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SYSK Selects: How Maps Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, This is Chuck again with another edition of
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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. Selects are Saturday Classic Edition episodes
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Speaker 1: and uh, as you know, we're curating these one at
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Speaker 1: a time, and this week I got to pick, and
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Speaker 1: I picked How Maps Work? And uh I picked this
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Speaker 1: one because everyone knows I love maps, and so I
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Speaker 1: thought it was a good one to rerun. Plus I
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Speaker 1: get to talk a little bit about my old high
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Speaker 1: school best friend Rad, who was a cartographer and I'm
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Speaker 1: always happy to get the word out about his work.
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Speaker 1: So listen and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
0:34
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
0:42
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clarkin, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
0:45
Speaker 1: and I just had a bunch of peanuts. So it's
0:48
Speaker 1: Stuff you Know Time Circus Edition. Yep. I wonder if
0:53
Speaker 1: we could get R. E. M. S. Maps and Legends
0:55
Speaker 1: to play just subtly behind this entire podcast. I can
0:59
Speaker 1: answer that for you. Nope, No, okay, what album is
1:05
Speaker 1: that one? Where is that an album? Boy? That was
1:08
Speaker 1: the early one? I think maybe like reckoning even No again,
1:14
Speaker 1: people are at home screaming at me because I can't
1:17
Speaker 1: call that to mind. Was that their first one reckoning
1:21
Speaker 1: Let's just move on. I'm afraid to get anything wrong. Yeah,
1:24
Speaker 1: it's cool. People who are in are um are really
1:27
Speaker 1: in ari em maps and legends. Good song um chuck. Yeah.
1:31
Speaker 1: Have you ever used a map? Um? I have? I
1:35
Speaker 1: am a notoriously terrible with my sense of direction, like
1:40
Speaker 1: literally almost all the time. If I say it's left,
1:45
Speaker 1: isn't it? They say, no, it's right. We just talked
1:48
Speaker 1: about this. And because if I try to trick myself
1:50
Speaker 1: and go I think it's left, I'm gonna say right,
1:52
Speaker 1: then it's left. Like it's terrible. I've talked about it before.
1:55
Speaker 1: It's it's really yeah, we we did recently. I can't
1:58
Speaker 1: place why or where. It's just my brain. Man, it
2:00
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. So yeah, I use maps, and
2:03
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people as to turn the map
2:05
Speaker 1: in the direction I'm facing, and I just it's tough
2:08
Speaker 1: for me. So when you were using a map, you
2:12
Speaker 1: could have also said or that you're terrible using maps.
2:16
Speaker 1: You can say I'm terrible at using two dimensional um contorted,
2:22
Speaker 1: grossly misrepresentative images that supposedly are um. They stand for
2:31
Speaker 1: different data points of Earth. That's right, that's another way
2:36
Speaker 1: you could put maps, because it turns out that they're
2:39
Speaker 1: actually not so great, even though they are extraordinarily useful.
2:45
Speaker 1: They're portable now that you can get them online, they're
2:47
Speaker 1: more portable than ever, and we would be pretty much
2:50
Speaker 1: nowhere without them as far as the imperial colonization of
2:54
Speaker 1: the world went. But um, we still have not licked
2:58
Speaker 1: some very fundamental sick problems with maps. Maps and legends
3:02
Speaker 1: was on fables By the way, So did you didn't
3:05
Speaker 1: even hear what I just said? I heard it all
3:08
Speaker 1: and I agree. Well, the problem is, dude, is the
3:14
Speaker 1: Earth is is not a flat piece of paper or
3:16
Speaker 1: a computer screen. The Earth is uh sort of shape
3:20
Speaker 1: like a pumpkin. Yeah, I didn't realize that. I didn't either.
3:24
Speaker 1: Apparently the middle is getting bigger too. You know what,
3:26
Speaker 1: I just realized what what Tracy who wrote this meant
3:29
Speaker 1: by pumpkin? Like, she didn't mean the tall pumpkin. Well, yeah,
3:35
Speaker 1: pumpkins come in all shapes, right, So which pumpkin was
3:38
Speaker 1: she referring to? I think like the shorter, rounder, round pumpkin. Yeah,
3:44
Speaker 1: but apparently I think the Earth is supposedly getting bigger,
3:47
Speaker 1: expanding at its at its center, not in the center,
3:51
Speaker 1: but it's getting more pumpkiny, I think more pumpkin like. Okay,
3:56
Speaker 1: so maps are getting less and less accurate then maybe
3:59
Speaker 1: because here here's the problem. Map, Like we said, it's
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Speaker 1: a two dimensional representation of something that's three dimensional. It's
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Speaker 1: hard to do. A map is flat and it's representing
4:08
Speaker 1: something that's round, spherical. Um. And if you take like,
4:12
Speaker 1: take a pumpkin, go to your pantry right now and
4:15
Speaker 1: get one of the pumpkins that you have there, and
4:18
Speaker 1: take a piece of paper off of a roll saying
4:21
Speaker 1: newsprint and um, tear enough off to go all the
4:24
Speaker 1: way around the pumpkin, and you will see that if
4:27
Speaker 1: you if you take a pumpkin and mash the paper
4:30
Speaker 1: around it so that the pumpkins completely covered, you're gonna
4:34
Speaker 1: have something that's that's just grossly distorted. That's a map.
