00:00:18 ◼ ► So again it's awesome to collect more countries we really have quite a full roster now of places that have left i Tunes [TS]
00:00:26 ◼ ► reviews or just want to say thanks to everyone and thanks to everyone from those countries who left a review [TS]
00:00:40 ◼ ► I wasn't sure if it was like You Tube which I don't know that the Internet is aware or not [TS]
00:00:44 ◼ ► but You Tube is not available in China so I was wondering if maybe the i Tunes store wasn't available in China [TS]
00:01:05 ◼ ► and certainly we might have to start doing a China version of the podcast where we do the whole thing again speaking in [TS]
00:01:11 ◼ ► Mandarin or something. Yes yes that will never happen. So the last podcast was about e-mailing. [TS]
00:01:22 ◼ ► Yes and you gave some advice about a man I think that I personally found really useful when [TS]
00:01:27 ◼ ► and I some of the viewers did and then I sort of went up in my estimations is a name I had. [TS]
00:01:32 ◼ ► Thank you and then last night he sent me like I guess maybe for a normal person it would be and I came out. [TS]
00:01:42 ◼ ► But some crazy like very alone for you a bit rambling you didn't apologize for it in the mouth agape any rethinking of [TS]
00:02:03 ◼ ► but yes I did rather a rambling e-mail that did not make a whole lot of sense and I thought in the morning [TS]
00:02:11 ◼ ► and yes that was that was perfectly timed to come after the show about sending efficient emails so I was for that like [TS]
00:02:21 ◼ ► and if people give enough money I will like share with the world now I don't think that's necessary [TS]
00:02:31 ◼ ► What else is going on then have it was a been much else much else in the feedback I've been following the red it's been [TS]
00:02:38 ◼ ► Yes I have I've been following the Reddit as well and I think we both commented upon it in the show notes. [TS]
00:02:44 ◼ ► Someone left an absolutely hilarious image that I want to find out whoever left this image I need to know where this is [TS]
00:02:52 ◼ ► from but this is Harry's image under just what the link said. C G P gray visits Brady in his house. [TS]
00:03:01 ◼ ► When you click the link it go to this comical picture of this robot standing in a cave man's dwelling. [TS]
00:03:15 ◼ ► I know talking about a photo is not excellent podcast fodder and I do recommend people go and have a look people O.S.O. [TS]
00:03:24 ◼ ► Funnily enough for some strange reason this does look like you like that robe is somehow kept as you I don't know how I [TS]
00:03:34 ◼ ► think I want to know I think that's why it's that's why it's funny is I can look at that robot too [TS]
00:03:39 ◼ ► and feel like I am kin to this creature that we're on we're on the same level there. [TS]
00:03:45 ◼ ► So whoever does how does the caveman as well has kind of low matted ginger hair sort of adds to the brightness of him [TS]
00:03:53 ◼ ► as well. Yes Yes I don't have quite such impressive biceps unfortunately but yes so what. [TS]
00:04:01 ◼ ► and if someone can tell us where the original poster can tell us we have had from I'm really curious. [TS]
00:04:08 ◼ ► Show in the sixty's maybe I don't know exactly but I'd be really curious to know the origins of that image [TS]
00:04:14 ◼ ► and under I and I think until Ryan is the person who posted it so hopefully they're listening. [TS]
00:04:22 ◼ ► That was hilarious and it really made my screen today so I'm looking at it through the park [TS]
00:04:41 ◼ ► but you did ask a question which I never really got around to answering in the previous one [TS]
00:04:47 ◼ ► but you asked me some examples of. Terrible e-mails that I get. Worst practice yet worst practices. [TS]
00:04:55 ◼ ► when I was going through my e-mail of the day I just made a note of some of the e-mails I do get so just very quickly [TS]
00:05:01 ◼ ► some of my least favorite things to get are the sort of e-mail that people write where apparently random words in the [TS]
00:05:10 ◼ ► sentence are kept flocks they're written in all caps and it's like these people want to use italics [TS]
00:05:18 ◼ ► but instead they just use all caps and so you read it as though they're sort of shouting every fifth or sixth word. [TS]
00:05:24 ◼ ► I get enough of those usually from people who are very angry about something that I've mentioned [TS]
00:05:33 ◼ ► So that's that's an an example of creating an example of of a professional one that here tapes heck out of me is [TS]
00:05:44 ◼ ► or meetings without actually telling me anything at all about what we were going to have a phone call [TS]
00:05:53 ◼ ► Just say the ones that I get the most often which I do delete them just. Right away. [TS]
00:06:04 ◼ ► Is kids in school basically asking me to write essays for them on a particular topic which happens often enough some [TS]
00:06:19 ◼ ► and say you know I need to write a three hundred word essay on this particular topic would you mind doing that for me. [TS]
00:06:29 ◼ ► Almost like props to you for asking but delete immediately it takes you six weeks to write a script. [TS]
00:06:35 ◼ ► Alums are going to take you to going to school if you ever see the thing is with a school essay if I did write it I. [TS]
00:06:39 ◼ ► would have no incentive to do it well at all. Enough of us saying oh no I'm not the one is going to get the D. [TS]
00:06:46 ◼ ► The whole the whole category of e-mails that I get because of making mathematics videos of people [TS]
00:06:53 ◼ ► or science videos in general really people who have serious people who like to think they have discovered a perpetual [TS]
00:07:05 ◼ ► and then it sort of all if you like yeah that's OK A lot of them that has spiked this week that I made a video about [TS]
00:07:11 ◼ ► the Riemann Hypothesis which is the sort of the greatest unsolved puzzle now in mathematics. [TS]
00:07:24 ◼ ► and of course I'm in no position to know if I've cracked on it puts me in a difficult position to eye to eye to late to [TS]
00:07:32 ◼ ► and therefore become you know from the craziness of myself in every forwarding on no this is difficult for this at all. [TS]
00:07:38 ◼ ► Delete is the correct and this is not this is something to ponder or feel anxiety over it [TS]
00:07:47 ◼ ► and just said the late you know sometimes you going to have a look and see if there's any gold in there. [TS]
00:07:52 ◼ ► No no you do not not when people are sending you math proofs e-mail to you who they should know is not. [TS]
00:08:06 ◼ ► Well actually I don't know if you've come across it I was just reading I was reading an interesting book called Average [TS]
00:08:19 ◼ ► but in it he mentions this thing about how with a lot of modern math proofs for something like the the Riemann [TS]
00:08:27 ◼ ► conjecture that there basically isn't even any individual human who can know if this is true [TS]
00:08:40 ◼ ► What the math community does is that they they break it down into the smallest pieces they can inform that off to a [TS]
00:08:48 ◼ ► whole bunch of experts in those individual areas who then everyone has to come back with a consensus about whether [TS]
00:08:56 ◼ ► and kind of come to a community decision about whether all these pieces fit together to prove the thing as a whole I [TS]
00:09:02 ◼ ► don't know if you come across that but I I found that interesting just to think about like boy. [TS]
00:09:16 ◼ ► I mean even something like Poincare never cite correctly point where conjecture you know though [TS]
00:09:22 ◼ ► and yeah I was one of the only one of the seven Millennium Problems that has been so. [TS]
00:09:26 ◼ ► And even that was sort of just it was solved by attrition in many ways I mean they solved it for all the different [TS]
00:09:32 ◼ ► and then eventually the NE dimension they couldn't so awful was the third dimension so that became the Holy Grail in [TS]
00:09:39 ◼ ► this guy code to tell you that was not Hamilton came up with a way to do it using Ricci Flow But then finally Perlman [TS]
00:09:50 ◼ ► who ended up getting all the glory came up with this surgery technique that he applied to the Ricci Flow that made it [TS]
00:10:01 ◼ ► It's usually one person building on all these other all these other things and I'm one of the reason it's home [TS]
00:10:07 ◼ ► and gave for rejecting the Millennium Promise was he felt like you shouldn't be giving this prize to one person you [TS]
00:10:17 ◼ ► and I'm not totally convinced in some of the mathematicians I speak to it totally convinced that's the only reason he [TS]
00:10:28 ◼ ► Yes I think that that one was actually mentioned in the in the book that I was reading as an example of a proof that [TS]
00:10:35 ◼ ► had to be farmed out to a whole bunch of people to try to figure out you know this is even correct. [TS]
00:10:40 ◼ ► That's the only thing I might mention here is that a lot of people commented on how serious I got at the end of the [TS]
00:10:50 ◼ ► Yes and little how I might have noticed that I can see when I was talking this was [TS]
00:11:03 ◼ ► but enough people commented on Reddit that they noticed the swing in my tone to suddenly very serious tone. [TS]
00:11:12 ◼ ► And yes it is true I just want to make a little a little comment about that about why I want to say this [TS]
00:11:19 ◼ ► but Internet addiction email addiction Twitter addiction even there you said a little bit more serious shopping. [TS]
00:11:27 ◼ ► So I don't want to be an after school special you know. Listen you know we all had fun today. [TS]
00:11:33 ◼ ► But e-mail a Sirius radio for a few of your friends along here to talk on the podcast as well we want to speak to you [TS]
00:11:48 ◼ ► and I notice it just like what the nature of addiction is like these kind of sort of psychological addiction that you [TS]
00:11:55 ◼ ► have to things like email and I'm not talking like a physical addiction like like a drug. [TS]
00:12:00 ◼ ► And if you're doing an experiment on a human and you want to encourage them to continue in a behavior the best [TS]
