Questions and Answers: Volume 33

Podcast Transcript

The month of August was named in honor of the emperor Augustus by the Roman Senate.

Originally called Sextilis, the sixth month in the early Roman calendar, it was renamed in 8 BC to recognize Augustus’s achievements, particularly his victories and consolidation of power.

According to Roman tradition, the month was chosen because several of his significant accomplishments occurred during Sextilis.

In reality, the Senate was really just trying to suck up to Augustus. Instead, they should have asked him some questions.

Stay tuned for the 33rd installment of questions and answers on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Let’s get things started with the first question. It comes from Stephen Klettke, who asks, In an earlier episode, you made mention of a time when you were launched off an aircraft carrier. Are you able to elaborate with the full story? Or is it one of those if I tell you, I have to kill you kind of things?

Nope, I don’t have to kill anyone. It is a very straightforward story.

The US Navy has a program where they invite journalists and notable people to visit their aircraft carriers when they are in port or when they are doing training exercises just off the coast.

My friend Jen Leo, who used to be a co-host with me on This Week in Travel and who also lives in San Diego, was invited to visit. After the visit, they asked her if she had any recommendations for people they should invite, and she gave them my name.

In 2015, they contacted me and asked if I would like to visit the USS Harry S Truman when it was conducting exercises off the coast of Norfolk, VA.

I drove down to Norfolk, stopping in Shenandoah National Park along the way.

It was a reasonably small group of us. In addition to myself was the head coach of the Navy Football Team, a former admiral, and a writer for Soldier of Fortune Magazine.

We flew to the carrier on a Grumman C-2 Greyhound, which is a smaller propeller plane designed for delivering supplies to aircraft carriers.

We did a tailhook landing and got the tour of the ship, and even got to stay overnight and had our meals in the galley.

The next day, we left and were launched off the ship on the same plane.

It was an incredible experience. Few people, including the crew of aircraft carriers, ever get to do a carrier landing and catapult launch. I have photos from the visit on my website.

Eric Dombrowsky asks Very important question here. Is it Austin Oakton, or Austin Okton? I’ve heard both pronunciations in multiple episodes.

Yes, you are correct. When Austin became an Associate producer on Patreon, I had no idea how to pronounce his name. I looked around, gave it to some AI tools to try and get the correct pronunciation, and went with Oakton.

What I should have done was just ask him, because despite the research I put into it, I got it wrong.

He sent me a message on Patreon telling me the correct pronunciation was OTT-ken.

I had prerecorded an outro with the wrong pronunciation, and I just haven’t updated it, which I really should do. When I read a review and do a custom outro, I’ve been using the correct pronunciation.

Chris Armstrong asks, Gary, you strike me as an avid reader. I read many books, but I have switched to an e-reader, simply because my wife didn’t like books piling up. It’s great, but I do buy books every now and then, just to enjoy the paper, the feel, smell, and classic experience. Do you have a preference of old school paper vs e-books? Why or why not? Love the podcast!

Chris, this is an excellent question and I have a bit of a story behind it.

When I starated traveling full time in 2007, there wasn’t much in the way of e-readers. The first Kindle was technically out in 2007, but the first generation wasn’t great.

I would read a lot while traveling because you have a lot of spare time on your hands, but there was a problem. Books are heavy and english language books can be extremely expensive in non-English speaking countries.

I also hated to throw my books away or even leave them at a hotel, so I usually carried them around for far too long and eventually shipped them back home…..which was also expensive.

I eventually broke down and purchased a Kindle and it was truly game changing for travel. It was lightweight and I had the world’s biggest English language bookstore in my pocket.

Just to show how good it was for traveling, in 2014 I was in Cape Town, South Africa to board a ship that would take me to the island of Saint Helena. The ship took five days to get there, and five days to get back, with 8 days on the islands, which didn’t really have internet access at the time.

I was on the ship and it was starting to pull out of port when I realized I had nothing to read on my Kindle. I ran up to the top deck of the ship, got a 3G signal, and downloaded the entire Game of Thrones series in just a few minutes.

More than enough reading to keep me busy for three weeks.

Since I’ve stopped traveling full-time, I will still buy ebooks, but what bothers me is the fact that you don’t really own an ebook. Amazon and other book providers can and have removed access for books that people have “purchased.”

Moreover, e-book prices have risen dramatically for some books, and they now cost almost as much as a print book.

I’ve begun buying print books again. Ideally, I’d like to be able to buy an all-access book where you can get a print version, a digital version, and an audio version, but the publishing industry still seems stuck in the 20th century.

Gregory Langlois asks, Hi Gary, you’ve mentioned you spent a fair bit of time in Australia, in particular Melbourne. Did you happen to visit the MCG and watch any AFL games? If so, what did you think of the stadium, and did you adopt a team to follow? Hoping to hear an episode about the AFL and how unique the game is. Best game in the world.

I didn’t visit the Cricket ground, but I did go past it. I also didn’t get to see any AFL games in person.

Normally, my support for non-North American teams is based on people I meet or places I’ve visited. I’ll often do a swap with someone I met on my travels, where I’ll agree to support their team if they agree in theory to support the Packers as their NFL team.

For example, I met a guy when I was photographing polar bears in Manitoba several years ago from Sydney. He was a huge Roosters fan, so I agreed to have the Roosters as my NRL team. I can’t say I follow them closely.

Likewise, my English Premier League team is Liverpool, my La Liga team is Bilbao, because I visited their team headquarters and stadium, and my CFL team is Edmonton. I also support Wiggan in theory, but they aren’t going to be in the Premier League anytime soon.

