Questions and Answers: Volume 26

Podcast Transcript

January is the first month of the year in the Gregorian calendar. Its name derives from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions. Janus symbolizes new opportunities and looks both forward and backward.

It is often associated with new resolutions, fresh starts, and winter in the Northern Hemisphere, while it marks the peak of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

January also represents something else…..questions and answers.

Stay tuned as I answer your questions on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

The first question comes from Christian Long who asks, Ok, this question has been bugging me for a long time now… Why WWE??? I mean, but, it is just, but why?

First, I should correct you. It isn’t just the WWE. WWE is the largest wrestling promotion. There are many other smaller promotions, including AEW, TNA, and a host of smaller regional promotions around the world.

Second, the premise of your question, I’m guessing, comes from the fact that you consider professional wrestling to be low-brow. You are probably thinking that as someone who covers so many high-brow subjects on this podcast, how could I possibly be interested in so mundane as wrestling?

The answer is that your assumption is wrong. Wrestling isn’t low-brow entertainment. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is the greatest performance art in the world today.

A top-tier professional wrestler goes to school to learn their craft and might spend years honing it by performing in front of small crowds in bingo halls.

Those who make it to the big time are not only performing on television to an audience of millions of people every week, but they are also performing 3-4 times a week in front of live crowds with as many as ten or fifteen thousand people in an arena.

Professional wrestling involves a level of improvisation that most professional actors can’t copy, and of course, the physical requirements are on par with that of a professional athlete.

So, if you look down on professional wrestling, and I know a lot of people do, I would suggest you just reconsider it. When it’s bad, it can be pretty bad, but when it’s good, it can be great.

Amy Elizabeth Morrison asks, Besides Piltdown Man, what were other great hoaxes from history? How far back are there examples of people trying to fool the masses?

Absolutely. What was unique about Pitldown Man was that it was a scientific hoax. There weren’t a lot of them before, simply because science wasn’t that big of a deal.

However, there was an enormous amount of religious fraud. I haven’t done an episode on it yet, but many people peddled fake holy relics throughout the Middle Ages.

There was an obvious incentive for people to sell them, and there was an incentive for people to buy them. A church with a significant relic could draw pilgrims from far and wide to come and venerate them.

Of course, there isn’t a way to verify a relic unless it happens to have come from a local saint who had some association with the church.

On top of that, there are tons of stories and fables that were undoubtedly made up by people, that later became legends.

Kyle Kenyon asks What are some fun rabbit holes to go down? Historical mysteries, etc.

It is impossible to answer that question because there are so many. Literally, every episode of this podcast can lead you down a rabbit hole if it is something that you are interested in.

Just as an example, last night, I found myself reading about jerry cans. These are square fuel cans that were debuted during the Second World War.

I don’t know if I’ll ever devote an entire episode to the jerry can, but there is a whole lot more to them than I ever realized. They are incredibly well-designed and engineered. You could fill an entire ship with jerry cans filled with fuel and then deliver them to individual vehicles immediately off the ship.

The jerry can is just an example, but I go down rabbit holes like this all the time, which I suppose is why I do this podcast.

Everyone has their own interests, and what we are interested in at any given moment will also depend on chance based on what we encounter.

Jesus Chan asks, Hello Gary. I’ve always wondered – does ‘cold’ actually exist as a separate phenomenon/distinct physical entity, or is it just the absence of heat? Could we ever design an instrument to measure ‘cold’ directly, or would it just end up measuring the lack of heat like a thermometer does?

Jesus, you will be pleased to note that you are not the first person to ask this question. In fact, ancient philosophers were asking this same question over 2000 years ago.

The answer to your question is really straightforward. Cold is just the absence of heat. Full stop.

That is why there is an absolute zero, but there isn’t really an absolute hot. There sort of is, but it is a theoretical limit so far beyond what we could measure or experience that, for all practical purposes, is meaningless.

Jason Tripp asks, As a devoted Packers fan, where is the most unique place you’ve tuned in to watch a game. Do you have any funny stories of trying to watch a game while traveling the world?

I have one good one. In January 2012, I was on a ship off the coast of Antarctica. The Packers were the defending Super Bowl Champions and had gone 15-1 during the regular season.

On January 15, they were playing the New York Giants in their first round of the playoffs. Watching and listening to the game wasn’t an option given where I was, but they did have a computer on board with a very poor yet expensive internet connection.

Several times during the course of the game, I went to get score updates while the game was in progress.

They ended up losing an embarrassing 37 to 20 upset.

Will Raber asks, Have you considered posting your podcasts on YouTube? I think the graphics and other visuals would be interesting.

