Karen:
Hello, captivating cool cats craving for cranial crumbs. Welcome to Good Job,
Brain!, your weekly quiz show on offbeat trivia podcast. This is Episode 83, and
I’m your humble host Karen, and we are your surly circle of suricates surfing and
surveying for certain cerebral surprises.
Colin:
I’m Colin.
Dana:
I’m Dana.
Chris:
And I’m Chris.
Karen:
Suricates are meerkats. Not surrogates. Suricates. This episode is brought to
you by Square Space, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to
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I want to take a second here and say that we’re gearing up to open up our Good
Job, Brain! merchandise store.
Chris:
Yay.
Karen:
That sounds so genuine.
Chris:
What?
Karen:
For this holiday season, and we’re using Square Space to build our store. It took
me, I don’t know, half an hour to design the look of the store and put all the
products in and set up the payment, processing and info, and shipping options.
And so far, so good. We will be opening the store on November 1 st. You can
check out photos and some of the goods that will be for sale at
GoodJobBrainStore.com. We’ve got t-shirts, we’ve got beaver butt pins, and
other goodies.
Chris:
It’s the whole beaver.
Karen:
Not just the butt.
Chris:
The butt is where your eyes are drawn.
Dana:
Hey, my eyes are up here.
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Karen:
Be sure to follow us on Twitter, @GoodJobBrain and
Facebook.com/GoodJobBrain for more merchandise news. We’re going to start
the show off with our regular correction installment.
Dana:
Actually…
Karen:
Yes, we have an um actually … Tom and Nathaniel wrote in. I talked about the
mimic octopus a couple episodes ago. I totally didn’t know this. Do you guys
know this? What is the plural form of octopus?
Chris:
I think it’s octopuses.
Colin:
I agree.
Chris:
But only because I feel like I’ve heard this before.
Colin:
Yes, I think it’s one of those things where it’s not … people say octopi, but it’s not
really octopi because it doesn’t come from … I don’t know. Something like that.
Chris:
What is it?
Karen:
Since octopus, the word is from Greek rather than Latin, octopi doesn’t make
sense, because that’s a Latin thing, not a Greek thing. The correct form is
octopodes.
Chris:
Octopodes?
Karen:
Yes.
Chris:
That’s cool.
Karen:
Octopodes. But some grammarians and some professors and experts of the
English language may argue that that’s kind of old school, so it can be also
octopuses.
Chris:
Let’s be honest. If you were in a conversation and you just dropped in
octopodes casually, people are going to … what did you? What?
Dana:
There would be eyes rolled. Oh, we’re doing this now? I think we’re done
talking.
Karen:
Now you know. Octopodes and octopuses are acceptable.
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Chris:
But octopi …
Karen:
No.
Chris:
Off the table.
Dana:
Unless you’re putting it in a pie.
Chris:
Right, unless the pie is made of octopodes.
Karen:
Pie that has eight tendrils. Oh, that’s a good pie. That’s do-able.
Dana:
Eight pies are octopi?
Colin:
If you would like to make an octopi, please send us pictures.
Twitter.com/GoodJobBrain.
Karen:
All right, let’s jump in to our first general trivia segment. Pop quiz, hotshot. I am
picking a random Trivial Pursuit card from the box. Here we go. Blue wedge for
geography. Where in the solar system can you find the Sea of Cleverness, the
Marsh of Decay, and the Lake of Fear. Chris.
Chris:
I believe this is on Earth’s Moon.
Karen:
Yes. Oh, you kind of psyched me out.
Chris:
I just want to be clear. It’s Earth’s Moon.
Colin:
Our moon.
Karen:
Correct.
Chris:
I would say not moons of other planets that may or may not be in the solar
system.
Karen:
That’s true. You know what, that’s a good clarification.
Colin:
It’s a big M, Moon, right?
Chris:
Right. The Moon.
Karen:
Oh, so big-M Moon is our moon?
Chris:
I think so, right? I think that’s commonly accepted.
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Karen:
Pink wedge for pop culture. What language is Brad Pitt’s character allegedly
speaking in the movie Snatch? Dana?
Dana:
Is it Irish or Gaelic?
Karen:
I don’t get this answer.
Colin:
Are they looking for cockney rhyming slang?
Chris:
Is the answer English?
Karen:
Yes. It is English.
Chris:
It’s just a trick question.
Karen:
With the little line here … the character’s impenetrable accent is a running joke
in the film.
Chris:
Oh okay, yeah, right.
Karen:
Because he’s supposed to be a gypsy.
Chris:
He’s speaking English but it doesn’t … nobody can understand it, it’s so accented.
Colin:
That was a weird trivia question.
Chris:
Somebody thought they were being clever.
Karen:
Okay, yellow wedge. What footwear did hecklers brandish to mock 2004
presidential candidate John Kerry?
Chris:
Flip flops.
Karen:
Yes. Purple wedge. What 1996 fictional diary included a running tally of the
heroine’s cigarette, alcohol, and calorie consumption? Dana.
Dana:
Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Karen:
Yes. Green wedge for science. How do I pronounce this? A Komondor is what
kind of animal? K-O-M-O-N-D-O-R. Colin.
