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SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Yo-Yos Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Happy continuing holidays. Everybody chuck here to tee up our
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: next episode on our twelve Days of Christmas Toys playlist.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: And I am super excited because you're about to listen
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to one of our older episodes from this list about
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: in molder toy It's all about Yoyo's. It's how Yoyo's work.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Hope you like it. Welcome to Stuff you should know
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Fromhowstuffworks dot com.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarr. There's
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Charles W Chuck Bryant.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: That's me, same as ever, scratching the old back.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just got a little itch there.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: You ever use one of those little dealies, the little
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: creepy hand, the little monkey pap on the end of
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the stick I have.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Before, Yeah, I don't like to do that. It hurts
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: do Yeah, I guess you could call it that some
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: painful sensation.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I get up gives the wall sometimes and do the
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: blue the bear.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: That'll do sometimes too. But it's weird, like I only
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: have backages in about the same place, and that would
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: be on my left shoulder blade on the western side
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of it, depending on which direction I'm facing.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Curiously, this is going to be the most interesting part of.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: This show that is not a true Chuck Man, so Chuck. Yes,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: this is going to be a great one.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I have a feeling this is gonna be one of
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: those ones where it's like, wow, that turned out to
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: be really good. It's physics heavy out the y.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone loves that.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: But the fact is, when we finish this, you're gonna
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: know how yoyo works. This is probably the most truly titled,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: truest titled episode. Well we've ever done, you think, yep?
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: All right, Well we'll find out.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I think it should be called Physics through the Eye
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of a Yo yo.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So listen, have you ever seen the movie Harlem Knights
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Parts dude? That is go back and watch it again,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. Oh, you're crazy. It's one of the
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: best movies ever. Eddie Murphy, Red Fox, Richard Pryor, great
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: cast and like everybody else in it too. I think
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Bernie Max in there.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Awesome cast, terrible script.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think the script is terrible. I thought it
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: was great. There's one thing about that movie that bugged
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: me to know it it's set in like the twenties, right, Yeah,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: and Throughout the movie, Eddie Murphy uses the word yo.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yo is obviously a modern term, and it just sticks
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: out like a sore thumb every time he does. It
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: drives me crazy, Like it drives me crazy that he
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: did it drives me crazy that the director wasn't like,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: you can't say yo. This is like nineteen twenties New York.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yo wasn't around.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know that they were going for historical accuracy
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: in that one.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: They were wearing spats. Yeah, so Jerry like that one.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: So I went back to the little digging Chuck and
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: it turns out that yo was in fact around in
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, but Eddie Murphy was still wrong for
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: using it in that capacity. Okay, okay. So yo goes
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: back at least to like the fifteenth cent as like
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: a hunting cry, right when somebody was like somebody else
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: might go yo, and you'd go chase fox. That was
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: kind of the first wave of yo. As far back
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: as eighteen fifty nine. We know that there were sailors
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: that were using.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: It yoho ho, yoho ho.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Or also it was a response for a roll call
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: like yo, like somebody called your name, you would say yo, key.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until after World War Two, though, that the
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: modern incarnation comes and it came out of the Italian
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: quarters of Philadelphia.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Of course it did.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: So that's where they think yo came from after World
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: War Two. Hence Eddie Murphy was wrong in using yo
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: especially frequently in the movie Harlem Nins. So I did
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: all that research, or I could have just looked into
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Google Translate from English to Filipino or vice versas, okay,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: and find that it just means come.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I don't think that's what it means here.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It does it?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: It does now?
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: So the word yo yo, as it stands right means come,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: come or come back.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Did you know that I did? You want to talk
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: a little bit about the history of yo yos? Did
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: you know before reading this fantastic article that yo yo's originated,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: as we understand them now, originated in the Philippines in
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I did know that it was
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: around for a long time before that, though, in you know,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: other forms.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Well pretty much the same form. There were like two
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: forms of yo yo's in history. Yeah, and one came
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: out of the New one came out of the Philippines.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: The other one, Yeah, it was pretty old.
