The White House just told NASA to kill perfectly good satellites that have been tracking carbon emissions for years, treasure hunters in Britain go to prison for keeping ancient coins they found and pineapples used to be so expensive that rich people displayed them at dinner parties instead of eating them.
Today we're exploring a world where climate science gets cancelled for mysterious reasons, metal detecting can land you in jail, and fruit hierarchies once determined your social standing. These stories prove that whether we're talking about space missions, buried treasure, or produce aisles, humans have a remarkable talent for making everything unnecessarily complicated.
When Climate Satellites Become Political Casualties
Two orbiting carbon observatories just got their death sentences from the current US administration, despite doing exactly what they were supposed to do - track CO2 emissions with "exceptionally high quality”.
These satellites cost $15 million a year to maintain, which is pocket change compared to NASA's $25.4 billion budget. So why kill them? The data they provide helps everyone from oil companies to farmers understand climate impact, but apparently someone decided we don't need that information anymore. Nothing suspicious about cancelling climate monitoring satellites right before... well, everything climate-related gets more intense.
Treasure Hunters: From Heroes to Criminals in Record Time
Meet George Powell and Layton Davies, two amateur metal detectorists who found a massive stash of ancient coins in a British field and promptly became criminals. Not because they stole anything, but because they failed to report their find to the government fast enough.
Britain has laws requiring treasure hunters to declare their discoveries, which sounds reasonable until you realise that parts of their precious find mysteriously vanished while tied up in legal red tape. These "nighthawks" (yes, that's what the rogue detectorists called themselves) went from excited treasure hunters to convicted felons faster than you can say "ancient Viking coin." The question remains: do these laws protect cultural heritage or just create more bureaucratic nightmares?
Project Hyperion: Sexy Space Design
Architects, engineers and anthropologists just held a competition to design generation ships - massive vessels that would house entire families for centuries-long journeys between stars. The winning designs range from sleek rotating cylinders that create artificial gravity to colossal snail-shaped ships packed with forests and rivers inside. These aren't just pretty concept art - they're serious attempts to solve the problem of keeping humans alive and sane during multi-generational space travel.
But here's the uncomfortable question nobody wants to ask: are we really prepared to sentence our descendants to life aboard these cosmic cruise ships just so we can say we touched the stars? The energy and resources required would be staggering, and that's before you consider the ethics of trapping future generations in metal tubes for their entire lives. Someone's great-great-grandchildren are going to wake up one day and realize they're stuck in space because their ancestors had commitment issues with Earth.
The Pineapple's Journey From Royalty to Pizza Topping
In Georgian England, pineapples were so ridiculously expensive that wealthy people would rent them to display at dinner parties. Not eat them - just show them off to prove they could afford exotic fruit. They were the Ferraris of the produce world, except you couldn't even drive them.
Then steamships came along and ruined everything by making pineapples affordable for regular people. Suddenly, the ultimate status symbol became available to commoners, and the wealthy had to find something else to flex with. Enter celery - yes, celery - which somehow became the next big thing in vegetable-based social climbing. Humans really will turn anything into a competition.
Update on Human Skin Applications: Tattoos Preserved Forever
Shifting gears to the human frontier—our increasingly bizarre relationship with technology is making headlines again. Suppose you've pondered your final curtain call. In that case, new services now offer posthumous preservation of tattooed skin—yes, an iPhone cover from your great uncle’s arm sleeve is now technically possible. Imagine preserving the tattoo art of a loved one for generations. It's a curious blend of attachment and art, teaming with sentiment yet framed in skin. Fascinating? Freakishly uncomfortable? It’s simultaneously both, and we get it.
AI Avatars of Dead People
And just when you thought virtual reality couldn't get more uncanny, AI avatars of the deceased are stepping into discussions they can no longer have. Using tech beyond the pale, we find the voices of those long gone speaking on current issues, aided by our unmistakable artifice of intelligence. It's digital nostalgia in a world ever thirsty for moral questions.
From space missions to buried gold, status pineapples to criminal metal detecting - these stories show that progress and politics rarely play well together. Next time someone tells you the world is getting more complicated, remind them that people once went to prison for not reporting treasure fast enough, and pineapples used to be more valuable than cars.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
03:52 Trump Administration Kills Climate Change Satellites
06:23 The Tale of the Viking Treasure Hoard
11:46 Legal Consequences and Treasure Hunting Policies
20:15 Project Hyperion: Designing Interstellar Travel
25:15 Design Plausibility and Practicality
26:53 Fantasy vs. Reality in Space Exploration
28:16 The Ethics of Interstellar Travel
29:18 The Historical Significance of Pineapples
40:04 Preserving Tattoos Posthumously
42:57 AI Avatars of Deceased Individuals
43:40 Conclusion
-
[00:00:00] ROD: So the White House has instructed Nasara employees to terminate two major satellite missions. Yeah, and the sire is reasonable 'cause of course, you know it's gonna be great. Let's be clear, we're recording this in early August, 2025. And this is a recent story. One of the satellites is attached to the International Space Station, so I suppose they just get out there and unscrew it and then,
[00:00:23] WILL: oh, I thought set it on fire.
[00:00:25] ROD: You're in so much trouble. The other is collecting data as a standalone satellite. What that means is for the second one, it would be burnt up in the atmosphere. They basically stop and let it go and gone. 2023 review by NASA decided that the data they'd been providing of both these satellites was quote of exceptionally high quality, delicious and wonderful.
[00:00:47] WILL: goes on.
[00:00:48] ROD: We could only speculate as to why the Trump administration wants to end the missions. Um, any guesses about what they might be focused [00:01:00] on?
[00:01:04] WILL: it's time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:01:12] ROD: Very powerful. I'm Rod Lambert. So I'm a, uh, 30 year veteran of science communication, although I look much younger and I have the mind of a teenage boy.
[00:01:20] WILL: And in this episode after some satellite destruction, we've got a map that makes me angry,
[00:01:27] ROD: which is a lot of maps.
[00:01:28] WILL: Really?
No,
no.
I got some, uh, I got some sexy faith designs
[00:01:33] ROD: you. No, you mean sexy. Basically you do the side one. The side one. Um, also, I'm gonna talk a little story from the annals of the history of fruit. I
[00:01:41] WILL: I got a little bit of a listener update.
[00:01:44] ROD: Do
[00:01:45] WILL: you
on skin,
[00:01:46] ROD: update on skin? That's just a list of words that shouldn't go together and welcome abo.
[00:01:55] WILL: Alright. Tell us about it. What do you Ah, satellite destruction. So leave the [00:02:00] SATs alone, man.
[00:02:00] ROD: I mean, I believe you already know this, but uh, these two satellites fall under the category of. Orbiting carbon observatories.
So carbon dioxide climate,
[00:02:11] WILL: climate change,
[00:02:11] ROD: climate change. They provide, uh, detailed carbon dioxide measurements across a whole bunch of locations, I think around the world, but particularly the us So the scientists, they get details of how human activity is affecting greenhouse gas emissions. They get that shit gone.
Yep. They've been collecting data that's been hugely used by both oil and gas companies and farmers.
[00:02:32] WILL: Oh. Even used by oil and gas
[00:02:33] ROD: I know, right? Like, are, are we generating enough yet? No. Turn the lever up.
[00:02:38] WILL: Can we find more oil and gas where the carbon's coming out of, or
[00:02:41] ROD: Yeah. We're, we're running out of carbon dioxide uhhuh.
Um, so it, it, it, they get information about the distribution of carbon dioxide and the farmers, of course, how it might affect crop health. That's just some stuff. And they're in robust and rowdy health. They're expected to function for many more
[00:02:54] WILL: years.
So we want to destroy them
[00:02:56] ROD: shut the fuckers down.
[00:02:57] WILL: Uh,
[00:02:58] ROD: The, the edict [00:03:00] came from the White House, shut them down. So there's a bunch of people talking about this. Ex-employees, the current employees asking ex-employees, I don't know, the mothers talking to the fathers, the dog talking to the cats. One former NASA employee who had been working on the orbiting carbon observatories says, look, makes no sense, uh, economically to terminate the missions.
