, they didn’t want any of the goods that they had to trade.
China was highly centralized, whereas Europe was made up of highly competitive nations, who were looking for an advantage over their rivals.
This contentment ended up being their undoing.
Sable826 ask What is your favorite genre of music? Any chance of an episode on Pink Floyd? Got to see them live in Nashville, and it was the concert of a lifetime. Love your podcast. TN completionist club member at least twice over. Keep up the excellent work.
Most of what I listen to would be classified as contemporary classical. That sounds like an oxymoron, but if you remember back to my episode on classical music, it is mostly just newer composed music.
That being said, I have a wide range of musical tastes. I have a giant playlist on Spotify with over 800 songs that covers almost every genre of music.
Also, we are looking at doing episodes on popular and influential musical acts and Pink Floyd would certainly qualify, but there are no plans yet.
John Waldrop asks: I would like to get back into photography. I currently have a digital SLR camera. What would be your suggestion for some good online courses or books to get me started?
The truth is you don’t need any books or classes. I never read a book or took a course.
Learn about the exposure triangle and then start practicing with your camera so you know the settings intuitively. Then work on composition.
Once you’ve mastered that, the key is just put yourself in front of things at the right place and the right time. That is really the key to high-end photography. It isn’t gear or settings; it’s being present when there is something worth photographing.
Todd Whitcomb asks: When traveling, how do you go about meeting the people who live there without being that pushy American tourist? I want to go to Scotland/Ireland, where I am ancestrally from, but I don’t want to offend or bore people.
Being an outsider, which people will probably figure out immediately from your accent, is usually a good start. If you are in touristy areas, it probably won’t raise an eyebrow because people will meet Americans all the time. However, if you get out of the big cities and go visit some more obscure and lesser-visited areas, you’ll find that people are just as curious about you as you are about them.
Also, stop into a pub. Just any old random pub outside the main tourist areas. Ask whoever serves you what they recommend and get that.
That concludes this month’s Q&A episode. If you want to leave a question for next month’s show, you have to join the Facebook group or Discord where I get my questions from.