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  Speaker 1: Well, ancient Chinese or at least ancient Greeks, right more
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: than twenty five hundred years ago. But they think the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Chinese had something similar to that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm starting to strongly suspect that the Chinese or
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: the origin of human civilization. You think, yeah, they came
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: up with beer. Yeah, well they came up with beer.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: There you have it. They went right there.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And it is the oldest toy on the planet except
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the doll. The dolly.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty interesting too. Yeah, yeah, of course,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: although I wonder if they're kind of diminishing any kind
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: of ancient rituals or rites by saying, like, look at
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: this cute doll, when really it's you know, some sort
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of fetish.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you never know. So it's been around
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a long time. They've designed it in different ways over
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the years. The original design was had the string tied
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: tight to the little axis there.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: We'll call it the Greek design, the Greek design, No,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: we'll call it the Chinese design or the European design.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Well, not design, but it was popular in Europe. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and that obviously if you ever used an old yo
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: yo like that, or redesign yours to where it's tied
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: around the axle. It'll pop up, you know, as soon
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: as you throw it down, it'll pop back up. Yeah,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: because it's tied to the axle.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly right. And you said it was popular in Europe.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: There were other words for other names for the yo
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  Speaker 2: yo before it was a yo yo.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: There was the limigrette, the bandolore.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: The bandolora was British, I believe the quiz. Yeah, I
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: didn't get a country of origin for that, but.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: It was very popular in Europe. There's a painting of
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I think Louis the eighteenth is he the boy king?
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know whichever Louis was the boy king of
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: him holding like a yo yo, like a royal painting
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of him with a yo yo?
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Or the what was a little hoop on in a stick?
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's what it was called.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: That was an awesome game.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: The hoop on a stick. And then I don't think
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: you can compare the yo yo to the hoop on
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: a stick.
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  Speaker 1: No, I'm not comparing it. I'm just saying I just
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: never got that toy.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Oh oh, okay, well, here's another one for you. Napoleon
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: was well known for carrying and using a yo yo,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: apparently for stress relief.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it didn't work too.
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  Speaker 2: Here's a stressed out dude. Yeah he needed the yo yo.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: But as you said that, that's the European favored or
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Chinese design, where like the strings tied really tight to
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: the axle and it just basically goes up and down.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So the Filipino design led to the modern yo
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: yo as we understand it now, And the huge distinction
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  Speaker 2: is that the string is just looped around the axle
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  Speaker 2: kind of loosely, yeah, which has the added benefit of
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: allowing the yo yo itself to spin once it reaches
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  Speaker 2: the end of the string. Yeah.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Sleep, that's what the that's why people yo yo, I think. Yeah,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: it's all about the tricks. I mean, it's sort of
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: fun for a minute just to go up and down,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: but it's really all about the tricks.
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  Speaker 2: Right, It's just a stress reliever if it just goes
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: up and down.
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  Speaker 1: Did you yo yo when you were a kid?
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, here there. But even as a kid, like
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I could sense that like these these new modern ones
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: that we'll talk about with like ball bearings and clutches.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: They just seem like cheating.
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  Speaker 1: I agree, let's not even talk about them. It's not
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  Speaker 1: even a real yo yo.
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  Speaker 2: So, Chuck, you want to talk about a little bit
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  Speaker 2: about physics.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's finish the history first, shall we. Oh?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, well, I have plenty of that.
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  Speaker 1: It was originally in the Philippines. They think it was
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a hunting weapon for like four hundred years. Uh huh so,
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  Speaker 1: but not like a little tiny yo yo. They were
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: really big and it was basically a big spindle attached
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  Speaker 1: to a rope with like spikes coming off of it.
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  Speaker 2: They were like the size of a you go, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: And I guess.