They're returning incredibly valuable data. They only cost about 15 million a year to maintain both, which is, uh, point blah, blah, blah, blah. 0% of the $25.4 billion budget, 15 million out of 25 billion. It ain't budgetary.
[00:03:35] WILL: Yeah,
[00:03:36] ROD: it ain't
budgetary.
[00:03:37] WILL: Okay. Alright. It's not budgetary. And, and it's not like you're not solving the American budget by getting rid of some
[00:03:41] ROD: satellites. No,
no. I mean, honestly, if they got rid of all the photocopiers in, if they still do that, that, that might have equal effect. So there are two of, uh, dozens apparently of space missions that are. Under threat from Trump's administration for the 2026 fiscal year budget, uh, quote again from an insider, [00:04:00] eliminating funds or scaling down the operations of Earth observing satellites would be catastrophic.
No shit would in severely impair our ability to forecast, manage, and respond to severe weather and climate disasters. Actually, sorry, that wasn't an insider. That was a, a Democratic member of the house, the Committee on Space Science and Technology.
[00:04:20] WILL: So
[00:04:20] ROD: went, look, this is just terrible. And it is. I mean, you take away our ability to do that.
If, if we do it really well, we get really good data and we add AI into the mix, we can. Slowly get to the point where we can do these extremely localized weather reports, extremely localized. Like this
[00:04:33] WILL: little
so aside from the whole climate thing, they, they're useful literally for just, just
[00:04:37] ROD: to day stuff. Yep, yep.
Yeah, it could literally, and for farmers, of course you can kind of go in, in this, you know, 20 kilometer radius, it's gonna be a little bit hotter or we, or whatever it is. So all this contributes to not being able to do that. So as they go on to say, simply terminating earth monitoring missions to pursue an anti-science agenda could be a massive self own.
Yes. And what I love is though, and here's the real sting. This is what's gonna get Trump to [00:05:00] stop potentially break laws. 'cause it might override existing, allocated
[00:05:05] WILL: budget Yeah. Okay.
[00:05:06] ROD: because you know, they, it's already been allocated. You're
[00:05:09] WILL: It's not the law that matters here. It's the fact that we should defend Yeah. Collection of good data. And, you know, this fits in with, you know, Trump, uh, just now, like he's just announced, they're gonna redo the census to say, okay, we didn't like the numbers, so let's redo it and make sure you get the right numbers.
They, they fire the head of the Bureau of Labor
statistics, like
[00:05:29] ROD: For reporting on bad numbers.
Just
what are you talking about?
[00:05:34] WILL: I mean, this
[00:05:34] ROD: goes
what are you talking
[00:05:35] WILL: but, but his, this was his COVID response. If you stop testing, then you get
[00:05:38] ROD: less
[00:05:39] WILL: COVID.
Mm-hmm. So,
[00:05:40] ROD: to be fair, then you're right, he's being consistent.
[00:05:43] WILL: He is,
[00:05:43] ROD: Anyway. Well done. Once again, I mean, I know it's almost, there's, it's almost pointless. Same but well done. Trump at Trump administration and science.
All right.
[00:05:52] WILL: Do you wanna know about a map that makes me angry?
[00:05:54] ROD: Yeah. But what I'm more interested in is, which one this
[00:05:57] WILL: time,
which one?
This time I,
[00:05:58] ROD: you've got a lot of [00:06:00] map anger
or
at least
strong map
[00:06:01] WILL: I have strong map opinions, but very few make me angry. Very few make me angry and, uh, and look. Okay. Okay. In, in full defense, it's not because of the representation of the world in a projection,
disproportionate. It was
the thing that that map told me that made me
[00:06:18] ROD: angry.
What did it, was it something about like your clothes health
[00:06:23] WILL: in, during 2015, uh, two amateur metal detectorists named George Powell and, and Layton Davies, and of
[00:06:31] ROD: course,
should let me guess.
I know most
[00:06:33] WILL: them, you, you here will critique and say amateur metal detectorists.
Where are the professionals there? There might be some professionals, but there also, there's the more. Following the rules and the more off grid Nighthawk style, amateur metal
[00:06:48] ROD: You know, when I was a kid and I found out about the existence of metal detectors, I was beside myself with excitement.
I was like, this has gotta be the most fucking amazing thing. You get your hands on
[00:06:57] WILL: me too.
[00:06:58] ROD: me too. And I
pleaded with my [00:07:00] parents year in, year out. Like, ah, imagine we outta the bed to 65. But they were like hundreds of dollars.
[00:07:06] WILL: Well, okay. Okay.
[00:07:08] ROD: these two lame amateur,
[00:07:09] WILL: yeah. They're sweeping a field, near Leominster in her. In the United
[00:07:14] ROD: Kingdom.
Ooh.
[00:07:15] WILL: Ooh. Now they ran across something that went beep.
[00:07:19] ROD: What?
[00:07:19] WILL: I don't have, I don't have the full story of their emotion at this moment.
Uh, you might guess
why a
[00:07:27] ROD: mm-hmm. later. Mm-hmm.
[00:07:28] WILL: Mm-hmm. But you can imagine they went, Ooh, ooh, ooh.
[00:07:32] ROD: it, it has Gabi.
[00:07:33] WILL: they got down, they started
[00:07:34] ROD: digging. Oh,
[00:07:35] WILL: Oh, they dancing. And
[00:07:37] ROD: they might've, they might've started it beeped. Woo.
[00:07:39] WILL: no. You can't start dancing just with a beep. You've gotta, you
[00:07:42] ROD: Don't tell me what
[00:07:43] WILL: I can
dance with.
It could be, it
[00:07:44] ROD: could
be, it could be you
will not crush my spirit. It,
[00:07:45] WILL: it could be an
unexploded unexploded munition from World War ii. You're not dancing yet. You've gotta
[00:07:50] ROD: check
or any, you're not Yeah.
No vibrations.
[00:07:52] WILL: That's true. Well,
or whatever it is. Uh, but this was in the category, a thing that might make you excited. Okay. It [00:08:00] doesn't look terribly exciting right here.
Uh, this is a photo that they put on social media. Soon afterwards. Later it's a clump. A
[00:08:08] ROD: A clump of clamshells stuck
[00:08:09] WILL: together.
It looks like a clump of clamshells stuck together. But, uh, if you look closer and, and as a metal detectorist would, you would notice that they're all little circular objects, coins,
[00:08:19] ROD: if you
[00:08:19] WILL: will.
A clump of coins.
[00:08:21] ROD: we're gonna be bajillionaire.
[00:08:23] WILL: look, I just have to say like, the narrative excitement of finding treasure.
[00:08:27] ROD: I almost can't breathe.
I would
I wanna go do now stop the show.
[00:08:33] WILL: Okay. so they dug up this clump? Yeah. And, uh, they shared a picture on, on their social media and deleted it soon afterwards. Yeah. Well, you might find out why in a
[00:08:43] ROD: second, Mm-hmm.
[00:08:44] WILL: the picture from what we can work out of it and from subsequent, discussions of what they
[00:08:50] ROD: found and Elise's
[00:08:52] WILL: Yes. appeared to contain hundreds of, hundreds of, uh, silver and copper coins. Yeah. Uh, gold jewelry, some [00:09:00] silver ingots.
[00:09:01] ROD: Um, no
[00:09:01] WILL: no way that were left behind by a retreating Viking army.
[00:09:05] ROD: Probably no
[00:09:06] WILL: no way. Probably, in the seventh or eighth century.
[00:09:09] ROD: So basically that's mine by birthright. They found my
stuff.
I have a piece of English and a chunk of Norwegian, so, so that's
[00:09:18] WILL: mine.
So yours, well,
[00:09:20] ROD: Yours, well. well.
[00:09:21] WILL: Or ownership might be a big thing
[00:09:23] ROD: I was gonna say.
Or, or I, I've got a guess now. I've got a guess now. Okay. I have an idea. Okay.
[00:09:27] WILL: Carry on.
Okay. so, they tried to find out what they had, you know, obviously they're pulling apart, they're cleaning it up.