Colin:
It is a dog.
Karen:
Yes.
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Colin:
This is good trivia. They’re the shaggy mop-like dogs on the cover of Eau de Lay?
The back album? That’s a Komondor.
Dana:
We’ve had this at trivia before.
Colin:
I think we have had it at trivia.
Dana:
It’s a picture of it. It would be like oh, it looks like a mop dog.
Karen:
K-O-M-O-N-D-O-R. Komondor.
Colin:
Yes, and it’s a real dog. I’m sure I learned that from pup quiz somewhere.
Dana:
It looks like an Old English Sheepdog with dreads.
Karen:
Orange wedge, last question. What fiery baseball manager got so mad during a
1990 game that he uprooted first base, threw it onto the outfield, and then
picked it up and threw it again? Who was that?
Colin:
I think that was Lou Pinella.
Karen:
Correct. I don’t know who that is, but …
Colin:
He was a fiery baseball manager.
Chris:
And a fiery player in his day, as well.
Karen:
Oh, okay. Good job, brains.
Chris:
Yes, not bad.
Karen:
In previous episodes, we’ve explored things underground, and so today we’re
going to feature things that are in the air. This week we’re talking about things
that are up in the air.
Chris:
Okay, let’s get the obvious one out of the way and I’ll talk about airplanes. I
think I did a quiz about airplanes on a not-so-long-ago previous episode.
Karen:
In our all-quiz bonanza.
Chris:
Our all-quiz bonanza, yes, we talk about airplanes.
Karen:
Wow, is this the same quiz?
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Chris:
Yes, same quiz again. I’m actually … I’ve got it written down twice, I’m going to
do it twice. So, have you ever been on an airplane and been really close to the
wing and looked out the window and seen on the back of the wing they have
those little mini wings?
Karen:
Flaps.
Chris:
Flaps? The flappy things? That’s not really what I’m talking about, but it’s a
good in to it. They’re called ailerons. That is what ailerons are.
Karen:
Ailerons.
Chris:
Ailerons. A-I-L-E-R-O-N-S. That is French for “little wing.” It’s the little wing on
the wing. They give you more control over turning. You can use the ailerons, if
you tilt one up and tilt one down, the plane will bank. Not that I suggest that
you do this.
Dana:
One could.
Chris:
One might. There was a lot of debate back in the day over who had actually
invented the aileron, because there were a lot of various people claiming that
they had invented it. One of the men who had claimed at one point to have
invented the aileron was an early aviation pioneer from the United States of
America, and his name was Dr. William Whitney Christmas.
Colin:
Dr. Christmas.
Chris:
That’s right. Dr. Christmas. Dr. Christmas did actually build one of the first
airplanes that actually had ailerons on it, as opposed to patenting the idea, he
actually built an airplane with ailerons and it was one of, if not the, first to have
this. However, that is probably the only good thing we can say about anything
that Dr. Christmas did in the field of aviation or any of his airplanes.
Dr. Christmas is actually well-known if, for anything, for building one of the worst
airplanes ever. Dr. Christmas says that the first airplane he ever built was called
the Red Bird One. He says that it was completed and that he flew it on March 8,
1908. Now that date is significant because we know for a fact, a recorded
historical fact, that four days later, March 12, 1908, Glenn Curtis, who was one of
the early, early pilots, he actually made the first pre-announced successful flight
of a heavier than air machine.
This was the first time anybody had ever said … because the Wright Brothers,
they just happened to get their plane off the ground.
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Colin:
And tell people afterward.
Chris:
This was like I am going to fly a plane, come watch me, and he was the first
person to ever do it.
Dana:
Pre-announced.
Chris:
A couple of little trivia pieces here. A little bit of a segue. The plane was called
the June Bug, and Glenn Curtis was the first guy to ever get issued a pilot’s
license in the United States. Orville Wright got license number five.
Colin:
That must have killed him. That must have just killed him.
Chris:
They did the first batch alphabetically. Anyway …
Karen:
He’s like, “I made this, you guys!”
Chris:
Dr. Christmas says that he built the Red Bird One, that he got it to take off, that
he landed it, and then he flew it again and again and again for the next couple of
days, until such time as he smashed it into a tree, and then he says, to preserve
his secrets, he burned the airplane. That’s why nobody could find it, because he
burned the whole thing.
Now there is photographic evidence of other planes that this guy built, the Red
Bird Two and Three, and they were apparently displayed at early aeronautics
fairs, but there’s really no record that these weird-looking things ever actually
got up into the air and landed successfully.
Dana:
Did they not look like normal airplanes?
Chris:
They do not, no. They look kind of weird. He tried to capitalize on World War I,
which was just getting rolling, by selling bombers to the United States Military,
but the military did not bite. Finally, in 1918, he was able to convince investors
to come in with him and give him money to build this plane idea that he had, and
he was actually able to convince the Army to loan him an engine for the plane.
He had the money, he had people building for him. He called it the Christmas
Bullet. The Christmas Bullet is thought of as being the worst airplane ever.
Dana:
The worst airplane made. He was off to a bad start.
Chris:
Let’s talk about biplanes. You know how biplanes, they have the two sets of
wings, and then in between them they have a whole system of wires and struts.
