Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Crystal D asks Do you record in one take or have to do many? What happens if there is a word stumble or a sneeze?

I’m glad that you think I can record an episode in one take. I have never done that. Each episode is recorded in multiple segments, often dozens. I record until I flub up or want to do it over. I stop, go back, and start where I left off. The longest single uninterrupted segment I’ve probably ever recorded is about five minutes. It takes me about 30 minutes to record 15 minutes of content.

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Drew “Dr.C” Clinkenbeard asks, The recent Timur episode really hooked me (I feel like I shoulda known about it already). I have 2 questions: 1: how do you think it would have gone if he’d have made it to China? 2: it seems like China did everything first; I feel like it should be the dominant culture- why not? (My assumption: Mongols.) Anyway, keep on going Gary; I’m getting close to wanting to join Patreon… I like your work that much.

I think Timur would have gotten bogged down. Ghengis Khan didn’t conquer China. That was left to his grandson, Kublai Khan. China was big, and conquering it would have taken a long time.

As for why China didn’t dominate the world, I think it is more a cultural thing. China viewed itself as the center of the world. The Middle Kingdom.

During the Ming Dynasty, they abruptly stopped the voyages of exploration by Admiral Zheng He. When Europeans arrived, they didn’t want any of the goods that they had to trade.

China was highly centralized, whereas Europe was made up of highly competitive nations, who were looking for an advantage over their rivals.

This contentment ended up being their undoing.

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Sable826 ask What is your favorite genre of music? Any chance of an episode on Pink Floyd? Got to see them live in Nashville, and it was the concert of a lifetime. Love your podcast. TN completionist club member at least twice over. Keep up the excellent work.

Most of what I listen to would be classified as contemporary classical. That sounds like an oxymoron, but if you remember back to my episode on classical music, it is mostly just newer composed music.

That being said, I have a wide range of musical tastes. I have a giant playlist on Spotify with over 800 songs that covers almost every genre of music.

Also, we are looking at doing episodes on popular and influential musical acts and Pink Floyd would certainly qualify, but there are no plans yet.

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John Waldrop asks: I would like to get back into photography. I currently have a digital SLR camera. What would be your suggestion for some good online courses or books to get me started?

The truth is you don’t need any books or classes. I never read a book or took a course.

Learn about the exposure triangle and then start practicing with your camera so you know the settings intuitively. Then work on composition.

Once you’ve mastered that, the key is just put yourself in front of things at the right place and the right time. That is really the key to high-end photography. It isn’t gear or settings; it’s being present when there is something worth photographing.

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Todd Whitcomb asks: When traveling, how do you go about meeting the people who live there without being that pushy American tourist? I want to go to Scotland/Ireland, where I am ancestrally from, but I don’t want to offend or bore people.

Being an outsider, which people will probably figure out immediately from your accent, is usually a good start. If you are in touristy areas, it probably won’t raise an eyebrow because people will meet Americans all the time. However, if you get out of the big cities and go visit some more obscure and lesser-visited areas, you’ll find that people are just as curious about you as you are about them.

Also, stop into a pub. Just any old random pub outside the main tourist areas. Ask whoever serves you what they recommend and get that.

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

With that, let’s start with the first question, which comes from therat_mafia on Discord, who asks, I recently re-watched Back to the Future 3, and something occurred to me that I never considered the last time I watched the movie 20 years ago. Why didn’t Doc Brown distill his own gasoline? Crude oil was relatively accessible, and surely they had access to kerosene for mining lamps. Isn’t oil refining just about heating the oil to a certain temperature?

You are correct that distilling petroleum is really just a function of heating petroleum in the absence of oxygen. Different heat levels produce different types of fuel, such as kerosene, gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The process is called fractional distillation.

I think it is fair to assume that Doc Brown would have known that if he was smart enough to discover time travel.

However, I would disagree about the accessibility of oil. According to the movie, Doc Brown traveled back to Hill Valley, California, in 1885. Hill Valley is fictional, but Back to the Future 3 was filmed in Sonora, in the Central Valley, so let’s assume that it is somewhere around there.