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  Speaker 1: The just the benefit there is you could get it
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: back after you threw it at somebody.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Right. The string was almost just useless though, Well could
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: you just throw it and run after it?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Oh? Really? Okay? It was actually heavy rope and they
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: use it for hunting too, right.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Well, at some point down the line, well, yeah, you
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: would think anything used in hunting, you know, does double
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: duty and more exactly anything you're trying to kill. Yeah.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: At some point though, they became smaller and became toys,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: and in the twenties a Philip you know, immigrant to
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: the US named Pedro Flores, started a company, the first
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: modern yoyo company in the United States, and did pretty
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: well for himself. And then in nineteen twenty nine he
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: sold out to a man named Duncan, Right, Donald.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Duncan, Yes, Donald Duncan, and Duncan Duncan, and you know
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Floris's in Santa Barbara, and like you said, was selling
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: these things like hotcakes enough that Duncan said, hey, let
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: me buy that. I'm going to keep the name yo
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: yo because it's catchy. Yeah, I'm going to trademarkt and
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: now I own it. And through the years he had
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: competitors that made similar devices with different names, and they
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: were like, dude, everyone's calling the sing of yo yo.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: We want to be able to call it a yo
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: yo too, And he said, no, no, I own it.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Then the federal courts in nineteen sixty five says, you
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: know what, that's generic enough now where you don't own
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: it any longer. Right, they're all yo yo's.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Well what those legal challenges to their trademark? The name
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: yoyo was one of the things that bled the company dry.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It eventually went bankrupt. Duncan, the Duncan Company went bankrupt.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the same year they ruled, yeah against them.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: They were like, well, that's it for us. But they
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: also had other money troubles. They were actually victims of
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: their own success. The Duncan Company was. So they moved
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: in the forties to luck, Wisconsin, which very quickly became
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: known as the yoyo capital of the world. And at
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: their peak they were making thirty six hundred yoyos an hour,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: mostly out of wood at first maple. They were using
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: a million board feet of maple wood every year. Yeah,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: it's a lot. And they actually, in addition to their
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: legal challenges, like the money going to fight their legal battles,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: they were paying tons of money in overtime too, advertising
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, I think in nineteen
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: sixty two, Chuck, they managed to sell forty five million
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: yo yos and in that same year there were only
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: forty million kids in the US. Wow, pretty astounding.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: A chicken in every pot and a yo yo in
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: every other hand at least. Yeah, sure, well, lets I
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: guess some kids were yoyo with both hands.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: They're rich kids. Yeah, But like I said, they the
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: company ended up coming bankrupt anyway. But Yoyo enthusiasts still
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: look very fondly on the Duncan name. And I think
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: June sixth, Yes, June sixth is National Yo Yo Day,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: which happens to be the same day as Donald Duncan's birthday.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well, and the Duncan name lives on obviously,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: you still see Duncan Yoyo's. They they sold out. They
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: didn't just shut down.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Well, they went bankrupts and sold out, right, yeah yeah.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So who was it? The flam Flambeo Plastics company. Yeah,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: they said we'll keep the name Duncan because it's synonymous
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: with Yo yo's.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not generic yet. No, No, there's a little
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: yoyo history for you. Yeah, I got a little more.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna say to the end. I think you'll like. Okay,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: we're gonna tease you with it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about physics.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I think this is very interesting.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: So there's a two Okay you mentioned with the string
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: tied to the classic Chinese design Yo yo, you have
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: one kind of energy going on, right, Yes, and that
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: is linear momentum, the ability of it to go up
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: and down I should say down and up right, that's right.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: With the Filipino design the modern design. It has two
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: kinds of potential energy. It has that same linear momentum
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: to go up and down, but it also has angular momentum.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: And angular momentum is its ability to spin on an axle. Yeah, okay,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: so you've got two things going on. And like you said,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: when the yo yo hits the end of the line