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It’s all for just stability, for wing stability and strength and all that. Dr. Christmas
did not think so. Dr. Christmas felt that the best way to build an airplane was to
have the wings flap like a bird’s.
He just popped the wings on there, and he didn’t want them to stabilize. He
wanted them to be able to go up and down like a bird’s, because birds can fly, so
clearly airplane wings should flap.
Colin:
He was copying nature.
Chris:
He actually … he was trying to sell this small plane idea to the Army with the idea
that we would be able to use the Christmas Bullet, the United States Military, to
conduct a daring solo mission to kidnap Keiser Wilhelm himself, and thus
bringing about an end to World War I. And he hired all these people to build it at
the early aeronautics companies. You are crazy, this won’t work. This will not
work. I’m not taking credit for this. But he found people to pay to build this
thing.
Colin:
Give him credit. Like, go big, you know?
Chris:
Absolutely. He totally believed in himself and he believed in this design. What
happened with the first test flight of the Christmas Bullet is that the plane took
off, the wings ripped off the fuselage, and the whole thing crashed and the pilot
died. This was the only test pilot they could find willing to go up in this thing.
What Dr. Christmas did was apparently lie. Took out an ad in magazines and
newspapers saying that this plane had completed a totally successful test flight,
had flown super-fast, and was awesome.
Colin:
He burned the test pilot to cover his secrets.
Chris:
Yes. Rebuilt the plane.
Colin:
That’s a little dark.
Dana:
That’s really dark.
Chris:
He rebuilds the plane, sends the second, the rebuilt Christmas Bullet, up, and
this is 1919, sends it up on another test flight, piloted by a pilot this time with
the very fitting last name of Jolly, flying the Christmas Bullet. Did he have a holly
jolly Christmas? He did not, because the wings ripped off and the plane crashed
and he died. This turns out to be pretty much the end of Dr. Christmas’s storied
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career in the field of aeronautics. He was thought of as being a tremendous
salesman and able to convince people to do things, but not so much a designer.
Dana:
He could convince pilots to pilot the plane.
Chris:
He convinced pilots to pilot the plane. Yes.
Colin:
Unfortunately, that person was also the last.
Chris:
No, the first guy wasn’t. He got another one up in there.
Colin:
He got two suckers.
Chris:
What modifications have you made to the design? Nothing?
Karen:
This totally has something to do with in the air, but I’ll get there, trust me. I’ll get
there. I’m going to frame it in a weird way. A couple episodes ago, we had a hot
episode. Things that are hot. Colin, you talked about capsaicin and the sea of
peppers, and we talked about ways to soothe pepper burns, but we never talked
about why are peppers hot. Do you guys know why are peppers hot and spicy?
Colin:
I think I assumed it was like a defense mechanism? To keep certain animals from
eating them?
Karen:
Let’s talk about plants in general. There is a sizeable population of plants that
want to be eaten, right? They want parts …
Chris:
They want to be eaten.
Karen:
Yes, parts of them eaten, because it helps them spread their seeds. Fruits are
essentially the reason why fruits exist so animals can eat the fruit and help
spread the seeds, either through poop or through rubbing it off or whatnot.
Chris:
What’s our time to poop in this episode? It’s pretty bad.
Karen:
Some plants do not want to get eaten, and think about the cactus. Some plants
grow in hard-to-reach places, they have thorns or they small bad or they taste
bad or are poisonous. Now at the intersection between these two camps is the
pepper, which is kind of perplexing. The fruit of the pepper looks really pretty,
looks really appealing, smells pretty good. But on the other hand, the fruit itself
is super unpleasant and spicy and hot and why is this?
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Colin, you’re totally right and I’m citing two sources here. One is a paper I found
called Tests on Specific Differences and Responsiveness to Capsaicin and Several
Analogs Correlates Between Chemical Structure and Behavioral Aversiveness,
and also another science writer, Anthony Watts. The plant is so smart, so
capsaicin, the pepper burning sensation we feel is tied to the fact that we have
nerve receptors in our face nerve, and we’re sensitive to it.
All mammals have capsaicin receptors, but birds do not. Birds can eat a buttload
of peppers and not feel a thing. When researchers analyzed poop from
mammals and birds after eating peppers, the pepper seeds that passed through
mammalian digestive tracts become infertile or they’re chewed up or they’re
destroyed. But the seeds from the bird doody is completely fine and fertile.
The plant was like well, I do want to get eaten and have my seeds spread, but …
Chris:
But only by these guys.
Karen:
… but only by birds.
Colin:
Got it. I think I had read about the birds, but I never really understood why, to
what end?
Karen:
Yes, it’s because their digestive system doesn’t ruin the seeds. That’s the current
line of thinking and research suggests that pepper plants yield hot peppers is the
plants where the select eaters.
Colin:
There’s also the advantage of you can do some airmail delivery of the …
Dana:
Spread it farther.
Karen:
Yes, exactly. Spread it farther. It’s related to birds which fly.
Dana:
Airmail delivery.
Karen:
Next time you see bird poop on your car or on the ground …
Colin:
Taste it, because …
Dana:
It might be spicy.