And, um, they went into a local coin dealer, in an antique shop in Cardiff. the coin dealer, Paul Wells, and an antiques dealer, Jason Salam, uh, looked at 12 of the silver coins that were spread out on the table. And the report is absolutely flabbergasted. Ooh, Wells,
the antique dealer said it was as if they were put in the ground on the day they were minted. they were like a dirty but mint
[00:09:55] ROD: uhoh, mint conditions.
[00:09:57] WILL: That's, that's, no, that's not what I'm,
[00:09:59] ROD: you know, [00:10:00] Okay.
[00:10:00] WILL: just that they were, they were beautiful, beautiful versions of these thousand and a bit year old coins.
Oh, he was like, as if they'd never been used to buy a loaf or a pint of beer. I had a lens in my pocket, which I used to look at them at first glance, and I, you know, pull the lens
[00:10:12] ROD: have a lens in
my pocket. Who doesn't? Do you wanna see mine
[00:10:15] WILL: with a lens in one's pocket. at first glance, I thought they were medieval.
11th or 12th century. Yeah. Mr. Salon was excited and he said they were probably seventh or eighth century, uh, coins would later be revealed to feature the heads of both Alfred the Great who was king of Wessex and Kale Wolf, the second of America.
[00:10:32] ROD: to tell me. Garcia Merc.
[00:10:35] WILL: Kale Wolf. Like
[00:10:36] ROD: wolf, kale wolf
[00:10:37] WILL: the ancient kingdom covering the air where the coins were found.
the estimates reckon that the horde originally contained something like 300 coins. Ooh. a silver ingot, a a rock gold rock crystal pendant covered in gold wire. It's really quite nice little pendant. A gold bracelet and a gold viking ring, which I think looks awesome. Yeah, like it, it, it looks, it looks nice.
It looks half metal, [00:11:00] like metal as in like
[00:11:01] ROD: rock
as in fully
[00:11:02] WILL: metal. Fully metal. Yeah.
And it's got some symbols on it. It just looks
[00:11:04] ROD: awesome.
Is it a finger
[00:11:06] WILL: It is a finger
[00:11:07] ROD: ring.
huh. Good to know.
[00:11:08] WILL: Yes. over the next couple of weeks mm-hmm. Um, Powell and Davies began to show the coins to antique dealers and other people that they met, you know, at places like, roadside services and things like
that. Obviously.
they, they showed them around and at some point, The British New Mesman Trade Association took what is said to be an extraordinary
step. Mm-hmm.
And sent its members a warning. They said there are coins from an undeclared hoard, which are getting into the marketplace, and anyone who trades in them is committing a crime.
[00:11:41] ROD: What?
[00:11:42] WILL: It's crime. It's a
[00:11:43] ROD: crime
because it's undeclared. Okay.
[00:11:45] WILL: Okay.
I'm gonna go into some, uh, some policy for a second
[00:11:50] ROD: here.
Thank God
[00:11:51] WILL: But if you are in the United Kingdom, and a lot of legislation here covers the United Kingdom, and I'm gonna come to other countries in a little bit. Yeah. Uh, if you find treasure. [00:12:00]
Classic definition of treasure, big pile of gold coins over 300 years
[00:12:04] ROD: old.
Delos
[00:12:05] WILL: usually. it could be or, you know, or whatever. could be, or jewelry or stuff that's largely made of gold or silver.
[00:12:12] ROD: Yeah. You have to declare it to someone.
[00:12:13] WILL: looks like no one has a claim to it. You've gotta declare, you've gotta tell the landowner and you've gotta tell the, at least the local coroner or others,
[00:12:22] ROD: others
[00:12:22] WILL: in the area and say, look, I found some treasure. They did not do this. They did not
[00:12:28] ROD: do this. Oh,
I
hope they jailed them for
[00:12:29] WILL: life
Well,
well, well, ah, two months after the original discovery, the nighthawks, and that's the term for these,
[00:12:39] ROD: uh, hell yeah.
[00:12:40] WILL: these, uh. What, what do we call like,
uh, jocks Off, off brand metal detectorists
or like, you know,
[00:12:47] ROD: any How about the Nighthawk? Yeah, that'd be cool.
[00:12:50] WILL: were arrested on their arrest? One of them, one of them told the police, I ain't gonna make it easy, which I like, I like,
[00:12:56] ROD: what does that mean?
I, I've got a really good lawyer. Yeah. Like, whatcha gonna [00:13:00] do? Like, he suddenly, he, he hulks out. No,
[00:13:02] WILL: the police went to the antiques dealer. They found up a bunch of hidden coins all over the place.
[00:13:07] ROD: Uh oh.
[00:13:08] WILL: they found, they found a lot of, a few of the coins.
Eventually 31 of the original 300 may have turned up. It's assumed that, uh, Powell and Davies may have sold, probably let's go, 269 of these potential coins. That's right. We've got the Viking ring, we've got the crystal pendant, but there may be other things that we just don't know. Mm-hmm. Uh, about them.
Now, a lot of this is documented in a, in a BBC podcast. That, that it's just came out recently called Fool's Gold. It's worth listening to, but.
but. I'll tell you the end of their story, but then I'll tell you to the map that made me
[00:13:41] ROD: angry.
Oh, I forgot it was about a
[00:13:43] WILL: map. I told you,
[00:13:44] ROD: Good point. Good point. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:13:44] WILL: a map. It's always about
a map. Yeah.
in 2019, so this is five year,
[00:13:48] ROD: four years afterwards.
[00:13:49] WILL: Yeah. Um, the two Nighthawk detectorists were found guilty of theft and concealment of a find. So concealing that you found
[00:13:57] ROD: What can you, what are you in for? Concealment of [00:14:00] a
[00:14:00] WILL: Well, what are you in for? I found buried Treasure and I didn't tell people and
[00:14:04] ROD: I
just, and
and, I'm a fucking nighthawk.
[00:14:06] WILL: feel.
Yeah. I feel like this is a narrative crime.
[00:14:09] ROD: I'm really ashamed of what I did. I'm
[00:14:10] WILL: sorry The coin dealers, Simon Wicks and Paul Wells, um, were also found
guilty. Of course,
Powell was jailed for 10 years. Wow. And latent for eight and a half. Wait. Wix was jailed for five years. anyway, they each ordered to pay back 600,000 pounds.
[00:14:25] ROD: To who? Our
[00:14:26] WILL: government.
To the government. Yeah. now there, there's some additional shifts in what they got. they were reduced at some point, but then Powell's gone on the run, and, uh, and at the moment he's, he's still out there. and the British police are still trying to prosecute him for theto, for the theft and
[00:14:41] ROD: for
do they not have criminals to
[00:14:44] WILL: pursue.
I
[00:14:46] ROD: I found some shit in the field and didn't tell you, and then I ran away. Yeah, we must get this man there. There's gonna be like six movies just dedicated to
[00:14:55] WILL: this.
So here's where I wanna get to, to the map. Yeah. And the thing that got me about this, 'cause I [00:15:00] was like, oh, this is like the narrative injustice of finding treasure and then being told no, that's the property of the government.
Makes me, makes me furious. Yeah. But the archeologist in me says, no, that belongs in a museum as, uh, Indiana Jones is want to
[00:15:16] ROD: quote?
How much archeologists do you have
[00:15:19] WILL: in
you?
Oh, like 11%. No, it's smaller than that. Like 9%? No, 0%. Actually, it's, it's an imagined archeologist. Like its
iota.
like it's a sliding
[00:15:28] ROD: doors
You're the square root of
[00:15:29] WILL: zero
in another universe. Yeah, right. In, in the, in another universe. I
[00:15:33] ROD: was, so would I, but I, that's when I thought archeology was only about, uh,
[00:15:37] WILL: dinosaurs,
And I thought, oh, what are the rules here? Okay. In the United Kingdom, basically, the rules were updated in 1997.
Yeah. basically that if you find treasure something that, you know, classic definition of treasure, then you gotta tell within 14 days,
[00:15:51] ROD: uh oh,
[00:15:52] WILL: oh, tell the government. And typically, typically,
[00:15:55] ROD: how do you know that?
