437: Mouse Relay Intercept

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hanke John. Or is that prefer to think of it Dear John and Hanke? It's a podcast for two brothers. Answer your questions, give you DB's advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, why is your foot never 12 inches? Um, why? Because 12 inches is infinitely precise. It's a rigidly defined length while a human foot is a soft, deformable biological object with no uniquely defined endpoints. There's no canonical measurement vertical and it is a length that varies with posture, load, temperature, time of day and measurement error. Any real measurement has uncertainty. The boundary of the foot is fuzzy at the atomic scale and for a continuously varying quantity, the probability of matching one exact value is zero. It can be measured or described as 12 inches long, but in the mathematical and metrological sense, it can never be exactly 12 inches long. Did you ask chat GPT for a dad joke? No, no, that was me. Okay. I went to Reddit looking for a dad joke and there was one that says, why is the hand never 12 inches long? Because then that would be a foot. And then I thought to myself, well, what if a foot was exactly 12 inches long? Actually, that would be impossible. Okay. And then I wrote that. Okay. Yeah, no, it's good. It's good writing. It's so good that it reminded me of a sort of mid-level large language model. You really liked it. Yeah, I loved it. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. I'm living the life. I'm so glad that I have my chemistry degree so that I always have significant figures to fall back on as a potential dad joke. As a potential joke? Uh-huh. I, in turn, am glad I have my religion degree so that I can stare into the middle distance and contemplate the universe. Yeah. I made a TikTok recently about how somebody was asking if this self that they see in the mirror is different from the self that is like a past version of the self because of the time that light takes a turn. Sure. And then I had to remind them that the self was just a story that we tell to ourselves, not a real thing. Yeah, it's a lie that we whisper to ourselves to try to go on. Well, I don't know. I think that it's like selected for. I think that it's, you know, I think that we're biologically built to feel a self, but maybe not actually. There are some people who say that like the self was a relatively recent phenomenon that was not around at the beginning of humanity for maybe quite a while. Right. There are some people who say that. Until we can interview early humans, it will be hard to know for sure. Indeed. Indeed. All right, Hank, let me ask you some questions from our listeners beginning with this one from Lauren who writes, Dear John and Hank, I recently had Google show me an article that tried to grab me with the title millionaire YouTuber Hank Green. I saw that too. I do. This is a wild article because it is pitched. It is posed as if they interviewed me, but in fact, it is just quotes from a video. It's great. It's great. I didn't click it because I don't hate myself enough currently to fall for that kind of clickbait. You did get me thinking. What would you rather your clickbait title slash honorific be? I would go with slightly deranged veterinarian Warren personally. That feels like a dubious kangaroos and Kelpies, Warren. On a journey of meaning YouTuber Hank Green. Anxious has been John Green. Coming down the other side of the mountain, YouTuber John Green. I love that that Financial Times article called us the Fault Nurse Star's author and his brother as if like that's where we're at right now in 2025 with Hank Green answering questions on TikTok to hundreds of millions of viewers. Yeah. The question raised by that is simply who is this article for and do they have a better idea of the sort of state of the American vibe around us? Yeah. I actually, John, can I tell you something weird? Sure, but we got to get back to this question because it's funny. We certainly will. And this will help us, I'm sure. Okay. I was talking to my therapist who blissfully has no idea who I am. Yeah. And I was talking to her about some things that had happened in my past and how I sort of carry them forward. And I think that they create some triggers for me. Issues. And I had to explain you a little bit. Yeah. And I was like, he's an author. He was very, very well known. He wrote the Fault Nurse Star's and she was like, oh, no, did I ruin you for me? Did I ruin it? No, it is true. For a certain segment of the American public, that is much more of a thing than all of our online work, which is so funny because as proud as I am of the Fault Nurse Star's and how the movie did and everything, I do not think of it as the center of my professional life in any way. And it's certainly not the center of your professional life. No. Being the brother of the man who wrote the Fault Nurse Star's is not the center of my professional life, though perhaps being your brother is. Yeah. Probably as a center of my professional life. I mean, at this point, about half the time I get recognized, it's not for being your brother, it's for being you. Professional brother Hank Green and his brother, professional brother John Green. Not since the McElroy's, if we've seen brothers so professional. They really went for it. They are really professionally brothers. Depressive Dr. Pepper enthusiast John Green. Founder of the Mola Mola Cult, Hank Green. Oh, yes, of course. No