The first oil well in California was only drilled in 1876, nine years before Doc arrives in the past. The best information I can find is that several hundred barrels per day were produced in California around 1885.

So he probably could have easily ordered a single barrel of oil and had it shipped by train. Approximately 20 gallons of gasoline can be produced from a barrel of crude petroleum, and the DeLorean had a 13.5-gallon gas tank. In theory, you could distill gasoline from something akin to an alcohol still, but it might be dangerous and inefficient.

So, yes, that could be done, but it would take time; hijacking a train is much easier and makes for a better story.

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Kevin O’Keefe asks Gary as a teacher, I’m constantly struggling over AI. And I teach Second Grade where they’re not yet exposed to it. Yet in 20 years, they clearly will be living in a different world when it comes to learning. There’s so much that we can leverage using this powerful new tool in terms of learning and it being positive yet at the same time it could be a crutch with students and the public at large using it in a way that could erode our cognitive abilities. With all your research into learning for your book and without giving too much away, what do you see as the future of learning? ?

When AI systems first went public, no one was ready for it. Kids found them right away and used them to do their homework and to write papers, before their teachers knew what was happening. Many teachers have already adjusted for this by returning to in-class essays written in long hand and other means of evaluating students that are AI-proof.

Basically, like other tools, AI can be used to make us better or to make us worse.

Having AI write a paper for you is an example of making us worse. There is nothing that is gained by having AI do this work for you.

However, just like with treadmills or gym equipment, AI can make you stronger if you use it correctly. In fact, I think if used correctly, AI can be the greatest advance in human learning the world has ever seen.

Here is some of the research I’ve been doing for my book…

The question of what is the best way for people to learn has been well known for a while. In 1984, an educational researcher named Benjamin Bloom identified a system of learning that was a full two standard deviations better than regular classroom instruction. That is an astounding improvement. An average person using this method could perform at the 98th percentile of someone who received normal classroom instruction.

What is this magic method? Individual tutoring. Individual tutoring lets the student learn at their own pace, get all of their questions answered personally, and allows the instructor to teach for mastery, meaning you don’t move on until the student has mastered the subject. There are no Bs or Cs. This isn’t just after-school tutoring. This is full-time personalized instruction.

Various studies have produced different estimates of the benefits of individual instruction, but they all point in the same direction.

There is, of course, a problem with this that might jump out at you immediately. You can’t really scale individual tutoring for thousands or millions of people. Bloom called this the “sigma 2 problem.”

The first real tool we have that can solve the sigma 2 problem is AI. Right now, as I speak, some kids, the bright and curious ones, are figuring out that with AI, YouTube videos, and even podcasts, they can basically speedrun school. They can cover an entire semester-long course in just a few weeks.

If you don’t believe me, try this yourself. Go to your favorite AI program and tell it you want it to tutor you in something you know very little about. Ask it the dumbest questions you have that you might otherwise be embarrassed to ask someone. Ask it to explain it to you like you are 10 or 5 years old if necessary.

AI is now capable of passing the bar and medical board exams, and it is now solving unsolved problems in mathematics. In a recent panel of theoretical physicists, 100% of whom were using AI to assist them in their research.

The current system of schooling isn’t set up for this world.

However, there is a catch to this. You have to want to learn. If you have no desire to learn and are not curious, then all the technology in the world will not be able to help you. There are schools that are experimenting with this currently, and the results so far are extremely promising.

So my advice for a 2nd-grade teacher is to stoke their curiosity and make sure they have the basics of reading and writing. Then in a few years, give them the tools to really allow them to run with their desire to learn.

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Jerry Mellon asks Hey, Gary since you’ve traveled the world in the past. Is there a particular airport that was your favorite, and a particular type of aircraft you would rather fly on?

The best airport, without question, is Changi in Singapore. Vancouver also ranks high on my list.

The type of plane is secondary to the type of seat. A business class seat on any plane is better than an economy class seat on any plane.