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: of its linear momentum, it can still It's built up
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: since it's wound around the spool. It's built up a
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: lot of angular momentum, so it can just sit there
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and spin or sleep as you called it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It actually increases as it goes down, which is
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the key to keeping it spinning.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: It gets faster as it falls.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: There's another pretty cool trait to a yo yo. Who
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: knew they were so complex? I didn't, did you?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I did not?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Okay. So they also have gyroscopic stability, chuck, they do. Okay. So,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: if you have a yoyo that's sleeping and you push
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: down on top of it, like it goes down and
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: then back up right, that's because of its gyroscopic stability.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: That point that you push down on the yo yo
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: is transferred from the front and spun around to the back.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: So that's even now, so the yoyo will just keep
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: spinning as long as it's spinning fast enough.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Gyroscopic stability, Yes, that means a spinning object object will
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: resist change to its axis of rotation. And if you've
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: ever thrown a football, it's the same thing. Yeah, Or
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: if you've ever thrown a football poorly?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: What do they call that wobbler? A turkey wounded duck?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Brick? That's why winded duck doesn't go very far because
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have that tight spin. Yeah, so it falls
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: off its axis and won't travel as.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Far, exactly same as a prison And then the whole
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: team's mad.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Basically anything that spins, Yeah, Frisbee's football's there's there's got
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to be a baseball. We could liken it to a
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: baseball somehow.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Let's say a curveball, knuckleball slider.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Definitely not a knuckleball slighter doesn't spin it all, really,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: is it like a shot put? No, the knuckleball, you,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the whole key is it doesn't move. It travels like this,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and that's why it moves all around. Crazy, isn't that nutty?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you've got your you've got your yo yo sleeping,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: You're you're totally aware of its gyroscopic stability and you
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: understand that it's angle momentum is just awesome. It's far
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: out right, it's far out but you want to wake
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: it up. And that's when you bring it out of
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: its sleep and rewind it back up the spool.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Right, a little tug on the old finger.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the reason why is because the loop, right,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: there's less friction with the loop around the axle. Yeah,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: when you tug it, you increase that friction and you
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: allow it to rewind.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: It just grabs a hold of its buddy and just
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: let's go back up to the palm.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Yep. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I like yoyo physics a lot.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: So we basically just talked about the two hardest parts, right,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: sleeping and waking.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I said, sleeping is the key to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: do any kind of trick like walking the dog, which
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I was pretty good. I used to could do a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: few yo yo tricks. Really, Yeah, I could walk the dog,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: and I could do I could do the deal where
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: you make a triangle and then TikTok through the triangle,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: something like.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: A cradle or probably the cats in the cradle, let's.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Call a cat's cradle, and then I could I could
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: do the around the world. Wow, around the world.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't do any of those.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna this inspired me to get a new Yo Yo.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: By the way, I like the vintage dunk and one
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: specifically the yellow ones with the butterfly, like the gold
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the gold butterfly.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: The inverted ones.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: No, it was the one butterfly on that okay, because
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: they had those that were that looked like a butterfly
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: that were I know what you're talking about, inverted, and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: I think that actually plays a part in the uh
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: uh increasing the moment of inertia section. Yeah, I think
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: that's why they flipped it out to put more weight
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: on the outside. Yeah, okay, you want to talk about that?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Why not?
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: So do you remember when we did the Murphy's Law podcast?
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: How could I forget?
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Remember one of the books that he wrote was for
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: your Moments of Inertia?