00:12:18 ◼ ► The best way to make sure they press that button as often as possible is to not give them a consistent reward you know [TS]
00:12:25 ◼ ► don't give them a food pellet each time but give them a random reward. Sometimes they get nothing. [TS]
00:12:34 ◼ ► You know sometimes they get very few food pellets but there's a random distribution in the reward. [TS]
00:12:45 ◼ ► and this is why things like slot machines can be very addictive for people right because they're they are random [TS]
00:12:52 ◼ ► You know if you put if you put like a quarter in a slot machine every time you got back twenty cents nobody would play [TS]
00:12:57 ◼ ► them. Right because we like to be very obvious what's what's happening. But if you if you vary the reward. [TS]
00:13:05 ◼ ► That like mammalian brains are just designed to really hook into that kind of behavior [TS]
00:13:17 ◼ ► and email can be really addictive in that way because this random reinforcement right. [TS]
00:13:21 ◼ ► Sometimes you go to your email and it's something really important that you need to know [TS]
00:13:25 ◼ ► or something really interesting on Reddit and lots of times it's just kind of nothing [TS]
00:13:34 ◼ ► And that's why like we mentioned last time so I was like I don't remember opening Twitter [TS]
00:13:40 ◼ ► and that's exactly what that is like that's that is a sign that your your brain is engaged in this. [TS]
00:13:45 ◼ ► This random reward response and is really looking for that so that's why I got super serious and I will leave it now. [TS]
00:13:54 ◼ ► I make you feel really good here with all this talk about like you know the male brain behavior isn't it. [TS]
00:14:05 ◼ ► Well I am part of this conversation too I this is why I am always sad that I'm not a robot I'm not that robot in that [TS]
00:14:10 ◼ ► image before because I'm keenly aware of like the sad sad limitations of my own mammal monkey brain. [TS]
00:14:22 ◼ ► but I have a monkey brain in my skull just like every other human does and that monkey brain is easily distracted [TS]
00:14:28 ◼ ► and it doesn't want to pay attention like it engages in all this horrible self destructive behavior. [TS]
00:14:33 ◼ ► So that's what this is like being productive is learning to deal with the monkey in your head who just wants to sit in [TS]
00:14:41 ◼ ► the sunshine and eat bananas you know or go run around and do other kinds of stuff so that's not enough. [TS]
00:14:46 ◼ ► Enough with the seriousness. Just mention a quick link this is going back a couple shows ago but on. [TS]
00:14:55 ◼ ► When my favorite sections of Reddit is a section called change my view which is not exactly a formal debate [TS]
00:15:03 ◼ ► but they have more rules than most sections on Reddit do and people put forward an argument [TS]
00:15:12 ◼ ► And there was an interesting discussion a little while ago that related to our episode about advertising an ad blocking. [TS]
00:15:20 ◼ ► but the change in my view the debate topic was you know if using an ad block is stealing content stealing [TS]
00:15:35 ◼ ► Change my view so that the person is arguing that that ad blocking on the Internet is the equivalent of simply not [TS]
00:15:44 ◼ ► and It's as with many of the discussions on that sub Reddit it's a very interesting discussion back [TS]
00:15:49 ◼ ► and forth between a whole bunch of people so I found it interesting to read through [TS]
00:15:53 ◼ ► and I will put that in the show notes and something related to our episode episode. [TS]
00:16:05 ◼ ► Oh this is our last prime number of the experiment and it is our last prime number of the experiment. [TS]
00:16:15 ◼ ► Was this debate cross posted to the newly created freebooting some credit to the other day. [TS]
00:16:23 ◼ ► Yes I saw someone I saw someone made that I took a little screen shot because I thought now you are the one who's [TS]
00:16:34 ◼ ► I'm totally fine with copyright infringement though I will I will admit if I don't copyright infringement the term I [TS]
00:16:39 ◼ ► hope not to read it. Yes the term the term although I will acknowledge it is very awkward in certain circumstances. [TS]
00:16:45 ◼ ► But I noticed a notice on the description of the freebooting sub Reddit it's this The description is that this is a [TS]
00:16:53 ◼ ► suburb that is about those who don't want to pay or are about those who don't pay for content [TS]
00:17:02 ◼ ► and I think if I'm understanding your use of the term freebooting that that this is not to be confused with piracy that [TS]
00:17:12 ◼ ► freebooting is to be applied to the the people who are making money off of content creators materials. [TS]
00:17:22 ◼ ► It's not talking about the people who may be viewing that content elsewhere or just tormenting it or or [TS]
00:17:32 ◼ ► I think rebooting I think you grossly overestimate the amount of so I've put into the term free [TS]
00:17:54 ◼ ► I haven't I haven't gone over to look at how much discussion is over there. Put it in this manner. [TS]
00:18:13 ◼ ► when they talk about first usage of a term it oh yeah right because that's what they need to have like earliest known [TS]
00:18:29 ◼ ► This episode is brought to you by Squarespace the all in one platform the makes it fast [TS]
00:18:39 ◼ ► and they're constantly improving their platform with new features new designs and even better support. [TS]
00:18:46 ◼ ► and they have a ton of style options so you can create unique websites for you or your business. [TS]
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00:18:59 ◼ ► and speaking of mobile the new Squarespace metric app for i Phone i Pad allows you to check site stats like page views [TS]
00:19:04 ◼ ► unique visitors and social media followers and with a blog app you can make text updates drag and drop images [TS]
00:19:12 ◼ ► And speaking personally I just have to say that Squarespace support is absolutely amazing. [TS]
00:19:20 ◼ ► when I was setting it up I did have a bunch of questions for how to do this or what setting is best for that [TS]
00:19:28 ◼ ► and the support team was just amazing always with incredibly rapid turnaround at any time of the day any day of the [TS]
00:19:36 ◼ ► So they have quite a crew over there that are really working hard to make sure that all of your questions are answered. [TS]
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00:20:07 ◼ ► Or you can click the link in the description below to use the offer code to sign up and again get ten percent off. [TS]
00:20:15 ◼ ► Squarespace everything you need to create an exceptional website Pi Day it is Pi Day today that a little sorting it is [TS]
00:20:27 ◼ ► or much foretelling so we get this three one for right so we are using the American month because there is no sort of [TS]
00:20:35 ◼ ► third of the fourteenth month I think Gavan Brits and Europeans are quite happy to go with this one. [TS]
00:20:41 ◼ ► Yeah it seems like it's become one of these Internet holidays I've been seeing everybody on the Twitter talking about [TS]
00:20:48 ◼ ► it today. Yeah so obviously making a having a You Tube channel about numbers I have a tremendous interest in power. [TS]
00:20:59 ◼ ► Yeah that's a whole playlist of them that and I like it sounds like you need a channel dedicated to PI fifteen. [TS]
00:21:14 ◼ ► but I don't want to talk about them I want to talk about via its video the pod for those who don't know how you should. [TS]
00:21:26 ◼ ► Yes and a good friend and her video for Pi Day today like like all her videos was excellent. [TS]
00:21:33 ◼ ► I mean essentially in a nutshell I mean I hope people will watch it if they haven't already sane [TS]
00:21:41 ◼ ► but in a nutshell she was saying that pi is no big deal it's a very it's a very ordinary It's an ordinary number like [TS]
00:21:48 ◼ ► every single other number on the number line and I guess some of the points she made were really good [TS]
00:21:55 ◼ ► and educational about you know there are an infinite number of numbers with a repeat. In digits and things like that. [TS]
00:22:13 ◼ ► or chipping away a lot of the things people love about pi and fair enough and ice and I said I enjoyed it very much [TS]
00:22:44 ◼ ► and so some of this maybe comes back to what you were talking about with kind of this random reinforcement that I think [TS]
00:22:50 ◼ ► maybe the ordinariness and the complete and utter opera treatise of Pi is why we love it that a number that seems so. [TS]
00:23:04 ◼ ► Just weirdly out of nowhere just like a distant strange number that has nothing special about it to look at it could be [TS]
00:23:14 ◼ ► become such a celebrity and could tweak them so imbued with meaning to us as humans is what we like about it. [TS]
00:23:29 ◼ ► It's a bit like it's like the one out of the I won the lottery I won the lottery like because of because we chose to [TS]
00:23:37 ◼ ► put some significance into the ratio of a circle's the time it was because I can see [TS]
00:23:43 ◼ ► and I can see why we did that because the circle is a it is a pretty special shape but it is just another shape. [TS]
00:23:52 ◼ ► So then we had to go and find the poor out number on the number line happen to represent that ratio [TS]
00:24:01 ◼ ► and said Good on you number you know you have some significance to us because you somehow relate to the will I think [TS]
00:24:09 ◼ ► that is like I think that appeals to us as humans like the way we our appeal to the the lucky person who lands the half [TS]
00:24:16 ◼ ► court shot at the basketball game or the person who has the one hundred million dollar winning lottery ticket. [TS]
00:24:22 ◼ ► I mean there's nothing special about that person. They just were in the right place at the right time. [TS]
00:24:37 ◼ ► I'm not a robot like you is not going to understand that the agent of Pi ludic really. [TS]