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Landan Shay asks What is the most memorable or interesting conversation you’ve had with a stranger while travelling, never to see them again?

I have had many, many such conversations all over the world. Maybe the most memorable was the night I stayed up drinking vending-machine beer at a hostel in Tokyo with a rap group from Delaware who were there to perform.

Had we both not been there, I probably never would have met these guys otherwise.

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Joshua Felty asks Inspired by Memorial Day, have you or anyone in your family history ever served in the military? If so, any interesting stories?

I almost joined the Marines after high school to pay for college, but didn’t end up going that route. I went to the recruiter and got the highest score they had ever seen on the aptitude test, so I had that going for me.

My dad served in the Marines in Vietnam. My grandfather served in the Navy in World War II. My great-grandfather was in the army in WWI.

The best story would probably come from my great-uncle Bob, who served in the Army in the Pacific during WWII. He cut General MacArthur’s hair while in Papua New Guinea.

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Findaer on Discord asks, What is something that you’ve heard repeatedly is very difficult to understand but for you it comes rather easily? Conversely, what is something you’ve heard is really easy but you find it rather hard to understand?

The thing I’ve never had a problem with was nuclear physics, that being the mathematics and physics of the nucleus, isotopes, radioactive decay, etc. I took a graduate-level class when I was studying geology, and I aced the course. To me, it was much easier than something like organic chemistry, which is far more complicated.

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Maaky on Discord asks, Which book series do you feel is well overdue a film or tv series?

Now that the Dune movies have been released, I can’t say Dune anymore. However, Denis Villneau is going to stop after Dune 3 which covers Dune: Messiah and Children of Dune. However, every Dune fan would really like to see God Emperor of Dune, which takes place 6,000 years after the events of Dune.

Even if Denis Villeneuve doesn’t want to direct it, I hope he would at least produce it and give the world the same feel as the first films.

I’ll also put in an argument for a faithful adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. The Apple TV series really shares nothing other than the name at this point, and can’t even be called an adaptation.

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Richard Welsher asks Every time I travel I feel like I have forgotten to pack something. Forgetting about something like a visa or passport, have you ever gone somewhere and forgot “that thing” and then couldn’t get it where you went. For example, a razor or toothbrush and in the desert you couldn’t get either?

This wasn’t really too much of an issue for me because I was traveling full-time and had everything with me all the time. When I checked out from somewhere, I always did a basic check of the important things: wallet, passport, camera, computer, phone, etc.

One thing you quickly learn when traveling is that you can get almost anything you need when you are on the road.

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VladSander from Discord asks, Hey, Gary. Recently, there was a Meteor that reportedly exploded off the Massachusetts coast. Could it have been something similar to the Tunguska event?

No, it wasn’t nearly as big. It was a daytime fireball, which is quite rare, and it was notable for that reason, but it was nothing on the scale of the Tunguska Event, which was basically the power of a 10 to 15 megaton nuclear weapon.

It was probably closer or smaller to the Chelyabinsk meteor which landed in Russia in 2013. It broke windows and set off car alarms, but didn’t kill anyone, although there were a lot of minor injuries from the debris.

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The last question comes from sooner on Discord who asks Gary, can you see yourself in 5 years? If so, are you still doing this podcast or will you have turned the show over to another host and entered new opportunities?

Let me put it very bluntly: I got a really good thing going here. I’m able to research, write, and talk about whatever I want. It took a while to get the show off the ground, but now that it’s going, I have no plans on stopping.

I have no intention of having someone else host the show. Maybe if I were hospitalized or something and I physically couldn’t do it, I might get someone to step in temporarily, but the actual recording of the show is the easiest part of the entire process.

Now that I have some writers helping me, it has taken a load off my shoulders and made continuing the show much more sustainable. Editing an episode takes much less time than writing and researching a full episode from scratch.

I might expand what I’m doing. I’ve considered doing live shows or expanding into another show, but I see no reason to stop doing this. You have to do something.