Colin:
It’s just habaneros. Just trying putting on your soup today.
Karen:
I was going to say appreciate the wonders of nature of bird poop.
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Dana:
Okay, I have a quiz for you guys. It’s kind of a grab bag of things that are in the
sky.
Karen:
We’ve got to get our buzzers ready?
Dana:
Get your buzzers ready. First question. What type of cloud produces rain?
Chris.
Chris:
It’s a cumulonimbus.
Dana:
That is one type. Nimbus is the kind. When it comes to clouds, are cumulous
clouds low atage, middle atage, or high atage?
Karen:
I don’t know what that means.
Chris:
Yes, nobody knows what an atage is.
Karen:
Atage stage.
Dana:
It’s French for stage, yes.
Colin:
I believe they’re high.
Chris:
I was going to say they’re low.
Dana:
They are low. They’re the closest to the ground.
Chris:
They’re like the ones that are … yes, because fog is really close to being
cumulonimbus clouds, right?
Dana:
Yes.
Chris:
It’s like clouds are sitting on the …
Colin:
There’s a cloud on the ground.
Chris:
Ground cloud.
Karen:
He never found that out. Is really fog like cloud?
Chris:
Yes. Ground cloud.
Karen:
It is a ground cloud. That’s amazing.
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Dana:
This nickname for the reduced gravity flight is based on its effects on the
passengers. Karen:
Karen:
Is it zero G?
Dana:
Yes.
Chris:
It is the vomit comet.
Dana:
Yes.
Karen:
What?
Chris:
That’s what they put you on when they do an airplane and they’ll go up and
down really fast to stimulate reduced gravity.
Colin:
Like they’ll use it to film zero G scenes in the movies sometimes.
Dana:
They’re doing parabolic maneuvers where they go up at a sharp 45-degree angle
and kind of they roll it at the top, and that’s when you’re zero Gs, that’s when
you can fly, and then they go back down. You’re feeling extra gravity on the way
up and on the way down, but in the middle you’re flying.
Colin:
It makes me queasy just thinking about it.
Dana:
They do it … so you get it for around 20 seconds, 10 to 17 seconds, something
like that, that’s how long you’re flying. Then they go back down and they do it
20 times. Like 20 to 40 times depending on what you’re up to.
Colin:
They give you techniques to not vomit. No, it’s about where to look.
Dana:
It’s mostly anxiety-induced. Just doing that. Probably smelling other people’s.
That’s my assumption.
Chris:
A chain reaction.
Dana:
I could probably manage my anxiety, but if I saw it flying or saw people, or
smelled it, I probably would kind of …
Chris:
At zero gravity, yes. Sorry, sorry.
Dana:
All right, so here’s a question for you guys. How high does the vomit comet go to
create the parabolic maneuver? Is it 24,000, 34,000, or 44,000 feet?
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Colin:
I know a normal jet is at 30 something. I’m going to guess 44. I’m going to guess
the highest one.
Chris:
I’m going to guess the lowest one, 24,000.
Karen:
I’ll guess mid.
Dana:
It is the middle one.
Chris:
It’s always the middle one.
Dana:
The bottom of the parabola is 24, and then it goes to 34 and then back to 24.
That’s how it works. What 2009 movie was released in Russia as I Wish I Could
Rise To The Sky? Chris?
Chris:
Up.
Colin:
Was it Up In The Air?
Dana:
Yes. In Up In The Air, George Clooney’s character gets special privileges for flying
10 million miles with which airline?
Karen:
I didn’t watch the movie.
Colin:
This is one of the major U.S. …
Chris:
Delta?
Dana:
No. Colin?
Colin:
United?
Dana:
No.
Karen:
American Airlines.
Dana:
Yes.
Chris:
There we go. Who paid up to get to this one?
Karen:
Exactly, because who’s gonna pay a lot of money …
Dana:
That doesn’t actually exist. They don’t have a program for 10 million miles. They
said that they don’t. They do have a program for one million miles, but 10
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million, whew. Which 1964 Disney movie included parrots, penguins and
pigeons?
Chris:
We’re all just looking at Karen.
Dana:
Or a parrot, penguins, and pigeons.
Karen:
Is it the Three Caballeros.
Dana:
No.
Colin:
That was a short, wasn’t it?
Chris:
Parrots, penguins, and pigeons.
Dana:
Okay, Disney.
Chris:
What year?
Karen:
Is it Mary Poppins?
Dana:
Yes.
Karen:
I was so excited. The parrot formed the umbrella, which talks, the penguins in
the animated … and the pigeons because of the bird lady.
Dana:
Yes.
Karen:
[Inaudible 0:21:59].
Dana:
I was like man, there’s quite a strong bird motif in that movie, I was thinking
about it. Who wrote Mary Poppins?
Karen:
[singing] Feed the birds …
Dana:
Then there’s the kite song. There’s a lot of flying. Who wrote Mary Poppins?
Chris?
Chris:
P.L. Travers.
Dana:
Yes. Do you know what the P stands for?
Karen:
Patricia.
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Dana:
No.
Chris:
Pamela.
Dana:
Yes.