00:24:48 ◼ ► Like I mean like like like like like how some people have a soft spot for Saturn because it's got rings [TS]
00:24:55 ◼ ► or you know we we look for them and that's that is different I think description of others. [TS]
00:25:05 ◼ ► There's all these poor numbers milling around and like we as a society have taken there's one number [TS]
00:25:13 ◼ ► and he was the he was the lucky guy him right place at the right time for that up that whole description. [TS]
00:25:26 ◼ ► Do you subscribe to you know what's the big deal with pirates. It's you know it's a number of you know are you OK. [TS]
00:25:35 ◼ ► Well first of all I just did to mention advise video if you haven't watched it go watch it now and then come back. [TS]
00:25:40 ◼ ► That link isn't in the show notes because there will be mild spoilers for the video [TS]
00:25:45 ◼ ► but the thing the thing that I like about the video was basically VI was going through all of the things that are [TS]
00:25:52 ◼ ► normally said about the uniqueness of Pi and pointing out how they are not unique. And she was. [TS]
00:26:02 ◼ ► I she really got me to to laugh out loud a couple times in the video you know what you're going to get you know what [TS]
00:26:08 ◼ ► you're going to point out that you know people talk when I was out as an infinite number of digits you know. [TS]
00:26:12 ◼ ► Well five has an infinite number of digits just so happens to be that all those digits are zero. [TS]
00:26:16 ◼ ► Right but so the infiniteness of these numbers is not special and something that I hadn't ever really thought about [TS]
00:26:22 ◼ ► but talking about irrational numbers that there's an infinite number of irrational numbers it's not like there's just [TS]
00:26:30 ◼ ► and you happen to be those special numbers which is something I never really thought about in that exact way which is [TS]
00:26:39 ◼ ► So she was just taking apart all of the unique elements of Pi and I think doing it doing it in a very good way. [TS]
00:26:47 ◼ ► I really liked it. Yeah and I love and I had a lot and it was thought provoking for that reason. Yeah it was that. [TS]
00:26:59 ◼ ► OK so now before before I tell you my opinions on this I will first say that back in high school [TS]
00:27:13 ◼ ► and I was very very bored I actually spent a bunch of time memorizing the digits of pi you know because I was there. [TS]
00:27:22 ◼ ► A nerdy person now I know I'm not like one of these these Olympiads memorizes tens of thousands digits [TS]
00:27:29 ◼ ► but I had somewhere around the first two hundred digits. Well like I said massive. Well it is impressive. [TS]
00:27:35 ◼ ► It found the present it is not as impressive as actually sounds because I was using you know this memory techniques for [TS]
00:27:41 ◼ ► this kinds of things where you can transform digits into words and in the words into sentences [TS]
00:27:46 ◼ ► and so it's not as hard as it as it actually sounds to memorize an arbitrary sequence of digits you know this is this [TS]
00:27:55 ◼ ► and so that I was you know just doing this as a as a as a border kind of thing I thought. [TS]
00:28:00 ◼ ► It was cool to them of the nerdy high school time and I never came across to how until some point [TS]
00:28:12 ◼ ► when I was in college I don't remember exactly when but the math professor brought it up as a two parter. [TS]
00:28:22 ◼ ► Yes So basically I think that to sum it up is that pi is based on the diameter of the circle [TS]
00:28:33 ◼ ► and the argument is usually that were you talking about in both most shapes you talk about the most fundamental part [TS]
00:28:44 ◼ ► and so pies a little weird that it's using this non fundamental part of the shape too to define it. [TS]
00:29:01 ◼ ► when I heard about how honest to God so much of trigonometry really clicked in my mind and I thought I saw. [TS]
00:29:14 ◼ ► But boy did it suddenly trigonometry made a whole lot more sense in my mind with the PA I was switching from high to [TS]
00:29:23 ◼ ► Tao and so that's why I have I have read things from other mathematicians saying that this is a way out of my league [TS]
00:29:33 ◼ ► but that Tao is only really useful in this kind of high school college level math and that [TS]
00:29:38 ◼ ► when you get beyond this level you know maybe there are there are arguments in favor of Pi I don't really know those [TS]
00:29:45 ◼ ► but I would just say for the level of math that I was doing how I made things just instantly so much simpler [TS]
00:29:52 ◼ ► and you know being able to understand that the sine function you know talking about in every every kid. [TS]
00:30:00 ◼ ► High school was listening to me now right you have to do you know you have to memorize these things you know what is [TS]
00:30:04 ◼ ► the sign of pi over to what is the sign of pi over four and you need to have these things off the top of your head [TS]
00:30:14 ◼ ► but if you if you use Tarot Instead it's always just a fraction of the direction around a circle so if someone asks you [TS]
00:30:21 ◼ ► know what's the sign of Tao over four you start to think OK well I go a fourth of the way around the circle [TS]
00:30:28 ◼ ► and if you imagine that on a number line it's very obviously one I hope I'm doing this right in my head. [TS]
00:30:34 ◼ ► And so you know a towel over to you go halfway around the circle you know what's the height of zero so I am in favor of [TS]
00:30:42 ◼ ► tau because it just to me made so much of trigonometry make immediate sense where the PI stuff I had always had a hard [TS]
00:30:51 ◼ ► time with pine radian the never quite gotten it so there are some good there are some good videos on there are some [TS]
00:31:04 ◼ ► But even if you use tell it's still just you know it's still an arbitrary constant. [TS]
00:31:08 ◼ ► Where do you stand on this idea of us celebrating an arbitrary number and you know having the celebrity numbers. [TS]
00:31:16 ◼ ► Well I think celebrity numbers. I know what you mean. So I think it's a funny term. [TS]
00:31:23 ◼ ► I mean I would say I am I am for it you know for example I love the fact that there is a Pi Day I'm not going to get [TS]
00:31:31 ◼ ► and then we're having a Pi Day because this is like this whole day allows this discussion to happen [TS]
00:31:39 ◼ ► and it brings math up as a topic so I'm very much in favor of that goes away that I did not know that. [TS]
00:31:48 ◼ ► So yeah I'm I'm in favor of celebrity numbers like you know I can't conceive of a reason not to be [TS]
00:32:00 ◼ ► Think they were part of the celebrity of Pi is that it is an interesting looking number right whereas tao looks too [TS]
00:32:09 ◼ ► Symbol it's a symbol it's a very cool symbol of people who can follow me on twitter know that I have been really [TS]
00:32:15 ◼ ► working my way through the wire. The T.V. Series for probably the fourth or fifth time now. [TS]
00:32:23 ◼ ► and there is a character in the second season who has a tattoo on the back of his neck [TS]
00:32:29 ◼ ► and I would wonder if this is assuming that maybe the actors had to I was always kind of curious about X. [TS]
00:32:35 ◼ ► It's the detail that is striking in the second season and seemed a little bit out of place [TS]
00:32:42 ◼ ► So I can see why it is more prominent as a feature or it looks cool on movie posters [TS]
00:32:47 ◼ ► and if you want to have something mathy you put high up there it's immediately recognizable whereas lots of other mass [TS]
00:32:53 ◼ ► and goals they're just using boring old regular letters you know and it's that's that's not as interesting. [TS]
00:33:01 ◼ ► Well I'm very sorry for humanizing them but I am I am rather sleep deprived and maybe maybe my brain is addled [TS]
00:33:09 ◼ ► but I think I'm a bit more like that I quite like the I I just I think the level of your description just just struck [TS]
00:33:21 ◼ ► I mean it's an analogy isn't that you get you get that of course I don't know anything and I think humans [TS]
00:33:26 ◼ ► but I think we can I think we like I think people like you know just appeals to people like the underdog is that way [TS]
00:33:33 ◼ ► because that is exactly why I say it's an underdog who would have thought that sometimes a lot of obscure irrational [TS]
00:33:39 ◼ ► numbers just sit in a little while after three could have become the hero of numbers [TS]
00:33:44 ◼ ► and he did he did he said he sat there he sat there thinking Oh I'm never going to amount to anything [TS]
00:33:50 ◼ ► and then one day he became the symbol that even C.D.P. Gray talks about only the podcast you should write a book. [TS]
00:33:58 ◼ ► I think up in Britain. If you're by the children's book about maybe I should like growing videos about it instead. [TS]
00:34:17 ◼ ► when I complain about is the West Coast time zone and had a blast last week I said the East Coast is the best coast. [TS]
00:34:33 ◼ ► and I have come to say that the the West Coast has the world's most inconvenient time zone ever. [TS]
00:34:52 ◼ ► Edu conference I was getting into arguments with people over that road and thought it was some kind of lunatic [TS]
00:34:58 ◼ ► and of course it doesn't help you to argue with the locals about the craziness of their own time zone. [TS]
00:35:06 ◼ ► and it is as you can see for the last couple days even us just trying to schedule this thing the California late waking [TS]
00:35:18 ◼ ► So many like I I mean half the reason I'm delirious and making stupid arguments about pi is because I had to stay up [TS]
00:35:28 ◼ ► or not because I wanted to put my videos up and respond to them at a time that was good for people in Europe and [TS]
00:35:34 ◼ ► and on the East Coast and also the number Tom I have often had people having phone calls [TS]
00:35:40 ◼ ► and they're saying OK well if so everyone's finished work now so maybe we'll put some calls into them tomorrow [TS]
00:35:54 ◼ ► And again I will have to be a bit vague here but when I was having those problems with the sub. [TS]
