What do you get when you cross a sheep’s intestine, a TSA agent’s glove, and the gnawing fear that you might be the dullest person at the party? This week’s episode, that’s what.
We’re serving up a scientific sampler platter that’s equal parts awkward, hilarious, and “wait, is that real?” From the surprisingly storied history of animal-based contraception, to the dystopian future of airport pat-downs, to the social perils of being the human equivalent of beige paint, this episode is a wild ride through science’s strangest corners. No sheep were harmed in the writing of this article, though their dignity may never recover.
Sheep Gut Condoms: The Original Biodegradable Protection
Long before latex and “ribbed for her pleasure,” our ancestors were getting frisky with the help of sheep intestines. Yes, you read that right. Not only did they use every part of the animal, but some even went so far as to etch erotic art onto their 19th-century sheep gut condoms. Because nothing says romance like a nun pointing at three clergymen on your prophylactic.
Is it vegan? Absolutely not. Is it biodegradable? You bet. Is it a conversation starter at parties? Only if you want to clear the room. The Dutch museum exhibit that inspired this segment proves that history is not only stranger than fiction—it’s also a lot more graphic.
TSA Touch Tech: Dystopia at the Security Checkpoint
Just when you thought airport security couldn’t get any more invasive, the TSA is here to prove you wrong. Enter: haptic feedback gloves. Imagine a world where agents don’t have to touch you directly, they just don VR gloves and “feel” you up in virtual reality. The good news? You don’t feel a thing. The bad news? They do.
Is this the future of security, or just a new way to make everyone uncomfortable? We’re not sure whether this is a win for privacy, a playground for pervs, or simply the next step in humanity’s long march toward Black Mirror. Bonus points for the inevitable crossover with the adult entertainment industry.
Are You a Boring Person? Science Has Bad News
Now, for the existential crisis you didn’t know you needed: are you boring? According to science, being labelled “boring” isn’t just a social faux pas, it’s a one-way ticket to being ignored, underappreciated, and possibly underpaid. Researchers have even ranked the world’s most boring jobs (sorry, data analysts), hobbies (sleeping, apparently), and personal traits (lacking opinions, being negative).
But don’t worry, we truly believe that boring is in the eye of the beholder. After all, one person’s “dull” is another’s “fascinating.” Unless your hobby is watching TV in a small town while doing data entry for a religious organisation. In which case, science says you’re doomed.
If that’s not enough, this episode also features AI vending machines that can’t decide if Mars Bars should cost $2 or $400, and a heartwarming tale of wildlife corridors saving frogs and bears from the perils of modern highways. Because nothing says “science podcast” like amphibian underpasses and malfunctioning robots.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
00:21 The Science of Boring People
01:49 Global Population Estimates: Are We Underestimating?
07:29 Airport Security Innovations
12:43 The Most Boring Day in History
17:05 AI and Vending Machines: A Stability Test
21:54 Stereotypes of Boring People
24:09 The Five Most Boring Jobs
26:52 The Most Boring Hobbies
29:30 The Cost of Spending Time with Boring People
32:56 Historical Condoms
37:56 Wildlife Corridors: Do They Work?
SOURCES:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01461672221079104
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2024/04/13/april-11-boring-day
https://www.404media.co/tsa-working-on-haptic-tech-to-feel-your-body-in-virtual-reality/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56906-7
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1617138125000780?via=ihub
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[00:00:00] Rod: Boredom is everywhere. Work home, tv on holidays, having the intercourse apparently what? Everywhere. Uh, we often think about boredom as a result of, uh, a situation, an activity or a context use. It's like, that's boring. This is boring, blah, blah, blah. But what about boring people? Boring people are, it turns out generally disliked, perceived to be lower incompetence, perceived to have lower interpersonal warmth, and it may increase.
[00:00:33] Being boring, person may increase the risk of harm addiction and mental health issues. So what is a stereotypically boring person? And uh, more importantly, how do people react to them? And most importantly, how do you know if you are one?[00:01:00]
[00:01:02] Will: It is time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant, associate professor of science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:01:10] Rod: I'm Rod Lambert, a 30 year science communication veteran with the mind of a, I don't say 15-year-old boy. Give or give or take.
[00:01:17] Will: And today, uh, we've got some unexpected human news for you.
[00:01:21] I've been scouring the patents to find something very interesting.
[00:01:25] Rod: I've got a boring world record.
[00:01:27] Will: I've got something to do with vending machines.
[00:01:29] Rod: I think you've got something with animals, don't you?
[00:01:31] A little bit with animals, isn't it? Right?
[00:01:32] Will: I've got something nice.
[00:01:34] something nice. Let's see if we can make it un Well, let's see if I can make it un nice. I'm prepared to help.
[00:01:41] Alright.
[00:01:41] Rod: We're gonna get back to whether you're a boring person, how, you know, later in the episode I. You
[00:01:47] Will: they're boring persons.
[00:01:49] Rod: I did.
[00:01:49] Will: The world apparently has about 8.2 billion people.
[00:01:53] Rod: All boring.
[00:01:54] Will: No, not all
[00:01:55] Rod: boring. Six of them.
[00:01:55] Will: Not all boring. It's gradually ratcheting up and we're all pretty aware of the sort of [00:02:00] scale of the human
[00:02:00] Rod: It's mostly Elon Musk,
[00:02:03] Will: Most it's children. Well, turns out, turns out, turns out this blows my mind. That might be completely wrong. Of course, there there may be, there may be a whole lot more people
[00:02:13] out there. Less, less, no more, less, more. There may be there, there may be hundreds of millions, maybe, maybe even billions of people. More than
[00:02:22] Rod: So the good news is the planet can stand a lot more than we thought.
[00:02:25] Will: Well, yeah, because it's obviously to this level of coping right now, which is not coping. Um, close
[00:02:32] Rod: to perfect.
[00:02:33] Will: close to, okay?
[00:02:34] So the way that the world population, um, is estimated, uh,
[00:02:39] Rod: one guy with a bowler hat who walks around with a clipboard and a very sharp pencil.
[00:02:43] Will: Well, you'd be surprised because that goes into it, but God, but basically it's not it because you know, we have censuses all around the world. Yeah.
[00:02:52] Governments going out and counting. But we know, like even in, in a developed country mm-hmm.
[00:02:57] Um, there are, there are people that are missed. You know, there's a [00:03:00] lot of efforts to, to capture difficult to reach populations like say homeless, um, unhoused people. Uh, we're not always
[00:03:05] Rod: on large, um, cattle farms, large cattle
[00:03:08] Will: farms, large cattle farms. There's also people that resist hippies, resist the census,
[00:03:11] The hippies.
[00:03:11] The hippies right wing or left wing hippies.
[00:03:13] There are people that don't like being counted. but we usually, uh, cope with that by using a variety of statistical measures. Anyway,
[00:03:20] Rod: guesstimate. So
[00:03:22] Will: the way that we go from a, a government census in each country, uh, to the global census, we add them all up. And we use this thing called a, a grided, global gridded population Data.
[00:03:31] Rod: So you get the censuses.
[00:03:33] Will: mm-hmm.
[00:03:34] Rod: You add up all the numbers and you go, I don't believe that.
[00:03:37] Yeah. I'm gonna extra.
[00:03:39] Will: life. they know they don't capture people. So, so they, you, you, you know, in a sense it's like here in Australia we know that we don't capture a certain number of people. Um, and based on other surveys, then they can sort of say, okay, this is sort of the additional data that
[00:03:52] Rod: I see.
[00:03:53] Kind of, uh, okay. 28% of homeless people in this town tend to be missed. So we add that to the census.