Karen:
Yes, I was like what’s an old-timey P name?
Dana:
Lady P name. The atmospheric air that surrounds our planet is mostly made up
of what?
Karen:
Nitrogen.
Dana:
Yes. Nitrogen. 79 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and then the small
remaining amount is just carbon dioxide and random gases, other gases.
Karen:
Farts.
Dana:
Not random gases, other gases. They’re not random.
Karen:
Febreze.
Dana:
Don’t worry about it. There are five basic layers to the atmosphere. I’ll tell you
what they are. Can you put them in order from space to earth? There’s just five.
Chris:
Okay, okay.
Karen:
That was like fourth grade.
Dana:
You guys ready?
Karen:
Sure.
Dana:
They are …
Karen:
I’m going to bomb this.
Dana:
Well, the thermosphere, the exosphere, the troposphere, stratosphere, and the
mesosphere.
Colin:
Mesosphere is going to be in the middle, because mesa.
Chris:
Exosphere should be on the outside.
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Colin:
Thermo and tropo, I feel like one of those is closer, but I’m not sure.
Karen:
What’s hotter? What’s tropo?
Chris:
Like tropical, right?
Karen:
No, I think there was another etomology.
Chris:
Okay, so maybe stratosphere is the second highest if exo is the highest?
Karen:
I think stratosphere is the lowest. Because you can see things. It doesn’t seem
that far. Like jet streams and stuff. Stratosphere.
Chris:
Okay, and stratus is just sky, right? So maybe the stratosphere is closest to us.
Dana:
What are your …?
Colin:
From lowest to highest, they would go stratosphere, troposphere, mesosphere,
thermosphere, and exosphere.
Dana:
Oh, you’re so close. The first two are flip-flopped. So tropo is the closest, then
stratosphere, mesosphere yes is the middle, number three, and then the
thermosphere. It has a lot of hot molecules, it might still be cold because they’re
so far apart.
Colin:
Hot molecules in the thermosphere.
Dana:
Then you’re totally right. Exosphere is the outer.
Karen:
So once again, middle, almost …
Dana:
Good job, you guys.
Chris:
Not bad.
Karen:
All right, guys, let’s take a quick break. A word from our sponsor.
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Karen:
Welcome back. You’re listening to Good Job Brain, and this week we are talking
about things up in the air, in the sky.
Chris:
We’ve all, at one time or another, worked in tall buildings. I definitely have
worked as high as I think the 13th floor on a building before.
Colin:
Whoa, I can’t believe the building had a 13th floor.
Karen:
I know, that’s what I thought.
Colin:
Typically they leave that off.
Chris:
I was actually very happy that that building had a 13 th floor. It didn’t give in to
the superstition.
Colin:
You know what’s kind of weird is that the building where we stayed in the hotel
for our wedding is actually in Chinatown, and it doesn’t have a 13 th floor, but it
does have a 4th floor.
Dana:
Oh, that is weird.
Karen:
Fourth floor is the …
Colin:
That’s the unlucky floor.
Karen:
That’s an unlucky floor.
Colin:
Thirteen is not unlucky in certain Asian countries, but four is very unlucky.
There’s no rooms there, though. It’s just meeting rooms. [Inaudible 0:27:19] if
you want.
Chris:
Maybe that is a concession. Interesting. It’s just a bunch of dead bodies.
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Colin:
No.
Chris:
It’s where they keep them. If you have a job in a tall building in a skyscraper, it’s
generally a pretty safe job, unless if you are working on the outside, like modern
window washers. This is still one of those jobs where even though it’s got some
technology and safety equipment to it, most tall buildings, you clean the
windows by sending people on the outside to wash them from the outside. It’s
one of those things where until you’re at your desk and you see the guys
lowering on the platform right outside your window.
Dana:
My friend told me the craziest story yesterday about window washing. He was in
the other room and he heard his wife scream, and they lived in this big
apartment building, all the windows have window ledges but you can’t really
open the windows. She screams. He runs out there, and there’s this red hawk
there with a pigeon that it’s eating and it’s smearing the pigeon all over their
ledge and the window, and she’s yelling.
They called the building and they’re like we’re not going to clean the windows
for another six months, and so they just have to live with that outside their
window.
Colin:
It’s a daily reminder.
Dana:
You think you’re in this modern apartment, and all protected. No.
Karen:
It’s going to get you.
Colin:
My God, that’s horrible.
Chris:
It’s an important job. You need to clean off dirt and dust and grime and pigeon
carnage apparently added to that list as well. This is one of those occupations
that really … the development of the modern skyscraper, brought a lot of new
jobs with it like elevator operators and things like that that were never positions
before, and window washers was a big part of this. It is a lot safer today
certainly than it was in the early days.
We see a lot of times the motorized platform that lowers from the roof is very
common. Sometimes it may be manual operated. But for the most part, it’s a
pretty safe, stable area to work from. In the early days, they didn’t have
anything like moveable platforms.
Karen:
Wouldn’t they just drop the dude?