00:36:00 ◼ ► Launch during the summer I would say some reasonable portion of the amount of time it took to get those problems sorted [TS]
00:36:09 ◼ ► was due to the time difference between the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States [TS]
00:36:14 ◼ ► and I was on the East Coast at the time I happened to be in America and of course because I'm on the East Coast. [TS]
00:36:19 ◼ ► Since I'm the one who wakes up first it feels like OK you're looking at your clock [TS]
00:36:37 ◼ ► when even the east coast in the West Coast a kind of a line for business deals you know or business dealings [TS]
00:36:43 ◼ ► and then you know God help you if you're in London trying to schedule something with someone on the on the west coast [TS]
00:36:51 ◼ ► I think it's making us feel like this weird out of time this went on there you know. [TS]
00:36:59 ◼ ► On the west coast of even just things like Twitter you know if you know it's evening time [TS]
00:37:06 ◼ ► and I realize oh I'm not getting any replies because the rest of the world is asleep. [TS]
00:37:11 ◼ ► I've noticed that you know it's just it's absolutely bizarre So I think West Coast you need to do something about that [TS]
00:37:18 ◼ ► closeness is unsolvable. You realize it's because of the position on the earth and the sun of course. [TS]
00:37:23 ◼ ► Well actually if I can find for the show not what I read I read a really good article where someone had a proposal that [TS]
00:37:29 ◼ ► was not too crazy for how to at least change the US into two time zones so that you basically would have a time zone [TS]
00:37:38 ◼ ► running down the middle of the United States and so that they would only they would only be off by an hour. [TS]
00:37:47 ◼ ► And this was also combined with one of my favorite things which is getting rid of Daylight Savings Time. [TS]
00:37:52 ◼ ► And so you could do a switch during one of the daylight savings times and just hold everything steady with. [TS]
00:38:04 ◼ ► and I'd like I really like that plan what can we do to get this to get this sorted. [TS]
00:38:11 ◼ ► I approve of this but then a whole bunch of people at the Navy was going to compromise I don't [TS]
00:38:28 ◼ ► But as I read through it it was it was reasonable with Sun sunrise and sunset times [TS]
00:38:36 ◼ ► and then I think on top of that if you just stop with the daylight savings nonsense of moving around the hours all the [TS]
00:38:40 ◼ ► time people will just adjust that people will get used to it it's like it's like I moved here to London [TS]
00:38:45 ◼ ► and I remember the first winter I was here. I literally just freaked out the first time the sun set. [TS]
00:38:57 ◼ ► I remember sitting in a classroom and looking outside and it was pitch black for a thirty minute clips of something. [TS]
00:39:03 ◼ ► Honestly just did not know what was going on because I have not lived this far north [TS]
00:39:09 ◼ ► and now I will say it has taken me a good eight years to get used to the winters in London and how early the sun sets. [TS]
00:39:18 ◼ ► And so I think if America if they adapted to two time zones people would get used to it [TS]
00:39:22 ◼ ► and then everyone would be happier. And by everyone I mean in the ME and that is what I'm looking for there. [TS]
00:39:27 ◼ ► So I don't know if you can I will have to do daylight savings another day because I mean I can understand the arguments [TS]
00:39:34 ◼ ► but I have such an a stout chick attachment to daylight savings like because it just reminds me of the excitement of [TS]
00:39:43 ◼ ► and things that I did have a funny experience the other night was because it just changed here in the AM on the West [TS]
00:39:54 ◼ ► and it's going to be they're going to the changeover at the end of the month here in London. Yeah. [TS]
00:40:00 ◼ ► I was up and I know I'm capable of wasting vast amounts of time on Reddit and Wikipedia [TS]
00:40:05 ◼ ► and I was up in the middle of the not reading Wikipedia articles and I didn't know the changes was happening [TS]
00:40:11 ◼ ► or it happened but my computer did and I know I didn't notice the change and I sort of looked at the time [TS]
00:40:20 ◼ ► My girl and within time gone you know I'm capable of wasting time I spent an hour reading about that one incident. [TS]
00:40:29 ◼ ► REICH this is this is Florida right and it was like two days later that I found out of the happened [TS]
00:40:33 ◼ ► and I was kind of relieved you know I had made some going to fight I will put in make a note on our little notes file [TS]
00:40:50 ◼ ► but we do it while you're there that two other things you can add to that list then. [TS]
00:41:00 ◼ ► but you know that's going to be done some you know we can talk about that some time here. [TS]
00:41:07 ◼ ► Yeah I would just as a final times I think I will just I was put in that while I do think you know East Coast is the [TS]
00:41:14 ◼ ► best coach I love these because United States London clearly has the best time zone in the whole world. [TS]
00:41:19 ◼ ► I love Clinton's time zone and it was good it is the most convenient time zone ever. [TS]
00:41:24 ◼ ► Nothing in London centric or anything coming at the London Times and I don't think I care about right. [TS]
00:41:32 ◼ ► If the London Times that my Greenwich is here I don't know what else anyone needs to know [TS]
00:41:37 ◼ ► but yeah I love it you know you have sort of had a whole morning to get stuff done [TS]
00:41:42 ◼ ► and then you can shoot stuff off to you know shoot emails and phone calls after people in America [TS]
00:41:46 ◼ ► and then they have a whole working day you know to to to deal with whatever you sent them [TS]
00:41:51 ◼ ► and you know I just love the London Times and it's just the best it is the absolute best. [TS]
00:42:00 ◼ ► Times and even though I don't live in London and I enjoy Oh so sorry for the borrowing your times and in London. [TS]
00:42:09 ◼ ► So one other thing I was going to bring up was the Malaysia Airlines plane crash which has been in the news. [TS]
00:42:21 ◼ ► Yes So this is this is something that again talking we can talk about in a future topic I.E. [TS]
00:42:31 ◼ ► and so I know kind of literally nothing about this except that there was last time I even saw some headline it was it [TS]
00:42:43 ◼ ► So I actually as we speak now it still is the last line they have and I say a plane crash [TS]
00:42:47 ◼ ► but they haven't found the blind so it is presumed presumed yet. So you would have to tell me about this them. [TS]
00:42:54 ◼ ► Well I mean for the for that very reason that it hasn't been found and no one knows what happened. [TS]
00:43:06 ◼ ► but I thought I would talk about plane crashes in general just because you know his podcast is about talking about our [TS]
00:43:17 ◼ ► I guess we don't cuss that people think seem to make you look crazy from time to time [TS]
00:43:41 ◼ ► Movement with families and friends and and I would never and will not sort of the little [TS]
00:43:48 ◼ ► and I hope I hope you know I never have to go through something as catastrophic as that [TS]
00:44:04 ◼ ► and run from a plane crashes is certainly certainly one of them. I sort of I read N.T.S.B. [TS]
00:44:10 ◼ ► Plane crash reports is it out of the house is out of a morbid fear that you read but I don't think it's a fear. [TS]
00:44:18 ◼ ► I fly a lot and you know I guess I think about my plane crashing as much as the next person [TS]
00:44:24 ◼ ► but it's not like a fear that cripples me or makes me reluctant to fly it really is just an interest but [TS]
00:44:33 ◼ ► and it's a hobby I would want to call a hobby but it is just it is it is a topic of great interest to me [TS]
00:44:41 ◼ ► and I've been trying to figure out why I would find plane crash is an interesting topic. [TS]
00:44:46 ◼ ► I have kind of been doing a bit of soul searching as I spend hours upon hours of reading [TS]
00:44:50 ◼ ► and reading about it as one might be a reading of all this material and so I think what is your conclusion. [TS]
00:45:06 ◼ ► A confluence or a perfect storm of topics and issues that really appeal to my brain. [TS]
00:45:13 ◼ ► Some of those technology this is because there's always a great deal of technology involved in a plane crash whether [TS]
00:45:29 ◼ ► and there are a number of humans trying to do with it usually little say there's a Unfortunately a great number of [TS]
00:45:34 ◼ ► people are usually affected just sitting in the back and they all in turn have their own stories and human drama. [TS]
00:45:43 ◼ ► And while it's really terrible I think you know as a human I take a great interest in the stories of other humans [TS]
00:45:50 ◼ ► For better or worse there's real extremes like we have you know extremes of speed and altitude and. [TS]
00:46:02 ◼ ► Which sort of appeal to my engineering mechanical brain this great sometimes is great folly [TS]
00:46:14 ◼ ► or you know hubris gone wrong sometimes I think I think slot is still something that fascinates fascinates us you know [TS]
00:46:24 ◼ ► humans still look up a plane going overhead although we've had them for many years they still amaze us [TS]
00:46:30 ◼ ► and that that can go wrong in such a spectacular way is how it's hard to ignore what's hard to ignore for me I think [TS]
00:46:53 ◼ ► Just recently with this missing airliner it's it's reminding me again that interest me [TS]
00:46:57 ◼ ► and I just thought it was a sort of something I put out there because you know you've put a bit of yourself out there [TS]
00:47:02 ◼ ► from time to time so I'm happy just to let people know this is a strange strange interest of mine. [TS]
00:47:07 ◼ ► I mean I don't I'm not the Lone Ranger obviously there's a great there's a whole industry in plane crash television [TS]
00:47:12 ◼ ► shows you know National Geographic channel going in air crash investigation as it's called in the U.K. [TS]
00:47:22 ◼ ► I sort of I've seen them all now that I know that this is this interest of yours I'm not surprised that a show called [TS]
