00:00
[Music]
00:12
hello and welcome to another episode of
00:16
no such thing as a fish a weekly podcast
00:19
this week coming to you live from the
00:21
london palladium
00:31
tonight is also a very special episode
00:34
for us it is our 400th episode
00:42
my name is dan schreiber i'm sitting
00:44
here with anna tashinsky andrew hunter
00:46
murray and james harkin and once again
00:48
we have gathered around the microphones
00:49
with our four favorite facts from the
00:51
last seven days and in a particular
00:53
order here we go starting with fact
00:56
number one and that is anna my fact this
00:59
week is that there's a 300 square mile
01:02
section of america where all microwaves
01:05
have to be kept in cages
01:10
are they
01:11
living microwaves they're scary like
01:14
teethy violent yes um some kryptonite
01:17
was spilled on them in the 60s and
01:19
haven't been able to keep control of
01:20
them um no this is they're kept in
01:22
specific cages i have misled you there
01:24
slightly they have to be kept in faraday
01:26
cages and that's because it's in the
01:28
quiet zone so this is that the whole
01:31
quiet zone is actually about 13 000
01:33
square miles and across that radio
01:35
transmissions and all electromagnetic
01:37
transmissions are really restricted and
01:40
within this little 300 square mile
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section which is right next to this
01:44
green bank observatory which is a few
01:46
giant telescopes which are really really
01:48
important for like
01:49
seeing things from outer space they need
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to have just no interruption and that
01:53
means no waves of any sort and that
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includes if you're microwaving a burger
01:58
at two in the morning that could
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convince them there's alien life out
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there so
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it's got to go in a faraday i had a few
02:04
burgers at two in the morning that would
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convince me that's alien life
02:08
and it is because of this um observatory
02:12
although it also happens to be where the
02:14
national security agency has one of its
02:16
listening stations
02:18
oh she so happens to be in the same area
02:20
wait so what are they listening to are
02:22
they listening to well they might need a
02:24
lot of quiet so they can basically
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they're listening to any foreign
02:28
transmissions that come into the eastern
02:30
side of the united states right so it
02:32
helps them to be a bit quiet as well
02:33
interesting wow it's for anyone who
02:35
wants peace and quiet really yeah the
02:37
nsa uh the these telescope guys weird
02:40
conspiracy theorists quite a lot of them
02:42
there i know it's a big mix of people
02:44
isn't it conspiracy theorists you've got
02:45
your people who believe that they suffer
02:47
from a disease whereby wifi interferes
02:49
with them and they they sometimes have
02:51
to sleep in boxes to get away from it
02:53
they should come to the qi office
02:56
that was a joke about how our wi-fi
02:58
is
02:59
it was we have a few of the elves in the
03:00
audience and they would have loved that
03:02
joke yeah
03:03
also we invited our i.t guy tonight i
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bet he's really
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sorry buddy it sounds just incredible
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the list of restrictions there are all
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because of this telescope so there are
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various things that aren't allowed you
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know like lots of stuff about wi-fi is
03:17
technically banned petrol driven
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vehicles uh are not allowed because they
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have spark plugs yeah so if you fire
03:24
them up that might do something i
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thought this was so interesting i did
03:27
not know this that if if you are prone
03:30
to sort of wearing tinfoil hats or
03:31
whatever and waves getting into your
03:32
brain petrol cars terrible diesel cars
03:36
fine diesel is just compressed i guess i
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never properly understood the difference
03:40
just really really compress until it's
03:41
hot enough to ignite whereas petrol you
03:43
know it needs a spark and that's giving
03:45
off waves and that's with your
03:47
brain and the the
03:49
yeah
03:50
it's not i just want to clarify itself
03:53
and the members of the public who live
03:55
there so it's a very small population
03:57
there it's under 200 people that live
03:59
there this is just in the tiny
04:01
tiny innervate yeah and and but they
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take it really seriously about how they
04:05
have to make sure that nothing is
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messing with this um with this telescope
04:09
to the point where there's almost
04:10
citizen police officers that go around
04:12
driving in their car just looking every
04:15
day for any kind of wi-fi signal or any
04:17
there was a guy called wesley sizemore
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and he used to just knock on doors and
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just go and walk in and go unplug your
04:24
microwave turn your wi-fi off
04:26
yeah he wants amazingly tracked down the
04:29
radio frequency interference of a faulty
04:32
electric blanket in someone's house wow
04:35
and he went into their house and he
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confiscated it off them let's just woke
04:38
up a poor granny at three in the morning
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shook her away there is um there's a
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woman called dr karen o'neill who works
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at the observatory and she says that she
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has members of her family who never
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visit them because the lack of wifi
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stresses out the teenagers
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yeah that's why they're not getting
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visits i'm so sorry we'd love to but the
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teenagers have to have their wi-fi i
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think a lot of you probably thinking
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like okay you have to put the microwave
05:03
in a faraday cage the first thing i
05:05
thought was isn't a microwave a faraday
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cage yeah i thought that was kind of the
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whole point of microwaves
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but what it is is
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microwaves do have faraday cages in them
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but they often leak yeah okay so you can
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test if you have a leaky microwave so i
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tried this today at home i put my phone
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into the microwave and got my wife to
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call me
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and i still got the call
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what and i tried the one backstage we
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have a microwave backstage and i put my
05:30
phone in there and one of the elves
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called me and i didn't get it so this
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one is a proper faraday cage but my one
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at home is a leaky one so
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hang on hang on what doesn't that break
05:39
the microwave no i don't turn it on
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oh
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oh well just well don't we should say
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in case anyone else was confused
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dinner
05:51
[Laughter]
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there is a guy who has a van called emit
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which is the electromagnetic
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interference tracking truck which is a
