Questions and Answers: Volume 24

Podcast Transcript

Right now, in the Northern Hemisphere, the days are getting shorter, and things are getting colder.

In the southern hemisphere, the opposite is happening.

Regardless of whether you are in the North or the South, there is one thing for certain…in November, there shall be questions, and there shall be answers.

Stay tuned for Questions and Answers volume 24 on this episode of Everything Everywher Daily.

Before I get into questions, I have a few housekeeping items I should address.

The first has to do with the episode on Frankenstein. I said that Bela Lugosi played Frankenstein in the 1931 movie. In that movie, Boris Karloff played Frankenstein.

I was researching both the Frankenstein and vampire episodes, and I got the two mixed up. That being said, Lugosi did appear as Frankenstein in the 1943 film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

Another correction is from the Terraforming Mars episode. I said that atmospheric pressure on Venus is equivalent to 900 meters or 300 feet. That should have been 3000 feet.

Finally, from my episode on Relocated Sports Teams, many many many people reached out to tell me about the relocation of Wimbeldon FC to Milton Keynes in 2003.

I put out the call for everyone to let me know if there was an example from English Football, and you didn’t disappoint. I feel bad because I actually remember this being in the news at the time and just couldn’t recall it.

Nonetheless, it was a pretty small move in the big scheme of things, only 56 miles or 90 kilometers. A big move for English football, but a small move compared to North American sports.

So, with those out of the way, on to the questions.

The first question comes from Merei Milbee who asks What has been your favorite episode idea that you’ve researched (whether or not it’s made it to air)? Can you name any that you’ve researched and decided NOT to make an episode on the topic once you started the research?

So, I don’t have a favorite, but I do have a recent example. I figure I should share this here because it isn’t going to make it into a full-blown episode, and this would be the best place to tell the story.

It has to do with Yang Kyoungjong. He was a Korean soldier who fought in the Secon world war.

He was conscripted into service in the Japanese Imperial army. He was brought to fight in China, where he ended up being captured by the Soviets.

He was conscripted into the Soviet army and was forced to fight in Eastern Front in WWII, where he was captured by the Germans.

The Germans then forced him to fight for them on their western front in France, where he was captured by the Americans after D-Day.

That is an incredible story and when I first heard, my initial reaction was that it would make for a great episode.

However, the more research I did, the more I realized that the story was almost certainly fictitious. There is one source for the story…..and nothing else.

I couldn’t, in good faith, do an episode on it.

Another episode where I had to switch plans in the middle of research was my episode on HH Holmes, America’s first serial killer. My initial research mostly consisted of rehashing the stories of the day. However, again, the more research I did, the more I realized that the stories of the time were exaggerated and sensationalized.

He was a murderer, but not to the extent that the papers would have you believe at the time.

Another episode I abandoned was the Gang of Four. This was the group led by Mao Zedon’s widow, who ruled China after the death of Mao.

My problem here was putting together a coherent story. I feel I’m in a much better position to do so now than I was when I first came up with the idea.

Kevin O’Keefe asks; I teach 2nd grade. Knowing what you know now as an adult, if you had to go back to second grade, would you do anything differently? Would you focus on certain areas? What advice would you give yourself or others? ?

I don’t think second grade is about any particular knowledge or advice. It is about skills. It is about mastering literacy, basic mathematics, facts, and how to conduct yourself.

Any advice given to second-grade me would have been quickly forgotten because I wasn’t at a point where such advice mattered.

So, my advice to second graders would be no advice at all. Master reading, arithmetic, and basic knowledge such that when you are older you will be able to use those skills.

Kate Adams Berich asks, How do you determine which episodes to use for encore episodes?

It is largely random. I can’t say I put a lot of thought into it before I make a selection.

I never select an episode that was published within the last year and I also never republish and episode that was recorded in the first year I did the show.

I just don’t think the early episodes are up to snuff to run them as encore episodes any more.

i also try to not do a similar type of episode to once which was recorded within the last week or two. So, if I’ve recently done an ancient history episode, I wouldn’t post an encore episode about ancient history.

Margarite Pardue Anderson asks What are your thoughts on the recent pushback on tourism in places like Barcelona or the Canary Islands where locals are marching through the streets to protest all the foreigners coming to these locations? I actually have a lot of sympathy because of the problems caused by overtourism, but I don’t really see an effective solution. I think you might have some good ideas.

I have a great deal of sympathy for cities and towns that suffer from overtourism. I’ve experienced it firsthand many times.

That being said, the problem with overtourism isn’t too many tourists per se. There are too many tourists in the same place at the same time.

Most people only know about a few placed and so where they will visit will be limited to what they know.

Most people also only have a certain window when they can travel, usually in the Nothern Hemisphere summer.

I’ve been to Barcelona many times in different times of the year. Visiting in December is a vastly different experience than visiting in July.

Likewise, I’ve been to Ibiza and Mallorca in December and there were almost no tourists.

Ultimately, the solution is to do what Venice does and charage tourists and entrance fee. It would limit tourism and bring money into the community

If you don’t want to pay the fee, then you need to go somewhere else. There are lots of amazing places in the world, the problem is most of them are not top of mind for most people.

Steven Zopfi asks, When did you get your amateur radio license? Why did you decide to get this and are you active? What is the process to get licensed?