[00:15:57] WILL: I
[00:15:57] ROD: know ignorance of the law is
[00:15:58] WILL: is no excuse. Oh, you could probably, [00:16:00] no ignorance of the law is no excuse,
[00:16:02] ROD: But I mean, like I go
[00:16:02] WILL: to No.
in the metal detector community, it is known.
It is known.
[00:16:06] ROD: Yeah. What
[00:16:06] WILL: do
[00:16:08] ROD: I go to, I don't know, they're equivalent of Richard Smith's and I say, I'd like it.
The electronics
[00:16:13] WILL: dealer?
No, you can't be, can't be, uh, tricky about that. Dick
[00:16:16] ROD: Smith, Dick Smith, dealer, Smith, Dick. I go to their store and I go, I wanna buy a metal detector. And they go, here you go. Let me just warn you.
[00:16:23] WILL: No, they warn each other.
[00:16:24] ROD: Yeah. So if I just am a, a rogue element, I'm worse than a night hook.
I bought a metal detector. I just went for a cruise around and found
stuff. so
so how the
fuck would you know that? It
[00:16:33] WILL: It depends
on the size, depends on, depends on how it hits the market. So this was known because it hit the market.
Like you see a, a flood of weird coins from a certain era
[00:16:40] ROD: hitting
the market,
[00:16:41] WILL: then people are paying
[00:16:42] ROD: attention
Oh, I mean, how does the person who found it know, like, I would have no idea. I'd be wandering around going, oh, I found coins
[00:16:47] WILL: like, okay, if
[00:16:48] ROD: Fine. Okay. The dealer should
[00:16:49] WILL: you are the famous fight. Like the dealers are warning them throughout this,
[00:16:52] ROD: there's, the dealer should have warned the guys who
[00:16:54] WILL: it to you. There's moments where the dealers are warning them and they're like, Ooh, I'm so excited.
[00:16:58] ROD: Yeah. [00:17:00] Alright. Alright.
[00:17:00] WILL: Like, like, okay, you're the famous five and you discover a treasured thing on the beach. Yeah. They don't necessarily know. But the moment that they go take them to eBay or uh,
[00:17:10] ROD: the
[00:17:10] WILL: the other
Bay Cash converters.
Cash converters should tell you. And if they
[00:17:15] ROD: can I swap this through a pot
pla,
[00:17:16] WILL: I mean cash converter, you don't wanna deal in stolen goods. And this is the equivalent of. Okay,
[00:17:20] ROD: Okay. If,
[00:17:21] WILL: so the, the, the policy generally in the United Kingdom, you've gotta tell. Yep. And here, I'm gonna read out this. The state gets the
[00:17:29] ROD: treasure Mm.
[00:17:30] WILL: and gives a reward to the finder.
Right. Um,
[00:17:33] ROD: I bet it's princely.
[00:17:34] WILL: uh, no, no. One version of this is that you would, you would do,
[00:17:38] ROD: uh, roughly
[00:17:39] WILL: market value. Now it's determined by the minister, but that seems, that seems pretty decent. And, and they actually find treasure not irregularly in the United Kingdom,
[00:17:46] ROD: like,
I'm not
[00:17:47] WILL: You know, Europe, it's a place.
Yeah. But then, okay, so I'm looking on Wikipedia. I'm like, I'm, what are the rules in other countries? What are the rules in Australia? And
[00:17:56] ROD: oh, oh,
[00:17:57] WILL: so this is my, this is my map that [00:18:00] made me angry. And it's a color coded map
[00:18:01] ROD: Ours is, we are
[00:18:02] WILL: red.
We're red. I'll come to red in a second. Um, I'll just, just, what other country can you see as
[00:18:06] ROD: red?
China?
[00:18:08] WILL: China.
[00:18:08] ROD: Okay.
It took me, is that America? But no, it's not.
[00:18:11] WILL: So there's a, there's a few different, ways that you can determine this. Yeah. One, the landowner just gets the treasure. On my land, I get the
[00:18:19] ROD: treasure,
my land, my
[00:18:20] WILL: stuff.
Um,
so Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, provinces in Canada, my land, my stuff.
[00:18:27] ROD: my stuffy.
[00:18:28] WILL: The other one, yeah.
Uh, we'll come to this, in this, the finder gets the treasure. So some parts of America, that's pretty rare. This is, this is like a Texas
[00:18:35] ROD: type
thing. That's the finest
[00:18:36] WILL: That's the finders keeper. Finders, keepers, rule finders,
[00:18:38] ROD: Yeah.
Blindest keepers,
losers. I don't care. Yeah.
[00:18:39] WILL: Now, uh, the orange one here, that's the United Kingdom and a bunch of Canada, um, Poland, a few other places like that.
the state gets the treasure, so they own it. They're gonna get it. 'cause it's, it belongs in a museum, but you get a reward,
[00:18:52] ROD: Yeah. Fair, fair. Yeah.
[00:18:53] WILL: That's great. Um, there's a couple of others where it's like split the treasure with the landowner and the finder,
[00:18:58] ROD: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:00] and
things like that. Yep.
[00:19:01] WILL: But the one that really annoyed me, it got me, I was like, oh, go, us and China. Us in China State gets the treasure. No reward. No reward. I was like, I find treasure and the government just
takes
it off me. And
[00:19:15] ROD: I
was
just, that's y Fuck that. No, no. To be fair, it's not the map that made me mad. The map was you, you're shooting the
[00:19:23] WILL: messenger
I'm shooting the messenger. It's, it's unfair to blame the map, but I was really, I
[00:19:29] ROD: just,
screw that.
Come on. We're, we're, we're like laid back and cool dudes. Like, no, we we're keeping it, we're the government.
I've
just become a libertarian like in that moment
[00:19:39] WILL: I feel like you're walking along a beach and there's been a high tide or a low tide or whatever.
there's and
[00:19:44] ROD: a chest, you see a
[00:19:45] WILL: of treasured
[00:19:46] ROD: You
flip it open and you go, my God, this is like all their movies.
[00:19:49] WILL: And then you say, this is gonna help build a hospital for the government. I like, that's
[00:19:54] ROD: so
[00:19:55] WILL: us in China. What
[00:19:56] ROD: do I get for it? You get a selfie with the minister. [00:20:00]
[00:20:02] WILL: All right. I've got something that, uh, that you like, rod, cause this appeals
[00:20:05] ROD: to
you. Candy Drugs, uh, no.
[00:20:08] WILL: Puppies, you, you'll get there,
[00:20:09] ROD: you'll
get
there.
[00:20:10] WILL: Motorcycles.
Uh, no. Stop guessing. I mean, I'll,
I'll metal.
Okay.
I'll stop now.
On
The end of last
year.
Yeah.
A project called Project Hyperion. Ooh.
[00:20:20] ROD: Ooh.
[00:20:21] WILL: a design competition.
Mm-hmm.
So, project Hyperion is an international interdisciplinary team of architects, engineers, anthropologists, and urban
[00:20:32] ROD: planners. Oh,
cool.
[00:20:33] WILL: And their design
[00:20:34] ROD: competition
Mm-hmm.
[00:20:35] WILL: was for crude. Interstellar travel.
Crude.
[00:20:40] ROD: crude
Crude meaning
[00:20:41] WILL: crude people. Human manned
[00:20:44] ROD: in
the
old, oh, crude. Not C-R-U-D-E.
[00:20:47] WILL: not crude.
No, not gimme a sketch for you called
rocket ships.
[00:20:51] ROD: Show me the root
[00:20:52] WILL: ship.
Show me. Show me your pencil drawings of a badass rocket
ship.
[00:20:56] ROD: looks like
a penis and this
[00:20:57] WILL: one
doesn't. it? no,
[00:20:58] ROD: no,
no,
no,
Where are the sex [00:21:00] rings for anti-gravity, please,
[00:21:01] WILL: sir.
No, these are
these, these are a team of urban planners and
[00:21:04] ROD: anthropologists and human.