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very forced acronym but he yeah he that
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might be who you're talking about who
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drives around looking for signals it's
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got 17 antennae on it yeah
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well this might be the new guy there's a
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new sheriff in town
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yeah because yeah sizemore is retired so
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there's a new guy who does and you can
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see photos and it is like like in the
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x-files that van that's just full of you
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know computers and stuff yeah it's
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amazing and they all think that it's
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part of the observatory that is messing
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with their lives in various different
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ways so there was a mother who called in
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saying that she was getting interference
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on her tv because of the telescope so it
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just said n-r-a-o on her tv and she was
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like you guys are breaking my tv so
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someone came round it turned out that
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that acronym nrao stood for not raided
06:49
adults only and it was because
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and it was because her son was trying to
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watch porn
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oh my god
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what are we do people get imprisoned i
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wonder i mean i know they don't you get
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a small fine but it's a strange crime to
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have it's a fifty dollar fine yeah um
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but the truth is that due to the fact
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that no one has any money anymore the
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police are not spending their time going
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around trying to prosecute people for
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this and that means that actually most
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of the places in that town now have
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wi-fi and have microwaves because they
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know that no one's going to do anything
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and the observatory have kind of gone
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well fine we'll deal with it we'll work
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out what the background is and we'll
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kind of deal with that the conspiracy
07:29
theories who think it's with
07:30
their heads they are not happy right
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of course no they're the ones who are
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really upset about it yeah wow yeah
07:38
there's one ski resort which they made
07:40
an exception for
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which seems nice always nice to let the
07:44
old wealthy skiers have a way around the
07:46
rules that bind everyone else um but
07:48
that's snowshoe mountain and it causes
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it advertises itself as an oasis of
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cellular activity in an otherwise total
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dead zone and
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they just had they got one of the um uh
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you know cell companies to wire it up
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specifically so that it wouldn't really
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radiate any waves but that you can still
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call someone on the slopes but that's
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really terrible that's really it's
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really annoying because you will have i
08:11
guess reception at the start of the run
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but you're like yeah yeah this runs
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going really well i'm just skiing down i
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hello hello as you get further and
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further away i don't think it runs out
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does it if they don't just put it on the
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peaks that would be terrifying but i
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guess also once you get it in the ski
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resorts then everyone's gonna want it
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right it's a slippery slope oh my god
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um yeah that whole so that whole area
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you've got the ski slope you've got um
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the neo-nazi area which is quite a
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popular area there yeah there's a lot of
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neo-nazis because basically as we're
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saying before it's kind of like people
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are going there for either to get away
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from technology or they're going to a
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place where they can be a prepper and
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effectively get away from all the stuff
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and and just live in isolation so you've
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got the preppers you've got the
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neo-nazis you've got this
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why are the neo-nazis being dumped in
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with the preppers and the people who are
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afraid of technology i know that people
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are afraid of technology are a bit silly
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and the preppers are a bit nuts but the
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ski slope i'm just listing all the
09:08
different communities why are the neon
09:09
nazis there
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everyone's gonna be somewhere
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it's so nice to hear someone sticking up
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for the newer nazis it's really good
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but my favorite one just very quickly is
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um the gesundheit institute is there as
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well which was set up by patch adams do
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you remember the brilliant movie patch
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adams robert williams yeah i recognize
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that's a sentence no one has ever said
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before
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so was he a real person patrick he's a
09:36
real person and he wanted to set up a
09:38
hospital where it would be you didn't
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have to pay and they used humor instead
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of medicine
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um and that's where that is and they
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just read that laughter is the best
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medicine and took it literally yeah he's