The position of my AFL team is still open. I’m seriously considering going to Australia for a month or two in January/February to escape the winter, so I’ll miss the AFL season, but I might be able to select a team. I’d currently lean towards St. Kilda, just because I stayed in that area when I was first in Melbourne.

Apex POTATOe on the Discord Sever asks, Gary, much like you, I have a background in geology. What would you say are the most geologically interesting places you would recommend visiting? Thanks for being such a gneiss guy. I lava your show.

A good question. In no particular order, and based on places I’ve actually visited, I’d say:

The Black Hills of South Dakota. You can find some of the best samples of metamorphic minerals there. At least the best I’ve ever seen.

Nearby Devils Tower in Wyoming, and also in Wyoming, the Wind River Gorge. In Arizona, you’d have to put the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater.

The Big Island of Hawaii has so much interesting volcanism all over the island.

The Verfort Dome in South Africa, Purnululu National Park in the Kimberly Region of Western Australia, the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia, the Dead Sea, Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, the Cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, Mount Bromo in Indonesia, Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas, and Plitvice National Park in Croatia.

Geronimo Ritcheson asks Which do you prefer more: Star Wars, Star Trek, or something else, and why?

I’m not a huge fan of either Star Wars or Star Trek. I think both of the franchises have been extended far beyond what they should have been.

I’m a big Dune guy. I’ve read all of the Dune books, including the prequels written by Frank Herbert’s son. I own every version of Dune that has been filmed, including the David Lynch version, the SyFy Channel miniseries, and the recent movies by Denis Villneu.

I’m also a big fan of the Foundation books by Isaac Asimov. I think the current Apple TV series is……fine, but it is the least true adaptation of any science fiction book ever. It’s so different from the books they could have saved money by just giving it a different name and changing the plot just a bit.

Grayerbeard on the Discord server asks, Yes, you are certainly an expert pervveyor of knowledge, and it saddens me that humans make too little use of (the human) race’s knowledge. I feel there are some books all should read. I favour such as those by George Orwell and Daniel Kahleman. What books would you feel would do the most good if all read?

If you like Orwell, there is a book I would recommend. One of the best books of the 20th century, in my opinion, and one that is still very applicable to the world today, is “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer.

Hoffer published the book in 1951 in the wake of the Second World War. He tries to explain why people join mass movements. In particular, he explains why people became fanatical communists and fascists.

Hoffer was a philosopher, but he didn’t have the background of a philosopher. He was not a professor. He was a child of immigrant parents from Germany and was a longshoreman, a vagabond, and a migrant worker.

His insights into the mass movements of the early 20th century are still applicable to the mass movements of the early 21st century.

Chloe Boyer asks Have you tried out for jeopardy? If not, would you consider it? Big fan. Waiting for my top fan badge!

To be completely honest, I have never seriously considered it, and I have no real desire to do it.

I’m also not sure I’d be very good because there would be some questions with some popular culture references, such as Niki Minaj or Taylor Swift, and I wouldn’t know what they were talking about.

I know that Niki Minaj or Taylor Swift are real people who are famous, but I don’t know anything about them beyond their existence. I know they are singers, and I probably have heard some of their songs by osmosis, but I couldn’t identify them.

I also am not a regular Jeopardy watcher. I am familiar with the show, but I can’t remember the last time I saw it. This is primarily because I don’t watch traditional TV. Everything I watch is either on disc or streaming.

David Day asks You are given exactly one year to spend at any point in history. Your objective is to make 2025 Gary Arndt the most powerful person in the world. We’re talking political power, economic power, cultural influence, military might, etc. Your basic necessities are covered so you can focus on your objective. Where —and when— do you go? What’s your plan?

For starters, if you go back too far, I’m not sure it will do anything for you. If I want power in the year 2025, going back to a period where no one today was alive wouldn’t do anything.

The last two presidents of the United States were public figures in the 1970s, so I couldn’t go back further than that.

The only thing that I think going back in time would help with is money. Military and political power are intertwined today. In any democracy, any elected position is temporary.

So, the only thing I think traveling back in time would do is allow me to make a ton of money.

How would I do that? With the power of hindsight, you can do quite a bit. The big question is what resources I’d have going back in time?

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument I have nothing and I can beg, work, or scrounge my way to $1,000 in a few weeks.

I’d travel back to the year 2015, in particular about June 1, 2015.

There is a reason for this. I’d take the $1000 and bet it on various trifectas or exactas at horse tracks I assume I’m going back in time without any books, so I only have what I can store in my head. I can remember a handful of bets, so I should be able to turn $1000 into a million dollars on one or two bets.

I would then take the $1,000,000 and bet on Leicester City to win the English Premier League. This is why the date is important. Leicester City were 5000-1 odds to win at the start of the season.

I don’t know of any major sports champions in recent history who were such long shots.

A million-dollar bet on a major sports league is uncommon, but not that crazy.

That one million dollars would then be turned into five billion by May 7th, 2016.

I’d then take the five billion dollars and buy Bitcoin, which was at $458 on this date.

Today, that Bitcoin would have increased in value 251-fold and would have a value of $1.2 trillion, making me the richest person on Earth.

The only problem with this theory is that I might be completely disrupting the Bitcoin market by putting that much into it. If that was the case, I’d scale down the investment and put the rest into Nvidia stock, which has gone up about 180-fold since May 2016.

It is most certainly possible to make investments that would do better; however, those investments would require volumes of knowledge of the trades or bets to make. This is a very simple strategy that could easily be memorized if I were to go back in time.

When I was teleported back to the present on May 31st, I’d have my wealth waiting for me.

With that, I could, in theory, fund armies, buy politicians, or do whatever I want.

That concludes this month’s Q and A episode. If you want to leave a question for next month’s show, you have to join the Facebook group of Discord server, because there is where I announce it.