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize it was a terrible, terrible engineering
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: pun until I read this article.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Kind of made me hate John Paul Stapp a little bit.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Nah, we love that guy.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: So chuck A moment of Inertia's basically a way of
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: describing a spinning objects resistance to changes in that rotation,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: basically being slowed down. Yeah, right, And what smarter people
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: than us have figured out is that if you increase
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the mass and distribute it slightly further away from the axis,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: you're going to increase its moment of inertia, right, and
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: that increases the amount of time it's just sleeping, right.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And like I said, I don't know this, but
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I just remember when I was a kid, they had
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: those inverted yo yos, and I bet you anything that's
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: why they did that. It's got to be because they
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: were wider at the outside and then curved in, which
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: had to be less mass. Yeah, it was less stuff,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: less wood, right, So I'm going to go on record
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: as saying that's why they did that.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: But I think you want more mass further away, yeah,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: to increase its moment of inertia.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, So it was there was more mass on
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the outside, I guess, further away from the axis, right. Yeah.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So that allows things to sleep a lot longer. And
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: that was a I guess you could say one of
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: the breakthroughs in yoyo design. I think in the sixties,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: they started adding mass to the outside and extending the
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: axle a little bit. Bam, the yoyo has been improved.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Think about this, right, twenty five hundred, maybe even longer
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: than that. Years ago. Yeah, somebody invented the yoyo. Does
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: not change until the Philippines in the early twentieth century.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Well, I thought it said it did change, We just
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: don't know. Said there were changes in designs over the years. No,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: not that I took. I took it like there was
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: one way, and then there was the Filipino way.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: And that was it.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: We got a correction to make then.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And then the twentieth century hits, and then there's all
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: these great improvements on these designs.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Indeed, one of the.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Improvements, Chuck was adding ball bearings. Right, yeah, well, you.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And I don't think these are improvements, ear least I don't.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's absolutely sure. That's a good caveat. I think
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: that the Filipinos perfected the yoya.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Let's just call them modifications, okay for sorry kids who
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: don't know how to yoyo rich kids. Yeah, that makes
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it easier, I think, Yeah, and that the whole point
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of both of these things. Yeah, I guess it makes
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: it easier sleep and yeah.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess they're like, well, if you're just
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: enjoying sleeping and waking your yo yo, then why make
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: it tough.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: If you want to have fun with your toy?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I can't believe they made it easier for kids to
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: have fun. It's not, dare they?
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: So the ball bearing design I think is kind of clever. Basically,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: this modification takes the axle and splits it in two yeah,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: into two races, which are basically little courses for ball
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: bearings to spin around.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Right, now, does it split the axle? These are just
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: around the axle.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: So one is connected to the axle, right, that's the
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: inner race. One is connected to the string. That's the
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: outer race. And then in between the two ball bearings right, Okay,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: they're not connected in any way except maybe via the
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: contact with the ball bearings.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: So when you when you release your yo yo toward
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: the ground and it's linear and angular, momentum really build up.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: When it hits the inner race can tilt a little
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: bit and connect with the outer race via the ball bearings.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: So they're they're spinning right, right, and then as they
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: straighten out the they they're they're not connected anymore, so
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: that the string no longer has any effect on whether
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the yo yo spins or not, because it's just the
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: inner race connected to the axle that's spinning. So your
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: yo yo can sleep far, far longer.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the outer race spends the inner race which spins
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the axle.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Right, it's like a transfer of angular momentum exactly, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: then the strings just like you just let me know
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: when you're done, and we'll wind back up.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Well, it'll get a little tougg'll do the same thing
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: with that style, right right, okay.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Or you can just completely take yourself out of the
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: equation altogether except for a snap of the risk. The
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: initial release is all you need to do with what's
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: called the yo yo with the brain.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: These are really fake yoyo's. Yeah, I want to get
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: one though. It's kind of cool.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: You could be in a vegetative state and do this
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: yo yo.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This was in the nineties. Company called Yomega release these,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and they called it the yo Yo with a brain,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: when in fact they should have called it the yo
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Yo with a clutch. And the deal here is you've
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: got these two clutch arms weighted ball on one side,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and it's not attached on the other side, and they're
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: spring loaded. The spindle is not attached to the axle,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: but the clutch arms are attached to the spindle. So
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: when you throw this thing down, it's gonna spin slower
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: at first, and the clutch is engaged. As it gets faster,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's enough inertia to pop the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: clutch essentially against the edges, and it releases the spindle,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: which makes the whole thing spin faster.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: On the axis right, the centrifugal force pushes down the weight,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: which pushes down the arm onto the spring, which releases
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the two which allows it to spin.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And it only spins for a certain amount of time.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: It's not like the kind that you tug back up.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: It'll spin till it slows down and then the clutch
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: locks back down and boom, it shoots.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Back up right back.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I want to I wish we had one of those.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I want to see what it's like.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: So basically, the big to the two modifications are based
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: on separating the string from the axle. Yeah, by creating
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: two different kinds of I guess axles or spindles or whatever.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Which are really just sort of taking the Philippine Filipino
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: design a step further because although it made contact with
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the axle, it wasn't quote connected to the axle. Yeah,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I guess it was, but it wasn't tight right.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: And a guy named Michael Caffrey is the one who
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: came up with the yo yo with the brain, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Yomega started telling him in nineteen ninety, but he came
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: up with it nineteen two years after a man named
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Tom Cune created the no Jive three and one yo
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Yo that you could take apart and replace the axle
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: and do all sorts of modifications with no really big,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: big time for changes in yo yo design.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: So did he rip this dude off? Is that what you're saying?