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a he's i have heard of him actually is
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he the one who goes around with the
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world's largest pair of underpants that
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is him that is him right yes and i think
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like the president of costa rica and the
10:00
president of ecuador have been in his
10:01
giant underpants yeah or something do
10:03
you know him i know i know yeah yeah i
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remember him yeah
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it's a legend you've seen the sequels i
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don't think that was even in the film
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um this telescope just briefly yeah the
10:13
actual green bank telescope is
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unbelievable okay so it i i don't even
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really fully grasp this it can measure
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the energy from you know billions of
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miles away equivalent to a single
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snowflake falling onto the surface of
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the earth but at any time that must be
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tough when the ski seasons
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the energy that they're looking for is
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the energy from extremely distant stars
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like quasars which are very very bright
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but they're a long way away and they can
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pick up
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the energy that they give off or that
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gets to us here is a billionth of a
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billionth of a millionth of one watt per
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square meter which is why this telescope
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needs to be so enormous it's two acres
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uh the dish in capacity in area so that
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it can pick up those signals up tiny
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things they say if you're on saturn if
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you find yourself on saturn and you've
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put your phone on airplane mode they can
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still detect it from there
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so even on combo even in airplane mode
11:08
so you can't get away with anything i
11:09
thought airplane mode was absolutely
11:11
impregnable i'm afraid not i'm afraid
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that's what the government wants you to
11:14
believe oh my god
11:16
i have to go how's anyone gonna give you
11:18
a ring on saturn hey
11:23
i reckon that's the last one of those i
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can get away
11:26
i don't know
11:30
accepted um what a shame that that's
11:33
such an amazing fact but the thing that
11:34
sticks out for everyone is airplane mode
11:37
you can still find us
11:38
that's the amazing bit though yeah and
11:40
the saturn bits but largely the airplane
11:42
mode you know because you're not
11:44
supposed to be giving off anything and
11:45
it's another cool thing about the
11:46
telescope is that so it's made of um the
11:49
huge dish which receives all the radio
11:51
waves is made of loads and loads of
11:52
little panels and it needs to be
11:55
perfectly smooth and actually over the
11:57
years just the force of gravity would
11:59
very very slightly deform the panels and
12:02
so every panel has a tiny motor attached
12:04
to it which senses and as soon as it
12:07
deforms by you know a micrometer by the
12:09
width of a couple of human hairs the
12:11
motor senses it and adjusts the panel to
12:14
make it smooth again it's amazing
12:15
amazing it's pretty good another person
12:17
who had a
12:18
telescope that needed a lot of work on
12:21
it was william herschel
12:23
uh he was a guy who discovered uranus
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and he was
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no yeah come on no
12:30
no i'm with them say the proper name
12:35
her skull is it
12:39
so william herschel he discovered uranus
12:41
or uranus and um he was really obsessed
12:45
with his telescopes so much so that his
12:48
sister caroline
12:49
spent her whole life basically polishing
12:52
his telescope and
12:54
so no
12:55
no come on
12:56
i i would accept uranus but come on
13:00
uh and also he was like so obsessed with
13:03
searching for the stars she had to feed
13:05
him by putting food directly into his
13:07
mouth wow cause he was so on it and
13:10
she's an amazing person she basically
13:12
was in the in hanover and then the
13:15
french army came in and they kind of
13:16
took over hanover and then so uh william
13:19
herschel left there and came to the uk
13:21
he became an organist
13:23
and then she came over and he started
13:25
giving her singing lessons and then
13:27
before long she was a superstar in bath
13:29
and bristol she was singing five nights
13:31
a week she was massive but then when her
13:33
brother wanted to become
13:35
looking at the stars she had to give it
13:36
all up
13:37
to just polish his telescope wow
13:41
and but then in the end he died in the
13:43
end and she took over his job and she
13:46
became famous as the discoverer of no
13:48
fewer than eight comets
13:50
and for her 96th birthday humboldt
13:52
presented her with a gold medal for
13:54
science from the king of prussia wow wow
13:57
how did how did the brother die did he
13:58
die mysteriously as a result of having
14:00
received no food for several weeks
14:06
[Music]
14:08
stop the podcast stop the podcast hey
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okay on with the podcast on the show
15:55
[Music]
15:56
we need to move on to our next fact it
15:58
is time for fact number two and that is
16:00
my fact my fact this week is that the
16:03
musician ray charles who was blind used
16:06
to fly to giggs because he thought it
16:08
was safer than driving
16:10
however he also insisted on flying the
16:13
plane himself
16:15
[Laughter]
16:17
this is an extraordinary claim and it's
16:20
come up countless times from his friends
16:24
from his biographers um supposedly there
16:27
was a plane that he used to that he
16:29
owned and he would charter and he would
16:30
bring all his band on he had a few
16:32
planes in his career and he used to have
16:34
a pilot who was a friend of his called
16:36
tom mcgarrity and when the plane had
16:38
gone up and was at cruising level he
16:41
would get really bored and needed to
16:42
pass the time so this is the reports of
16:44
ray charles going into the cockpit
16:47
sitting down at the controls and being
16:49
handed over the controls from the pilot
16:51
and just flying the plane there for
16:53
hours there's even stories that maybe he
16:55
landed the plane once or twice himself
16:58
um it's why they invented in-flight
17:00
entertainment i think isn't it just to
17:02
keep race shows save pilots lives do you
17:05
believe the stories my question is
17:06
though oh yeah yeah you believe he
17:08
landed in there no i don't believe he
17:09
landed it i do believe that he might
17:11
have flown it um it's so funny i mean
17:14
but i don't know enough about planes to
17:16
know that but there's there's bobby
17:18
womack for example who didn't know that
17:20
he would do that was just sitting on the
17:22
plane and suddenly ray charles runs to
17:24
the cockpit and takes over and he's
17:25
going is everyone cool with this
17:28
it's an incredible anecdote he says oh
17:30
jesus me oh dear lord he started praying
17:32
bobby womack he said there's a blind man
17:33
flying the plane this is nonsense and
17:35
the trumpet player of ray charles's band
17:37
just told him to relax and said you
17:39
don't need eyes to fly a plane everyone
17:41
was on a lot of heroin at this point
17:44
including ray charles including ray
17:46
trans yeah they've got there really
17:48
quick yeah
17:50
what i find is that the closer you get
17:52
to rail charles for these anecdotes yeah
17:54
the more it gets to less that he was
17:56
flying or landing the plane and more
17:57
that he knew how to do it but he didn't
17:59
necessarily do it yeah so it's
18:01
interesting i don't know if one of those
18:03
inflatable things can fly a plane then i
18:05
reckon ray charles
18:07
are you talking about the movie airplane
18:09
yeah
18:10