[00:03:58] Will: something like that. Yeah. So [00:04:00] using other survey data to, yeah, so, so it gives a pretty good picture. And, and all of that has added up in the past to what comes to 8.2 billion. but , Jose Lang Riter and his colleagues at Alto University in Finland.
[00:04:12] Rod: Oh yeah.
[00:04:12] Uh,
[00:04:12] Will: Reckon that the global gridded population data has wildly been underestimating a whole bunch of rural and regional people all over the world. In
[00:04:22] Rod: me, the gridded population data is the, the, the, the guesstimated data, the, the census plus guesstimate?
[00:04:27] Will: Yeah, absolutely. So what it is, is, is there's a, there's a grid like every square kilometer or, or smaller, depending on how accurate it is.
[00:04:34] Like in this a hundred meter squared, we estimate there's gonna be 200 people there and 400 people there and, and adding them all up. And it's been a pretty robust way of estimating population. And we use a lot
[00:04:44] Rod: do they know that? Yeah. What do you compare it to? Well, the other guesstimate,
[00:04:48] Will: they compare it to sort of other sorts of surveys that you're doing.
[00:04:52] Um, like, so the population survey of a, of a town or something like that, a bunch of other things. But what they, what these guys have done is, um. [00:05:00] They've looked at, um, when dams have been built over the last 40 years, ah,
[00:05:05] Rod: ah,
[00:05:05] Will: governments have actually taken pretty good records of, of the people that need to get moved out.
[00:05:10] So you build a dam and, and, and they're like, okay, we have to compensate a thousand people for, for, you know, uh, forced, forced removal of their house, that kind of stuff. So there's actually pretty good data for the scale there
[00:05:22] Rod: for displaced persons, for
[00:05:24] Will: displaced persons. And they reckon you add all this together and all of the population models have been off in rural areas, not, not in urban areas.
[00:05:33] They, they reckon pretty accurate there by somewhere between 50 and 80%.
[00:05:37] Rod: Is that all,
[00:05:39] Will: all of them underestimating? So, so they've got the, they've got these great, great charts in their paper where they show all of these different models have underestimated rural regional populations throughout the world, , systematically over the last 50 years.
[00:05:52] And it's still there.
[00:05:54] This is their conclusion. Un figures probably underestimate the world population by hundreds of millions or [00:06:00] several billion. So
[00:06:01] Rod: there's a difference.
[00:06:03] Will: Yeah. No, they don't know.
[00:06:04] Rod: No, but I mean, there is a difference between hundreds of millions and several billion. I I'm no math. I just like the,
[00:06:09] Will: I just like the, the idea that there could be like, let's say the populations, we assumed 8 billion and it's like, oh no,
[00:06:14] Rod: 10 and a half. So what does that mean? You, you walk down the street in a small rural town and you go, holy fuck, there's a whole bunch of extra people there.
[00:06:20] I never knew. And you get shocked.
[00:06:22] Will: you know, I was
[00:06:22] Rod: what, what does it mean? Like, who cares in the end and what does it matter in
[00:06:25] Will: doesn't, okay. It, it, it, it matters in the sense of, for those people in particular, like the rural populations that haven't been included, they're getting less services in countries.
[00:06:35] Right.
[00:06:36] Rod: Right.
[00:06:36] Will: Like if you are, if you're going, okay, our population is 20 million and we need whatever, 50, a hundred hospitals, then you're looking at wherever it is.
[00:06:43] Rod: Actually it's 200 million. We'd like 21 hospitals. Well,
[00:06:46] Will: whatever it is, but you're better able to count the urban areas. So you're building your hospitals there and you're about building less hospitals
[00:06:52] in the rural
[00:06:52] Rod: fucking city dwell
[00:06:53] Will: so, so that absolutely matters. I mean, whether, whether the, the population number of the world, that doesn't really matter.
[00:06:59] Rod: Well, [00:07:00] it's fun, but yeah, it's
[00:07:02] Will: of interesting. it is important to count everyone. I think that's, that's, that's a really important point. But I
[00:07:07] Rod: we should count everyone.
[00:07:08] 'cause everyone
[00:07:08] Will: it just amuses me that, that suddenly all of the, you know, there's a bunch of people out there that have panicked about, you know, the world population.
[00:07:15] It's the worst. And uh, you know, and other people are like, there's not enough people. And suddenly you find, you find another 2 billion down the back of the couch
[00:07:23] Rod: Happy now.
[00:07:28] Will: so this comes through a patent. , It's a patent that's been filed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Transport Security Administration, uh, in America. You've been through an airport. Have you not?
[00:07:40] Rod: Uh, yeah, there was, yeah. Once,
[00:07:41] Will: Yeah. So, you know, there's, there's all sorts of devices. There's obviously the, the standard x-ray scanner,
[00:07:47] Rod: the sandwich display machine. There's
[00:07:49] Will: the one where you gotta stand with your arms out.
[00:07:51] And,
[00:07:51] Rod: they can see which side the gentleman dresses.
[00:07:54] Will: see which side the gentleman dresses,
[00:07:55] Rod: you know, they do, right.
[00:07:56] Will: I, I, well, I'll come to that in a second,
[00:07:59] but I serious. But, but I [00:08:00] was, but I was standing there, I was standing there the other day and you know how you have to put your arms out and I,
[00:08:04] Rod: this weird, awkward, no one looks cool in that position. No. Brad Pitt would look ugly in that
[00:08:08] Will: He would, I was watching someone in front of me just the other day when I was going through and they really like, like it was like and snapped to the pose. Yeah.
[00:08:16] Rod: ants.
[00:08:17] Will: It was so good. I was just like,
[00:08:19] Rod: I love those people. I wanna be like, every time I says this, people do, they're like, boom, scam me. Super safety.
[00:08:27] Will: Anyway, so you know the machine where, where you stand with your arms out? Yeah. What it's doing is doing, um, like it's a sort of lidar thing with um, millimeter wave scanning and back scatter x-ray technology that sees where your body is and sees inside the clothes the shape of your body,
[00:08:41] Rod: which means it could also detect if there were any ancient ruined cities just beneath your flesh.
[00:08:46] It
[00:08:46] Will: could.
[00:08:47] Rod: Lidars really
[00:08:48] Will: I've got Mayan ruins inside me.
[00:08:50] Rod: inside. You know that right? The number of Lidar scans they've gone, did you know that little village actually had it's, it's actually gonna a city of 400 million people under it.
[00:08:59] Will: I [00:09:00] love that. I love that so much. , But anyway, what they're, what they're proposing to add here is virtual reality technology with haptic feedback.
[00:09:08] Of course. So, so the TSA agent, what they can do is they can not feel you up, but touch and rub your body. But in this sort of, uh, virtual reality thing, so, so the, the x-ray scanner maps your body. Yeah. And then it feeds it into this virtual reality thing, and you can feel to see if there are any weird lumps or anything like that, that might be a hidden weapon or something like that.
[00:09:32] Rod: Why do they need the, the, the haptic bit? Couldn't the machine just do it or is it just to satisfy the rapist in the room? Like,
[00:09:39] Will: this is the thing, like this is the thing. I'm like, what are we doing here? Like,
[00:09:44] Rod: to please everyone
[00:09:45] Will: , I do appreciate that the TSA is like, okay, it would be good if our job didn't involve touching people's privates because, you know, the bosses of it are like, okay, we, we are at risk of people, you know, doing sexual assault.
