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The Skeptics Guide #1018 - Jan 11s 2024 (Ad Free)

🕑 Added 2025-01-11 15:34:40 +0000 UTC

Comments

Maoz Maylat

FYI the title of #1018 has typo, please change 2024 -->2025 :-)

Harrison Campbell

Hey that noisy of the burning wood, I saw that video, the microphone that was used to record the sound is called a Geophon it’s a geophone microphone that has been adapted to use with normal sound recorders. In the video a probe was attached to the mic and then pushed into the wood. The sound travels up the steel probe to the mic. It records waves from inside materials. It’s a really neat mic! I have used it to listen to the sound of Arbutus trees in high wind. Their wood is very hard and transmits the waves effectively enough to strap the mic to the trunk.

Davy Crocker

So the movie that referenced Karl wasn't Mr. Popper's Penguins? 😊

Davy Crocker

Best wishes to everyone affected by the fires! I'm glad to hear Cara is safe!

Dan Lee

The spice dispenser is like an old lame Ronco product! Did the company do any consumer polling on this stupid thing!

Dan Lee

Yes, you should keep us updated on Cara please.

The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe

Shes fine. The fire is not heading her way and the smoke is getting better. Thanks!

Mikah Woodward

I think Steve was saying that Mars atmosphere is 1% pressure of Earth (which is also what the internet says) and it would have to be .1% to be 1/1000, which is what Bob originally said it was. Just a little confusing.

Chris Holder

Well, that would have been clever, if underhanded.

Jim Sky

Any updates on Cara?

susan grant

Thoughts are with Cara

Asymetra

Way back in the day at work, someone came up with a cost savings idea. We used a lot of reel-to-reel tapes. His idea was to wear white gloves to prevent the skin oil on our fingers from tainting the tape. This meant that more tape could be used to record on. Over the high volume of recordings across the entire program this would save a lot of money. He got a monetary award, and we all had to wear these gloves (at an additional cost). He soon came up with another idea, get rid of the white gloves. Fibers from the gloves were gumming up the tape recorders and interrupting recordings. We could save money and time on performing less maintenance. He got a monetary award and we all stopped wearing gloves.

Chris Holder

The Government and NASA definitely need to completely break with the private sector (in terms of taking over actual projects) because these always end up being massive wealth transfer upwards. Much of the supposed greater efficiencies turn out to be imaginary or greatly exaggerated.

Christer Jansson

Heat issue: when you dig a deep hole, the rock gets hotter until it no longer is solid. That would probably be a significant problem for a transatlantic tunnel.