that documentary is pretty true to life
18:13
yeah yeah and um i read his
18:15
autobiography over the last couple of
18:16
days he doesn't mention it in there but
18:18
he again he does say that he would know
18:21
how to do it if worse came to worst and
18:23
everyone else on the plane died he would
18:25
be able to land it without killing
18:26
himself that's what his claim was it
18:28
feels like he's done it i mean what else
18:30
has he done memorized it in a book i
18:31
don't think anyone would say they knew
18:32
how to fly a plane if they'd memorized
18:34
the textbook okay can i tell you his
18:35
technique that he was going to use then
18:37
to land it oh god oh yeah this is
18:39
awesome yeah so his technique was that
18:41
he was going to get the all the dials
18:43
because you need the dials to to land as
18:44
well as your eyes but you need the dials
18:47
and he was going to smash all these
18:48
dials and he was going to use his hand
18:50
to feel the way that the dials are
18:52
moving
18:54
because there's one specific dial i
18:56
don't know if this is still in airplanes
18:57
which is the shape of an airplane it's
19:00
like literally an airplane so he was
19:01
like i'd smash the glass and i would
19:03
hold the airplane and just feel it as
19:05
we're going down because that would tell
19:07
you about the balance of the airplane
19:09
yeah so yeah so he would just he would
19:11
hold a toy airplane basically
19:14
but he was he was someone who if you
19:16
were looking at other vehicles he was
19:18
someone who took charge of other
19:20
vehicles so his son
19:22
said that there was one day where he was
19:23
coming home in his corvette and the
19:25
driver got to an intersection and he
19:27
suddenly said get out i want to drive it
19:30
and the valley said i can't let you do
19:32
that and he said it's my car and he went
19:34
oh okay so he got out and so his son
19:36
said they were sitting at home and there
19:37
was this huge crash and they went
19:39
outside and the car had totaled into the
19:41
side of the house in fairness what
19:43
happened there is that he was on the
19:45
clutch and he'd accidentally let the
19:47
clutch go and it kind of jumped forward
19:48
into a car that came past him so it's
19:50
not even because he's blind he's just a
19:51
driver yeah
19:53
he he starred in car adverts in the 90s
19:57
have you seen that oh yeah
19:58
it's a gorgeous car ever and it shows
20:00
him driving on the in like the salt flat
20:02
utah's great salt lake so he's not on a
20:04
road there are no other vehicles around
20:06
but he's having a whale of a time
20:07
driving away he's lovely and his driver
20:09
by the way guess what his driver's name
20:11
was uh um
20:13
clarence driver
20:15
[Music]
20:17
he did he had a long history of doing
20:19
this so the first time he took control
20:20
of a cart was when he was about eight
20:23
and this was when he was at primary
20:24
school and his teachers remembered him
20:26
as kind of uh pain in the ass i guess
20:29
kind of rebellious and he one time at
20:32
primary school he managed to break into
20:34
one of the teachers cars it was and he
20:36
went to a deaf and blind school it was
20:37
quite groundbreaking it was the only one
20:39
in florida and he was sent there as
20:42
he was about five when he was sent there
20:44
five or six wasn't he or maybe seven he
20:45
only went blind then he went blind at
20:47
the age of about six yes and then his
20:49
mum just sent him to this school um and
20:51
yeah he went there he got controls of a
20:53
teacher's car and he had one of the deaf
20:55
kids sitting next to him or sit on the
20:57
hood of the car i think and bang with
20:58
either his left or right hand to tell
21:01
ray to go left or right
21:03
this is a gene wilder film
21:05
and richard pryor called see no evil
21:07
hear no evil it genuinely is
21:08
yes that's the plot of the film do they
21:10
end up like he ended up which was
21:11
crashing into a tree yeah i think that
21:13
happens quite a lot in the film it's
21:14
pretty um yeah he also drove motorbikes
21:17
from time to time definitely this is in
21:18
his autobiography yeah um so when he was
21:20
about 14 or 15 he was in tallahassee and
21:23
he would ride his motorbike and the way
21:25
that he did that he would be in a big
21:26
sort of area with nothing else around in
21:28
the same way as the adverb but in
21:30
tallahassee he would ride in this area
21:32
and his friend would be alongside him so
21:35
he could kind of feel him next to him
21:36
while he was motorcycling that's so cool
21:39
yeah he was better at music than he was
21:41
at driving vehicles oh he was quite good
21:43
like i don't believe that he that he was
21:46
in the airplane i believe he's in the
21:47
airplane but i don't believe he drove
21:48
the airplane personally yeah yeah but if
21:51
you read the biography there's loads of
21:52
stuff where he said at one stage and the
21:54
pilot forgot to pull the flaps down on
21:56
the plane and they weren't climbing
21:58
properly and he could sense the problem
22:00
and he said you need to put the flaps
22:02
down the pilot
22:04
or is he yoda yeah
22:06
there was another time that when they
22:08
were flying at 11 000 feet okay the
22:10
traffic controller had told them they
22:12
need to fly 11 000 and he said but i had
22:15
13 000 in my head so i asked the pilot
22:17
to check and sure enough the controller
22:19
had made a mistake maybe we would have
22:21
had enough height to get over the
22:22
mountains anyway but i ain't want to
22:24
take chances
22:28
thirty thousand feet in the air
22:32
so he was really really into aeroplane
22:34
like he really knew a lot about them and
22:35
he was properly into them but yeah
22:38
he really didn't like the idea of
22:39
trading on being a blind musician this
22:41
is something i find really interesting
22:42
and he in fact it has to do with the
22:45
instrument he played to the fact that he
22:46
was a pianist instead of a guitarist
22:49
because there were so many
22:50
um blind blues musicians particularly
22:53
who who you know played the guitar so
22:56
there was blind lemon jefferson blind
22:57
willie johnson blind william mctell
22:59
blind blake no other name this is
23:01
nominative determinism isn't it
23:03
gary davis
23:05
blind boy fuller and blind joe reynolds
23:07
all of them you know were guitarists and
23:09
so he said i i don't want to be
23:11
associated with that he said it was as
23:12
much an association with blindness as as
23:14
a cain uh to walk with the guitar so
23:16
although he did he loved the piano from
23:18
the age of three which really makes me
23:20
think i've missed the boat in finding my
23:21
life's passion
23:23
if that's when you've got to get it he
23:24
was three years old and he grew up in
23:26
extreme poverty he's you really read
23:28
about his early life and you think god i
23:30
suppose i'll never complain again um you
23:32
can imagine like a single mother dad's
23:35
run off very very poor black family and
23:39
he uh heard someone playing the piano in
23:42
the shop down the road and he ran
23:44
through he was three years old he
23:45
sprinted across pushed his way through
23:47
the door jumped on his lap and that was
23:49
it and started banging away and knew he
23:51
loved it from then on and when he went
23:53
to school when he was sent to this
23:55
school he they were taught braille
23:57
obviously and it was so hard to read
24:00
piano music because of course you can
24:01
only ever play while sight reading with
24:03
what with your left hand so he'd have
24:05
his right hand fumbling away feeling the
24:06
music while his left hand plays and then
24:08
he'd have to swap and then he'd have to
24:10
memorize it and he could memorize
24:11
thousands of pages like that yeah it's
24:13
amazing he was incredible the braille
24:14
stuff is really interesting because he
24:15
was very proud of the fact that he could
24:18
he could get on normally while being
24:20
blind and so
24:21
everything that he got was in braille if
24:23
a contract was sent to him and it wasn't
24:24
in braille he would refuse to sign it i
24:26
think that's fair enough it feels like
24:28
someone's trying to do one over on you
24:30
if that's what
24:34
he got to see ray the movie with jamie
24:37
foxx and they turned the script into
24:39
braille for him so that he could read it
24:40
and sort of fact check it and so on as
24:42
it was going on he should have made a 3d
24:44
film where he could feel the screen and
24:46
they're all bulging out of it why don't
24:48
we have that why don't we have that i
24:50
wonder
24:52
could it be cost effective i don't know
24:54
i don't know it's not very covert secure
24:56
everyone is in the cinema especially
24:58
everyone just groping forward that's
25:00
great and if you've got the seat that's
25:01
the top left corner of the screen you're
25:03
not getting any action yeah
25:05
he was really good at chess wasn't he
25:06
and he had his own chess set where the
25:08
black squares were all raised slightly
25:10
and all the black pieces were pointy and
25:12
all the white pieces were round so he
25:13