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Kevin O’Keefe asks How is the book on learning coming along? What’s been the most difficult part of putting it all together? And have you had any lightbulb moments or any nuggets that you could share that would get us excited about the content in the book whenever you are able to finish it? Thanks, Gary!I’m making progress. Right now, I’m gathering data and doing research. I have a lot of ideas, and now I need to put them into some coherent form.

The biggest thing getting in the way of the book is, not surprisingly, having to do the podcast every day. I’m getting close to the point where I’ll start writing, but it is going to be a very rough process. I imagine it will take several iterations to get it to a point where I can publish it. The research on learning is actually remarkable. What makes it remarkable is the strength of the consensus about how effectively a single person can learn and what works. There are also many things happening on the cutting edge right now, which is why the research can be difficult.

I’m excited to be working on this, and I have absolutely no clue what the business case is for the book or if there is any at all, but that really isn’t my concern at the moment.

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Linda Rosholt Hash asks Do you have to buy the rights to broadcast the little clips from movies, songs, or commercials you sometimes have at the ends of episodes? Are there other intellectual property aspects you need to deal with? And for the other angle, how is the content of your podcasts protected?

Let me provide a brief explanation of copyright law.

In the United States, the Copyright Act of 1976 creates exemptions for what is called Fair Use.

Under fair use exemptions, you can use copyrighted material for several reasons. This includes criticism and commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research, and parody. The other overriding principle is that you can’t hurt the business of the copyright owner. So you can do something that would discourage people from purchasing or using the original copyrighted material.

With that being said, and I know I’m biased, I think I’ve established a very strong track record over the course of almost six years of this being an educational podcast. No one is coming here to avoid purchasing other content.

I have a strong fair use case for the content I use. In fact, I think you could make the case that a podcast like this falls squarely within the legitimate fair use exemption.

That said, the fact that I can make a solid legal argument for fair use doesn’t mean someone couldn’t make my life a real pain.

Practically, movie studios don’t bother to pursue copyright claims unless someone is trying to copy, sell, or pirate entire movies. You’ve probably seen screenshots or very short video clips of movies that have been turned into memes.A movie clip is not a substitute for an entire movie. It would be extremely difficult to prove that playing a clip would somehow be taking money away from a studio.

The music industry, on the other hand, will literally check every podcast for the slightest bit of copyrighted content. They are notorious for filing claims for the slightest things, even when they don’t own the copyright.

This is a major problem on YouTube. Channels that explicitly do music education videos often receive strikes from record labels. Go check out Rick Beato’s videos on the subject.

So, if I use music on this show, which I don’t do that often, I’m almost always using music that is in the public domain. This is a pragmatic decision because of how difficult record labels are.

For example, in my episode on extremely large numbers, at the end, I played a short clip of the song “Barney Google,” recorded in 1923 and in the public domain.

As for my content, there isn’t much you can do beyond claiming a copyright. As with fair use, if someone were to use a clip from my show, I wouldn’t really care. I think that is fair use. However, I’ve had people who tried to copy the entire show wholesale, and that would be violation of copyright.

Ultimately, anything and everything you want to enforce comes down to the law and how much you want to spend trying to enforce it.

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Neil Garrett asks What’s the most important lesson you’ve ever learned in life?

The ability to adapt is more important than the ability to plan.

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Derrin Brown asks How likely is it for Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to be adopted for longer haul transport?

The odds are very low. Hydrogen is not an energy source per se; it is a method of energy storage. To create hydrogen, you need to split water molecules, which itself requires energy.

There was a brief period several years ago when everyone was talking about hydrogen and the new hydrogen economy. That never happened. The fact is, hydrogen is dangerous and very difficult to work with. Creating an entire infrastructure around hydrogen would be very difficult and expensive.

We’ve already seen that batteries have been adopted at a much higher rate than hydrogen fuel cells. In fact, there really aren’t any hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the market today.

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terinjokes asks If my count is right, this is the 42nd Q&A, so I must ask: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything everywhere daily?

The answer to life, the universe, and everything everywhere daily is to get out the next day’s episode.