I got my ham license a few months before I started traveling. I have a uhf/vhf radio, but I currently live in an apartment so I can’t really set up a rig and an antenna.

I never was very active because I began traveling soon after I got my license. I still have my radio, but it is still in storage.

I let my license expire earlier this year just because I found the renewal process really difficult online.

Getting a ham radio license has gotten pretty easy compared to how it used to be.

From what I understand, and I’m 100% positive there are people in the audience more qualified than me to talk about this, everything is easier now including the test to become certified to talk on high frequency bands.

Daniel Rosenberg asks I never did debate in school. Now that I am older and hearing how debate has helped you in creating this show, I am interested in learning more about it. Do you have any recommended resources/tips for learning debate/research skills as an adult that is no longer in school?

For those of you new to the podcast, I’ve spoken often about my experience in academic debate in both high school and college. It was far and away the most rewarding thing I did, and everyone I know who competed seriously had the same opinion. That includes a great many people I know who went on to get PhDs and JD’s.

One of the ways that debate helped me in doing this podcast is in research. Debate is mostly about research. Most debates are won or lost before the debate round actually starts.

If you didn’t do debate, the thing I would suggest is to read everything, and listen to everything, very critically.

Even if someone says something you agree with, they might not actually make an argument that supports their conclusion.

Someone you disagree with might make a good point that doesn’t lead to the conclusion that they claim.

I’m to the point where I can read something and say “this part makes sense but this part doesn’t.” You need to have a very honed BS detector, especially for things you might be included to believe in.

As the great physicist Richard Feynman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

This isn’t easy to do. It requires a great deal of skepticism.

The other thing is that you always have to hold out the possibility that you might be wrong. Treat your beliefs as hypothesis which are open to proof or disproof.

Donna Morris asks In a number of recent episodes you have mentioned that “is for a future episode”. How long is that list now? What are your upcoming episode list you are most looking forward to doing?

As of the recording of this episode, the number of episodes on my to do list is 938. Not all of those will end up becoming episodes. They might be merged into other topic or might never be recorded at all.

Mostly, in the course of doing research, I come across something else which I think would make for a good episode.

Dean Koutsoubis asks, Are you considered a member of the completionist club if you’ve listened to every new episode once but have not listened to all the encore episodes?

I will leave this up to your interpretation as membership in the completionist club is ultimately on the honor system.

Glenn Folau asks This question may have been asked before, but are you one of the 2 percent of Americans who have been to every state in the US? Secondly, I have just heard that the Cleveland Browns have decided to move to an undercover all purpose stadium and leaving their traditional home. I have read that this is a trend among some franchises. Any chance the Packers would ever move to an all purpose roofed stadium?

Yes, I have been to every state. In fact, I’ve been to every state twice. If I were to drive around New England again, I’d have visited every state three times.

Domed stadiums are becoming the norm in the NFL. They remove the elements and are more comfortable for fans.

That being said, the Packers will never move into a domed stadium.

One of the big reasons for building a domed stadium is that it can serve as a venue for concerts and other bing events. There are no big concerts that come to Green Bay, Wisconsin. The town is so small, there is nothing but football.

The Packers have invested a lot of money into Lambeau Field, and as more and more teams build indoor stadiums, the advantage of playing outdoors, especially in a cold climate, becomes greater.

Abdelrahman Wael asks Hey Gary, I recently went on a trip to central Europe after not traveling for 12 years, and now I’m planning on seeing the world, but I still have a tight budget. So, given that you’ve been all over, what are your tips for traveling on a budget?

If you travel extensively, you want your money to go as far as possible.

The single biggest thing which determines how much money you spend is where you travel to.

If you visit Zurich or Oslo, even the cheapest option is going to be extremely expensive.

The cheapest dorm room bed in a hostel in those cities will get you a nice hotel room in Southeast Asia.

Berkleigh Rathbone asks Hi Gary! I have a really silly question but a question nonetheless. Throughout your podcast you’ve made comments about candy corn and pineapple on pizza. Would you rather eat a large handful of Brach’s candy corn or a personal sized pizza covered in pineapple?

That is an easy answer. I’d take the pineapple-covered pizza any day over the candy corn.

I have no problem with pineapple, per se. I just don’t like to mix it with pizza.

Candy Corn, however, are the devil’s seeds.

My final question is from AmyElizabeth who asks, In your travels, have you ever found yourself in a potentially embarrassing situation culturally? If so, how did you gracefully extricate yourself?

Not really. I think this is largely overblown. Maybe in the 19th century, this could have been a problem, but not in the 21st century.

The closest thing I can think of took place in Thailand when I was told how to say hello. A woman told me to say Sawadee Ka.

The problem was, the way the Thai language works, what you say isn’t just dependent on who you are talking to, but also who you are.

Sawadee Ka is how a woman would say hello, and I went around saying Sawadee Ka.

Thai people understood that I was a foreigner, so they didn’t say anything. Eventually, someone told me I was saying something wrong. I was saying it like a woman.

Men should say Sawadee Kap.

Again, not really embarrassing, but that is the closest I’ve done.

That does it for this month.

If you want to ask a question for next month’s episode, make sure to join the Facebook group and/or the discord server, links to both of which are in the show notes.