could feel which was which yeah that's
25:15
really cool did you read about him
25:17
playing willie nelson at chess go on
25:20
he played willie nelson another great
25:21
musician at chess he challenged willie
25:23
nelson to a game back in his hotel room
25:25
or wherever he was and
25:27
obviously ray charles was blind so he
25:28
kept the lights off so
25:32
i'm gonna save electricity right to save
25:33
electricity what's the point of lighting
25:35
it so he thrashed willie nelson her
25:36
chest
25:37
really doesn't
25:39
see what was going on
25:40
that's so good
25:42
you had this really weird thing which i
25:44
didn't believe for ages but i found
25:47
enough sources and the guy seems legit
25:49
um during the 90s he got really bored of
25:52
giving interviews but he had to give
25:54
interviews for promotional purposes so
25:56
instead he got a white guy from new
25:59
jersey to be him in all the interviews
26:02
that he did no way yeah so this is a
26:04
this is a producer and writer guy who uh
26:07
interviewed him and knew ray trials
26:09
inside out when they had their interview
26:10
ray was so impressed he just saw this is
26:12
incredible we have to meet up again and
26:14
then there was this interview that was
26:15
going to happen with a guy the
26:17
interviewer came over and ray called him
26:19
up he calls him his white ray charles
26:22
this guy um and so he comes over and he
26:25
says i want you to do the interview with
26:27
me and give all the answers because i
26:29
can't be bothered doing it so he said
26:31
okay i'll do that so he sits there and
26:32
he starts doing it and the guy asks a
26:34
question and he says well rey would say
26:36
that and ray said no no no don't say ray
26:39
would say say i would say you are me in
26:41
this interview and they did this whole
26:43
interview where he was ray and it went
26:45
so well that ray said we must do that
26:47
again
26:49
and for a decade virtually like not on
26:51
television not on television this were
26:53
all print interviews and people if they
26:55
were calling up over the phone he would
26:57
do the interview this white guy from new
26:59
jersey that's amazing yeah that's so
27:01
funny and after ray died there was even
27:03
a book of photography that was taken by
27:05
personal friend who said to him ray
27:07
can't write this book now would you mind
27:09
writing it as him posed his death
27:12
he said no but yeah um is this what did
27:15
they have a fight at one point ray's
27:16
saying what's all this about me
27:17
driving a plane
27:24
he did one really fun thing when he was
27:25
a kid he like i say he was like a bit of
27:28
a lovable troublemaker is the impression
27:30
that i got and he used to love playing
27:32
piano at school and there was another
27:35
kid from so the school was segregated
27:38
and they're a bunch of white kids who
27:39
got better education and then the black
27:41
kids basically like got less good got
27:43
less good equipment all of that and one
27:45
of the white kids really wanted to come
27:46
and play the piano which was in the
27:48
black kids part of the school and so
27:50
this kid came up to ray and said i need
27:52
to use a piano you need to let me you
27:54
need to get off the piano i need to use
27:55
it so ray said fine you can have it just
27:57
give me 15 minutes and this is related
28:00
by his best friend at the time he was a
28:01
guy called joe and joe said i thought
28:03
that was weird because ray would never
28:04
give up without a fight and lo and
28:06
behold they were in their dorm like you
28:08
know half an hour later and the white
28:10
kid comes up furious and ray spent that
28:13
15 minutes unscrewing every single key
28:15
on the piano and putting it in his bag i
28:17
think you said you're only one of the
28:19
piano
28:20
absolutely so funny uh we got to move on
28:22
in a sec to our next fact
28:24
i just found one other guy who um can
28:26
fly their own aircraft what what what an
28:30
unusual one yeah like there's a lot who
28:32
can fly oh yeah quite a few well this
28:34
guy was pope benedict the 16th dan
28:37
is that unusual enough for you
28:40
thank you
28:41
you've got to work on the lead-in
28:43
you know look this i mean james if
28:45
you're skeptical about ray charles the
28:47
idea of benny the 16th flying the papal
28:49
chopper
28:50
i've only found it on a website called
28:51
catholic news facts and it's only there
28:53
and i feel like they'd have given it
28:55
more airtime if the pope could play a
28:57
how implausible is it was he one of the
28:58
sort of 17th century ones i always find
29:00
it hard to keep track was it at least
29:02
this is the last but one got it yeah the
29:04
last one the previous one yeah yeah the
29:06
one who resigned so what so what's the
29:08
story is he can fly a helicopter that's
29:09
the story
29:12
well thank god we didn't move on before
29:14
you got that story in there
29:18
wow
29:18
now it's time for fact number three and
29:21
that is uh andy my fact is the pope can
29:24
fly a helicopter
29:31
thank you
29:33
solid gold
29:34
no my fact is there is a zookeeper in
29:37
america who cannot change job because
29:39
the bird he looks after is in love with
29:41
him
29:43
it's this is such a sweet story i don't
29:46
think it's very sweet well we'll get on
29:48
to the real details in a minute but the
29:50
broad brush strokes are very sweet this
29:52
is this was sent to me by a guy called
29:54
ali bobson so thank you very much ali
29:56
it's this brilliant washington post
29:57
investigation there is a crane uh cranes
30:00
of these very tall very elegant birds uh
30:03
and this one is very endangered it is a
30:06
white naped crane unbelievably rare and
30:08
endangered uh and it lives at the
30:09
smithsonian conservation institute in
30:11
virginia there's a breeding center there
30:13
they had this bird it was a female bird
30:16
needed to be bred with to preserve the
30:18
species but it was a deadly bird it
30:21
allegedly had killed at least two
30:23
previous partners rather than mate with
30:24
them it wasn't taking any yeah so
30:27
problem and they realized maybe it has
30:30
imprinted when it was a young chick it
30:33
it thought a human was its parent rather
30:35
than a crane bird so it is programmed to
30:38
love humans and so they got this keeper
30:40
who is called mr crow
30:42
amazing
30:44
chris crow
30:45
and
30:46
jump jump
30:49
sorry it just sounds like it chris
30:51
criss cross don't get it don't get it
30:54
but
30:54
they loved it um
30:57
and so they so they in chris crow and
31:00
walnut are now basically an item and
31:02
they have they have done a lot of work
31:04
breeding work together and now this is
31:07
where it gets a bit icky yeah
31:09
it gets a fraction icky if you squeamish
31:11
yeah
31:12
um so he slowly earned the female cranes
31:15
trust
31:16
uh by sitting with her and touching her
31:19
and
31:19
all that stuff and dancing with like
31:21
dancing with her
31:23
like a lot of the cranes before they get
31:25
together they do this kind of head
31:26
bobbing dance and stuff and he did all
31:28
that with her as well when no one was
31:30
looking he said uh and now basically she
31:34
will let him inseminate her um because
31:37
previously if you had a crane and you
31:38
needed to artificially inseminate them
31:40
you'd probably have to use anaesthetic
31:42
all that kind of stuff she is well up
31:44
for it yeah yeah and he doesn't we
31:47
should clarify inseminate her with his
31:49
own seed
31:51
and he does remain fully clothed
31:53
throughout this process he puts a
31:56
different crane sperm into her cloaca
31:59
actually interestingly the other crane
32:00
is called rey no really
32:03
it's a different one different different
32:05
way yeah
32:06
the article you sent around though andy
32:08
it does like as james says it reads a
32:10
bit bizarre so like literally taking the
32:13
words it says
32:14
kneeling behind the bird
32:16
oh don't put that tone of voice on it
32:19
like that it'll make anything sound
32:21
mucky
32:22
crow rests a hand gently on her back
32:26
then he starts rubbing her thighs
32:29
rhythmically
32:31
30 seconds elapse before walnut steps
32:33
away it's called walnut by the way
32:37
walnut steps away from crow fixes a few
32:40
out of place feathers and then stretches
32:42
out her wings asking for another
32:44
go-around
32:46
dan if this is your audition tape for my
32:48
dad wrote a porno
32:49
it means a lot of work and then says
32:51
crow then takes the opportunity to
32:53
inject walnut with a syringe of crane
32:54
semen
32:57
like every beautiful relationship but
33:00
she keeps up but she keeps on wanting to
33:01
mate with him even though at the moment
33:03
they don't need any more uh eggs from
33:05
her yeah but she but sometimes he will
33:07
just keep her happy by doing the massage
33:09
he doesn't and he gives fake eggs
33:11
doesn't he he's yes because you can't
33:13
give her so she'll create eggs but they
33:15
don't need to be insimilated anymore so
33:17
they'll just sit and rot so they have to
33:18
chuck the eggs out and put fake eggs
33:20
underneath her to convince her that
33:22