00:47:33 ◼ ► and you probably have them all recorded visit there's a guy there's a guy who knew right. [TS]
00:47:37 ◼ ► And like when I watch a semi to I don't watch it much anymore because I think I've seen them all [TS]
00:47:42 ◼ ► but I used to watch them all the time and my Mrs used to get sick of me watching all the time [TS]
00:47:51 ◼ ► when we get on a plane together she feels like she can hear that narrator's voice like in her head I'm going you know [TS]
00:48:08 ◼ ► but that anxiety on the days that I have you can see before we blame travel is terrible enough as it is always good to [TS]
00:48:14 ◼ ► throw that in and a narrator of doom in the back if you can but it's not it's not an anxiety for me. [TS]
00:48:21 ◼ ► But OK but maybe I've created an anxiety for her. Unfortunately the job you know there are many I said no. [TS]
00:48:37 ◼ ► I mean I guess I'm interested in avoiding them to be my primary interest in plane crashes. [TS]
00:48:49 ◼ ► In particular I mean I think maybe like many other people when the plane for a brief moment drops in altitude [TS]
00:48:56 ◼ ► and you get that feeling in your stomach I definitely think well I guess I'm going to die now right for a split second [TS]
00:49:02 ◼ ► but I'm happy to see the beginning of the end of my interest in plane crashes is just hoping that they don't happen to [TS]
00:49:08 ◼ ► me and also Dear Internet before you write in about this. I'm fully aware that plane travel is incredibly safe. [TS]
00:49:17 ◼ ► My mom is a flight attendant. I have flown lots in my life so I'm the logical part of my brain is not afraid of flying. [TS]
00:49:25 ◼ ► But if if you lose altitude in a plane for a split second I do think well I guess that's the end of my existence. [TS]
00:49:32 ◼ ► OK I'll give you two nuggets today two nuggets from some things one thing that I just learned recently [TS]
00:49:41 ◼ ► and I might give you some insight into the kind of trivia that makes an appeal to me. [TS]
00:49:54 ◼ ► There's nothing worse than a fire on a plane and unfortunately it resulted in the plane crashing into the. [TS]
00:50:00 ◼ ► Say off Nova Scotia I think anyone died as you know is a terrible terrible thing terrible. [TS]
00:50:06 ◼ ► One thing I just found out race and it was very interesting is that on the plane was a very famous Picasso painting. [TS]
00:50:21 ◼ ► and another thing that was on that plane they recovered a lot of the wreckage from the bottom of the say one of the [TS]
00:50:29 ◼ ► and James it was like an unusually large stash of diamonds on the plane and went down with it as well [TS]
00:50:35 ◼ ► and they didn't find it and you talk about there's a you know there's a million stories [TS]
00:50:43 ◼ ► And writing crash has a million stories in one event and that appeals to me. All ending can do well not always. [TS]
00:50:51 ◼ ► And he's my second story it was another plane crash I can't remember the date as Unfortunately I used to know quite [TS]
00:50:58 ◼ ► People did die but not everyone died and one of the people who didn't die was the co-pilot [TS]
00:51:06 ◼ ► and it looked like he was going to die the last thing he did knowing that his voice was being recorded on the voice [TS]
00:51:17 ◼ ► Laura coming on I am I mean Laura Laura I love you he said to the voice recorder the last thing that was said [TS]
00:51:23 ◼ ► and then bang the plane hit the ground. He ended up surviving. How many brownie points do you think he got. [TS]
00:51:32 ◼ ► Yeah that's good like my you know I have to say you know my last thoughts are viewed as like proof of the proof that [TS]
00:51:41 ◼ ► this is a good story for the person who survives into you know just thinking as as you tell me about your interest in [TS]
00:51:51 ◼ ► plane crashes. So at this point we have had I don't know the exact stats but we have had several hundred thousand. [TS]
00:52:05 ◼ ► and I was thinking there is that given the numbers of people who are listening right now. [TS]
00:52:10 ◼ ► People on the internet who hear my voice at this very moment there is a non-zero chance that there is someone who is [TS]
00:52:17 ◼ ► listening to this in the waiting area of an airplane in the waiting area of an airport or on an airplane [TS]
00:52:29 ◼ ► So you've given them a little gift of extra anxiety that Brady has from you to the listeners in airports right now. [TS]
00:52:38 ◼ ► I hope I'm not freaking you out if you're hearing me and you actually are in there in an airport. Tim. [TS]
00:52:45 ◼ ► Can I also just add that there's also a non-zero chance that people listening to this have lost loved ones to a plane [TS]
00:52:58 ◼ ► and I just want to say one final time that while I have an interest in the topic like like I guess I like people you [TS]
00:53:11 ◼ ► and you know I don't I don't want people to think I'm taking some some gleeful interest in the misfortune I think it is [TS]
00:53:18 ◼ ► just a technical and human interest thing for me and if anyone has had that happen to them. [TS]
00:53:25 ◼ ► Please know that I can relate to it because I've had a similar thing happen so yeah I think I think that I think people [TS]
00:53:31 ◼ ► and that goes for whenever we talk about any any topic that actually touches on the Unfortunately near infinite realm [TS]
00:53:42 ◼ ► and that is a way that that humans sometimes deal with this kind of thing in day to day I will have a final note for [TS]
00:53:48 ◼ ► you and for the listeners if there are people who share Brady's obsession with airplane crashes. [TS]
00:53:55 ◼ ► I have been listening to the new podcast that's on my road and I'm just going to. I recommend it now. [TS]
00:54:02 ◼ ► It's a podcast called pragmatic that's run by two guys called John and Ben and one of them is him. [TS]
00:54:12 ◼ ► and they do episodes where they talk about various engineering related things for the most part. [TS]
00:54:20 ◼ ► But they recently did an episode that I listen to out a link in the show now it's called cause in effect where they [TS]
00:54:41 ◼ ► Industrial power plants they mentioned airplanes in particular for a reasonable section of the show [TS]
00:54:48 ◼ ► and I have I have found the show interesting to see here what you know what the the insights from a real professional [TS]
00:54:56 ◼ ► in the field talking about engineering topics and so this one about failure analysis was very interesting [TS]
00:55:02 ◼ ► and I have a big section about airlines so I will put that in the show notes for listeners to potentially check out [TS]
00:55:07 ◼ ► and for Brady to go potentially So you sold me on it definitely put it and put it in the notes there. [TS]
00:55:21 ◼ ► but feedback right as as as a Assuming that this goes on for a while as a function of time. [TS]
00:55:35 ◼ ► but we're getting close there I guess now which is definitely let me tell you a story. [TS]
00:55:44 ◼ ► and I moved to a new school where French was taught as a language everyone had to move [TS]
00:55:52 ◼ ► and all my fellow students had been doing it for two years and I had never ever encountered a single word of French. [TS]
00:56:01 ◼ ► And on my first day in class I was called upon to read from the book first you know to sort of gauge what I knew [TS]
00:56:13 ◼ ► I can't remember if it was a Jew I'm a pill I think I think it might have been just sway and I think I said Je suis [TS]
00:56:33 ◼ ► and I was I was quite a good student you know as a quite decent marks and I found school quite easy. [TS]
00:56:38 ◼ ► But languages in particular French I never I never got there it was it was a real Achilles heel [TS]
00:56:46 ◼ ► and it remained so to this day I am very bad at picking up any aspects of a foreign language [TS]
00:56:58 ◼ ► The reason that this is a topic that I thought is worth talking about is in one of my videos [TS]
00:57:08 ◼ ► and A once I made an offhanded reference to getting rid of foreign language classes in schools. [TS]
00:57:17 ◼ ► It wasn't it wasn't the focus of the video it was just something that happened to be mentioned in the video [TS]
00:57:30 ◼ ► Like if you take the ratio of feedback divided by the amount of time I spent talking about something nothing beats this [TS]
00:57:43 ◼ ► I I still get e-mails and angry tweets about this all the time for people who are coming across as I think the Q. [TS]
00:57:54 ◼ ► and just bam right out goes an angry e-mail with random caps in some of the sentences perhaps. [TS]
00:58:01 ◼ ► Telling me just everything about how our how wrong I possibly am and how terrible of a person I am [TS]
00:58:18 ◼ ► but I know this is this is one of those topics I'll never I'll never make this into a proper reply video like I was one [TS]
00:58:24 ◼ ► too. So maybe this is just the time to talk about a little bit so that that is the background. Well I'm not surprised. [TS]
00:58:31 ◼ ► Tell me tell me your position so that the way it came up is yeah I definitely now know it was [TS]
00:58:38 ◼ ► when the question answer videos because the way it came up is someone was asking since I was a teacher. [TS]
00:58:46 ◼ ► What would I want to add to the school curriculum that wasn't already there. Yeah and my answer for a lot of reasons. [TS]
00:59:02 ◼ ► or right that there should be much much more computer programming in high schools than there currently is which is [TS]
00:59:14 ◼ ► I know they've added a tiny bit but it's still so little really. But now as having been a teacher. [TS]
00:59:23 ◼ ► I've been on the other side of this where there's always a lot of pressures on schools to include more things you know [TS]
00:59:44 ◼ ► and so that is why I thought the interesting question is OK it's too easy for me to just say well kids should teach [TS]
00:59:52 ◼ ► The tricky thing is well what would you take out and for me that the answer is I look across the school curriculum. [TS]