[00:21:06] WILL: Who said
design us up something. Take it seriously to get us into Stellar now. So
[00:21:15] ROD: it's,
it's who's stellar?
[00:21:16] WILL: Between the Stars? Oh, between the
[00:21:18] ROD: Stars?
Ron Crude again.
[00:21:20] WILL: Yeah. So it, it's run by this initiative for Interstellar studies.
[00:21:25] ROD: Uh oh,
We
[00:21:26] WILL: know them.
[00:21:26] ROD: A UK based
[00:21:27] WILL: A UK based, non nonprofit organization, uh, dedicated to robotic and human exploration of. Out there beyond. So they had a prize of alright, $10,000. So it's not gonna, it's not, it's, it's not gonna get the
[00:21:40] ROD: designers
seed capital,
[00:21:42] WILL: It's not quite seed capital for making our interstellar. But, um, couldn't
[00:21:45] ROD: But you couldn't get the plans drawn
[00:21:46] WILL: for them,
But they were tasked with producing a Well, no, they did get some plans.
Okay. I, I don't think they're detailed enough right
[00:21:53] ROD: yet.
Well, and some of them are architects and
[00:21:55] WILL: engineers design us a generation
[00:21:57] ROD: ship.
[00:21:57] WILL: Fantastic. So a generation [00:22:00] ship is basically, uh, rocket ship seems like a very old word to use, but a spaceship coming back that not only can we live in for a long time, but long enough that we have multiple generations.
Yes. You have people launch in the ship, have babies. Babies
[00:22:16] ROD: get.
[00:22:16] WILL: Big have more. Babies. Babies. Babies. They go old. They die multiple generations as we fly out into the stars to, we love it. And so they've, they've announced, uh, the top three competition winners. And I just wanted to, I just wanted to show you
[00:22:30] ROD: some
of
these '
[00:22:30] WILL: cause they're just, it's just, so cool.
So just give you the rules. for a second. Um, habitability. Mm-hmm. For, 1000 plus or minus 500 people over centuries. So we're talking 1500
people. Jesus.
Maybe 500. I don't know if 500 is actually enough, but
[00:22:45] ROD: whatever.
That's viable. Whatever. I
[00:22:47] WILL: I wouldn't know.
Uh, it's gotta have some artificial gravity,
[00:22:50] ROD: so
[00:22:50] WILL: spin.
Um, and, but yes, via rotation, uh, rather than magic, artificial
[00:22:55] ROD: gravity,
I'm okay with magic too.
If they can design it, I'll, I'll use it. I'm, I'm okay.
[00:22:59] WILL: I
don't
mind.
[00:23:00] Uh, it's gotta have a find a way to have a society that ensures good living conditions,
[00:23:05] ROD: Oh, how hard could it be?
Well
be good to
[00:23:07] WILL: each
other. Yeah. you get promise. No,
but it's like you could live in some sort of prison thing where you're eating gruel.
[00:23:13] ROD: yeah, yeah. Eating your
[00:23:15] WILL: own
stool. Here's 400,000 years worth of gruel. Yeah. And, uh, and,
[00:23:19] ROD: and everything else. When the gruel comes out, we turn it
[00:23:21] WILL: back
into grill. Robust life system. And essential provisions such as shelter, clothing, and other basic
needs. duh.
Yeah.
You can't be nude in your spaceship.
[00:23:29] ROD: Um,
yeah, we're back to
[00:23:30] WILL: yeah, we're back to crew. I
would be, would be interesting if they said, and we have designed it so it's run by nudists.
[00:23:35] ROD: But you, you know, the problem with nudists, they're never the people you wanna see naked ever,
ever.
[00:23:40] WILL: Leave 'em alone,
[00:23:41] ROD: man. Leave
I do Leave them alone because they're never the people you wanna see naked
[00:23:45] WILL: ever. Uh, it's gotta have, uh, robust life support systems, food, water
wasted atmosphere, uh, it's gotta have knowledge transfer mechanisms to retain culture
[00:23:53] ROD: and
tech
[00:23:53] WILL: books.
All the internet books. Yeah, it's books. It's gotta have, you get a, you gotta
[00:23:57] ROD: put books
Everyone gets a USB when you sign [00:24:00] on. Yes. It's
[00:24:00] WILL: amazing.
You get all of YouTube. All right, I'm just gonna give you the overview and, and they, they're sort of broad, they're actually different in design.
First off. So first place winner is the
[00:24:11] ROD: the big long
[00:24:11] WILL: cylinders. It's, it's your cigar shape. Yeah. Your big long
[00:24:13] ROD: cylinder.
Yeah. Let's call it a cigar.
[00:24:15] WILL: Yeah. But no, see,
[00:24:16] ROD: I
think does it vibrate?
Definitely
[00:24:19] WILL: rotates.
See, it's a cylinder or a cigar. Like a lot of them
are, it's not cock shaped
[00:24:24] ROD: I, you
know, uhhuh, Yeah. Nothing about that is penile. Nothing about the longfin
[00:24:28] WILL: Well, okay.
[00:24:29] ROD: The
next,
one, oh
[00:24:29] WILL: yeah, the next
one. Where you're getting, getting the, the super bike wheel sort
[00:24:32] ROD: of
shape
with the fashions
[00:24:34] WILL: to
it. With, with the fashion. You've got pockets. We'll have pockets in the future. No, actually what Men get pockets.
Women and children don't get pockets. They get women get a bag. Oh my God, this is a linen bag. And we'll
[00:24:45] ROD: come
back to.
But To be
fair, men get pockets that are too low for their hands to reach. They get knee
[00:24:50] WILL: pockets.
That's why they came second.
[00:24:52] ROD: Um,
why would you want pockets over
[00:24:54] WILL: and third place. I mean, I just wanted to drill into these
[00:24:56] ROD: a
little
bit. Oh, yeah, the inverted, where you got the, the, the [00:25:00] sphere like, like
the ribbon. It's
[00:25:01] WILL: it's a, well, I think it's a kind of, um, snail coil shape.
[00:25:05] ROD: Um, yeah,
yeah. And you, and you line the inside of it.
So there's like a central core that has like, I sphe light source or
[00:25:11] WILL: something.
And, and they do seem of rather different sort
of size.
So, quickly here, and I'll go into some more of the design. So the first place does seem kind of plausible in the, it's a, of the scale of,
[00:25:24] ROD: uh,
strong
and long, strong
[00:25:25] WILL: strong and long. But it's like a, it's a multiple oil tankers sort of thing or multiple, um, ocean liner sort of thing.
Whereas some of the others are much like you, you're getting to,
[00:25:35] ROD: flimsy and
[00:25:36] WILL: weird.
Well,
[00:25:37] ROD: no,
the middle one is flimsy and weird. It looks like a, an old, like a penny farthing wheel nailed to another penny
[00:25:42] WILL: father wheel. It does. But, but I just think that, that this snail one, it, it's kind of vast. Like you've
[00:25:46] ROD: got like, yeah,
[00:25:47] WILL: yeah, you've got full on forests and rivers
and
shit
like that.
And I'm like,
okay, why not?
[00:25:52] ROD: Haven't you watched that movie that has those in it?
[00:25:54] WILL: No, I have, but they, they said they wanted realistic.
[00:25:59] ROD: [00:26:00] Oh yeah. That's the problem. This shit isn't practical
[00:26:04] WILL: it? all right. Let's have a, let's have a look through, through some of, some of the, the winning cylinder cock shape.
Um,
[00:26:11] ROD: has. I thought you said it wasn't. You
[00:26:13] WILL: Um, so, you know, they, they've, they've gone into some beautiful level detail of what's going on in their giant
[00:26:19] ROD: il.
There's no way that wouldn't work.
[00:26:21] WILL: but I do like in the winning design here, they have gone into a fair bit of detail about, about, you know, the, the, that's wonderful. The size and scale of these different
[00:26:29] ROD: things.
Total cargo, a hundred thousand tons. Oh, for
[00:26:33] WILL: shells. Yeah. So this is, this is of a plausible sort of
[00:26:36] ROD: size.