one knows about the Mola Mola Cult. That's just me. Pelican fanatic and top tier Tik Toker, Hank Green. Guy who has a PS5 and never plays it, John Green. I play it on stream exclusively. If I'm playing FIFA, that's because I'm professional FIFA streamer John Green. Professional FIFA streamer John Green. Yeah, was seen today walking the streets of New York looking confused and afraid. You know what? You know what? My job has been lately, like my actual honorific. What? Manager of a single car repair, Hank Green. I've spent so much time dealing with this f**king car. Yeah, it's exhausting. I thought I bought a normal car, but there was no one within 100, literally within 100 miles that could fix it. Yeah, you bought a Hyundai Ionic 5. You know, I live in a small town and I forget that. I also own a Hyundai Ionic 5. And I bet there's somebody in Indianapolis who can fix it if it breaks. Well, the battery just went dead. Oh. Yeah, there was somebody who... Did you have the same problem as me? Not only did I have the same problem as you. I had the same problem as about 40% of Hyundai Ionic 5 owners. It's a recall that I thought had been fixed, but apparently I had not gotten the recall done. At any rate, I'm glad that you are getting it fixed. I'm sorry that it's become such a hullabaloo. It's done. It's working now. It's functional. Meanwhile, the Hyundai Ionic 5 itself is like long-suffering Hyundai Ionic 5 has to drive Hank Green around all day. All right, Hank, let's answer this question from Joe, who writes, Here, John and Hank, what is a face? Like, obviously, I know what a face is, but why? It's not its own organ. It's just a cluster of features that we have a name for. Is there some evolutionary benefit to having all your sensory organs squished together? A lot of animals seem to be a big fan of feces for... Sorry, faces. Both questions about faces. I don't know why I introduced feces in the first place. A lot of animals seem to be a big fan of faces and feces for some reason. Wouldn't we be able to get more information if everything was spread out? I can't stop thinking about this. Fanfare in faces, Joe. I think that the reason is a kind of efficiency, maybe. Well, I assume that the reason the face is the face for humans and primates and stuff is that we like to look at each other. And dogs like to look at each other. Raccoons like to look at each other. There's something inherently social about most mammals. And so I would think that's one of the reasons. But is there a reason why all of our sensory organs are squished together? I never thought of that, but it's true. I can't breathe out of my... I can't smell out of my finger. Yeah, though sometimes there are things that can smell with their feet, etc. Sure. And we do a lot of sensing with parts of our body that are not the face. But certainly the face is by far the highest concentration of sensory things. And if you look back, you can see that that's kind of been that way the whole time. So that's why. So worms, they had a mouth on one end first. And then they started to develop sensory organs on that end because... No, it had to figure out what to look at. Yeah, what to look at and then feel it with its face tentacles or something to be like, is this dirt or is it food? It's really sort of like all the way back. It's not even that this is particularly useful for us. It's that all the way through it was useful. And even if it wasn't useful at this point, it's so ingrained even like at fish, you know, fish have their noses. Right, it would be hard to move the face around. There's also like it's very complicated wiring in there. Yeah. So just a ton of different nerves all have to go around and, you know, your body makes it happen. Do you think it matters that it's close to the brain? Yeah, that's also part of it. That you don't have to wait for the signals to travel. And then you can like do a lot of sort of very fast transmission from the sensory to the processing back to the sensory. Let me ask you a follow-up question that's sensory organ related. Are the ears part of the face? I think no. You know, no, no, no. Like when you do, when I saw Sir Isaac Newton's death mask, which I did see in real life, it was a weird experience. You know, you get the face, you get the eyes, you get the cheeks, you get the lips, you get the nose, you do not get the ears in a death mask. Yeah. And I think a death mask is the definitive determinant of the face. If it's not part of a mask, it's not the face. I'm wondering if there are any animals that have, that do have like special face ears, but I'm not finding anything. I mean, you definitely have animals that have their eyes closer to their ears because their eyes are sort of on the side. They're sort of seeing out the side of their head. Right. Some animals that don't really have their eyes on their face. They have faces, but no eyes on the face. Their eyes are off their face. Their eyes, they left the face. Yeah. And then there are some animals that don't have faces like a flounder. Right. That's not a face, really. That's just the side of your body. It's more of a silhouette than a face. Trees. Trees are not animals, but also... Mmm. He's going to fight for it. He's going to fight for trees being animals. We're going to read you taxonomy from scratch, everybody. We're just going to put trees in animals. Yeah. I think we should put trees in animals. I think that we've been underestimating trees this whole time. Did you know that plants evolved multicellularity separately from animals, which is why they are a separate thing? Didn't we only develop cells with organelles once? Yes. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. That's weird. So there's just the prokaryotes and the eukaryotes and all the eukaryotes together. Yeah. But that's interesting because that means, first off, it means that trees are animals. But secondly, it means that we develop multicellularity more than once, but we only developed mitochondria once. Yeah, though that was a separate event from the... Oh, okay. Yes. Well, I don't know much about organelles, Hank. All I know is that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell because that's what's left. That's what's left from high school biology. I got to do the mitochondria again because, look, when we first found mitochondria, powerhouse of the cell, very exciting. I have the issue of Scientific American that introduces the term the powerhouse of the cell. Wow. They don't exactly say the powerhouse of the cell, but they do use the word powerhouse. That's by far the only very tippy-tippy top of the iceberg of how amazing and revolutionary mitochondria were and how unlikely they were to occur and how revolutionary they were to the ability of animals to exist. I think you should make that video. God knows you've made every other one. We very easily, very easily could be a planet without movable multicellular life, without life that can move itself around. But instead we're not. We're a planet with... But instead we got democracy. We're a planet with sycamore trees and oak trees and other animals. That's sick. All right, Hank, I got another question for you. It's from Kate who writes, John and Hank, why does an MRI have to be so loud? Seems like they should be able to take pictures of my brain without all that clickin' and clackin'. Your plugs are great, Kate. So MRIs basically use magnets to image your body. The way that they do that is they turn all of your individual cells into little antennae. In particular, they turn atoms in your body into little radio transmitters and the magnets get all of the atoms, like certain kinds of atoms, pointed in a particular direction. And then they turn the magnet off. And then when they flop back into random directions, that produces a little radio signal, which they can then interpret as an image, which is wild. But they have to do that like a lot, many times per second. So they're turning the magnet on and off a lot. And for whatever reason that introduces vibrations into the machine and those vibrations are the thing that you are hearing. But then isn't there also a thing where like if you have metal on, it'll like, it's real bad? Well, it's a big magnet. So yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a huge, it's essentially the way to think about it is a huge magnet that causes vibration. Yeah, and like honestly, exactly why the vibration occurs to me is I was not able to understand it well enough to explain it. Okay, well that makes me feel better. There are explanations out there. People have tried to explain. So I've had a bunch of MRIs over the years with the meningitis and the orbital cellulitis and whatnot. You've had some MRIs, I assume, because of cancer? I don't know that I have. I've had PET CT scans for the cancer. Oh, those sound even more stressful. But I have had an MRI. My favorite part of the MRI is when they tell you that they'll play any music you'd like to hear. So ridiculous. And then you're like, all right, I'd like to listen to the mountain goats. They're my favorite band. And very, very faintly, underneath the sound of what was generously described as the clicking and clacking. Yeah. Very, very faintly, occasionally you will hear a single word of John Darniel emerge from the ether. And other than that, it's just clicking and clacking and of a very loud variety. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how to really describe it. I wouldn't call it clicking and clapping. There's like banging. It's banging. It's a loud, you know what it is? It's a raccoon that's inside that machine that is desperate to get out. That's what it sounds like to me. Yeah, but like what, but like a big one that really likes heavy metal music and has a bunch of chains on him. Yes. Yes, a chained up raccoon that loves heavy metal music and is desperately trying to get out of an MRI. Turn off the, yeah, he hates the mountain goats. So then the next time I did it, I was like, all right, we won't pick the mountain goats. We'll pick something loud. Yeah. Something aggressive. Something that, so I think I picked the California based rapper, Remble. And even Remble. Even Remble. Nobody can fight. Yeah, no. Nobody can fight. You know what we should do? We should create a specific MRI band. Yeah. That's sad. Like just to sound good in the MRI. And it's just like a bunch of banging. So like fits in. Yeah. It's just, it just tries to create a little bit of rhythm amid the banging. Next time I go in for the MRI, I'm going to sit at the MRI tech. Hey, I'm going to create a new band on Spotify. It's just going to be MRI noises. And I'm going to say, Hey, yeah, can you look up my favorite band? They're called something that has the initials MRI. So like mouse relay intercept and then, and then go in there and say, Oh yeah, play mouse relay intercept for me. And it's going to be MRI noises. And the tech is going to be so pleased. And this is all I want, John. All you want is