01:00:09 ◼ ► Like a criminal waste of students time has required classes that I would I would just ditch it without without any [TS]
01:00:21 ◼ ► Yeah it's funny that you say that because I mean I spend a lot of time talking with people who advocates of coding in [TS]
01:00:29 ◼ ► and one of the things they point out that is quite helpful to develop your skills as a programmer is a good understanding [TS]
01:00:35 ◼ ► of languages including foreign languages that teaches you about syntax and you know grammar and things like. Yeah yeah. [TS]
01:00:50 ◼ ► I don't I'm not completely against foreign languages so in my own schooling this is back in New York back in the day [TS]
01:00:59 ◼ ► when I was in middle school which I know is I see what grades I can ever remember what grades I corresponds to here in [TS]
01:01:05 ◼ ► But anyway in middle school we did what was called a language survey class where one year we did I think it was five [TS]
01:01:15 ◼ ► Each language for a couple of months and the purpose of that was to introduce you to other languages [TS]
01:01:22 ◼ ► and then you get to select which language you are going to be changed to for the next five years. [TS]
01:01:35 ◼ ► and then you know off to the salt mines you go to learn how to contribute for herbs [TS]
01:01:42 ◼ ► and I remember I remember that survey class quite well because as a kid it was definitely like you know MIND BLOWN kind [TS]
01:01:51 ◼ ► of experience you know what do you mean. Verbs and adjectives don't have to go in this order. I don't even understand. [TS]
01:02:00 ◼ ► And I can honestly say that you know I never understood grammar until I was introduced to foreign languages because it [TS]
01:02:06 ◼ ► was just you know it's like the old like the fish in the sea kind of thing where the fish can hardly know what the [TS]
01:02:14 ◼ ► and so I genuinely think a little bit of introduction to foreign languages is hugely helpful to be able to oh I get it [TS]
01:02:24 ◼ ► this is what an adverb is or you know this is why infinitives are sort of strange in English [TS]
01:02:32 ◼ ► Yeah I think that that's really good but I don't think you need you know depending on where you are in school four [TS]
01:02:48 ◼ ► or two year survey course is like way more than adequate to get a lot of the benefits that people are often talking [TS]
01:03:03 ◼ ► Understanding the notion of how to express thoughts in a way that is not your native way [TS]
01:03:09 ◼ ► and I think you're shaming here that the reason to learn another language is to give you a greater appreciation of your [TS]
01:03:17 ◼ ► Surely the point of a teaching paper another language is so they can learn the other languages [TS]
01:03:29 ◼ ► and at one school in particular language languages were so much the kids were required required Brady to learn Latin [TS]
01:03:47 ◼ ► and usually what ended up happening is almost this is a girls' school almost all the girls were doing Latin German [TS]
01:04:04 ◼ ► and the answer was none of them right none of them could do even the most basic kind of conversations. [TS]
01:04:10 ◼ ► Even at the end of their of their experience right so they had to learn physics from you to know how many of them do [TS]
01:04:20 ◼ ► But but you know give you to ask me to go you know what you know when I'm ever going to use physics [TS]
01:04:32 ◼ ► Right so this is this that we have to prioritize things and I completely ignore all ij that the kids that I spent. [TS]
01:04:43 ◼ ► but says that the same enough time teaching kids physics as they as they spent learning French or Latin. [TS]
01:04:50 ◼ ► I completely agree that that the maybe the comprehension at the end of that is comparable. [TS]
01:04:56 ◼ ► Right that you ask any of my students two years later how much physics they remember [TS]
01:05:01 ◼ ► and it's going to be it's going to be pretty dismal. Yeah. So it can't just be an argument about utility. [TS]
01:05:21 ◼ ► when you start thinking about this the same kind of thing is applicable across all subjects right. [TS]
01:05:30 ◼ ► So if you're a teacher you know that you should be you know in your dark moments at three in the morning you know [TS]
01:05:37 ◼ ► and the bleakness of your existence right you start thinking What is school even for like what [TS]
01:05:43 ◼ ► or what is this thing that we're all doing. Why are we all here. They're not remember anything. [TS]
01:05:50 ◼ ► You know you can get into existential questions about what is the purpose of school. Very very quickly and I can say. [TS]
01:06:07 ◼ ► and some of them will be interested in some things and some of them will be interested in others. [TS]
01:06:11 ◼ ► Yeah right so one of the benefits of a science class. I will agree with you I think particularly in the U.K. [TS]
01:06:20 ◼ ► There might be physics for too long is very different although I'm not saying we do physics [TS]
01:06:30 ◼ ► Yeah I guess I'm trying to lay this out right is like yeah like OK so there I was there. [TS]
01:06:38 ◼ ► But if you're teaching sciences or math or economics in school or I'm hesitant to include this [TS]
01:06:57 ◼ ► You don't necessarily need a lot of people to go on to become scientists because those scientists have a [TS]
01:07:04 ◼ ► disproportionate impact on society as a whole. So there is benefit to exposing kids to science. [TS]
01:07:18 ◼ ► What is the potential benefit of forcing basically all one of the of the child population of a country to learning a [TS]
01:07:28 ◼ ► foreign language for years and years and we can we talk about systems last time I look at that [TS]
01:07:40 ◼ ► It's a terrible return on investment because the kids are not going to they're not going to learn the language. [TS]
01:07:53 ◼ ► or an engineer like even like the broad impact of that particular student is not necessarily very high. [TS]
01:08:00 ◼ ► So for people who like languages are very much in favor of languages existing as well as electives. [TS]
01:08:06 ◼ ► If you want to take a language class I am not here saying no you can't take that class. I just think it should not be. [TS]
01:08:13 ◼ ► It should not be required in the slightest and in particular and I think this is what got some people mad. [TS]
01:08:23 ◼ ► I honestly think that the teaching languages is going to be very rapidly just a totally useless skill because natural [TS]
01:08:36 ◼ ► language processing and computer translation of languages is getting very good very fast [TS]
01:08:49 ◼ ► and I was trying to pick subjects that would maximize potential future productivity for the students in my school [TS]
01:08:58 ◼ ► languages would be at the absolute bottom of the list because I'd be doing the calculation of like OK all these kids [TS]
01:09:02 ◼ ► are coming in. It was the British system. You know they're eleven years old when they start. [TS]
01:09:10 ◼ ► In that five year period of time starting from today the amount of progress that's made in translation technology is [TS]
01:09:17 ◼ ► going to be I think bigger than people estimate. Yeah. Wolfram Alpha now but we don't stop teaching math. [TS]
01:09:27 ◼ ► but I think this is one the reasons why I always I actually quite liked teaching teaching physics because I was always [TS]
01:09:41 ◼ ► Right that's that's a good use of your monkey brain right to be sitting there and writing down a hundred numbers [TS]
01:09:47 ◼ ► and trying to figure out the long division by hand we need to know what's happening and they think [TS]
01:09:54 ◼ ► Sure I can have everything translated but I'm not really you know how we start. Into a road a foundation here. [TS]
01:10:02 ◼ ► I don't well I don't understand a foundation of what because languages are largely a communications protocol like like [TS]
01:10:14 ◼ ► An average person is going to run into a linguistical problem way more frequently in their life then they're going to [TS]
01:10:24 ◼ ► and someone won't rent you a room at a hotel until you explain the Higgs bosun to them like this is not going to happen [TS]
01:10:31 ◼ ► you know but maybe you're stranded somewhere and you don't speak Portuguese right. [TS]
01:10:39 ◼ ► but you can already communicate with that person without speaking their language at all and I was actually [TS]
01:10:49 ◼ ► Actually I shared a flat with a few people and one of them was this French girl and she basically spoke no English. [TS]
01:10:59 ◼ ► But she was printing a room and you still have to communicate with someone about splitting the rent [TS]
01:11:06 ◼ ► and we did it I mean this is got to be now eight years ago entirely through google translate you know she didn't speak [TS]
01:11:15 ◼ ► But we were able to get the basics across you know enough that you could actually like coexist with a person who [TS]
01:11:20 ◼ ► doesn't speak the language just sitting at a computer together and writing things into the fields. [TS]
01:11:24 ◼ ► Yeah that is exactly what we did we just took turns you know she would type in the French spot I would type in English [TS]
01:11:30 ◼ ► spot on google translate it so did you ever wonder if you would like saying can you please you know pay for half [TS]
01:11:36 ◼ ► electric bell and chains like that around and you just propositioned Well you know what [TS]
01:11:41 ◼ ► when one of the things you did real or one of things I realized very quickly at least with the technology the time [TS]
01:11:46 ◼ ► and I assume it's similar ish was that you learn to make the sentence is nice and smooth right nice and clear. [TS]
01:11:54 ◼ ► You know not a lot of you know something something common tangent comma back to the main thing. [TS]
01:12:01 ◼ ► Because you know she would just look at obviously the translation just went haywire [TS]
01:12:04 ◼ ► and she didn't understand a lot of trying to say. But so I look at that as well and it has R.-E. Language teachers. [TS]