[00:26:37] WILL: You know, so here's our little trees and, and
stuff inside.
[00:26:40] ROD: How long is plausible?
[00:26:42] WILL: I don't know. But as I said, it's ocean line of size. Some of the others are, are sort of more. You know, we're building weird ass, sort of Colossus
[00:26:49] ROD: colos.
Colossi. Colossi,
Yeah. Colostomies.
[00:26:52] WILL: So
just gotta pause and, and just say, I did a review like last couple
of weeks ago
you did. Of a book on this show that talked [00:27:00] very much about, it's very nice to fantasize
[00:27:02] ROD: about
this.
[00:27:03] WILL: Yes.
But the amount of energy, the amount of effort to build these kinds of things is off a scale that it
[00:27:11] ROD: just
Yeah.
Beyond, beyond
[00:27:12] WILL: imagining.
it, it it is. Yeah. Uh, it's so much fun, but, uh, let's keep it in the realm of
[00:27:17] ROD: fun.
Yeah. And I love the fun of it, but even for me, who's, I'm obsessed with it. I love this idea of big space and, you know, cool ships and stuff, but I, I'd still do come back to, if you can spend that much time and effort on leaving, why don't you spend it on making, staying nice Earth?
I mean,
[00:27:34] WILL: Whoa.
[00:27:35] ROD: I know, I know I still want us to do space stuff too, but, but this idea, we're gonna spend four bajillion gajillion dollars zillions, and we're gonna build this thing that's implausible. It's gonna take the colossal effort of millions and millions of people. It's like, you, you know, we could just make sure what we're
doing
[00:27:50] WILL: and, and, it's the difference, you know, you go from, sending a satellite to different planets. Yeah. We we're doing
[00:27:54] ROD: that
already.
Yeah.
[00:27:55] WILL: you know, Pluto and everything. Yeah. Uh, putting robots on different planets we're doing that. We got, [00:28:00] we got them on mass. Getting to sending human scientist explorers on to do, that's, that's plausible and I can see reasons
[00:28:07] ROD: to
do
it.
[00:28:08] WILL: Yeah. It's
fine. But, know, the next two levels of sort of okay, colonized Mars, that that is a huge jump in complexity and amount of people that you need. But then getting interstellar, like, it's like, well, I, I think one thing that, um, Adam Becker's book more everything, he's like, what, what are the ethics of of signing up your children's, children's, children's children to, okay, you're living in a spaceship for forever.
You know, we, I got to live on earth and I said, Hmm, I'd like to go to the stars. And you just say, all right, kids, you get to go out there. I think it's
[00:28:38] ROD: different.
[00:28:39] WILL: from, from those people that go. Alright. I'd be ha, I'm, I'm a 70-year-old. Oh no, I'm, whatever I, I'm fit and healthy. I'd be happy to die on Mars because it's too hard to bring, bring me back.
I think
[00:28:50] ROD: that, and at least it'd be interesting and fun. Something
new.
[00:28:52] WILL: Yep. I think there's total justice in that. Yeah. But, uh, but the whole, I'm a, I'm a 30-year-old that's ready to have a baby. Let's go and let's go and do it on [00:29:00] Mars. Like,
[00:29:01] ROD: Yeah. I, I'm torn on that because here's the argument that's gonna make me, obviously a satanist right wing libertarian, but, um, they don't know what they're missing.
[00:29:10] WILL: They dunno what they're missing.
[00:29:15] ROD: fruit.
[00:29:16] WILL: Oh
[00:29:17] ROD: yes.
The annals and the histories of fruit. So before the 16th century, the pineapple was basically completely unknown. In Europe, they'd never even heard of it, seen at pineapple.
[00:29:27] WILL: What
are you
talking
about? Was it, was it mythical or just
[00:29:29] ROD: never unknown.
Ah,
just like the juju fruit
[00:29:33] WILL: here.
Yeah,
[00:29:34] ROD: of
course.
Yeah.
So a botanist called John Parkinson, late 16 hundreds. He apparently gushed
[00:29:40] WILL: one wood
[00:29:41] ROD: over its scaly, like it scaly like an artichoke. And it had a, a look at a taste like wine rosewater and sugar mixed
[00:29:48] WILL: together.
Oh, he shouldn't have led with the artichoke
thing?
No, because, because I think people str like, like as the pineapple marketing board from wherever
colony
he is, he is currently exploring are like,
lead with the flavor man.[00:30:00]
Yeah. Like the wine, the, the wine sugar rose water
[00:30:03] ROD: artichokes are so overrated. I'm sorry. Fuck. Artichokes. Like if there was a vegetable, it could be eradicated forever.
My vote is for
[00:30:10] WILL: the artichoke.
[00:30:11] ROD: They're shitty to grow. There's bugger all edible flesh on them. You've gotta treat them with everything else. And they only taste like the stuff you
[00:30:17] WILL: to them
[00:30:19] ROD: piss
[00:30:19] WILL: So
so indeed like,
[00:30:21] ROD: Call it like, it's ambrosia.
[00:30:23] WILL: I would go, it's a wild ass looking thing. Yep. It's got a crown. Yep. And it tastes like a spicy
[00:30:29] ROD: wine.
Exactly. But don't eat the core. 'cause it'll make your
[00:30:31] WILL: tongue
weird for No, eat the core 'cause it'll make you tough.
Eat therin. It'll make
[00:30:34] ROD: you
tougher.
[00:30:36] WILL: Eat the, eat the crown. Go for it buddy.
[00:30:39] ROD: for it. Turn to a goat. So, apparently, unlike uh, apples and pomegranates and, and fruits like this, the pineapple arrived without any kind of cultural baggage. Because once it appeared, people were like, we, we don't even know
what
[00:30:48] WILL: this is. Oh,
[00:30:49] ROD: apples and stuff. They've got, you know, historical and biblical
[00:30:52] WILL: Yeah, yeah. You're like, you got your, even
[00:30:54] ROD: like that. And
your pomegranate is like, oh, if you touch a pomegranate, your wife becomes pregnant or something.
But the beauty [00:31:00] of this is this was basically a symbol that could, was waiting for something to be
[00:31:04] WILL: attached
to
it. Ah.
[00:31:06] ROD: Like welcome. And so
[00:31:06] WILL: this, it's sue ese.
[00:31:07] ROD: my god. Yes, exactly. Or whatever table like us.
Yeah, that
one too.
[00:31:12] WILL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And, uh, so Phil, me,
[00:31:14] ROD: Body, Benny,
So it became sort of mythical its shape, its Golden Crown.
And it became nicknamed the King Pine people got excited King Pine. Yeah. And it became a big deal really quickly in, in 16th century, you know, among the Georgian
[00:31:27] WILL: Palms.
I've seen pictures you have of, of that era painting. Like you get Dutch masters
and
stuff
like that. And on the table you got, you got a fancy ass feast. You know, you got the pig with an apple in its mouth. You got, you know, and in the middle is a
[00:31:40] ROD: pineapple. And you're thinking,
[00:31:41] WILL: why? Because it's
[00:31:42] ROD: glorious.
Yeah. They're amazed by it. So like Charles ii, he was blown away, so he commissioned a portrait of himself receiving a pineapple.
But the thing with this thing, apparently the fruit in the painting wasn't grown in Britain.
[00:31:58] WILL: No,
[00:31:59] ROD: but
they [00:32:00] pretended it was homegrown. So basically growing a pineapple in the uk, particularly 16, 17 hundreds.
Not that easy. No. It turns out the pineapple natural habitat and the UK differ.
[00:32:11] WILL: Is this a climate change
[00:32:12] ROD: story?
No. Well, it should be, but not yet. No, it probably is now. So the Georgian elite, they'd started to try and grow pineapples in Britain. So they already had orange trees, you know, where they tried to grow citrus and stuff, but they were still too cold and dim for pineapples.
They
[00:32:27] WILL: weren't
enough You could dial it up.
[00:32:28] ROD: Pineapples needed more. Yeah, they needed more. So some of them built Ries, maybe it's pries, but I think it's pines pries, funnier. Um, they're huge heated greenhouses. Some of them were, were heated by rotting manure.