to make people happy. When doing medical stuff, I just want the people doing the work to have a slightly nicer day for having dealt with me. You want to feel like you did a good job and they were abused by your presence. Yes. I always feel like I'm slightly on stage when I'm getting an MRI. Like when I'm going in and going out, like I feel like I've got to be extra charming and funny so that the people will be like, you know, that's a good patient. Well, I mean, I'll tell you what, getting a PET CT scan is wild because they know immediately what's going on in there, but they don't get to tell you. And so I was just trying to read your eyes and they're looking at your eyes and you're like, you know things that you're not allowed to tell me. I'm just glad that MRIs exist, even if they're very loud. I do find them reasonably stressful, but I think that stress might be alleviated by Hank Green's exciting new million dollar idea. Mouse relay intercept. Yeah, we're really going to current of the market on MRI noises. People are going to enjoy it at the end, but then they're going to go home and they're going to be like, you know, I didn't get enough of that. It's my dream sleep podcast. It's just MRI noise. Just bang, bang, clank, clank. I mean, you could make music. Maybe we just hire like George Watsky to rap to it. I don't know if it's always the same set of noises, though. I don't know if there's any consistency to it, but we'll have to do some more research. We're in the discovery phase of this million dollar idea. We're not in the execution phase yet. It's not like Hank's hit new project Zondaria that provides white noise for charity. It's something entirely new and different. I'm always working on something new and different. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Mouse relay intercept. Mouse relay intercept, the hit new band from TikTok's Hank Green. This podcast is also brought to you by Significant Figures, all of the places before and after the decimal point that are actually known mathematically. Today's podcast is additionally brought to you by vertical video sensation Hank Green, his preferred honorific. And this podcast is brought to you by The Face. The Face. No ears on that. This episode is brought to you by NoCD. Have you ever had a thought pop into your head that feels so foreign or distressing that you just can't move on from it? Like suddenly wondering if your headache means you have a brain tumor and then googling symptoms for hours, or having the inexplicable urge to swerve your car while driving, feeling horrified, and then spending hours trying to figure out why you had that thought? Well, that's what OCD is like. It's nothing like the stereotype about enjoying things being neat. Real OCD causes relentless, unwanted thoughts that make you question everything about yourself and the world around you. It is scary and exhausting and can really take over your life. I have OCD and it is highly treatable when you get the right care. I am living evidence of that. The thing is standard talk therapy, the kind you hear about a lot online is not recommended for OCD and can even make it worse. OCD needs specialized treatment and that's why I want to tell you about NoCD, which is the largest provider of specialized OCD treatment connecting people with licensed, highly trained therapists for convenient virtual sessions. Their therapy is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans and they provide support between sessions, so you're never facing this alone. If any of this sounds familiar, go to NoCD.com and book a free call to learn how they can help. That's NoCD.com. This episode of Dear Hanging John is brought to you by Quints. I doubt you have noticed, but I do like to be somewhat intentional about what I wear on any given day. There's a lot of hoodies that get thrown in, you know? There's a lot of decisions that I'm not super proud of, but help has arrived in the form of Quints because I want to open the closet and have there be not a lot of work for me to do, but a lot of things that like work well with each other and look good and almost like maybe I'm doing a good job of being an adult. Quints can be a huge help here. You got 100% European linen shorts for $34. You got pima cotton tees that feel the way a t-shirt's supposed to feel. You got pants that are relaxed enough to wear around the house, but put together enough that nobody's gonna polite you ask if you're doing okay. And the reason everything costs 50% to 80% less than what you would pay at comparable brands is that Quints works directly with the factories and skips the middleman layer. This is how you could do premium materials without the premium brand markup. Refresh your everyday. With luxury, you'll actually use. All right, Hank, I got another question for you from Tom who writes, Dear John and Hank, if all humans on earth joined in a collective movement and used all available resources to build a one-to-one replica of the city of ancient Rome in a 24-hour period, would that be possible? Thanks, Tom. You know, there's only one way to find out. Could we build Rome in a day? And would it be like the World Cup or the Olympics, a chance for the world to come together despite its problems? You know, I think we could, but I don't think we could do it in one place. There's like a logistical problem to like there'd be any of the roads to get the thing to a thing. That's my feeling is there's only so many people needed to build the