Well, Will, I do actually post every episode on YouTube. It’s an audio-only upload, and almost no one is listening to it on YouTube, but it is there.

Doing a proper YouTube channel is something I’ve always intended to do, but I would need to hire someone to do the video as I already have my hands full researching, writing, and recording the podcast.

Aidenn asks, When you take photos during your travels, what type of camera do you use? For example, point-and-shoot, SLR, DSLR, or just a smartphone.

My current camera, which I haven’t used in a while since I started the podcast, is a Sony A7rii. It is a full-frame mirrorless camera.

Before that, I used a Nikon D200 and a Nikon D300s.

Smartphones weren’t really a viable option when I started traveling. I literally began my travels a few months before the iPhone hit the market in 2007.

The camera quality on smartphones has gotten pretty good now. For much of what you might want to use a camera for while traveling, a smartphone is probably good enough. There are some things you can do to optimize your image quality on the phone, such as saving your images in RAW format instead of using a compressed format such as jpeg.

Most newer smartphones have an option that will let you save images in RAW even if they are hidden. Some third-party camera apps make this easier.

There are some things that you can’t do with a smartphone. Action and wildlife photography isn’t very good. Low-light images are poor on smartphones. Long exposures are difficult.

The limits of smartphones for photography are due to their very small sensor size and the fact that the lenses are fixed. If the light is good and you aren’t trying to do anything fancy, it’s probably good enough.

Isaac asks, With all the traveling you have done, have you succumbed to any of the pickpocket/scam artists? Have you seen any of these teams in action? Walking around with so much camera gear, it seems like one would be targeted.

In all of the traveling I’ve done, I have never been the victim of a pickpocket.

This is due to a couple of things. For starters, I always carried my wallet in my front pocket, not my back pocket. It is far easier to slip a wallet out of a back pocket as you aren’t looking and the pocket usually isn’t as deep.

There are other small things I did to make myself a less attractive target. If you have a backpack that has zippers on both sides, don’t close the bag by having the zippers meet at the top. It is very easy to unzip.

Rather, have both zippers meet at the bottom of one side. To open the bag, you have to zip up, not down.

Another thing I did was to always have my camera bag attached to myself. If I sat down somewhere, I’d put my leg through the shoulder loop of the bag. That makes it more difficult for someone to snatch and grab.

Finally, I always used clothing with zippered pockets, like pants and shirts from Scottevest. I used Scottevest clothing all the time when I was on the road.

What all of these things have in common is that it makes things more difficult for a pickpocket or a thief. They will always pick the easiest target, and you want to make sure that is not you.

Real pickpocketing is an art form that is slowly being lost. There are some places, like Rome and Barcelona, where you can still find them, but a lot of street crime now is much less subtle. I’ve heard of several cases in Bangkok, for example, where purse-snatchers would ride past a woman with a purse and just grab it off her shoulder while they were moving.

As for scams, I have been the victim of a few small-scale ones early in my travels, but none of them cost me more than $20. I was in Manila when I first fell victim to the “my meter isn’t working” cab driver routine. Again, I probably paid about $20 rather than $5 or $10.

One of the things I learned from potential scammers is that they will almost always initiate a conversation with you. If you are just standing on the street and someone initiates a conversation with you that requires you to do something…..its probably a scam.

Talking to strangers isn’t a problem, but it usually is when they talk to you.

The final question comes from Steve Augustino, who asks, As this podcast has grown, how has your choice of topics evolved? Do you choose fewer US-centric topics to accommodate an international audience? What changes do you hope to implement in 2025?

Believe it or not, the percentage of listeners in the United States has actually increased over time, not decreased. A few years ago, the United States comprised about 50% of my audience, and today it is 75%.

I’m not consciously considering the audience’s demographics when selecting shows. My biggest concern is how difficult will this be to write and how good is the episode going to be.

If there are more episodes dealing with American history, that is a reflection of me and the stories I come across more than anything else.

I would like to do more episodes on India, China, Africa, Central Asia, etc., and I will be doing more of them in the future. However, that requires me to roll up my sleeves and do more research. I have an episode on the Indus Valley civilization that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, for example. Likewise, one on the Mali Empire.

The only thing I am consciously doing when selecting episodes is trying not to do this same general topic in a row. With a few exceptions, such as Monster Week last year around Halloween, I try to mix things up.

If someone isn’t interested in Roman History for example, if there is an episode on that, you can be sure that there probably won’t be one about that the next day.

That wraps up this month’s question and answer episode. If you would like to ask a question for next month’s show, please join the Facebook group or the Discord Server, links to both of which are in the show notes.

We currently have over 2,400 people in the Facebook group and over 500 on the Discord server.