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: No, okay, No, I'm just saying, like the two these
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: two big steps in the Yoyo design.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Well you said two years after it was sinister. Well
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: you're a very suspicious person I am when it comes
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to yo Yo's design.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Chuck, that's pretty much the physics of yo Yo's Did
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: you know that we just explained how Yoyo's work.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You know, I looked online at videos and stuff to
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: make it a little easier because this is a very
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: visual thing, and they do have videos. But what I
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: found out is that a lot of teachers, physics teachers,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: use yoyo's to describe these whatever four to six properties
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: that we described.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: I have to tell you, I understand angular momentum far better.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Now. I understand, and although it went through the yoyos
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: to the football, I understand the moment of inertia. Okay,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: all right, is that moment of inertia? No, that's angular momentum,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: angular momentum.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Spinning on an axis.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh you were talking about the gyroscopic stability.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's what it was. See I get confused.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I did too, Chuck, it's physics, man, don't feel bad.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: You want to know a couple more pieces of yoyo trivia?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's here.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty eight, when Abby Hoffman of the Chicago
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: seven Yeah, was indicted or no, charged with contempt of
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Congress when he started doing the Walk the Dog during
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: a House on American Activities Committee. Oh really session that
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: was investigating him.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So he was like, I'm just so over this. I'm
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: gonna yo yo.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Well, apparently the way I read it is that he
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: was trying to entertain lighting everything up. It's like here,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: watch me yo yo And he was walking the dog.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And the who ax said no, wrap one.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: So that's how yoyo's are connected to McCarthyism. If you
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: want to take a N S Y S K quizn
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: that comes up.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Plus yoyo's were huge back then. Totally thought that was
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: like the heyday. I think this is sixties.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Nixon. Have you seen Nixon try to yo yo?
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: No?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Man, if you don't like Nixon, this will just make
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: you hate him even more. The night that they opened
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: the Grand Ole Opry and I think sometime in nineteen
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: seventy four, what's the main guy, like the whole cast
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: of hehaws behind Nixon and then the mate Roy Akeff. Yeah,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: he presents Nixon with a yo yo and like has
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: to put it on Nixon's finger, and Nixon looks like
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: what's going on? You know? And and then he tries
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: to do it once and it just kind of like
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: flops down and makes like a sad trombone noise. Wow,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: And he just has this sullen like look on his face,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: like I don't like yo yo's. He looks kind of
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: like you did at the beginning of this episode.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me and Tricky, Yeah you knew.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: And then they took a yo yo in space Chuck, Yeah,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: I saw that and.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: It still worked.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: It did work. They found that like letting it drop
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: did nothing because they were testing it in microgravity. But
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: if you throw it, it will it will go slowly.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: You can do it.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: You can do it slowly, but it will still spin
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: and it moves kind of just kind of gracefully along
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: the string like in just mid air, horizontally, and but
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: it'll never sleep.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Well, thank god NASA did that.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, back in nineteen eighty five.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Those are all the videos you see, though they do
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: much more than that.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: That was back when NASA was like, we have so
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: much money, we don't know what to do. Let's launch
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: something and let's say the Toys in Space Project, right,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: and they did.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Now this was just for Yoyo's. That was the only
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: thing they did on that flight.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Well, no, the Toys and Space Project in company or
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: encompassed sixty Shuttle missions, one for each toy that they
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: tested out. Wow, Jackson was one of the best ones.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: The Bolo paddle.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's uh, that's yo Yo's. Frankly, I'm pretty
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: happy with this one.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to lead in with something
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: on yo yo ma or something.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: No, man, try to look up yoyo's in the news
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and not get yo yo ma cheese. Can't do it, stupid.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I searched a yo yo minus ma minus knee, minus
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: gabba to finally get some stuff on.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: O yo gabba gaba. Sure, ye oh what was the
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: other one yo mama neo yo MTV wraps that came
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: up too, did it?