Coliseum, right? Right. And I think getting the Coliseum built in a day is possible if you have 8 billion people. I'm not sure that it's possible in a physical space because you can't bring all 8 billion to bear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't put all the 8 billion people and also you can't bring all 8 billion rocks into the place faster. Yeah. Now, that's the rule for the Coliseum, by the way. There has to be one rock per person. That's how they designed it back in the day. They figured out how many people there were and took one rock for each person and then they built the Coliseum with it. I don't think it's even close to possible because I think just the milling of the stone would take over for a while. Right, because that's part of it. Yeah. Even if you had an infinite number of mills, I think some of it would take 24 hours. You can't say, hey, we've got all the rocks ready. Now let's go. Getting the rocks is part of it. Okay. If you could say, get all the rocks ready, get everything ready, get all the building materials ready, have all the mosaics made and the paint made, and then all you have to actually do is build Rome in one day, maybe. Because also what you would need to do is train a bunch of people to be good at building. So they'd have to have built, like, working on a bunch of stuff beforehand. Yeah. So they're like, in fact, what they would have done is built the thing and then taken it apart and then go, everybody just rebuild the thing in the order that we had it up for a second ago. It's like when you're the first time you do a Lego set, it takes a lot longer than if you destroy the Lego and have to do it a second time. I think it's worth it. You know, I think what I think is worth it. I think this is a great use of human attention. I don't know what we're going to do in the future. Yeah. But maybe build Rome again. Well, here's what I'll say about building Rome again as a human project. You could do worse. Right. You could do worse than having people from all over the world have to come together and each have their own part of Rome that they can be proud of and that they can share with others. It's a little bit like the Venice Biennale, which is a biennial art exhibition thing where every country has its own pavilion. And then, like, you go around and you walk almost like EBCOT, but with contemporary art pieces, you walk and see everybody's pavilion. And it's very interesting. And I feel like that's the vibe that we're going for here is like each community takes on a tiny part of Rome in a day and accomplishes that part. And then as a world, we build Rome in a day. It's sort of beautiful to me. And it's nice because there is the saying. Yeah. It would be the ultimate refutation of a famous saying. I assume that's why we would build Rome in a day. That's the whole reason, yeah. And it would be like impossible things are possible. And then we'd be like, OK, everybody, take Rome apart. Gee, John, do you want to know something very embarrassing about me? Yeah. Everybody? New Lordrop. Great. In college. One of the first songs I ever wrote was called Rome Didn't Fall in a Day. Oh, why is that embarrassing? That's true. No, yeah. In some ways, it's still doing it. In some ways, it is still falling. There's still an emperor of Rome. He's from Chicago. Well, I mean, a little bit. I actually think that the link is more to the Eastern Roman Empire. So the link is more to like Turkey and that part of the world. But there is also sort of an emperor of Rome who is from Chicago. Both these things can be true at the same time because the Roman Empire was very influential. In some ways, it didn't fall until 1914. In some ways, it hasn't fallen. In other ways, it fell, you know, in the 600. Whatever. Yeah. The point is that Rome didn't fall in a day and that might be a cliche observation, but you were like 19 years old and that's a good point. Well, but it was about the... It was a very angsty song about the sort of fall of America. Oh, well, that's kind of crazy. Which, you know, at this point... But proved prophetic. Oh, man. We're posting through it. We're posting through it. That's right. That'll be the last... The last thing will be a post. America won't fall the same way Rome didn't fall. It'll just decline in importance until eventually we have an emperor-god-king from Chicago. Right. Instead of one from New York. Is he from New York? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Born and bred, baby. Never... Yeah. All right, moving on. This next question comes from Ella who asks Dear Hank and John, on traffic lights, the lit part is surrounded by this almost cylindrical shape. It's like there's a circle surrounding it, but it doesn't go all the way around. Why is there a gap at the bottom of the light sheath? I have attached a photo for reference. Thank you for all that you do. Under my umber, Ella, Ella, Ella, A, A. Oh, it's a Rihanna joke. It's under my umber, Ella, Ella, Ella. Yeah. Yeah. That was embarrassing. That was actually way worse than your... We didn't build Rome in a day thing. Rome didn't fall in a day. John, what do you think? I know the answer to this, so I don't know if you know the answer. Oh, do you know the answer? Does it have anything to do with like the history of the... Yeah. Light? No, it has to do with physics. You got to keep it covered because otherwise the wood will rot. So my initial thought actually was that maybe it was so that they could easily change the light