[00:32:42] WILL: Oh yeah,
[00:32:43] ROD: yeah. But a bunch of them were heated by fire, complicated ducts
[00:32:47] WILL: systems
I think fire's going a
little too
[00:32:49] ROD: far.
Yeah, well, a lot of them burnt down. It's like, we've had another fire away.
Why'd
the house burn down again? Let's try to grow pineapples. [00:33:00] Although to be fair, there's a reason to try because, um. If you had a pineapple or could grow a pineapple absurd display of
[00:33:07] WILL: wealth
and
power.
Oh,
of
[00:33:08] ROD: It's so, I reckon the
[00:33:09] WILL: 1760s. like, But,
but just, I mean, getting a pineapple to the uk so the closest
place in elsewhere
in the Caribbean or something like that,
[00:33:17] ROD: would
probably
be, you mean, you mean Jamaica? No, she let
[00:33:19] WILL: me
ah,
man, you're
welcome. Uh, but it's somewhere like that.
Or Southern America. but picking a pineapple when it's ripe enough
mm-hmm.
To
[00:33:27] ROD: pick
and then getting
[00:33:28] WILL: it
home,
but getting it on the
[00:33:29] ROD: sailboat
home by blow ship. Yeah. Yes. Not great. So they tried, but it turned to the, got to the point where
[00:33:35] WILL: where
[00:33:35] ROD: 1760s the cost to grow a pineapple is about 150 pounds, which today is about 28,000 pounds. Which in Australian dollars thousand pounds.
Yeah. And Australian dollars, that's about 45
[00:33:46] WILL: billion.
No, but
[00:33:47] ROD: that's
a
lot.
It's 50 grand. Say
for a pineapple?
Yeah. For a pineapple. Oh,
that's, that
[00:33:51] WILL: is some, that is some slap down. Here's a $50,000 fruit. Oh, no wonder you put it in the middle
[00:33:55] ROD: of your
table
or on your
[00:33:56] WILL: pizza.
Indeed.
[00:33:57] ROD: Indeed controversial.
Ah, [00:34:00] I don't mind either.
I like so honestly, and this is gonna be terrible. We're gonna, we're gonna get canceled now, but one of the best pizzas I've had in my life was actually
[00:34:06] WILL: Hammond pineapple
[00:34:07] ROD: in
Italy.
No, Hawaii.
[00:34:10] WILL: No, man.
[00:34:11] ROD: so yeah, if you wanted to buy a pineapple, maybe if you were lucky, you could get one for about 60 quids. So 11,000 pounds. So $20,000. Basically you buy one. Um, if you wanted to impress the ladies or other people mm-hmm. You wanna flex at a dinner party
[00:34:24] WILL: by receiving a pineapple.
[00:34:25] ROD: exactly, like you said, whack it on the centerpiece of the table.
You don't eat it though. You never eat it. You just have it.
They didn't eat them. They had them and
[00:34:35] WILL: them
until they went
[00:34:36] ROD: rotten.
until after they went rotten. And some, there's stories about the ones that just had, were mag infested in the middle, but the shell stayed well enough. So it's like, look at me, I've got a pineapple.
[00:34:45] WILL: Can you sell them? Like if, if, if like, Lord what's his name, had the fresh version. Yeah. And, and your vi count barren. Next level down. Sorry. I dunno. The
[00:34:56] ROD: rankings.
This contest. Yes.
[00:34:58] WILL: But you're the next level down. You're like, I'll buy a [00:35:00] buy a used pineapple It's been looked at and got a bit mag infested, but you know, it's a, it's a 10,000 pound pineapple rather than a 50,000
[00:35:06] ROD: pineapple. Uh, they even rented
[00:35:07] WILL: them.
Oh,
you know, that makes me
[00:35:14] ROD: so
happy. They
actually would, there was, they were rental
[00:35:17] WILL: pineapple rental schemes.
[00:35:19] ROD: Yeah.
Because I mean, they were so expensive that, like, one dude, he stole seven pineapples, seven years in Australia transport. Like, it's dangerous. So capitalism basically went, let's, let's make something out of this.
So yeah, rental stores
opened.
You could rent a fruit for an
[00:35:33] WILL: evening. rent a
[00:35:34] ROD: fruit. Mm-hmm. Renter
[00:35:35] WILL: fruit,
one
[00:35:36] ROD: wood. and so it got to the point where they're represented in, you know, fancy like, uh, chinaware, like
[00:35:44] WILL: et cetera.
[00:35:45] ROD: Yeah,
Yeah, Clock cases, bookends, statues, the, uh, uh, embellishments around the edges of windows on, on fine houses, et cetera.
Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple. 'cause it was an expression of wealth, carriages, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. but [00:36:00] then things started to change.
[00:36:03] WILL: Steamships, ah,
ruin
[00:36:05] ROD: everything.
Fricking steamships, better transport came in, and once a better transport came in, you could get them cheaply and quickly from the colonies.
And once you do that, you're gonna be revolted by this. So grab a bucket. Working class people could get
[00:36:18] WILL: them.
[00:36:20] ROD: I know. It's
[00:36:20] WILL: gross.
It's
gross.
[00:36:22] ROD: So yeah, the working classes started to buy pineapples and it apparently there was a, a satirical, some satirical art that portrayed commoners eating pineapple, which is basically a, a, a symbol of societal
decay.
Oh. You know, when it
[00:36:35] WILL: came to
that.
No, I get it. I get
[00:36:37] ROD: I get it.
So, as the pineapple went down,
[00:36:39] WILL: so
to
speak, soon they'll have pockets
[00:36:41] ROD: Yeah. Above the
[00:36:42] WILL: knees
[00:36:43] ROD: they could reach them. So, 1835, there are apparently 52 distinct varieties of pineapple today. There's only about five and, and only two are really common. These smooth knn and the Jamaica Queen.
[00:36:58] WILL: Hmm.
[00:36:58] ROD: And a big part of the
[00:36:59] WILL: reason
hang [00:37:00] on. Smooth Cann is, is the name, not a description of the KN.
[00:37:03] ROD: it's the name of the pineapple. Yeah, I'm smooth kan. 'cause apparently there was, there was some, like, apparently there was one called a black prince, which is kind of pyramid shaped.
like a three-dimensional triangle. Pineapple, you know
[00:37:15] WILL: the
one? Yeah.
Okay.
[00:37:17] ROD: Okay. Okay.
And one argument suggests that the reason we just came down to these couples, these two, is 'cause they're easy to basically strip down can. Yeah. Circular and
[00:37:25] WILL: convenient. Weird how capitalism
[00:37:27] ROD: just
sort
of
isn't, it is all
diversity
[00:37:29] WILL: just to, you know, whatever suits
[00:37:30] ROD: that, it's so
[00:37:31] WILL: strange.
huh?
[00:37:33] ROD: So, um,
there
was a time when, uh, in, in recent times, like in the, in the life of Charles, our current king,
there's
a place called the Lost Gardens of Halligan. So in Cornwall they, they tried
to,
one
has
been there. Yeah. To the lost
[00:37:46] WILL: gardens.
I have one
[00:37:47] ROD: pass. Was it
[00:37:47] WILL: wonderful?
Oh,
[00:37:49] ROD: Like fascinating. Did you see the pineapple
business
Tell more.
So apparently they tried to recreate 18th century pineapple pits. Did you
[00:37:58] WILL: see these
[00:37:59] ROD: pineapple [00:38:00] pits? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they, the heating system they used was the old, you know, rotting shit version. Mm-hmm. Not the ducks, because yeah, we don't need fires, not the heat of ducks and stuff.
each fruit took seven years to grow and cost over a thousand pounds in labor in setting
[00:38:11] WILL: it
up.
This is, this is in the, the
[00:38:13] ROD: recent
times.
In the recent times, yeah. In, in the, soon this, or at least in Prince Charles' lifetime, the first fruit, apparently they're a bit worried. The staff tasted it because it might taste like poo.