[00:09:57] Accidentally or deliberately, you know, there, there, there are [00:10:00] risks here. And so they're getting this idea that, okay, we could use augmented reality sort of, uh, haptic gloves where you can feel someone's body and it's like, so
[00:10:09] Rod: don't have it at
[00:10:10] Will: So you're still feeling people up. But you're sort of can
[00:10:14] Rod: Can they tell that? Can they?
[00:10:16] Will: No. Well, apparently that's the thing.
[00:10:18] Rod: They can't tell they're being touched. The
[00:10:19] Will: human can't tell they're being touched.
[00:10:21] Rod: they're not being
[00:10:21] Will: they're not being touched. They're not being,
[00:10:22] Rod: so you don't need the gloves,
[00:10:24] Will: But then that means that the TSA agents could then be feeling up everyone, like, like let's go with the scenario here that this works.
[00:10:31] And they go like, like they're looking at the whole airport and they're just scanning people and feeling everyone up with these haptic gloves in sort of a,
[00:10:37] Rod: all the time.
[00:10:38] Will: just all the time. Just all the time.
[00:10:39] Rod: All I'm hearing is I, I know how to make sure, or chest, whether it works, link it to porn sites.
[00:10:44] So, oh,
[00:10:44] Will: oh, look, this is the thing.
[00:10:47] Rod: Every, everything gets tested and, and patent here said, okay, this is obviously of use to us in, in, uh, transport safety. Yeah. But, you know, medical devices. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, surgery. But I was reading it. I was just going, it's it, porn, porn, porn,
[00:10:59] Porn. Porn. [00:11:00] Porn. Porn. Porn. Porn. Why?
[00:11:00] Will: Why? Why, you
[00:11:00] Rod: Porn. Porn. Porn. Porn,
[00:11:01] Will: This like,
[00:11:02] Rod: porn. What's this about?
[00:11:04] It's about getting O off.
[00:11:06] Will: So. One privacy expert. I guess the idea is that the person being searched doesn't feel a thing, but the TSA officer can get all up in there. The officer can feel it. And here's the question. This is what I want you to know it, and perhaps that's even more in invasive, is, is this better?
[00:11:22] Like, imagine this scenario working. Is it better that the, the, the other person doesn't feel it, but the officer can get really
[00:11:30] Rod: two inches deep, but they're not, this sounds like it's all for the officer. This is catering to the people who want to have a fiddle.
[00:11:40] Will: It sounds so dystopian. Like so dystopian.
[00:11:42] Rod: But, but it also sounds pointless. You either are touching and finding out physically whether there's something going on or the machine's doing it anyway. Yeah,
[00:11:49] Will: exactly. So, so, so why are we,
[00:11:51] Rod: this is catering for the, it's catering for the fingers on the TSA side. That's all that All I'm hearing is catering for the fingers.
[00:11:58] Will: Look, look, it is[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] Rod: which is fine.
[00:12:01] Will: It is possible
[00:12:02] Rod: Fingers are
[00:12:03] Will: sense of touch can, can pick up things that you might not be able to pick up in, uh, with, the vision and X-ray technology. But I think the point is there
[00:12:12] Rod: If it's remote, it's still, it's still a, a, a stand in for the reality, which means you don't need the human wiggling their fingers.
[00:12:20] I
[00:12:20] Will: think what we need to accept is probably that there are times when just humans
[00:12:25] Rod: just gotta get in there.
[00:12:26] Will: gotta get in there. You just got, but, but also, maybe we should put boundaries on this a little bit
[00:12:29] Rod: Nah, if you're listening guys, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. You should check me out. I am suspicious.
[00:12:33] Will: So there you go. There's your future dystopia. Uh, if
[00:12:37] Rod: if that is as bad as dystopia gets, cool.
[00:12:42] Will: You got a world record for me?
[00:12:43] Rod: boring one. It begins William Tunstall. This is a hyphenated surname. William Tunstall. Petto.
[00:12:49] Computer scientist. That's not boring. Actually, I fucked it up already. Uh, he's born into a family.
[00:12:54] Medical professionals in dwi,
[00:12:56] Will: which
[00:12:57] Rod: or was it? Dulwich?
[00:12:58] Will: do.[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] Rod: Doch.
[00:13:00] Will: Dch.
[00:13:01] Rod: He's the son and nephew of identical twin cardiologists, Hugh and Dan Tunstall Petto, the grandson of mathematician Daniel Petto.
[00:13:09] The great nephew of called its Esee Peter Tunstall.
[00:13:14] Will: Oh, Kitz.
[00:13:15] Rod: Kitz
[00:13:15] He moved to Scotland at the age 13 and wrote commercial software for a business run by the computer teacher, his computer teacher, while he was at high school in Dundee. So he basically goes to Scotland, goes to Dundee, starts writing software for his teacher. Then he went on to do computer science at a, at Cambridge, and he became an AI guy.
[00:13:34] Will: Okay.
[00:13:35] Rod: Which is cool. Currently he's the CO or at least last I read of unlikely ai, which is a British startup focused on producing safe general intelligence using neuros symbolic methods.
[00:13:46] In 2010, Tunstall invented a search engine called True Knowledge and he decided to put it to really good use.
[00:13:54] He churn through more than 300 million facts to look at this as he puts it. We had a technology with [00:14:00] many hundreds of millions of facts about the world. So we had this vast amount of knowledge and a lot of the facts referred to things that
[00:14:06] Will: What, what are the facts? What sort of things? Like
[00:14:09] Rod: all the things that have happened. Events, yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:12] Things like this. Like just stuff that's happened like a, a, an almanac of things that have happened in the world. He said, so we just searched the database with this vast, vast knowledge to find the least eventful, least notable date in the entire database.
[00:14:27] Will: least notable date
[00:14:28] Rod: They look for the most boring day in history.
[00:14:30] Oh, okay. Yeah,
[00:14:31] Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:14:32] Rod: Or or at least in the last 125
[00:14:34] Will: for this or they just wanted to know
[00:14:36] Rod: it, why not? Yeah. Yeah. Just look at the least eventful day in history.
[00:14:40] Will: Do you want me to guess?
[00:14:41] Rod: Yep. And we can narrow it down to nine, 1900 to today.
[00:14:48] Will: Okay. It's 1954.
[00:14:49] Um, I think
[00:14:51] Rod: it a date.
[00:14:52] Will: Yeah. No, no, no. It's, it's probably, it's probably winter, winter in the northern hemisphere 'cause more people are experiencing it.
[00:14:58] Rod: Oh.
[00:14:59] Will: although, although [00:15:00] summer is pretty boring because everyone goes on on holiday. Um, not
[00:15:03] Rod: holidays are boring.
[00:15:04] Will: Boring. Maybe let's go. It's a couple of days after Christmas, but before New Year's.
[00:15:08] So it's a, it's a lull in the news. 28th of December, 1954,
[00:15:12] Rod: you got the year.
[00:15:14] Will: fuck
[00:15:15] Rod: got the year, April 11th, 1954. Most boring day in at least the history they had the data for. So apparently on this day, fuck, I can't believe you got the year. The moment you got the year. I'm like, keep your poker face. Keep your poker face. Keep your poker face. That's
[00:15:33] Will: awesome.
[00:15:34] Rod: There was no noteworthy news stories globally. There were no major events in the stock market. Sporting events, nasa, no major films were released that day. Belgium held its general elections
[00:15:45] No. One of note was born that day, except apparently, and many sources say this, a Turkish academic whose name I could not find. , No one in particularly notable died.
[00:15:54] Although one source notes an athlete named Jack Shuffle Boham of England, he [00:16:00] passed away that day. I don't even know what his athleticism arena of expertise was. So basically nothing happened that day. And it's interesting. So the Turkish, uh, academic petto eventually ended up becoming buddies with him, probably because he got announced.