she's doing a good job when she gets
33:23
tired she gets tired looking after the
33:25
fake eggs which he has switched out so
33:27
he sometimes has to stand over the eggs
33:30
and watch them for her even though he
33:32
knows they're fake so that she can have
33:34
a break
33:35
from looking after these rubber eggs
33:37
phil it does feel like he's got himself
33:39
into a bit of a bind doesn't it
33:42
last we heard he was single
33:46
as far as human partners is concerned um
33:49
he said in one interview walnut sets the
33:51
bar pretty high i'll never find a woman
33:54
that's so happy to see me that she just
33:56
starts dancing
33:57
oh it's so sweet it goes it's like a
34:00
roller coaster of sweetness
34:02
isn't it yeah yeah he has cheated on her
34:04
though
34:06
yeah he's inseminated two other cranes
34:09
okay
34:10
he's got a type i'm not denying that
34:14
are they in the same zoo yeah yeah they
34:16
are the same zoo but i don't think
34:17
walnut knows about so i hope she doesn't
34:20
listen to this
34:23
yeah but that would be terrible but no
34:25
he's now a kind of love guru for the
34:27
cranes in this place really he knows it
34:29
yeah yeah and he apparently the way that
34:31
cranes flirt most effectively aside from
34:34
this dance is by picking up nesting
34:36
material because showing that you want
34:38
to build a home together ah again we're
34:40
back into suite so we've been a 1950s
34:42
kind of way have you ever tried going on
34:44
a date around john lewis it's very
34:47
sexy stuff yeah
34:49
it's much like that except if john lewis
34:51
saw the sticks and twigs
34:53
bits of grass yeah there are i mean this
34:55
is not the first chris crow did not
34:56
invent this in case anyone was looking
34:58
for you know this is not the first human
35:00
crane marriage as it were um
35:02
the real
35:04
daddy of this i regret saying daddy
35:07
already
35:10
there's a scientist called george
35:11
archibald who is a don of the crane
35:13
world he he founded uh the international
35:15
crane foundation just to give you an
35:17
idea he's pretty big in crane town um
35:19
and he in 1976 there was a bird called
35:21
tex which again needed uh to be mated
35:24
with to preserve the species and he
35:25
moved in next to her for three months as
35:28
in he put his bed next to her um
35:31
area where she lived mimicked her dance
35:32
moves from 5am every morning wow was
35:35
truly dedicated and they built a nest
35:37
together uh and they they worked
35:39
together for work together for
35:43
she's my colleague darling honestly i
35:45
just i just have to be in the office
35:47
early again but i think he might have
35:49
invented the practice of um dressing up
35:52
as a crane which you now have to do yeah
35:55
to feed chicks so that this problem
35:56
doesn't perpetuate itself so that they
35:58
the chicks don't imprint on humans yeah
36:00
yeah yeah well you dress your hand up as
36:02
a crane for the feeding don't yeah
36:04
like you're in like a full white hood
36:06
aren't you and then you have like the
36:08
bird's hand you're not like rod hull
36:11
if he joined the kkk that's what it
36:13
would look like
36:14
he moved to that little community in
36:16
green valley the observatory
36:18
oh and you could never say a word you
36:20
can't speak worse than when you're in
36:22
the the robe
36:23
you have to make chrome noises obviously
36:25
how do they do we know how do you know
36:27
how they sound just out of curiosity i
36:29
don't know
36:32
because they're like i didn't realize i
36:34
didn't know cranes that well up until
36:36
this fact um they're massive yeah
36:39
they're huge they can be up to six foot
36:41
six tall like that's a big big ass bird
36:44
right yeah that's um they're the biggest
36:46
biggest flying ones tallest flying ones
36:48
aren't they obviously you've got the
36:49
ones like the ostrich that don't
36:51
count anymore
36:53
yeah that's right they fly so high yeah
36:55
they can get like 30 000 feet in the air
36:57
well they're very tall yeah yeah
37:00
their legs are still on the ground for a
37:01
lot of that that's true
37:04
that's amazing isn't it and there's a
37:06
lot of mythology around them because
37:07
they can fly so high that they disappear
37:09
from your actual eyesight you can't see
37:12
them but their voices still at that
37:14
height are so booming that you can hear
37:16
them so it's a sort of like oh there's a
37:18
crane in there they make a lot of noise
37:20
don't they their track here is as long
37:21
as they are
37:23
so but it kind of winds around a little
37:25
bit but they make this huge booming not
37:26
like andy's
37:28
yeah it's more like
37:30
nice neither of you is successfully
37:32
seducing ukraine it's my judgment we'll
37:34
get letters um yeah so they need to they
37:36
need to fly high to my great they're big
37:38
old migrators and
37:40
um there's an issue now because a lot of
37:42
them are very endangered like you said
37:44
and i think uh certain cranes like
37:46
hooper cranes were down to almost single
37:48
figures in about the 1940s but their
37:50
populations have gone up it's been like
37:52
quite a success story of conservation
37:55
but the way they've gone up is by humans
37:57
raising them and this has a slight
37:58
problem where if their parents aren't
38:00
raising them they're not really evolving
38:01
to know their migration routes so
38:03
there's been a couple of people who have
38:05
had to migrate with them and they do
38:08
this by i don't know if anyone's seen
38:09
the film fly away home but it's
38:12
basically that so you get a microlight
38:14
for anyone who hasn't like a little
38:16
light aircraft and you still have to be
38:18
dressed up as a crane so i don't know
38:19
what the brain things now i
38:21
think the pope the pope did this once
38:23
didn't he
38:24
yeah
38:26
so do you have to stay in costume when
38:27
you're flying then yes so now the cranes
38:29
all think that their leading crane knows
38:31
how to fly microlight and the first
38:34
person who did this was a guy called
38:35
kent clegg who was uh by like nick
38:38
clegg's very much cooler older brother a
38:41
biologist and a cranial in the 90s and
38:44
yeah he flew with them is an 850 mile
38:46
journey and he flew with them uh down
38:50
from basically idaho which is on the
38:51
canadian border basically to new mexico
38:54
and others have been doing it still but
38:56
i think in 2015 the us decided that they
38:59
were going to try and stop doing it and
39:01
because of the problem of that the
39:03
cranes learned better from other cranes
39:05
basically um so now that there's quite a
39:08
lot more of them they're in the hundreds
39:09
now they're thinking let's phase it out
39:11
yeah well they basically weren't amazing
39:13
the whole point of migrating is to go up
39:15
a mate um so you fly to have kids um up
39:18
in canada wherever and so they flew them
39:20
there but then they the humans didn't
39:22
know how to show them how to mate
39:29
just awkwardly making conversation with
39:30
each other for three months
39:32
i'm going home
39:33
there's a really prosaic example of that
39:35
teaching the crows what goes on um it's
39:38
like you're raising them as a person in
39:39
a costume with a glove puppet a weird
39:41
glove puppet on your arm but and you're
39:43
not allowed to speak but also they are
39:44
taught to be afraid of foxes because
39:46
that's not instinctive to them so they
39:48
have to be taught and the way you teach
39:49
them is to dress up dogs as foxes and
39:52
get them to harass them oh really yeah
39:54
this is so the humans are dressed as
39:56
cranes
39:58
who's dressed as a the dogs are
39:59
dressed as foxes the cranes address
40:01
who's the cranes dressed as
40:03
they're all dressed as the pope
40:06
it's the weirdest nativity ever isn't
40:09
amazing but they're back they're back in
40:10
the uk this is a huge victory for
40:12
conservation yeah the first crane egg
40:15
laid in britain uh since about the year
40:18
1600 was in 2013 and it was given a
40:21
24-hour guard because it was so precious
40:23
and now there's there are there the
40:25
numbers are rising in the in the uk and
40:26
it's a huge success story so it's really
40:28
good yeah it's great yes they've done a
40:29
fabulous job in it um yeah amazing so
40:31
hooray for uh
40:34
[Applause]
40:36
[Music]
40:41
stop the podcast
40:42
stop the podcast hey everyone this
40:44
week's episode of fish is sponsored by
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once you've started digging the
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excavations for that seller probably
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you're quite committed to wide at that
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stage yeah you're in yeah you're deep in
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yeah good luck okay on with the podcast
42:37
on with the show
42:39
[Music]
42:43
okay it is time for our final fact of
42:45
the show and that is james okay my fact
42:48
this week is that bill gates is
42:50
responsible for putting chips in up to
42:53
80 of americans