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Chris:
If you needed to clean the windows on the 75th floor of the building, you would
go up to the 75th floor, open the window, crawl out on the ledge, and wash the
window from the outside. The first skyscrapers were 15 or 20 stories, but even
at that height, you can only use ladders up to a certain height. They could use
ladders for the first few floors. They would have scaffoldings that you could
build up, but you can’t build a scaffolding that’s 80 stories tall. At a certain point,
no, you literally would just go up to the floor, crawl out on the ledge, clean the
window from the outside. You would strap yourself in, but it was dangerous,
scary work.
I would like to read to you guys from an article from 1934 here that I think will
put this in perspective a little bit.
Karen:
Fear of heights is acrophobia, right?
Colin:
Yes, acrophobia. Like acrobats.
Chris:
I would like to read for you guys an article from 1934. This is from Modern
Mechanics & Inventions magazine, and the title of this article is How A
Skyscraper Window Washer Faces Death. I will try and read this to you in my
best Chris Coler old-timey newsreel voice.
Hail the superman. Stunt artists are paid fabulous sums to risk their necks for a
thrill-hungry public. Yet their most hair-raising feats are duplicated every day by
the daring men who cleaned the windows of the nation’s towering skyscrapers.
It continues on. The aces of the window brigade put circus acrobats and
parachute jumpers to shame, for there is no margin of error. No nets or
parachutes to break a possible fall. An error in judgment, a slip of the lifebelt,
and the window cleaner has signed his own death warrant. Below him there is
nothing but a yawning city canyon, a square of concrete pavement to land and
die on.
Not to get a little over-dramatic. It’s accompanied by several photos of the crew
of the men, all men at this point, of the men who cleaned the windows on the
Empire State Building in New York City. The photos are pretty harrowing. You
look at them, and these guys are literally out on the edge of the building. They
have a leather strap that has two hooks on it. They hook themselves on one end,
they hook themselves on the other end, and they are leaning off the edge of the
building at 80 stories above the streets of Manhattan with their cleaning tools in
their hands.
You couldn’t work if it was too windy, because you’d get blown off. For obvious
reasons, you can’t work if it’s snowing. Not to mention the fact that cleaning the
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windows wouldn’t make as much sense in the snow. They interviewed the chief
of the cleaning crew and he came from working in coal mines for 10 years, just to
give you a sense of …
Dana:
Hard living.
Chris:
Yes, they needed the kind of men who weren’t scared of working. He says that
sort of his first-day job interview was he would take a guy up to the ledge on the
80th floor, open the window, and say okay, can you get out there and just show
me what you can do? He says, I would know right then and there whether this
guy was right for the job. Either the guy would get out on the ledge and see
what he could do, or the guy would just sort of blanche and run away. That was
sort of the interview, to see if you were hearty enough to be a window washer
on the crew.
We do, in fact, have the window washing industry to thank for one of history’s
greatest inventions, the squeegee. The modern squeegee. I did not know this.
Did you guys know … do you guys know where the word squeegee comes from?
Colin:
The sound it makes?
Chris:
I had always thought it was, yes.
Karen:
A portmanteau …
Chris:
It just seems like a very onomatopoeia word. Like squeegee on the outside of a
window. That’s what it sounds like when I clean the windows. It derives from an
older word called a squilgee, and a squilgee was like a wooden blade, kind of like
a broom, and fisherman would use it to scrape fish guts and all the debris off the
decks of their ships to keep the decks safe. From there, it kind of became a
squilgee for a window to a squeegee.
But yes, modern window washers in the 20s and 30s brought us the rubberbladed squeegee that we now take for granted and use all around our own
homes. Apparently, the original device in common use was called a Chicago
squeegee, which does sound like something you would see on Urban Dictionary.
It was, in fact, a valuable tool.
Karen:
Like a mob move.
Colin:
It’s a Chicago squeegee.
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Chris:
If you are in a tall building and you are looking at a nice clear view of the
windows, thank you to the men and women who put their safety at risk to keep
them clean.
Karen:
Do window washers get paid more because it’s super dangerous and only a
selective type of people can do that type of work?
Chris:
I’m not sure about in today’s environment if they get paid more or less relative
to other professions. There is a fun little anecdote from this article that I was
just reading to you where he says … so this is, again, 1934. The average window
cleaner gets $30 dollars weekly for 48 hours of total work. That seems pretty
good in 1934.
Karen:
That’s not bad.
Chris:
Again, as I say, they talk about one of the benefits of the job is you don’t have to
work when it’s raining, you don’t have to work when it’s snowing.
Karen:
And you don’t need to get it cleaned every day.
Chris:
That’s right. As Dana said, sometimes even with modern equipment, you may
need to look at bird guts for six months.
Karen:
Speaking of bird guts, I’ve got more … I’ve got some cool bird facts. Actually, not
cool. They’re cruel. These are some a-hole birds. Do you guys knows what
brood parasites are? You’ve probably heard of the phenomenon.
Chris:
Oh yeah, we talked about these before. These are parasites that take over other
animals, right?
Karen:
No. You know the bird cuckoo, right? Like cuckoo clock? They are some a-hole
birds. They are an example of fruit parasites. They’re not in your head, you
know what they do, right?
Dana:
They pretend to be part of the nest? Like one of the baby birds? And they steal
food? Is that it?