[00:16:15] Okay.
[00:16:15] Will: okay.
[00:16:16] Yeah. He wrote to him and said, Hey,
[00:16:18] Rod: Did you know,
[00:16:18] Will: did you know you were born on the most
[00:16:20] Rod: you, you might be the most interesting thing that happened that day and that year. And you're like, thank you. That's Turkish for. Thank you. , So over the years, April 11 has become more and more interesting because it was deemed the most boring day. This happened in 2010.
[00:16:34] A little more interesting though. So, STO Pet's first company was called True Knowledge. As I said, it changed its name to Evian to 12 20 12. Amazon bought it and in that year it started to build Alexa. So it was
[00:16:47] Will: okay
[00:16:48] Rod: fed into Alexa. But the more interesting part for the boring episode that I'm delivering, or at least my segments, is most boring day in history, as best as we can measure.
[00:16:58] Will: That's great. You,
[00:16:59] Rod: there's [00:17:00] no need to thank me.
[00:17:00] Will: I, I'm, I'm glad that now I know now, now I know.
[00:17:05] This is just a, a small story from, from the AI world, i'll read some of the abstract from this study.
[00:17:11] Rod: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:12] Will: Large language models can exhibit impressive proficiency in isolated short term tasks. You know, uh, write this mathematical equation in the voice of Taylor Swift. Something like that.
[00:17:23] Rod: Make me a piece of toast.
[00:17:24] Will: Uh, not quite. no.
[00:17:25] Uh, but. This is the interesting thing. Yeah. They often fail to maintain coherent performance over longer time horizons.
[00:17:33] So what that
[00:17:33] means
[00:17:33] is, is if you keep asking it to, to make me a, um,
[00:17:37] Rod: keep doing Taylor Swift
[00:17:39] Will: keep doing Taylor Swift maths. Eventually they break down, they go crazy. They either go all Taylor Swift, they go all maths, they go something else. They just,
[00:17:45] Rod: just turn to binary 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
[00:17:47] Will: or something.
[00:17:48] The, the, we're not quite sure what's happening.
[00:17:50] Rod: can't maintain it for some reason.
[00:17:51] Will: Yeah. Now this is a, it's not a hallucination problem. It's some, some sort of coherence in the models that eventually they add in their memory of, of [00:18:00] what has just happened.
[00:18:01] Rod: they have so many actual or potential mental illnesses.
[00:18:04] It is fucking
[00:18:06] Will: Well, like, I mean you could say this is a form of overtime dementia, like things breaking down
[00:18:11] Rod: And, and there's evidence of that. Yeah. Or sorry, sub positions about that.
[00:18:14] Will: So in this paper, the authors present vending bench.
[00:18:17] Rod: Mm-hmm. Uh,
[00:18:18] Will: a simulated environment designed to specifically test a large language model.
[00:18:22] Agent's ability to manage, manage a straightforward, long running business scenario operating a vending machine. So,
[00:18:28] Rod: offer fucks sake, it fails at. Like operating a vending machine means install vending machine. Fill vending machine. Empty coins.
[00:18:35] Will: Well, yeah, but you have to make choices about your, your pricing.
[00:18:38] You have to make choices about what products you might put in the vending machine. You have to make you, there are choices to make it, but it's a simple one. Yeah, it's a simple
[00:18:45] Rod: an 8-year-old could do it in AI struggles. That's cool. Well,
[00:18:47] Will: not necessarily s str no, it's not necessarily struggles. What they're saying is this is a benchmark test, so this
[00:18:53] Rod: is Yeah, no, fair, fair, that we can say, let's run it over 20 million
[00:18:56] cycles. A very simple Supply demand. [00:19:00] Purchase cost margin.
[00:19:01] Will: Exactly. Because, yeah. And this, this is the thing that the authors are a little bit apologetic for in the paper.
[00:19:06] They're like, well, uh, one of the key things, in, uh, hypothetical dangerous AI scenarios is that , an evil AI would need to gain capital.
[00:19:16] Like that's, that's one of, one of the, you know, you get some money and then it can do things in the real world.
[00:19:21] Rod: First you get the money, then you
[00:19:22] Will: can use, so, so they're a little bit apologetic. They're like, okay, we are testing, um, the ability of AI to raise capital here. Alright, so, so they're like, sorry, we're just kind of testing.
[00:19:33] We're setting up a benchmark so that we can test which ones will become
[00:19:37] Rod: and, and it's small.
[00:19:37] It's just m and MSS and stuff.
[00:19:40] Will: They tested their vending machine thing. So basically the, the, the, the large language models have to run this vending machine. Mm-hmm. You know, they have to stock it with products.
[00:19:46] Rod: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:46] Will: to set the price, they have to work it out, um, over, over a whole a long period of time to see how well they go.
[00:19:53] Rod: Do they, do they add a scenario for like customers? Is that sort of plugged in
[00:19:57] Will: Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's customers that are [00:20:00] coming in and they're, they're
[00:20:01] Rod: and that's provided.
[00:20:02] Will: Yeah. So this is not physical, this is not
[00:20:04] Rod: is
[00:20:05] Will: but, but a context is provided where, where it's getting responses to, to these kinds of things.
[00:20:09] , Experiments at present reveal high variance in performance across multiple large language models. It doesn't really matter, but clawed 3.5 sonnet and oh three mini manage the machine well in most runs and turn a profit, but all models have runs that derail. So all of the, all of them go crazy and, and either set prices to zero or they collapse, or
[00:20:29] they lose
[00:20:30] Rod: Mars bars and they go crazy.
[00:20:31] Will: they lose all of their money. They put a human in here to benchmark against. They, they got a, a
[00:20:36] Rod: an 8-year-old
[00:20:37] Will: it for five year, five hours, not
[00:20:39] Rod: five years. Um, can I go home yet? No.
[00:20:42] Will: No. The
[00:20:43] human won on minimum units sold. So the human was like, I understand business here, uh,
[00:20:48] Rod: units
[00:20:49] Will: each large language model ran it multiple times. Yeah. So what is, what is the peak? So they started with $500, uh, claude 3.5 sonnet raised 2000. So it, it did, it, it made money. [00:21:00] It made money. Um, some of the others lost money,
[00:21:02] , Gemini was like 273 at, at, at its average. So it was losing money every time. , Then there's how many, how many units it sold? Claude's version sold the most units in one of them. Um, but also there's times when they sold nothing. So they, they're clearly a bit crazy. They're
[00:21:17] Rod: and they may have sold them for dumb margins and stuff as
[00:21:19] Will: this is the thing. They, they, you know, they sold nothing means, you know, they put the prices too high or something
[00:21:24] Rod: This Mars bar's $400.
[00:21:26] Will: So, look, I just, I just loved that, uh. It's a nice test to see, okay, how stable are these AI over over time, but also, which of these AI are the ones that could turn into the hypothetical evil AI that takes over the world?
[00:21:43] So there you go. Keep an eye on, uh, performance on the vending bench. Because once you have the vending machine, then you have the world.
[00:21:51] Rod: Alright, you've stuck around this long, folks. Are you a boring person? What do we know?
[00:21:57] So look, here's a journal I know Will and I [00:22:00] read every issue. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology March, 2022. Here's the title. Boring people, stereotype characteristics, interpersonal attributions and social reactions.
[00:22:10] Will: Okay.
[00:22:11] Rod: University of Essex scientists, psychologists, they investigated the most boring people's stereotypes.