And then the second one was given to Queen Elizabeth just to prove that it's still going on and that it's a bit, that's a bit elite. And then apparently Prince Charles visited the, the place in 1997 and was very pink and giggly about it. He was just like, oh my God, this is
amazing. Charles loves it, loves a garden, loves a dorky thing, loves it, loves it.
So he was all excited. So basically pineapples in the olden days, they became mainstream now, so the wealthy elite went. What are we gonna do now? We need a new thing.
[00:38:50] WILL: What
[00:38:50] ROD: did they choose?
Well, they didn't go for gems. They didn't go for birds, they didn't go for wine. They went for a different vegetable.
What do you reckon it might have been? It's fucking exotic.
[00:38:59] WILL: [00:39:00] I
[00:39:00] ROD: got
nothing.
Celery.
[00:39:03] WILL: That's not what I was gonna
[00:39:04] ROD: gonna say.
Celery, because it's hard to grow. Looked weird. Came from somewhere else and they're like, let's, let's go celery
[00:39:10] WILL: then.
Well, I,
I, just speaking of expensive things, I just want to give you an update from a listener. Mm-hmm. Uh, that, uh, well, you can spend some money on something. And so this comes from, uh, listener Emily. Uh,
[00:39:25] ROD: so
Hi,
[00:39:26] WILL: Emily,
because this is, this is, you remember I told you recently about, um, if you wanted, you could bind a book in your
[00:39:35] ROD: skin?
In human
skin In
humans. Does it have to be my own or it
[00:39:37] WILL: Through my own. It could be. Well,
uh, well, well, what this service is saying,
oh, come
on.
It's not
[00:39:42] ROD: quite
[00:39:42] WILL: book,
but
[00:39:44] ROD: it's
um, like a
[00:39:45] WILL: phone cover.
A phone cover, you know, you know, basically. Yes, yes.
[00:39:50] ROD: No.
What, what kind of iPhone cover do you want?
[00:39:52] WILL: The Human,
so this is, this is a service in the, in the us and it's not oriented to the skin itself, but
it's the tattoos, [00:40:00] which you can understand someone might absolutely love
[00:40:02] ROD: the,
the posthumous
preservation
of tattoos.
Posthumous.
Preservation
of
tattoos.
Yeah,
absolutely.
I
[00:40:06] WILL: basically I get
that save my ink forever. Uh, so basically you can, you can understand, the connection with a person. Yeah. And the, and wanting to preserve. but for something between, uh, $1,700 and $120,000,
[00:40:20] ROD: they
will
[00:40:21] WILL: range.
Uh, yeah. Well it depends on
the
[00:40:23] ROD: of the
tattoo.
Is it the fullback or just the,
[00:40:25] WILL: the
ear
lobe?
Yeah, exactly. Um,
they send a package of materials.
Which
includes a knife and a, a thing and a
[00:40:32] ROD: preserving
of Do it
[00:40:33] WILL: itself. no. no. They said
[00:40:35] ROD: no
granddad's tattoo. I'm just gonna slice
[00:40:37] WILL: it
off
his
court. No, no, you don't do it yourself. Oh. Because, because generally in the funeral industry, you did not do
[00:40:42] ROD: it
yourself.
You don't
[00:40:43] WILL: tend
to
touch the
court. You don't, you don't tend to like, that's someone else's job. Who is. But what they're doing is the company is sending to the funeral home, uh, a kit,
[00:40:51] ROD: a tattoo
[00:40:52] WILL: a tattoo removal
that says, before you burn, uh, slice off this thing, and then, and then put it in some preservative, and then it goes back
[00:40:58] ROD: to
[00:41:00] formaldehyde.
[00:41:00] WILL: Yeah. And then it goes in, uh, into a frame or whatever. You want a phone cover? Mm-hmm. maybe
maybe
what I Maybe that's what I want. phone
cover.
and, uh, wild.
And then you can have on your wall and they've got some, like, they've got some wild ass pictures.
[00:41:14] ROD: Like,
That's
[00:41:15] WILL: That's amazing. Like,
I,
[00:41:16] ROD: I
don't doubt
that's a
[00:41:17] WILL: a whole
back
I I don't doubt there must, there there must be a huge story. Yeah.
[00:41:21] ROD: Like.
Yeah, that's the arms unfilled because that's the arms
[00:41:24] WILL: as
they
were.
That's yeah, that's, that's that. I think that's the $120,000 version. That's, that's a lot
[00:41:28] ROD: of
skin
Damn. You've
[00:41:29] WILL: that you've got there. I look, I, I totally don't doubt that there is a way of going, but
[00:41:33] ROD: it's
weird. No, I
[00:41:34] WILL: No, I get
it. Because what you're looking at though, you're looking at the tattoo and going that, that's the, my memory of that person, because I saw that
[00:41:40] ROD: tattoo
a
lot.
[00:41:41] WILL: yeah, yeah.
yeah. But then there's a bunch where you're going, oh no, it's actually their skin as well. Like, whoa.
[00:41:47] ROD: I, I honestly, I do kind of get it if I had any tats that I often think about them and then I think, uh, I, I don't care enough, but I like the idea if I had amazing tats that were significant or particularly artistic, et cetera, I understand [00:42:00] the, uh, imperative to preserve. I'm, I'm not grossed out by that. I think it's
[00:42:04] WILL: interesting,
and I don't
[00:42:05] ROD: and I don't think, because some of 'em are serious
[00:42:06] WILL: art.
I'm, I'm not, I'm not wildly grossed out by it. I, I just, would take a jump for me to go. Yes. And I want to put a bit of you on a frame
in
[00:42:14] ROD: the
wall,
Dude, you've ruined my
[00:42:16] WILL: will
You
[00:42:17] ROD: in my will to, will I leave this section of my
[00:42:20] WILL: talk?
[00:42:20] ROD: No,
but
that has a picture of his,
[00:42:23] WILL: um,
no, obviously I would, I would find uses for that.
[00:42:25] ROD: Like,
like
of course
[00:42:26] WILL: mate that used to paddy whack his kids with it.
[00:42:29] ROD: Like,
you know,
[00:42:29] WILL: know,
[00:42:31] ROD: I like it. Like, I think good, good on like, preserving the tattoos, particularly if they're, uh, significant or extremely beautiful. 'cause some tattoos are stunningly beautiful, like amazing.
Burning them or bury them to rot seems a bit
[00:42:43] WILL: of
a waste.
Yeah. Well
[00:42:44] ROD: listen,
but we do have
[00:42:46] WILL: photographs.
if you, I mean, if you do a home job and want
[00:42:49] ROD: to
just,
uh, yeah. Flashes
[00:42:50] WILL: home.
Job
preserve,
preserve your attached, then let us know.
just a final little update. I just wanted to, you know, we, we spoke a little while ago [00:43:00] about using AI avatars of dead people.
Mm-hmm.
Um, mm-hmm. So,
[00:43:05] ROD: um, to, let's put it in. Bunny quotes represent themselves.
[00:43:08] WILL: Yeah. Well, Jim Acosta has just done an interview with Joaquin Oliver, who died in the Parkland School shooting. Oh. But his parents have created an AI avatar of their son to argue what he'd say about gun violence. And
[00:43:21] ROD: I'm
sorry, did
he come out
[00:43:23] WILL: pro?
[00:43:28] ROD: That's not great.
[00:43:30] WILL: A little bit of science is the place where you come for
a little bit
[00:43:34] ROD: of
science
It's a place where we come for a little
bit of science.
Stop it. Stop. And we end on an up upbeat
[00:43:38] WILL: you should stop that. You should stop that. I've been Will Grant, he's been Rod Lambers. He can't handle that. Um, but you, you should give us the review, but send us in your feedback, your comments, your
[00:43:48] ROD: thoughts,
your questions at cheers, at a little bit of science.com au. Thank you. I just, I, I want you
[00:43:55] WILL: to
be
involved,
love is all, uh, you're the best.
[00:43:57] ROD: Uh,
seeing whatever [00:44:00] 24 times
[00:44:00] WILL: seven is
Yeah. Runs
[00:44:01] ROD: to the
boundary. Mm-hmm.