Karen:
Very similar. Cuckoos, for example, they will lay eggs, one egg, in nests with
other eggs from other bird species. If I’m a mommy cuckoo …
Colin:
They just go around like one egg here, one egg there, one egg there, sneaking it
in.
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Karen:
Sneak it in. In most cases, it’s amazing. The baby cuckoo bird or brood parasite
bird will generally hatch first because of the shorter incubation time, and usually
it’s larger than the other birds. These are different species of birds, so they’re
larger, and it requires the most amount of food. Basically, it’s …
Colin:
They’re like stealing resources from the other babies?
Karen:
It is. It’s got so many [inaudible 0:35:51]. Because it requires more food, and
they’re more aggressive, the other hatchlings, which are actually the actual
biological offspring of the host bird, they will starve and die because this one
giant baby bird is eating up all the resources.
Colin:
I’m amazing that the mama birds don’t notice.
Karen:
Sometimes the baby parasite, cuckoo bird in this case, since it hatches first, it will
push out all these other eggs from the nest so that the eggs will drop. The poor
host mommy bird most of the time has no idea that this is not her baby. Isn’t
that nuts? These pictures, it’s just comical because the mommy bird is super
tiny, trying to feed this cuckoo bird baby that’s super big and just feeding it
mouth to mouth, or I guess beak to beak.
Colin:
There are no winners when brood parasites are in the picture.
Karen:
Cuckoos are one of the species. There are a lot of other birds that do this.
Chris:
That’s so cut-throat.
Karen:
You think that’s cut-throat? There is a thing called the mafia hypothesis. I’m
going to introduce you to probably the most a-hole bird. It is the cow bird, and
it’s called the cow bird because it travels with cattle, and it feeds on parasites
and insects that are on the cow’s skin. It’s a pretty sweet relationship, it’s a
pretty sweet gift.
Colin:
It’s symbiotic.
Karen:
The problem is, the cow birds are dependent on the moving herd of cattle, so
they’re always on the move. This means the cow bird doesn’t have time to settle
down, to build a nest, lay eggs, and take care of its babies. Instead of investing
time and energy into raising its own baby, the cow bird will lay its eggs onto
other nests of other bird species and leave it there for the victim stepmother
host bird to take care of it.
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The difference between the cow bird and cuckoos and other brood parasites is
that the mommy cow bird will fly and check on all these nests. If the parent cow
bird sees that its egg or its chick is no longer in that nest, which means the host
bird has kicked it out, detected that it’s an intruder and kicked it out, the cow
bird will eff up that whole nest.
Dana:
It trashes the nest?
Karen:
In a way, the cow bird is blackmailing …
Chris:
You’ve got a nice little nest here. It would be a shame if anything was to happen
to it. Protection racket!
Karen:
The cow bird is blackmailing and forcing other birds to raise their babies or else
they will kill their whole family.
Colin:
It’s like bird extortion.
Karen:
Isn’t that horrible?
Dana:
This is known as a hypothesis, the mafia hypothesis.
Chris:
This is chilling.
Colin:
Welcome to our involuntary foster bird program.
Karen:
All right, our episode is nearing the end, but we have one more non-topic quiz
from Colin, which is a surprise. What is it?
Colin:
Yes, I have a quiz for you guys called double double. It has nothing to do with
hamburgers. It is a general trivia quiz here. The twist is that every answer I’m
looking for will be two words, and each word will have a double letter in it. Not
necessarily the same letter. Just a little bit of a hint there. For all the questions,
they’re going to be two-word answers and there’s a double letter in each of the
words.
Karen:
So like pitter patter?
Colin:
Yes. That would be the same letter, it doesn’t have to necessarily to be. Here
we go. This Woody Allen romantic comedy won the Academy Award for best
picture in 1977. Dana?
Dana:
Annie Hall.
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Colin:
Annie Hall, yes indeed. Directed by Woody Allen, which I just noticed is a double
double word as well. This highly caffeinated soda was introduced in 1979 as the
Coca Cola Company’s answer to Mountain Dew. Like Mountain Dew, it is also a
citrus soda, if that gives you a clue. Karen?
Karen:
Mello Yello.
Colin:
Yes. Mello Yello.
Chris:
It’s not mellow at all. It’s actually more caffeinated.
Colin:
Yes, just for comparison here. A regular 12-ounce can of Coke has 34 milligrams
of caffeine. A regular 12-ounce can of Mello Yello, 53 milligrams of caffeine.
Dana:
You were mellow before you drank this.
Chris:
Yes, until you crash.
Karen:
Pee is yellow.
Dana:
It is. You are right, Karen. Yes it is.
Colin:
This comic strip character debuted in 1966 and was named after a popular
confection. This character joined an established strip already in progress. I
believe that was Dana by a hair.
Dana:
Peppermint Patty.
Colin:
Peppermint Patty, yes.
Chris:
I don’t know how we all got this at the same time.
Karen:
Because I think we’re thinking about titles of comics, and then once you said …
Dana:
It was a character introduced.
Karen:
You’re like entourage comic.
Colin:
Yes, Peppermint Patty. Indeed, named after the York Peppermint Patty candy.
Karen:
Any legal issues?