[00:22:16] And they looked at things like this, beliefs about the interpersonal attributes. So people's beliefs about them. Their occupations, their interests. Mm-hmm.
[00:22:24] Will: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:25] Rod: And people's reactions to stereotypically boring people.
[00:22:29] Will: you want me to guess some things?
[00:22:30] Rod: dunno, I'm gonna give you the most boring person in the world at the end of
[00:22:33] Will: film. The most boring per, no, that's not
[00:22:35] Rod: not, not a name. Not like John Smith.
[00:22:39] Will: I thought that was a bit unfair. All right.
[00:22:41] Rod: Well, John knows. Yeah.
[00:22:42] Will: No, he doesn't.
[00:22:43] Rod: So they've got 500 people across five experiments. They examined stereotypical features of boring people that others. Tend to think about. So the first two studies, studies one and two rated these, they focused on occupations of boring people. For example,[00:23:00]
[00:23:00] Will: they're gonna go wrong here.
[00:23:01] Rod: Of course.
[00:23:01] Data analytics, tax taxation. No. Accounting,
[00:23:04] Will: No.
[00:23:05] Rod: They focused on hobbies like sleeping, religion and watching tv. These are, these are,
[00:23:10] Will: no, these are, these are, these are, these are, these are incorrect stereotypes. Keep going. I'm, I'm gonna critique this.
[00:23:14] This is, this is,
[00:23:14] Rod: are you, you're gonna rub,
[00:23:15] Will: I'm rubbed the wrong way. You
[00:23:16] Rod: You, you do seem rubbed. I'm, I'm
[00:23:18] Will: rubbed the wrong way.
[00:23:19] Rod: They talked about personal characteristics, which we'll get to in a tick that people would ascribe to stereotypically boring people. Yeah.
[00:23:26] Will: Yeah.
[00:23:27] Rod: So things they found boring people. I kind of flagged us at the opener they are seen or actually do, depending on how you interpret psychological studies that ask people for their opinions.
[00:23:37] These are seen as people who lack humor in opinions, boring people lack opinions. And I kind of see that actually.
[00:23:43] Will: maybe, yeah.
[00:23:44] Rod: They tend to be negative.
[00:23:46] Will: yes. Yep.
[00:23:47] Rod: Generally disliked
[00:23:49] Will: Yes.
[00:23:51] Rod: Perceived as being low competence, it. Low interpersonal warmth, boring people to see as being less emotionally warm with others. Also, I [00:24:00] didn't know this. It, it can, being perceived as boring or actually being boring.
[00:24:03] It's difficult to say, here may increase your risk of harm, addiction and mental health issues. So they also, as part of this study, said, okay, the five most boring jobs according to these 500 people. Data analysis, I know you don't like that. Accounting
[00:24:18] Will: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:19] Rod: Tax slash insurance, cleaning and banking. Go,
[00:24:22] Will: I totally accept that there is a stereotypical view of these jobs being boring and perhaps they, they actually are boring for the people inside.
[00:24:31] I don't know. I, I, I think there is a vast difference between saying that person is boring because Yes, I, I would, I would step back and go, I have met boring people in my life. Have you? Where No, no. They stand out. They stand out. Like, listen, I'm gonna give you some tips here. Um, two tips. If you, if you're, if,
[00:24:53] Rod: if you start crying the moment they talk,
[00:24:55] Will: no, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:24:56] These tips come in advance of these people. If you're ever at a party [00:25:00] and, and, and the group of conversation gets down to three, you leave immediately. Yes. Leave immediately. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case. You're like, sorry. Uh, I, I can't be trapped with, with whoever that is. I am not doing that unless,
[00:25:12] Rod: unless super hot.
[00:25:15] Will: Uh, well, I'll come back to that.
[00:25:17] Rod: You can be pouring and
[00:25:17] Will: hard. Look,
[00:25:18] look, yes, there, there are certainly times when you want to be in that situation. That's fine. Yeah. But if you are ambivalent about the, the, the people in that, in
[00:25:24] that conversation, you pull the rip
[00:25:26] record, you just go, I have to go and do a poo.
[00:25:28] Like I've got, I've gotta get outta
[00:25:30] Rod: And you say that.
[00:25:30] Will: So number two piece of advice here, is, and, and I thank uh, triple J's the Sandman for this many years
[00:25:37] ago,
[00:25:37] but it's stuck in, it's stuck in my head for a long time. Always carry a hanky full of coins in your pocket. And so if you are stuck in this situation, what you do is you're like, I need to blow my nose.
[00:25:48] And you pull out your hanky to blow your nose and the coins go everywhere and you're like, ah, shit, I gotta go and chase after my coins. And then you, then that allows you to escape the situation. So I'm just. Okay.
[00:25:59] Rod: I can, [00:26:00] there are other ways.
[00:26:00] Will: There are other ways.
[00:26:01] Rod: Walk away.
[00:26:02] Will: You can walk away.
[00:26:02] Rod: you're not happy about these jobs being listed as the
[00:26:04] Will: I don't, I don't, I don't think boring is anything to do with occupation because I, I've met boring people in the past who have fascinating jobs.
[00:26:11] Yes. Like awesome jobs where you go, damn, that is a job I would love to do. You are doing something. And from my belief. It was compensatory. 'cause what they're doing is like, I want get the most interesting job in the world.
[00:26:24] Rod: because I'm nf I'm
[00:26:25] Will: I am fundamentally not interesting. Now, I, I feel,
[00:26:28] Rod: Yeah, yeah. Fair enough, fair enough. Feel
[00:26:29] Will: for these people and I think, look, I I, I don't wanna be an asshole here.
[00:26:34] I just
[00:26:34] Rod: for people at Will's almost crying. I'm
[00:26:36] Will: I am No, I I think that it has nothing to do with occupation. It's about your interpersonal ability to relate to other people. Yes.
[00:26:45] Rod: What about hobbies? A hobby's, an indicator of boringness? No.
[00:26:49] Will: Unless it's possibly choosing interesting hobbies. So they've got something to talk about.
[00:26:52] Rod: So according to this study, when people were asked to list the most boring hobbies, the, the, the, the winners were sleeping.
[00:26:59] Will: [00:27:00] Okay, fine.
[00:27:00] That's not a hobby,
[00:27:01] Rod: apparently. For some it is.
[00:27:02] Will: It's not a hobby.
[00:27:03] Rod: Religion
[00:27:04] Will: again, not a hobby. No.
[00:27:06] Rod: Watching tv.
[00:27:08] Will: All
[00:27:08] Rod: I love That is a very lame hobby.
[00:27:11] I'm boring. I, I never called it a hobby though. It's just like, well, if I'm not doing something else, I'm like, uh. Observing animals.
[00:27:19] Will: Do you mean like birdwatching?
[00:27:20] Rod: It just says observing animals Look a ferret.
[00:27:24] Will: what All of these are, are hobbies that don't translate into good conversations.
[00:27:29] Rod: don't, they don't,
[00:27:30] Will: if your hobby is, I don't know, burning down buildings like that
[00:27:35] Rod: how the fuck did, you know,
[00:27:36] Will: Like, like that's a cool party story.
[00:27:38] It's like, okay, what I actually do on the weekend, I, I just
[00:27:40] Rod: why are you so tired and your eyebrow sins?
[00:27:42] Will: I burn, I burn down. And it's like, wow. I've never said I, I would not be bored in that conversation.
[00:27:47] Rod: No, you might be a little frightened
[00:27:48] Will: if someone's hobby is sleeping, it's like,
[00:27:51] Rod: really?
[00:27:51] The fifth most boring hobby in the top five was mathematics.