01:12:13 ◼ ► but I view that whole field as potentially replaceable by technology in a shorter time period than people are imagining [TS]
01:12:24 ◼ ► and so the very like even the idea of like forcing kids to learn for five years how to speak another language. [TS]
01:12:44 ◼ ► and I'm not here saying that oh you should fill all that time with with physically. [TS]
01:12:47 ◼ ► I have huge problems with the way science is taught and a huge problem with the education system in general. [TS]
01:12:52 ◼ ► So this is not meant to be a championing for the rest of it and I think it's all pretty terrible [TS]
01:12:58 ◼ ► but I think that the language part of it is just the most futile that there can possibly be. OK Well let me respond. [TS]
01:13:13 ◼ ► So it is hard for me to mount a case against what you're saying for several reasons one being that you know better [TS]
01:13:31 ◼ ► and the case you make for reducing the time suddenly it becomes a case of you know they might sort of tweaking dials [TS]
01:13:38 ◼ ► and I don't know how long is too long and I haven't experienced five years of one language. [TS]
01:13:49 ◼ ► when I think back to school you know I've never been out of my country before probably like a lot of students in countries [TS]
01:14:00 ◼ ► There was nothing in my school experience that gave me a better idea and a better feeling for the scale [TS]
01:14:20 ◼ ► but even even if it was just doing that it kind of broadened me in a funny way you know I've never been outside astray [TS]
01:14:34 ◼ ► but even now you know now that I travel to all these countries that time learning French somehow still used to as with [TS]
01:14:44 ◼ ► sticks then it comes back to me quite a lot and I think it instilled in me not like a sense of adventure [TS]
01:14:53 ◼ ► but a sense that there was a bigger world I was living in than this little city I was living in in Australia [TS]
01:15:09 ◼ ► These things don't do that they don't give you that sense of that you live in something big [TS]
01:15:16 ◼ ► and having to learn to speak the funny language these people speak does and I think I think. [TS]
01:15:26 ◼ ► Well OK a few things about that first of all you got this appreciation in a much shorter time than you had a time that [TS]
01:15:37 ◼ ► and that's why I think that the survey course that I was mentioning before seems to me a reasonable amount of time. [TS]
01:16:04 ◼ ► and up with this my estimation of it is that there are certain kids who are going to to kind of naturally develop an [TS]
01:16:24 ◼ ► and you know maybe it happens to be the language classes but it wasn't the language classes it would be something else. [TS]
01:16:44 ◼ ► when I was younger doing the first the first couple may be miserable years of the Spanish language. [TS]
01:16:52 ◼ ► I remember in my brain feeling like this was some kind of bizarro arbitrary exercise of just translating all of these [TS]
01:17:01 ◼ ► English words into this other language for just no reason that I could I could possibly appreciate. [TS]
01:17:14 ◼ ► Like I think I think that's what you know I realize I think language it languages can trigger your imagination [TS]
01:17:23 ◼ ► You'll wonder of the world the same way that physics and maths can trigger your wonder of the universe [TS]
01:17:32 ◼ ► Just like I see a whole bunch of people who love science and make some love the universe [TS]
01:17:38 ◼ ► There's another group who love languages and the Cape completely feel that cold way about science and mathematics [TS]
01:17:46 ◼ ► and is just doing stuff by rote and I think that's the people that you've upset with your video you've you've thrown [TS]
01:17:53 ◼ ► and you've just brushed aside half the people without brushing aside the math and science. [TS]
01:18:00 ◼ ► So you've kind of you've you've taken us aside in a way and that's who you've upset. [TS]
01:18:06 ◼ ► but I think the part of this is this is quickly rolling into a bigger discussion about education in general. [TS]
01:18:12 ◼ ► but I feel I feel the same way about the way sciences are taught that it is just a total waste for almost everybody who [TS]
01:18:21 ◼ ► is there. But yeah I think a video advocating throwing throwing it away the way you did about languages. [TS]
01:18:27 ◼ ► Yes but that is because I think that languages are if we're ranking them in like stuff that just needs to change. [TS]
01:18:35 ◼ ► From my perspective the language is just the worst example of what school is you know for for the vast majority of [TS]
01:18:42 ◼ ► students it is just endless rote that will probably be replaced by machines very shortly. [TS]
01:18:51 ◼ ► and no real chance for a huge societal upside like computer programming even if the vast majority of students don't [TS]
01:19:02 ◼ ► It's almost like from from from the government's perspective like every kid who does computer programming is a literal [TS]
01:19:09 ◼ ► and you only need a couple of them to pay off you know before you gets you know a Google before you get an apple [TS]
01:19:16 ◼ ► but you're never going to get that kind of benefit from language classes that's just not going to have a gray I can't [TS]
01:19:21 ◼ ► agree that having a generation steeped in a better understanding of other cultures [TS]
01:19:31 ◼ ► I can agree that having a generation statin that does not have a societal impact especially in a world that's becoming [TS]
01:19:42 ◼ ► and more time with people who speak other languages and live in other cultures. I think what you said. [TS]
01:19:51 ◼ ► Surely a bunch of surely a bunch of people have a great understanding of people from other than from other nations that [TS]
01:20:00 ◼ ► So those on the brink of wars or business do something worth huge amounts with people from other cultures. [TS]
01:20:06 ◼ ► I think I think you're dismissing a lot of the stuff that goes hand in hand with learning languages [TS]
01:20:13 ◼ ► and the benefits of those things. OK I think that argument could be made yet as you point to the first. [TS]
01:20:22 ◼ ► but the first is I agree that there is a big benefit from having students have an appreciation of other cultures. [TS]
01:20:32 ◼ ► Again if I'm in charge of a school I do not think that language instruction is the best way to have students actually [TS]
01:20:45 ◼ ► I would I would start with that as the goal and say OK look let's can we have four years of extra time. [TS]
01:20:54 ◼ ► Yeah what can we do in four years that can genuinely increase cross cultural appreciation. [TS]
01:21:07 ◼ ► That's not what you said with a Stetson or people heard you say they heard you say that fill that time with coding. [TS]
01:21:16 ◼ ► This is this is yeah yeah yeah no no I mean I'm sort of sympathizing with you but you know you're completely correct [TS]
01:21:24 ◼ ► but this is this is the argument that I usually hear is is cross cross cultural promotion is good I agree with that. [TS]
01:21:34 ◼ ► and here is my completely unrealistic ideal scenario would be say OK look we have some amount of human effort [TS]
01:21:44 ◼ ► and money that is spent to educate kids in Latin for four years instead of instead of doing that for four years. [TS]
01:21:52 ◼ ► Let's concentrate this into six months and try to do some kind of student exchange program. [TS]
01:22:08 ◼ ► I'm kind of imagining for you know a solution that an individual school might be able to do [TS]
01:22:14 ◼ ► and I think a situation where if you could just paint sickly ship some of your students off to an actual foreign [TS]
01:22:20 ◼ ► country for a limited period of time for six months and just say you know look here we go here's a box. [TS]
01:22:26 ◼ ► It's you know it's labeled shipped to roving Amy off you go and you know good luck with that. [TS]
01:22:31 ◼ ► There's going to be nobody there who is from your culture that would be a transformative experience that that would be [TS]
01:22:43 ◼ ► Yes that well this is this is why I don't think it is I don't think it is is remotely practical on a nationwide level [TS]
01:22:50 ◼ ► But I can and honestly I haven't thought about this too much but I can imagine a similar scenario where. [TS]
01:23:00 ◼ ► If you try to do something more remotely like having students interact you know through Skype [TS]
01:23:09 ◼ ► I know I can see that as being more beneficial for trying to foster that kind of sense of the world than a language [TS]
01:23:23 ◼ ► I think language teaching is is the bad way to go about it I think that as a defense of language teaching [TS]
01:23:28 ◼ ► and of cultural appreciation is what you want I think there are better ways to do that part [TS]
01:23:33 ◼ ► and I certainly have a lot of friends that wish they could have had all their maths and physics [TS]
01:23:37 ◼ ► and chemistry education condensed to a six month taster and then a foreign hour let alone day. [TS]
01:23:46 ◼ ► but my my my dream again another impractical dream I once tried to write out a course for this [TS]
01:23:53 ◼ ► when I was a crazy younger teacher but my my my dream for the sciences would be to actually. [TS]
01:24:00 ◼ ► Have like a two stream system in the sciences and you have a course that's basically science for non scientists. [TS]
01:24:11 ◼ ► or are related to this as a career I think it is the same thing like like the argument that is given for teaching [TS]
01:24:21 ◼ ► We need citizens who are scientifically engaged because it's a complicated world and blah blah blah [TS]
01:24:27 ◼ ► and I felt the same way that look if that's your goal teaching straight up physics is a terrible way to do that. [TS]
01:24:35 ◼ ► If your goal is to have scientifically literate students who are not professionals in this area you could design a much [TS]
01:24:42 ◼ ► better course to achieve that as the end you know but but making kids do F. Equals M. [TS]
01:24:47 ◼ ► A calculations all day that's not producing scientifically literate people in the way that you're claiming that you [TS]