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Colin:
I’ve never read anywhere about any legal issues. I think that the York
Peppermint Patty people were kind of just flattered, I think in a way, that their
character was named after their candy. It was a simpler time in 1966.
Dana:
Well, they didn’t name her Peppermint Patty York.
Colin:
Yes. This British musical group can lay claim to the second best-selling movie
soundtrack of all time with over 15 million certified copies sold.
Karen:
British?
Colin:
British musical group. Want me to give you the year?
Karen:
Yes.
Colin:
It was on the billboard best song album charts for 120 weeks, ending in 1980.
Chris.
Chris:
The Bee Gees.
Colin:
It is the Bee Gees.
Chris:
Saturday Night Fever.
Colin:
Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, yes. Where they wrote and produced most of
the music for.
Karen:
I got as far as Queen, but that’s one word.
Dana:
Were they from Australia?
Colin:
They lived in Australia. They were actually born in England, and came to fame in
England. But yes, you’re right, when they were younger they started off their
musical career in Australia.
Chris:
This, of course, raises the question what is the best-selling movie soundtrack of
all time?
Colin:
I’m glad you asked that, Chris. Want to take a guess?
Chris:
Titanic.
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Colin:
It is not Titanic. I’ll give you a little bit of a hint. The album succeeded almost
entirely on the success of one song in particular.
Dana:
The Bodyguard.
Chris:
Really?
Colin:
Yes.
Chris:
Holy cow.
Dana:
I Will Always Love You, yes.
Karen:
There’s also I Have Nothing, which is also a very big hit from Ms. Houston.
Colin:
It’s true, yes. 17 million certified copies sold of The Bodyguard soundtrack. It’s
funny, they say a lot of these highest-selling album numbers will probably never
fall just because it’s so fragmented now with digital downloads and they don’t
necessarily [inaudible 0:43:08]. The Bodyguard kind of came just as …
Chris:
Yes, because people buy more singles now than full albums. Pirate.
Colin:
The life of this legendary Scottish figure was depicted in the movie Braveheart.
Chris?
Chris:
William Wallace.
Colin:
Yes, William Wallace. We’ll be charitable and say that the movie is largely
fictionalized. It routinely makes the list of most historically inaccurate movies of
all time.
Chris:
I don’t think they wore kilts, right?
Colin:
That’s right, yes, exactly. You’re right. They didn’t wear kilts. Just many, many,
many inaccuracies.
Karen:
Liberties.
Colin:
There you go. Creative license. This traditional Italian sport can be traced back
to the Roman empire and involves tossing metal spears on a dirt playing field.
Karen?
Karen:
Bocce ball.
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Colin:
Yes, bocce ball, or …
Karen:
It’s kind of a cheater because ball doesn’t have to be in the name.
Colin:
It’s true, although in America it’s fair to call it bocce ball. You’re absolutely right,
to be perfectly proper it is just bocce. With our best Italian accents. We’ll close
out here with one, which should be easy if you know your U.S. capitals. These
come up a lot for us. I know Karen knows. In addition to Jefferson City,
Missouri, there are two other U.S. capitals who are in a state that also has a
double letter in it.
Chris:
The capital has a double letter and the state has a double letter?
Colin:
Yes.
Chris:
Jefferson City, Missouri.
Colin:
Jefferson City, Missouri is one. There are two more. Chris.
Chris:
Pass.
Colin:
I think we can work together to solve these.
Chris:
The easiest thing is to figure out the state with a double letter and work
backwards.
Dana:
Minnesota?
Chris:
Minneapolis, Minnesota?
Colin:
Minnesota is St. Paul. But I think that’s a good way to do it is work backwards in
states. Karen is running through the anamaniac song.
Dana:
Pennsylvania?
Karen:
Harrisburg.
Colin:
Yes. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Looking for one more. I’ll give you guys a hint if
you want.
Dana:
Massachusetts?
Karen:
No, Boston.
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Colin:
It’s in the south. A lot of music in this particular …
Dana:
Tennessee.
Colin:
Yes, Nashville. Nashville, Tennessee.
Dana:
Nashville, Tennessee.
Colin:
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Jefferson City, Missouri.
Dana:
Did you just look that up?
Colin:
Yes, I traveled to all 50 states and …
Chris:
What’s your capital here? Do you trust the internet?
Colin:
I want to put some boots on the ground and verify it for myself. Well done.
Karen:
That was cool. All right, and that’s our episode. Thank you guys for joining in,
and thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. I hope you learned a lot of cool
things about a-hole birds.
Chris:
I could have sworn we had three kids here yesterday. Nope, just me.
Dana:
Don’t worry about it. There’s a baby bird in there, it’s fine.
Colin:
Kicks away a last little piece of eggshell. Nope, that’s nothing.
Karen:
And window washing, and also the worst airplanes ever. What are those little
flap things called?
Chris:
Ailerons.
Karen:
Ailerons. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Sound Cloud, and also on our
website, GoodJobBrain.com, and check out our sponsor, Square Space at
SquareSpace.com/GoodJobBrain. We’ll see you guys next week.
Colin:
Bye.
Chris:
Bye.
Karen:
Bye-bye.
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