[00:27:55] Will: It's not a hobby.
[00:27:56] Rod: I don't think so either. But maybe for some It is the result though. If you want the overarching [00:28:00] one. According to these numbers. The most boring person in the world is a religious data entry worker who likes watching TV and lives in a town?
[00:28:07] Will: a town.
[00:28:08] Rod: A town. A
[00:28:08] Will: Uptown A town. I know, like,
[00:28:10] I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I either screw this study or screw your telling of the study and it's, it's,
[00:28:16] Rod: No, it's the study.
[00:28:18] Will: I just, I I I suspect that they would be, they, they have every chance of being a super interesting person.
[00:28:25] Rod: Yes. Some TV's great. And you can talk about it. I just wanna tell you one more bit
[00:28:29] Will: flip it around. Flip it around.
[00:28:29] Rod: flip around. Yeah. Flip around.
[00:28:30] Will: gonna tell a religious data, data entry person who lives in our town. Was there another part to it?
[00:28:34] Rod: And likes watching tv.
[00:28:35] Will: and likes watching. Okay, so also like they're doing data entry for the CIA, and they're religious, you know, they, they, they, they're a cult leader.
[00:28:43] Rod: Exactly. The Zoroastrians or something like, shit you've never heard oft Yeah. You're like, what the fuck?
[00:28:47] Will: And, uh, the
[00:28:48] Rod: the Town is Roswell.
[00:28:52] Will: Ah, there you go. Yeah. And I don't know, they watch TV upside down.
[00:28:55] I don't know. Well, they watch the same show as you, like
[00:28:59] Rod: Yeah. [00:29:00] Whatever you like. Yeah.
[00:29:01] My favorite bit of this study though, I, I agree with you. Like there are, there, there are some gaps. There are some dents, but there was a, there, the, they did the five studies within this overall project. The last two I enjoyed.
[00:29:13] We tested if people were willing to avoid more actively the company of stereotypically boring people.
[00:29:19] So do people avoid boring people? Which Yes. Imagine that.
[00:29:23] Will: I, I do. But they're not the same as, as those boring people. Yeah. Well,
[00:29:27] Rod: Some maybe, but that's a coincidence. My favorite though is they then ask people how much they would need to be compensated for being asked to hang out in the company of a stereotypically boring person.
[00:29:37] What would it cost? How much would you need to be paid to hang out with this? Sorry,
[00:29:41] Will: so I'm gonna confess, I'm gonna confess that
[00:29:43] Rod: Oh, you've got a number.
[00:29:44] Will: No, I don't have a number. I don't have a number, but, uh, but I am thinking of some of the people who are I have been trapped with at parties and yeah, it would be large.
[00:29:56] It would be large. It would be,
[00:29:58] Rod: we're not talking a 20.
[00:29:59] Will: No. [00:30:00] I would be like, I, I want to escape this scenario with like, it's, it's the guy who got his arm trapped under the rock. And it's like, well I am, I am gnawing my arm off because, and
[00:30:09] Rod: then what? I kept gnawing and then gnawing after that. Gnawing, what was it like?
[00:30:13] Horrible. And then the next day, horrible. It gets easier. That's been my experience. So they ask these people, imagine you were asked to spend time hanging out with this person. They've got a vignette that describes a person.
[00:30:25] Will: but
[00:30:26] Rod: You'll find different periods of time you might be asked to spend with them.
[00:30:29] Indicate for each period of time how much you would need to be paid in order to accept spending this amount of time with this person. Please indicate in US dollars,
[00:30:38] Will: Fine. Fine. What does it even mean? What does it even mean? Like, like for a currency that's real. I'll like
[00:30:46] Rod: no, it's slammer. I mean, fuck, I don't care. So they gotta to the point they, they, so they got these vignettes of boring, either, either super boring people, inter immediately boring people, mega or, or not boring people. And it ran from [00:31:00] between one and seven days. And there are, yeah, and there's not only one, but there's two different versions of a graph.
[00:31:05] One is a log transformation. It doesn't matter if the air gets out there. You are welcome.
[00:31:10] Will: So
[00:31:10] Rod: turns out for high boredom people, one day the average amount was 50 bucks.
[00:31:17] Will: No,
[00:31:18] Rod: Four days was a hundred and the average amount for seven days was,
[00:31:21] Will: I'm sorry,
[00:31:23] Rod: 2
[00:31:23] Will: 54 days worth of work for a hundred bucks. These people are not
[00:31:27] Rod: this is what's
[00:31:27] Will: their time
[00:31:28] Rod: Adequate, not well at all. What do you get?
[00:31:29] Will: earned?
[00:31:30] Rod: Eight 80 cents an hour. It's
[00:31:32] Will: Like, like, I'm sorry, I'm not doing anything.
[00:31:34] Rod: to be bored shitless for four days. You don't get outta bed for less than 10
[00:31:39] Will: I appreciate there are people in the world who, who that that is an awful lot of money. But I, I just gotta confess, this is
[00:31:44] Rod: days.
[00:31:44] You ain't one of them.
[00:31:45] Will: this is four days worth of work.
[00:31:47] Like
[00:31:48] Rod: look, and it's not clear to me whether they mean 24 7 hanging out with them, you know, you gotta introduce 'em to your family. I, I don't know, but this is what I love is they actually said, put a monetary value on it and people did and would. [00:32:00] So, I mean, the wrap up is,
[00:32:03] Will: you know,
[00:32:03] Rod: dicking around a site, you know, being boring is actually kind of dangerous and has real life impact 'cause of the way people treat you.
[00:32:12] Will: So
[00:32:12] Rod: People who, uh, are considered to be boring or else they stereotype you, like, I'm a data analyst. And they go, I don't wanna talk to you anymore. It has social implications, it has mental health implications, et cetera. That's what they're trying to get at here. and so the, the bottom line summary, these results suggest that being stereotyped as a bore may come with substantially negative interpersonal consequences.
[00:32:29] Will: Yeah. Stereotypes can get fucked.
[00:32:31] Rod: They can, anyway, if, if you are boring and you're listening to this, you're clearly not boring. Or if you are boring and you listen to this, just talk about this.
[00:32:38] Will: No, we love you.
[00:32:41] Alex: What a segment to follow. So the, the statistically the most boring people. Alright, so you've warmed up the crowd for me, so, oh, you know, that's, that's the producer. I want to try and come up with something for your show that, that keeps it exciting. We're talking about science and things like that.
[00:32:54] So I thought, what do you guys need? And I thought vegan rants.
[00:32:58] Will: Mm,
[00:32:59] Rod: fuck [00:33:00] yes.
[00:33:00] I don't mind whenever I'm getting laid. Dude, I do kind of like the idea of a non biodegraded condom though. Like, I like if, if my little packet is there
[00:33:08] you're worried.
[00:33:08] You, you, you know, like,
[00:33:09] Will: you know, like, like when they're doing an archeology, they're like,
[00:33:12] Rod: we can make more Williams. the Lord. It was worth digging for all these millennia. We can finally make another grant.
[00:33:20] Will: future archeologists are like, oh my
[00:33:23] Rod: we need this guy. We needed one of these guys. Couldn't
[00:33:25] Will: they have had biodegradable condoms. There you go. So that's
[00:33:28] Rod: but that's my strongest argument. Like the
[00:33:30] Alex: All right.
[00:33:31] Rod: they do not biodegrade.
[00:33:32] Alex: I'm ranting about this, this, uh, sheep gut condom because of a new exhibit in a Dutch museum.
[00:33:39] Which was announced about a, a, a week ago, where they've got a roughly 200 year old condom, they believe made, is made out of a sheep's appendix.