bulbs. Oh. You could reach a hand up there and unscrew the light bulb and pull it out, which I still think might be part of the reason, but it's not the reason. Do you know the reason? I have a guess. What's your guess? Something to do with keeping the light off of it so you don't light up the ones that aren't on. Yeah. So it's to keep the light off of the light above it and also to keep the light focused out and down because that is where people actually need to see the light is below the light and out from the light. So the idea is that it keeps the light a little bit in your direction. You need the gap there because otherwise it's going to block the light if you're right underneath it. You'll be able to see as much of it. Yeah. Yeah, you definitely need the gap there because if you're close up, you can't see the light and also it focuses the light outward. So it serves multiple purposes, but it's a good technology and we should keep it. We should keep it. That's my opinion. I wish it were more whimsical. Should we add a little bit of whimsy to every traffic light? Put a little Garfield statue somewhere on each one. Can you imagine the scandal when it came out that the creator of Garfield was good friends with the secretary of transportation? It's absolutely reeks of corruption. Jim Davis getting two cents every time a traffic light gets installed. Exactly. And like, why? Well, we used the same orange as Garfield. Garfield owned that orange until we had to pay for it. So we figured we might as well put them on there too. Yeah. That's how Garfield becomes a billionaire is with the traffic light hustle. Oh, man. I hope that would do it. I think traffic lights are actually doing a wonderful job. They're doing pretty good. In Carmel, Indiana, just to the north of me, they've gotten rid of most traffic lights and replaced them with roundabouts. Yes. Because it makes it more. In some cases, very, very weirdly, like not in a European way, but very like structure, here is the roundabout two blocks later, another roundabout, and then that happens for like 80 blocks. It makes you use Google Maps. Very in like one straight line. Yeah. Google Maps gets so confused. When you use Google Maps, it's like in 200 feet, take the second exit on the round. In 200 feet, take the second. In 200 feet, take the second. It just keeps going like that. And all you're doing is driving in a straight line. For one, like the... I don't mind a roundabout. I don't want to be critical of Carmel. I know I have a lot of fans and friends in Carmel, but first off, it's named after Carmel, California, I assume. Oh, is it? And it goes by Carmel because it's so car-oriented, and I think that's lame. I figured it was named after the candy. No, that's Caramel or Carmel, depending on your pronunciation, but it has an extra A. But you know how people are. You know how people are. That's true. There's a K-Row, Illinois. Why not a Carmel, Indiana with an extra A? Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, I like the occasional traffic light, okay? And there's a specific moment I like about a traffic light that I want to tell you about. It's called the All Red, and it's a relatively recent innovation. And what traffic engineers noticed is that a huge percentage of injury-producing accidents that happened at traffic lights happened because there was a moment, the very moment, that one light turned red, the other light turned green. And if they just instituted a one-second All Red, they would see traffic injuries go down, and indeed, that proved to be the case. Have people adjusted? Have they realized that the All Red is there, and they're like, oh, now I can just go deeper into running the red light? I don't know. It's a good question. Probably not. I'd actually wager not. Point being, I love the All Red because it's a moment where we are all, just a moment, one breath where we are all stopped, and it's okay. What I'm hearing is I can go one second before the light turns green. No. That is incorrect. That is a good way. And I know when the lights turn green, I know it. I can feel it on my bones. I never should have told Hank or indeed the world about the All Red. It's a huge mistake. All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we just need to answer this one last question from Linnea, who writes, Dear mostly Hank, but it's about John. This summer, I started listening to the pod for the first time. I began with several of the first episodes, then skipped around and eventually began regularly listening to the presently released episodes. So maybe I missed something. The podcast is fantastic, but I'm very confused about this one occurrence or deal canon event that keeps being referenced throughout the years that I have no context for. What happened to John Green in 2014? Oh, no. And then she ludicrously lost and then very clearly she writes Linnea. Linnea, and I've lost it completely, like I always do. Linnea, I apologize. Hank, should we save this question for the first question of next week? Yeah, maybe at our first episode of Dear, Hank and John of the New Year. Yeah. Should just be the 2014 spectacular. But nothing happened to you in 2014. You put on a vest and went to a movie premiere. Other than that, it was very boring for you. Not the case. I don't know, man. How like, but there's so much that happens. This is literally what I was talking to my therapist about is 2014. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're trying to like, you're trying to like explain to your therapist all the war of 2014 in a single hour, which is not possible. I was like, so have you heard of copypasta? Oh, first off, I need to. I need to just, you know, yeah, yeah, how familiar are you with wizard rock? Stop me if you've heard this term. Doctor who lock. Yeah. Doctor who lock. What was the what was the one that the main one? Super who lock? Super who lock. Yeah, supernatural doctor who and Sherlock. Yeah, locked into an eternal battle. But when I when I got back on Tumblr a couple of years ago, which is a hell of a turn of events, by the way, and I really love Tumblr now. I have no interest in any other social medium. And I love spending time on yes, you win. I feel like Tumblr is going great. It's it's finally established itself as a fun place to hang out. And with essentially no help from the company, just just by people deciding not to be like they were like, we want a space that's sort of good faith. Yeah, what if it what if it wasn't bad? What if there was a not bad place? It's kind of become that weirdly. Anyway, point being, we will make a special all time once and for all. What happened in 2014 episode at the beginning of the year? Well, that makes me nervous. Well, let's do it. All right, let's try. We'll see how it goes. If it doesn't happen, it's because me and John decided our brotherhood is spraying. We decided to preserve it rather than make that episode of Deering. No, I think that we'll figure it out. I think we'll figure it out. So listen, what's the news from AFC Wimbledon? The news from AFC Wimbledon is that the losses have turned into ties, which is better than losses, but worse than winning. At this point, I think going into the January transfer window sort of vibe. I don't know that AFC Wimbledon is necessarily going to be looking to strengthen because I don't know that they necessarily believe they can get to the playoffs. 10th place after 19 games, almost halfway through the season, 27 points. It feels like hopefully not a relegation season, but also not like much else. And I mean, look, the goal was always not to get relegated. So that on its own would be a huge win. But most recently, AFC Wimbledon drew nil nil. Before that, we drew three three. So definitely some, you know, some good points on the board, as they say. As they say in soccer, any goal is a goal. They do say that. They don't really say that, but they could because any goal is a goal. And we scored three of them against Huddersfield. It's just they also scored three against us. So so a lot of goals, a lot of goals, six goal thriller, as they say. And meanwhile, the AFC Wimbledon versus Mansfield Town Game was a sleepy affair with not only no goals, but no meaningful shots on target that I can remember. Yeah, they did a lot better against them than they did against Townsfield Man. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Townsfield Man were, in fact, a lower level English football team. Yeah. All right, Hank, what's the news from Mars? Oh, God, it's not. So NASA has lost the Maven orbiter. What? Maven has been studying Mars's atmosphere since 2013. Yeah. And it's its main mission lasted for one year. So that was the goal. So look, it's done a lot more than the goal. The orbiter has since then been collecting more data, serving as a communication link, also to rovers like curiosity and perseverance. So if, you know, they're not like oriented right to talk to us directly. It can talk to us through Maven. But Maven disappeared. It went quiet on December 4th. NASA was able to make recontact with it briefly on December 6th. But that contact suggests that they think that the Maven spacecraft is rotating strangely and that its orbital trajectory has changed, which neither of those things is good. So it's not good because, one, that makes it harder to reestablish contact if it's if it's we're not sure how it's rotating. Yeah. And two, it's rotating. And that's not supposed to be what's happening. Oh, no. And they don't know what caused this. Did it get hit by a little space rock? More likely. And I'm going off vibes here. So that's possible. But more likely something went wrong and it it like something vented out the side of it. It's an old spacecraft. It's been up there for a long time. Things can go wrong or like something got stuck on or, you know, it tried to do something and wasn't able to do it correctly. And maybe like, I don't know if these things are even able to adjust their orbits after this much time, but maybe it tried to adjust its orbit and did that incorrectly or something. Well, Godspeed to a real one. Godspeed to a real one. Great job, Maven. Probably out of commission permanently because once it's been out of touch for this long, very hard to guess at where it might be at this point. Oof. Well, my condolences, Hank. That's a big loss. Yeah. Good work, Maven. Good work, Maven. If you would like to send us questions, you can do that. Our email addresses Hank and John at gmail.com because we are Hank and John, famously professional brothers, Hank and John Green. And we can't have a podcast without your questions. And we really enjoy them. Thank you so much for sending them in. This podcast is edited by Ben Swartout. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Menish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosyana Halsrow-Hoss and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Devoki Tragarvardi. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.