42:57
all right get into that quiet zone in
42:59
america james where you belong what
43:01
websites have you been on james well i
43:03
learned this fact from an anonymous
43:05
video posted on facebook
43:09
no of course that's why i got the
43:10
helicopter thing
43:12
no of course not um so this is a story
43:14
from a few years ago that bill gates has
43:16
bought up hundreds and thousands of
43:18
acres of land in america
43:20
on that land he grows potatoes he sells
43:23
those potatoes to mcdonald's and they
43:25
sell chips and americans put them in
43:27
their face holes and so
43:29
80
43:30
of americans up to have got chips from
43:33
bill gates so good
43:38
there you go yeah it's incredible and of
43:40
course he does it in the vaccines yeah
43:41
yeah yeah yeah
43:43
thank you yeah
43:45
but yeah he's um
43:47
he's he's one of the few people in the
43:48
world uh who has
43:50
a mcdonald's gold
43:52
card and i don't know if it's connected
43:54
to what's that mcdonald's gold card is
43:56
where you can go to any mcdonald's you
43:58
hand it in and no matter what you've
44:00
ordered they give it to you for free oh
44:02
thank god because otherwise how would he
44:03
be able to afford a big mac
44:05
[Laughter]
44:06
will they do that so we don't have it in
44:08
the uk what we have is the nando's white
44:10
car which is quite a famous card which
44:12
i've experienced a couple of times it's
44:14
like
44:15
i have yeah a couple of friends of mine
44:17
have had it so um tom davis who is king
44:20
gary he once had it he applied for it he
44:22
got brought in front of the chicken
44:23
council stopped yeah that's dog and he
44:26
had also are they dressed as chickens or
44:28
are they
44:29
yeah he had to make his case to the
44:31
chicken first of all he stands behind
44:33
the chicken
44:35
caresses the thigh
44:40
and then i had another friend who and
44:41
bear in mind like ant and deck had to
44:43
share one that's this this is a story
44:45
girl
44:47
they go everywhere together
44:56
but so he has this gold card and only
44:58
quite a few americans have it uh the
45:00
mcdonald's card i think it's not related
45:02
i think that's just because he's really
45:03
rich fair enough
45:05
fair enough he he gets involved in some
45:07
funny old games doesn't he because he
45:09
since he became the richest man in the
45:10
world and then started he just started
45:12
investing in lots of things but also
45:13
obviously huge amounts of you know
45:15
very worthy stuff and
45:17
and trying to beat malaria and this kind
45:18
of thing in 2009
45:21
he paid 50 million dollars to circumcise
45:24
650 000 men
45:26
okay you've got to give that some
45:28
context otherwise it feels like it's not
45:30
fair on him it was a project attempting
45:32
to curb hiv because there are studies
45:35
that some studies that show that
45:36
circumcision lowers the risk of becoming
45:38
affected and he funded the program so it
45:40
wasn't he wasn't literally there no he
45:41
was doing he insisted as part of it he
45:43
said i'm going to give you 50 million
45:44
but i want to do them all myself
45:48
and he asked he asked to keep them it
45:50
was weird yeah
45:52
he was pretty there were a lot of
45:53
protests against this um
45:56
i mean various people saying this is
45:57
this is not the way to defeat hiv or
45:59
aids and also the canadian foreskin
46:01
awareness project
46:03
got in touch and they campaigned against
46:06
him saying no one on earth is more
46:08
detrimental to foreskin than bill gates
46:12
they called him foreskin enemy number
46:13
one
46:15
yeah
46:15
it was incredible their leader is a
46:17
charismatic man called glenn calendar he
46:20
challenged he challenged bill gates
46:21
right because bill gates was paying for
46:22
this thing he said if you put bill gates
46:24
in a 4x4 meter room with me and my
46:27
foreskin for exactly 44 minutes he will
46:30
emerge convinced that circumcision is
46:32
wrong i would like to see him put in a
46:34
room with him but his foreskin isn't in
46:36
that room
46:37
how do you do that
46:39
i have to be through a letterbox or
46:41
something
46:42
yeah
46:43
wow anyway he's a hero yeah who's going
46:45
to win this project no you're aware yeah
46:47
yeah i am aware
46:48
he was um he was asked about the the
46:50
potato farms on reddit because they said
46:53
is this part of your climate push and he
46:54
was saying no no it's just part of
46:56
investment because he's made so much
46:58
money outside of microsoft microsoft is
47:00
obviously a big part of his wealth but a
47:01
huge amount really is the other
47:03
investments and it's someone else who
47:04
does the investing for him so he has
47:06
what he calls the gates keeper who is
47:09
someone yeah who turned um
47:12
so there was five billion dollars that
47:15
he had uh which was
47:17
turned into 82 billion dollars in the
47:18
time that this guy has made investments
47:20
so all these different companies and
47:21
stuff easier isn't it when you're
47:23
starting with five billion let's face it
47:25
yeah that's true
47:26
um his farm is a hundred circles farm or
47:29
one of the farms that he has is a
47:30
hundred circles farm um i think is the
47:32
one that supplies mcdonald's and it's
47:34
really cool in america we don't have
47:36
this but when you look at america from
47:37
above from the iss in fact the farms are
47:40
all circles aren't they in that
47:42
particular i think it's like a great
47:43
plains area um then it's perfect circles
47:47
it looks like giant crop circles wow and
47:50
it's just because it completely
47:51
transformed american farming i think
47:53
when it happened it's basically center
47:55
pivot irrigation which is like those
47:57
when you get one of those things in your
47:58
garden that spins around in a tiny
48:00
garden it's like a giant giant version
48:02
of that
48:03
and um yeah it basically transformed a
48:06
completely unfertile useless bit of land
48:08
into mcdonald's it is amazing when you
48:10
fly over it and they reckon that um okay
48:13
that it's not the climate change thing
48:14
but he is saying that he's financing
48:16
them to find more productive seeds and
48:19
try and improve agriculture and to maybe
48:21
help people to farm in africa that's his
48:23
one of his excuses yeah yeah
48:25
do you know this isn't the first time
48:27
that he's worked with french fries
48:29
okay in the 90s um he do you remember
48:32
microsoft bob the little system
48:36
bob was a disaster of a product it was
48:38
meant to be something that hand walked
48:40
you through every single moment and
48:42
clippy was invented for it was it like
48:44
it was like a room or something and you
48:46
clicked on that little bit and it would
48:48
take you to the word process and you
48:49
click there and it takes you somewhere
48:50
else exactly and there was a dog called
48:52
rover and there was comic sans was
48:54
created for it we've mentioned it on the
48:56
podcast before so this is actually
48:58
giving me no impression of exactly what
48:59
it was um
49:01
but it was just a very easy way to
49:03
navigate basically microsoft windows um
49:06
and the leaders on that project on that
49:08
failed project was uh two people called
49:10
french and fries
49:12
no
49:14
so melinda french who then became
49:16
melinda gates uh his now ex-wife and
49:19
karen fryes who was the leader on the
49:21
project and yeah so that's really cool
49:24
do we know if that's what inspired him
49:26
to do the whole mcdonald's thing 40
49:28
years later he's not commented no you
49:30
can do when you've got gates money you
49:33
can do whatever weird you like so
49:35
in 2016 he offered a hundred thousand
49:37
chickens to various countries including
49:38
bolivia and he got a rare
49:40
uh
49:42
refusal
49:43
yeah olivia said we breed 195 million
49:46
chickens a year we do need a share of a
49:49
hundred thousand chickens that bill
49:50
gates is providing us this is incredibly
49:51
patronizing
49:53
that's kind of luck in the gift chicken
49:55
in the mouth isn't it like know well you
49:57
know i kind of understand if you've got
49:59
that many chickens already it feels like
50:00
yeah yeah okay over chicken
50:03
um has anyone seen this this is about
50:05
microsoft and it's something that our
50:08
colleague alex showed me recently but if
50:10
you have an hour um you're so you've
50:13
never been more bored in your life and
50:14
you've watched everything else on
50:15
television it's the windows 95
50:18
instructional video have you seen this
50:20
it's a sitcom no
50:22
it's a sitcom yeah really but um the
50:25
microsoft guys wrote it and it stars at
50:28
the height as their fame was just
50:29
starting jennifer aniston and matthew
50:31
perry no um basically as for rachel and
50:33
chandler it's like the most excruciating
50:36
hour of your life well to be fair the
50:38
second half hour is just like
50:40
instructions for how to use it the first
50:42
half hour is a script that really makes
50:44
your genitals shrivel back up inside
50:47
yourself as you're watching
50:48
it's i mean
50:50
there's some quite sleazy moments uh
50:52