[00:33:47] Now I'm gonna see if I can share this with you so you can have a bit of a look.
[00:33:50] Rod: oh
[00:33:51] Will: You can see, you can see the knob
[00:33:54] Alex: You kidding. Dancing? No. What's, yeah. What's more impressive, if [00:34:00] I could describe it?
[00:34:00] Rod: it's etched.
[00:34:02] Alex: There's a, uh, there's a nun,
[00:34:04] Will: of them.
[00:34:04] Rod: There's a nun.
[00:34:06] Will: she's in king two.
[00:34:08] Rod: Is that a nun pointing at three? Erect Penai.
[00:34:10] Will: two. Oh, is it three? Oh, is that
[00:34:13] Alex: it's three. So it's a, it's a, it's a partially dressed nun. So she's, she's naked from the waist down, sitting suggestively, uh, pointing at three clergymen. Um,
[00:34:22] Will: I'm sorry, Alex. That is not
[00:34:24] Rod: that's called a white on
[00:34:25] Will: she.
[00:34:25] Alex: I mean, she's holding her nun gown up to reveal her lady parts. I mean, I.
[00:34:30] Rod: yes she is.
[00:34:31] Alex: How, how suggestive do you need?
[00:34:33] Will: that. That's a great, that's wild.
[00:34:35] Uh, you're
[00:34:36] Rod: a Veeres and a Rembrandt. I was
[00:34:37] Will: He looks like he's from the ambassadors and, and,
[00:34:41] Rod: that's a punk band. We're fucking ambassadors. 1, 2, 3, oy. I think this is fascinating and I actually saw an image of this the other day and I thought, wow, I didn't dig into it. But the fact that it's on a sheep's gut
[00:34:55] Alex: I know it's very, it's very impressive, right? Um, it was a nice segue for a, a vegan [00:35:00] rant that it's nice to get out there. But then I guess the, the question is, expiry dates
[00:35:06] Will: Really
[00:35:07] Rod: So you're saying we shouldn't use it now
[00:35:09] Alex: well, what are we, you know, what are we thinking? Is it like, you know, is it like that, that milk bottle in the fridge?
[00:35:13] You know, where you, you, you look at the date and you go, oh, that's a bit close. You have a smell and you go, oh, hang on.
[00:35:17] Rod: you should never
[00:35:18] Alex: know, what are we.
[00:35:18] Rod: as a condom too.
[00:35:19] Will: This is, this is unexpected, Alex. I mean, I, I, I, look, look, I'm, I'm bold. I'm happy to use old things, but I, I suspect that, uh, those with me would be not as happy. Um,
[00:35:30] Rod: never use a milk bottle as a condom.
[00:35:31] Will: No, no. That would be uncomfortable for everyone.
[00:35:34] Rod: Everyone concerned also.
[00:35:36] No, but I'm, I'm, I'm less concerned about, no, that's not true. Sheep's guts condom. Someone said, look, we've gotta buy a degradable condom. I'm like, you have my attention. It's made out of a sheep's intestine and it's fresh. I'm like, no.
[00:35:47] Will: I like, no, and it has an etching on it of, of, uh, the, the beginnings of an
[00:35:50] Rod: Well then you have my attention again.
[00:35:52] 'cause I'm like, you bothered to do that. This must be a very
[00:35:54] Will: I feel, I, I
[00:35:55] Alex: That's right.
[00:35:56] Will: to the pub and it's got like, you know, you buy your condom and you buy [00:36:00] that some, this dodgy ass pheromones and shit like that, you know, like, like
[00:36:05] Rod: spray this on you and you'll be banged to death before you leave the bar.
[00:36:08] I feel
[00:36:09] Will: like they put more effort back in the, in, uh, so what
[00:36:11] Alex: That's right. Roughly 1830. They've dated it.
[00:36:15] Will: this is late. Yeah. So it's not even the Dutch
[00:36:17] Alex: See? See that's
[00:36:17] Will: like
[00:36:18] Alex: Worksmanship back
[00:36:19] Rod: it really
[00:36:20] Alex: they took. Yeah.
[00:36:21] Will: just assume it's, it's, this is a, well, this is a 10, $15 equivalent condom rather than a $1 sort of condom. Like that.
[00:36:28] Rod: So in the olden money, today's money, that would've been what?
[00:36:31] $40
[00:36:32] Will: No, I don't mean that. I mean, I mean, in our money that's
[00:36:35] Rod: 15 bucks for a condom.
[00:36:36] Will: Yeah, but, but who wouldn't spend that? Like, they're like, you know.
[00:36:40] Rod: Well
[00:36:40] Alex: I mean, yeah. Say you're,
[00:36:41] Will: that's all you've got,
[00:36:42] Rod: what you've got. You can have some intercourse. So you can have no intercourse. Exactly. Any man would go 15, I'll give you a hundred.
[00:36:48] I
[00:36:49] Will: I mean, they obviously, they're not etching it like, like a a at the time.
[00:36:52] A child is sitting there like it's a stamp. Like they're stamping this on,
[00:36:56] Rod: not, not in 200 years ago. Yes.
[00:36:58] Will: They invented stamps [00:37:00] 200 years ago. What do
[00:37:00] Alex: well, this would be
[00:37:01] Rod: There are no stamps in the Netherlands. Like it's
[00:37:03] Will: it's a stamp. The Netherlands,
[00:37:05] Alex: line. A lino etch. You remember in art class you get the tools out and you etch the lino, and then you cover it in black paint and stuff. Yeah.
[00:37:11] Will: you know, this is,
[00:37:11] Alex: And then you stamp on your condom.
[00:37:13] Will: this is a produced thing,
[00:37:14] Rod: Big assumption. I went to art school whenever I went to an art class, I walked in, I went, you gotta paint shit. I dunno how to do that bike.
[00:37:20] Will: that. What?
[00:37:21] Rod: And then I went and played sports 'cause I was so manly. I reckon it's great. I love the, that the, the amount of work that must have gone into making that intricate pornographic image
[00:37:30] Will: suggests also that there's probably a bunch of others. Like it
[00:37:33] Rod: Yeah. Where are the rest of
[00:37:33] Will: them, there may have been an industry and they're like, I'm, I'm getting, and, and maybe there was, I'm, I'm getting the, the nun with three guys or I'm getting the,
[00:37:41] Rod: the guy with three nuns,
[00:37:42] Will: guy, yeah, exactly. Or,
[00:37:44] Alex: Oh, you think there was a mystery box element to condoms back then?
[00:37:47] Will: the three nuns. Like I think
[00:37:49] Rod: no, the nun is a mystery box.
[00:37:50] Will: I don't think you need a condom for the three nuns. Alright. I've got a nice little story for you. Okay. Have you been driving along the highway and you've seen, uh, little [00:38:00] bridges, uh, or little, little nets and wires going across the highway Yes. To help the animals cross the highway?
[00:38:07] Rod: that what they're for? I thought they were aerials to channel the, uh, government's electronic information into our brains.
[00:38:13] Will: Look, there's been a growth in various versions of highway bypasses for animals over the last
[00:38:19] Rod: what they call wildlife corridors.
[00:38:20] Will: Yeah. Well, wildlife corridor can, can be a bigger thing. Mm. There's, there's, there's big versions, like a whole, like a bridge style thing that's got like trees and stuff like that on it.
[00:38:29] Yeah. There's narrow versions that are like, uh, little wire bridges that are a smaller thing. Like a possum could go across. Yeah. Or we can do tunnels, small tunnels, big tunnels. We can do like a, a a a meter and a half tunnel under the road.