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I stopped searching before I minused MTV too. You
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: know you could minus I was in the jew Yeah,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and it'll it'll root out all the search, all this,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: all the results that have that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Really, so you just put the minus.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Sign minus and then the next letter. No space, had
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: no idea, and you can do a bunch of different ones,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: no comments, no nothing, just like minus gabba minus yo
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: minus mom, minus knee.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: You literally just improved my life. Oh good, or my research.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: For like that eight times a day?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: All right, well that's it, all right, yo yosa. I
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: was in a jewelry store once and Neo came in.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It seemed nice.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Who's Neo?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: He's this rapper He's from Atlanta.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I thought you were talking about the matrix. No, that's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: like his real names Cana Neo.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: This is ni Yo.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I've heard of him.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah him. Well, if you want to learn more about
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Yoyo's including some really top notch illustrations, this is one
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: of those ones that you will see why we have
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: staff illustrators here at in color.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: No.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, I saw you want to type in yo Yo
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: at the in the handy search bar at house stuff
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: works dot com. That'll bring up that really cool article.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And I said handy search bar. So now it's time
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: for Chuck to shine with another edition of Listener Mail.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Josh, this is one of our oldest than not by age,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: but one of our most loyal fans, Anna Spies. She
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: has a band and they put together Well, let me
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: just read it. This is coming out shortly after Christmas,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and she said it was still great to read this. Hi,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: guys and Jerry. Since we're firmly in the festive, greedy
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: little grip of the holiday season, I was wondering if
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: you could give a shout out to a project I'm
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: involved in or my band is. At least it's a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: charity album to raise funds for the continued fallout from
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster, and the light of
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: everything that's happened since, I know, it's been put on
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the back burner of most people's charitable contributions, which is
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: why we were thrilled and honor to our part to
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: re raise awareness when the label releasing this compilation approached
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: us to contribute a track. So you know, she's right
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: about these tragedies that happen and then six months later
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you kind of forget about it.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: It's the curse of the news cycle exactly.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: But luckily there's a lot of people that my friend
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Dave is one of them that's still working, like on
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the tsunami from five or six years ago. Oh that's great,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: so continued help is always needed. There's a CD that's
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: going to be out in mid December, so by this
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: by the time this comes out, it'll already be out.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: You can stream the entire album, which is thirty seven
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: tracks by thirty seven artists on the website More Hope
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: for Japan dot com and her band New Century Classics
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: wrote and recorded a brand new song just for this compilation,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and she's quite proud of it, and I haven't had
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm gonna,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And she says there's a lot of far better known
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: artists on there, and anyone who likes instrumental music, post rock,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: ambient and basically pretty melodic guitar bassed tunes should dig it.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: So check it out. That Anna's band, New Century Classics,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: More Hope for Japan dot Com.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Very cool, Thanks a lot, Anna appreciate that, Thanks for
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: letting us know, thanks for doing what you do.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: And thanks for listening for like years, she's been around forever.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess if you're working on something that
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: you feel like everybody's forgotten and shouldn't have, let us
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: know and we'll try to help you re raise awareness too.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, send us a tweet to s ysk podcast,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: or you can shoot us Facebook something, Facebook dot com,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: slash stuff you should know, And as always, you can
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: get really personal and send us an email, a real
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: live email to stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
• 31:49
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• 31:52
  Speaker 2: house Stuffworks iPhone app has a arrived. Download it today
• 31:56
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