01:24:57 ◼ ► I will just let me just say I will say in defense of that one thing here which is that again if I was in charge of a [TS]
01:25:12 ◼ ► Can you if you were going to make any guesses not a computer language this is not really like a trick question [TS]
01:25:17 ◼ ► but I would require maybe you know six months or a year of training in a foreign language. [TS]
01:25:24 ◼ ► Would you be able to take a guess what I would I would pick is it the language of love. [TS]
01:25:39 ◼ ► Good guess good guess but I would actually mandate a six month sign language course [TS]
01:25:52 ◼ ► I'm getting rid of four years of junk and I'm trying to pick more interesting things to do. [TS]
01:26:03 ◼ ► and I for a year basically kind of taught ourselves a little bit of American Sign Language [TS]
01:26:10 ◼ ► and this was a byproduct of Basically I had some terrible schedules as a teacher where I was talking all day [TS]
01:26:21 ◼ ► and I was I was legitimately concerned about losing my voice over the long term this is a kind of you know professional [TS]
01:26:37 ◼ ► And so we were just doing it as a kind of couple activity you notice something interesting to do and [TS]
01:26:53 ◼ ► If you speak American Sign Language and my level was never above that of like a very very poor toddler but my wife [TS]
01:27:06 ◼ ► and we learned a bunch of basic signs so you could communicate some some simple stuff and I have to say. [TS]
01:27:19 ◼ ► and it it I have never felt like my brain was being more rewired than when we were doing this [TS]
01:27:26 ◼ ► and where the example that I give which he laughed about sometimes because it was so were because we both felt the same [TS]
01:27:32 ◼ ► way. Was learning the finger spelling alphabet is a hand gesture for each letter of the alphabet. [TS]
01:27:42 ◼ ► What is the best situation but so we're trying to practice by spelling words at each other [TS]
01:27:51 ◼ ► and it was this very clear feeling that the part of your brain that is used to reading is just not connected to this. [TS]
01:28:03 ◼ ► and so also just for nerds in the audience people who watch my videos very closely also notice I did in high school [TS]
01:28:10 ◼ ► teach myself a little bit of Esperanto which was a foreign language that I really did enjoy learning because I hated [TS]
01:28:16 ◼ ► but Esperanto was very cool so I had like learn how to read stuff in another language [TS]
01:28:22 ◼ ► but the sign language stuff was just it was mind blowing so like my wife would be doing in the Hansen sublist D O G And [TS]
01:28:49 ◼ ► but it was amazing it was just so clear that that some part of my brain was not you know you know I have some [TS]
01:29:02 ◼ ► and I think one of those experiences people talk about you know learning a foreign language is a different kind of [TS]
01:29:07 ◼ ► learning experience and in my own personal experience the sign language thing felt like that just compressed [TS]
01:29:14 ◼ ► and times a thousand. And plus I want I kind of want to do a video about this I'm not sure that I ever will. [TS]
01:29:26 ◼ ► I cannot tell you the number of times I wish that other people knew the sign language gesture for thank you. [TS]
01:29:34 ◼ ► Because if I'm sort of you know there's a number of situations where your attention is distracted by something [TS]
01:29:42 ◼ ► but you just want to acknowledge another person who's done something nice for you if you could just do that as a [TS]
01:29:49 ◼ ► It's this is another step towards your dream of not having to actually talk to other humans. [TS]
01:29:55 ◼ ► So when it's genuinely I think that just a couple of things if you could know. Yes No please thank you. [TS]
01:30:04 ◼ ► But if every if every person in the world knew the sign language just for that I think that that is genuinely [TS]
01:30:10 ◼ ► beneficial because it's an additional It's an additional way to acknowledge somebody it is an awful and [TS]
01:30:17 ◼ ► when it is one of the most often used terms for which there is no nonverbal communication I guess. [TS]
01:30:25 ◼ ► but maybe that's the point of thank you is that you have to make an effort to give it if you could do an easy think it [TS]
01:30:32 ◼ ► Yeah but if someone is across the room for example and you notice that they have done something nice [TS]
01:30:37 ◼ ► and they're looking at you right we yell thank you across a busy rheumatism or thumbs up [TS]
01:30:44 ◼ ► Yeah I don't know I think a good point because I think I think the sign language thing is is useful [TS]
01:30:50 ◼ ► and that is where if I get if I'm designing if I'm in charge of school on designing my ideal curriculum from scratch [TS]
01:31:07 ◼ ► I think that's both of those things combined are a way better experience than you're ever going to get both in terms of [TS]
01:31:15 ◼ ► and the benefits of learning about another language than from doing you know six years of French number keeps going up [TS]
01:31:25 ◼ ► As usual we weren't a done justice to the argument you are trying to make but that's one follow up for us next week. [TS]
01:31:32 ◼ ► You know you know you know the only final thing I will mention two things is this argument that I'm making. [TS]
01:31:40 ◼ ► When I got into some discussions about an inch in the first place I was trying to clarify to people that if I was if I [TS]
01:31:48 ◼ ► was in charge of a school in a non English speaking country I would have English as a foreign language that I would not [TS]
01:32:00 ◼ ► That if I was in charge of a of a school in Italy I would want English as a foreign language classes to be a [TS]
01:32:10 ◼ ► I can imagine that that is like the work I thought I was being all reason here they all let me clarify my position [TS]
01:32:20 ◼ ► You want everyone in the world to speak your language you'd be in your times and yeah [TS]
01:32:24 ◼ ► and the thing was I didn't you know this is this is of course the problem of being a native English language speaker [TS]
01:32:41 ◼ ► but if you are an English language speaker there is very little return on investment in most cases in learning another [TS]
01:32:50 ◼ ► It's it's very hard to ever do and I know that in my adult life I have made a couple of attempts to try to do that [TS]
01:33:04 ◼ ► Actually have a list of things I have and I have a To Do list I have a not to do list [TS]
01:33:11 ◼ ► and the top of my not to do list is learn another language because every once in a while I get this into my brain like [TS]
01:33:22 ◼ ► and I like look at the piece of paper which says you know you should really not do this. [TS]
01:33:29 ◼ ► and you've written it on that little piece of paper to remind you this is on your not to do list. [TS]
01:33:38 ◼ ► or not learning English is beneficial if you don't have English as your native language [TS]
01:33:43 ◼ ► and I have to say that the reason why I was thinking this is a topic is another podcast recommendation is the [TS]
01:33:48 ◼ ► Freakonomics podcast and oh did you listen to that because I am a subscribe to and I'm yet to listen to the T.P.C. [TS]
01:33:54 ◼ ► Listening to all the other ones you've recommended to me. OK well they just did an episode that was actually about. [TS]
01:34:02 ◼ ► And of course me I just had this feeling that Oh I'm sure learning English is great in a way that is not necessarily [TS]
01:34:12 ◼ ► And that was basically the conclusion of their show as well. So I felt slightly vindicated by that. [TS]
01:34:24 ◼ ► but they were looking at the the effect of foreign language learning on the individual's income you know how how does [TS]
01:34:36 ◼ ► and the bottom line it was that if you are a native English speaker learning an additional language has a trivial [TS]
01:34:51 ◼ ► or three hundred dollars on average a year increase in salary it was it was negligible. [TS]
01:35:06 ◼ ► Non English native speakers that go with it was a substantial number you know it was it was you know I think was a [TS]
01:35:13 ◼ ► couple thousand dollars a year. Was it was kind of the the immediate financial benefit from learning English. [TS]
01:35:17 ◼ ► So yeah just just from a financial perspective it was it was kind of backing up the if you do not speak English as an [TS]
01:35:34 ◼ ► They did mention that if you're going to learn a language if you are a native English speaker [TS]
01:35:41 ◼ ► and your goal is to maximize income in the future you want to pick infrequently spoken language which would not have [TS]
01:35:55 ◼ ► or that if if you can learn a language with a spoken much less frequently that is. [TS]
01:36:03 ◼ ► Oh yeah of course businesses there probably in America not short on English and Spanish speakers. [TS]
01:36:12 ◼ ► You know that is probably not hard to find but if you're if you're going for a rarer language Norwegian [TS]
01:36:22 ◼ ► and consequently is much more valuable so I thought that was interesting little comment from their podcast and aid [TS]
01:36:28 ◼ ► and the there was an economist who has a quote which I think I'll just finish off this section with the thought it was [TS]
01:36:38 ◼ ► So this is an economist who studies languages as a profession and his comment was. [TS]
01:36:56 ◼ ► but if it's a language that doesn't really help their career or they're not going to use it and they're not happy [TS]
01:37:04 ◼ ► Teaching languages seems cruel to me I thought I was but that was a good kid wrapping up there. [TS]
01:37:20 ◼ ► Yeah she's saying do I want to go and hang out with her and a few friends for Pi Day. Oh all right do you think. [TS]
01:37:26 ◼ ► Do envious but do you think she'll be upset if she finds out that what we've been talking about. [TS]
01:37:31 ◼ ► We said nice things about her video I think if we did we did say nice things about her video. [TS]
01:37:39 ◼ ► but we might come to blows you say because I am not going better is telling her that I think PA is still a lovely [TS]