well quite a lot of people pervy on
50:53
rachel there's a classic line from
50:55
chandler they're ordering chinese food
50:57
and someone suggests they order mushu
50:59
pork chana says you know what's
51:01
interesting about mushu pork it's only
51:03
good when it's together because moo not
51:05
good and shu definitely not good but
51:09
mushu that's good
51:12
you made dan laughter or something
51:16
i think it's on your level actually you
51:17
might really like it classic chandler
51:23
it's pretty painful stuff wow never
51:25
heard of that he was in uh frasier as
51:27
well it's the was he the second bit huge
51:29
90s sitcom he's apparently ruined um
51:32
yeah but we talked we talked about that
51:34
but i don't think we mentioned that that
51:36
on the no yeah actually yeah and he was
51:38
like was he a fan of frasier he's a fan
51:40
and he turns up to do uh an interview
51:43
with frasier but then there's people
51:44
just call into the fraser crane show
51:46
asking for technical support with
51:48
microsoft products it's pretty funny he
51:50
didn't do that once didn't he in 1989
51:52
when microsoft they weren't massive but
51:54
it was getting pretty big um and he was
51:57
quite famous at that time uh he walked
51:59
into like a support facility and he just
52:01
sat down put the headphones on answered
52:03
a call hi this is william can i how can
52:05
i help you
52:06
uh and sure enough he managed to fix the
52:09
problem because he's bill gates uh and
52:12
according and this is on a blog on the
52:13
company's website so you know but
52:16
apparently he was so good that when the
52:17
customer called back later they said i'd
52:20
like to speak to that nice man called
52:21
william who straightened it all out
52:24
well why were they calling back
52:26
[Laughter]
52:31
that's an excellent question
52:33
um he was he stood out from a really
52:35
early age his abilities coding abilities
52:37
um like he was a super smart guy people
52:40
often point out that he didn't get a
52:41
university degree so hope for everyone
52:43
but he did go to harvard and was
52:45
basically too smart to bother finishing
52:47
um because he was starting to build his
52:49
own company but when he even when he was
52:51
at school he went to one of the only
52:52
schools in the area which had its own
52:54
computer one computer and the teacher
52:56
spotted he was super good at coding and
52:59
so they asked him to write the school's
53:00
computer program to schedule all the
53:03
students classes and put them all in the
53:04
right classes and so he modified this is
53:07
him age 15 or whatever maybe impresses
53:09
things to come he modified the code in
53:11
order that he was placed in classes with
53:13
a disproportionate number of interesting
53:15
girls
53:17
it feels like interesting
53:19
not being used in its traditional senses
53:23
actually another
53:24
school that just had one computer
53:26
another kid once asked sort of tried to
53:28
kick him off the computer and he said
53:30
okay you can have it in 15 minutes
53:32
and then
53:34
it's a keys joke because it's a
53:36
keystroke that's good
53:37
uh you know microsoft uh minesweeper
53:42
[Applause]
53:47
it was put on windows in 1990 and
53:48
everyone at microsoft was addicted to it
53:50
everyone loved minesweeper because it's
53:52
great and um
53:54
he uninstalled it from his computer but
53:55
he was so addicted that he would sneak
53:57
into the vice president's office after
54:00
work he was so elected he had the
54:01
company record he could do the beginner
54:03
mode you know was little like ten by two
54:04
yeah beginner mode in five seconds
54:07
can't you just luckily press on one and
54:09
they all just kind of just luckily is in
54:11
the right place
54:12
occasionally you can do that i think if
54:14
you get lucky five seconds is pretty
54:15
good five seconds but the firm's product
54:17
manager was bruce ryan and he wrote a
54:19
computer script which could do it in
54:21
four seconds
54:22
and bill gates is not a good loser
54:24
because when that happened he sent out
54:25
an email to all the staff saying when
54:27
machines can do things faster than
54:29
people how can we retain our human
54:30
dignity
54:32
do you know he's only got one scientific
54:35
paper that is published under his name
54:37
bill gates and it is a
54:40
it's a possible solution to a
54:42
mathematical problem about flipping
54:44
pancakes um tell us more dan well
54:47
because this is quite complicated it's
54:49
so complicated that i was hoping to just
54:51
lob it your way and then bring it back
54:54
but basically it's it is a mathematical
54:55
problem which is very intense um and it
54:58
involves how can you flip a number of
55:00
things that are out of order and make
55:01
them flip yes so if you have a big pile
55:03
of pancakes they're all different sizes
55:05
and you can put your spatula under any
55:07
one of them and turn them upside down
55:10
how many times can you do that so that
55:11
when you're finished they start with the
55:13
biggest one and they end with the
55:14
smallest one yeah
55:16
and and why are you doing this
55:20
i'll send that up back over to you then
55:22
yeah
55:23
are they sweet or savory um oh yeah
55:26
sorry back to james for that one
55:29
there is one version that they worked on
55:30
called the burnt pancake problem um
55:33
where again we don't know if they're
55:34
savory or sweet but we know that on one
55:37
side they're burnt and apparently that
55:38
makes a big difference to the problem it
55:40
certainly does make a big difference
55:42
but not only are they the wrong size
55:43
they're now burnt on one side i'm
55:45
contacting the kitchen
55:46
so he did this while he was at harvard
55:48
and the professor he was one of the
55:50
names on the paper with a few other and
55:51
it was a couple years before the paper
55:53
was accepted and published and he called
55:55
bill gates the professor and he said
55:57
good news our pancake flipping paper has
55:59
been accepted and is going to be
56:01
published and he said bill gates seemed
56:03
really disinterested in the fact that
56:05
this was happening and that he was now
56:07
working in a company in new mexico that
56:09
was writing code for microprocessors and
56:12
the professor said i remember thinking
56:14
uh such a brilliant kid what a waste
56:20
so good we're gonna have to wrap up in a
56:22
sec guys
56:23
can i just tell you about his house
56:24
quickly yes
56:26
known as xanadu 2.0 yes it's a it's uh
56:30
semi isn't it semi detached
56:32
yeah it's nice it's very humble it's a
56:34
shared garden one of those situations um
56:37
it's got
56:38
i just don't understand this it's got
56:40
seven bedrooms and
56:42
by one count 18.75 bathrooms and by
56:45
another count 24 bathrooms
56:47
um it also has well according to a book
56:50
hero in the 90s one of the elements of
56:52
which was describing his ideal home um
56:54
it has guests get a badge when they
56:56
enter that they wear and they put in
56:59
their temperature and lighting
57:01
preferences on their badge and then
57:02
whenever you walk into a new room it
57:05
automatically adjusts the temperature
57:06
and lighting and i don't know what it
57:08
does if two of you walk into the room at
57:10
the same time that is yeah that sounds
57:12
like i would hack the badges to murder
57:14
people and that would be my plot what
57:16
what why why
57:19
who likes having guests really
57:21
[Laughter]
57:24
i'd send it to a thousand degrees
57:29
yeah a little paper clip turns up it
57:31
looks like you're trying to kill
57:38
okay that is it that is all of our facts
57:52
[Applause]
57:55
thank you so much for listening if you
57:57
would like to get in contact with any of
57:59
us about the things that we have said
58:00
over the course of this podcast we can
58:02
be found on our twitter accounts i'm on
58:04
at schreiberland andy andrew hunter
58:07
james at james harkin
58:09
and anna you can email podcast.qi.com
58:12
yep or you can go to our group account
58:14
which is at no such thing or our website
58:16
no such thing as a fish.com there's
58:18
everything up there from
58:20
upcoming tour days of our nerd immunity
58:23
tour check it out there are all of our
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previous episodes but uh hey guys listen
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uh in all honesty our 400th episode we
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can't believe we're here we can't
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believe we're in the london fellaini
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thank you so much everyone for coming
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tonight selling this kick out for us
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anyone listening at home we will be back
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again next week with another episode
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we'll see you then goodbye
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[Applause]
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foreign