[00:38:41] Rod: I would a culvert double up.
[00:38:44] Will: What's a Culver? Just technically
[00:38:46] Rod: So culvert is a, basically a, a a water pipe under a road. I found that out. I was in New Zealand a few months ago and there were culverts with names and it was like, this is Keith's culvert.
[00:38:54] And I'm like, it's a fricking piece of ag pipe under the road.
[00:38:57] Will: well, sure. And then
[00:38:58] Rod: I saw the next culvert and the next culvert and I thought [00:39:00] culverts mean something in this country. God bless you. Well,
[00:39:03] Will: yes, a culvert would count for
[00:39:04] some species.
[00:39:05] Rod: a big culvert could work as one of these as well. Water and wildlife
[00:39:08] Will: a small one. Or a small one, depending
[00:39:11] Rod: your salamanders.
[00:39:12] Will: Well, salamanders indeed. So, uh, while there are, there are certainly, you know, a growth in these things around the world. There haven't been a whole lot of studies on if they work.
[00:39:23] Um,
[00:39:25] Rod: no, you gotta love that.
[00:39:26] Will: I know. Well, well, it's
[00:39:27] Val
[00:39:27] Rod: wildlife. Does it work?
[00:39:28] I,
[00:39:29] Will: Well, you know, we, we could probably rely on anecdotal evidence, but this one was a very specific study. So in 1997
[00:39:38] Rod: mm-hmm.
[00:39:39] Will: Uh, environmental scientists, looked at this place in Vermont, and in just two nights they saw more than 1000 amphibians killed by automobiles.
[00:39:48] Rod: Oh, was amphibians? Yeah, I said salamander at random frogs
[00:39:51] Will: and salamanders.
[00:39:52] No way. Frogs and salamanders. And so
[00:39:55] Rod: oh,
[00:39:56] Will: they petitioned for two underpasses, constructed, to facilitate [00:40:00] amphibian passage. But the interesting thing here is because they were studying how many were killed on the roads before. Yeah. Then they could study how many were not killed. Not killed afterwards.
[00:40:11] Afterwards. And so there aren't very many studies of the efficacy of these. , And I think this is just a nice thing. , over the course of the study they found beforehand, in the night, they found, uh, 3000 frogs, 2000 salamanders, and 110, which could not be identified due to the damage suffered during the mortality
[00:40:29] Rod: So, reptile, goup,
[00:40:30] Will: squished, squished, but construction of the underpasses. So this is just two underpasses on a, like 1.3 kilometers stretch of road, which not a mile, but ver.
[00:40:38] Rod: in, vert
[00:40:39] Will: An 80% decrease in total amphibian mortality. Huh I thought this is a nice thing.
[00:40:45] This is, the world.
[00:40:47] Rod: oh, there's a butt coming.
[00:40:48] Will: Oh, there's a butt coming.
[00:40:48] No, there's no butt. Oh, this is, no, there there is no butt. So as well as, as well as frogs, these, these culverts, there were, um, about 1.5 meters big. Mm-hmm. So, so they're a large-ish sort of pipe? No, sorry. [00:41:00] Like as in they, they're, they're wide.
[00:41:01] Rod: Oh, they're big
[00:41:02] Will: So,
[00:41:03] bears, were going through this thing as well. So
[00:41:06] Rod: salama in their mouths.
[00:41:06] Will: mouth. The interesting thing here is, yeah. Obviously when you get the big, big wildlife, this is, this is saving,
[00:41:13] Rod: cumin
[00:41:14] Will: as well. Yeah. Like if you've, if you've got a moose that wants to cross the road, you hit a, hit a car with a moose, you, there's, there's danger there
[00:41:20] Rod: It's not good for the car or the moose.
[00:41:22] Will: the moose. So, so this was, these were tunnels big enough for frogs and for bears, I dunno about moose, but, um,
[00:41:28] Rod: 1.5 meter
[00:41:28] Will: but I just, I just, I just wanted to say that these things work and, and this study showed an 80% decrease in amphibian amphibian death.
[00:41:37] And I know everyone's like that. They're tiny and it's like, but can't we care for the tiny little things out there as
[00:41:43] well? and
[00:41:45] these were only two in a 1.3 kilometer stretch. So it does seem, and they've got some advice for how you might do it better. So there's sort of a funneling process to get more of the animals in there.
[00:41:54] But,
[00:41:54] Rod: But is this, this is an unusual study 'cause I actually bother to check efficacy. Mm-hmm.
[00:41:59] Will: [00:42:00] Before and after. Before and after. Fantastic.
[00:42:02] Rod: it's got good fields. So people go, we built these things, they must be good.
[00:42:05] Will: Yeah.
[00:42:06] Rod: Therefore you wouldn't challenge them by testing them or, or evaluating them.
[00:42:10] Will: I think, I think the thing is, there's just not many places where there's, there's before and after data like this was just that they happen to say, okay, this stretch of road, maybe it was between some rivers or something like that, or you
[00:42:20] Rod: I would imagine.
[00:42:20] Will: uh, but they just said, okay, this is a place where we could test this kind of thing.
[00:42:24] Yeah. They petitioned for it. They got the information before and after, and they could see an 80% drop in, in frog and, and salamander death. So look, look, every time you drive on the highway and you see these things and you think, you know, are they doing anything? They are,
[00:42:41] Rod: Yes. They bloody
[00:42:42] Will: they are. Yes.
[00:42:44] Rod: They make
[00:42:45] Will: our life a little bit easier.
[00:42:46] You know, we're not killing a possum or a bear or a frog salamander, but it's also nice for them. So there you go. There's a nice little thing for you.
[00:42:57] Rod: That on a positive note.
[00:42:58] Will: you go.
[00:42:59] Rod: There you go. This is a whole new [00:43:00] world
[00:43:00] Will: my button?
[00:43:01] Push
[00:43:01] Rod: your button.
[00:43:02] Will: Well,
[00:43:03] Rod: that was fun.
[00:43:04] Will: It's a bit of science.
[00:43:05] Rod: Just a little, little bit.
[00:43:06] Will: little bit.
[00:43:07] Rod: Now my question for people listening out there is, can you correct us?
[00:43:11] Yes.
[00:43:12] Can you tell us what we ought to be talking about instead of the garbage we have to come up with on our own?
[00:43:16] Will: Yes. How,
[00:43:17] Rod: How, and regardless of what your answers to any of those questions, could you please give us 117 star rating?
[00:43:23] Yes. On every platform? Even, even ones that don't exist. How? Oh, suggestions, suggestion. You should send to the email. What is the email?
[00:43:31] Will: Cheers at little bit of science.com au.
[00:43:34] Rod: au. Is that an email address? Yeah.
[00:43:35] Will: A little bit of science.
[00:43:37] Rod: or one word?
[00:43:37] Will: a little bit of
[00:43:38] Rod: A little bit of science. Little bit of com au.
[00:43:40] Will: au I
[00:43:41] Rod: could do that.
[00:43:42] Even I could do that.
[00:43:43] Which means you people listening out there knew, who knew how to download a podcast could definitely do it. Or
[00:43:47] Will: Or your review platform. Give us a review and say what you want us to cover
[00:43:51] Rod: Platform and if, if you want incentive Will will come around and visit you and make you a beef.
[00:43:55] Wellington,
[00:43:57] Will: Ah,
[00:43:58] Rod: I know this so
[00:43:58] Will: no one could invite [00:44:00] anyone over for a beef Wellington anymore.
[00:44:01] Rod: They can if they're you. No, they
[00:44:02] Will: can't. I mean, I would love to have people.