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Speaker 1: It's a gross distortion of what's real. So much so
4:42
Speaker 1: that if you see a map that accurately represents what
4:46
Speaker 1: the continents look like and how close they are and
4:49
Speaker 1: the amount of size they each have, you'd probably be
4:52
Speaker 1: pretty startled because it doesn't look like what we're used to,
4:55
Speaker 1: which is called the ma cat projection. Yeah. Um, And
5:00
Speaker 1: it's funny. When I was reading this, I remember thinking
5:02
Speaker 1: to myself, like, you know, if you're gonna make cheats,
5:05
Speaker 1: like make them in the ocean, and I think that's
5:07
Speaker 1: a lot of times what they do. Yeah, these no
5:09
Speaker 1: one would notice, you know, the good hommal homal design.
5:16
Speaker 1: The good homal design good as in somebody's last name
5:20
Speaker 1: with an e. It basically distorts or chops up the
5:25
Speaker 1: world in the oceans, so it's real good for land mass.
5:29
Speaker 1: It would be terrible if you're driving like a an
5:31
Speaker 1: oil tanker across the sea. Yeah. You don't want to
5:34
Speaker 1: navigate by these things. No. And so since there's different
5:38
Speaker 1: ways to distort a map, there's different uses for different
5:41
Speaker 1: types of maps or distortions, which we call projections. We'll
5:45
Speaker 1: get into that a little more later on. Let's talk
5:47
Speaker 1: about the basics of all maps, right. A map is
5:51
Speaker 1: essentially a representation of, like we said, data points on Earth. Yeah,
5:57
Speaker 1: and it can be it can represent whatever. There's different
6:00
Speaker 1: attributes you can if you wanted to show a map
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Speaker 1: um distribution of UM Golden Retriever ownership, you could do
6:10
Speaker 1: that on a map. You totally could. Or the GDP
6:13
Speaker 1: of different countries or land use you know, like it's
6:17
Speaker 1: basically an easy way. It's an easy language to show
6:21
Speaker 1: someone in picture form, various attributes, you know, and uh,
6:27
Speaker 1: maps are created by people called cartographers, which is great
6:32
Speaker 1: and um, like we said there's some there's some basic
6:35
Speaker 1: commonalities to all maps, right, yeah. I kind of collect
6:37
Speaker 1: maps by the way. I know you told me, not
6:40
Speaker 1: like a bunch, but I've got I've got like six
6:43
Speaker 1: right maps, any pirate maps, no pirate maps, but my
6:46
Speaker 1: my entire desk. I made my desk and it is, Uh,
6:49
Speaker 1: I've got a map of the world on it. It's like,
6:51
Speaker 1: you know, four ft by three feet and then I
6:54
Speaker 1: shall act over that and that's like my you know,
6:56
Speaker 1: the base of my desk. Yeah, it's really cool because
6:59
Speaker 1: you know, i'd reference it a lot. Actually, I like
7:02
Speaker 1: the uh yeah, you know I could stand to do
7:05
Speaker 1: that a lot more New England no idea. Well, it's
7:09
Speaker 1: like looking up a word in the dictionary when you
7:11
Speaker 1: don't know it referring to an atlas. If you're like, hey,
7:14
Speaker 1: where's Kuala Lampoor but I don't have a map, and suddenly,
7:17
Speaker 1: oh my god, Miss teen South Carolina's answer has come
7:21
Speaker 1: to pass like I don't have a map, and I'm
7:23
Speaker 1: not I'm not bad with maps, and I think if
7:26
Speaker 1: you gave me like a little time, I would be
7:28
Speaker 1: able to find anything. Sure, but um, because I don't
7:33
Speaker 1: have a map for easy reference, like I use online
7:36
Speaker 1: maps now, but like if I had one for easy reference,
7:40
Speaker 1: I think I would be a lot better at geography.
7:42
Speaker 1: I think everybody forget your computer. That's very handy, but
7:46
Speaker 1: I think everyone should own a globe and or a
7:48
Speaker 1: map of the world just to have it right. It's
7:51
Speaker 1: nice to have frame it, put it on your wall.
7:53
Speaker 1: They're very attractive. It's art, all right. I like the
7:57
Speaker 1: fifties sixties maps, like a kind you'd find at school. Yeah,
8:02
Speaker 1: from that era. I just like the design of them
8:04
Speaker 1: to look Yeah, Kevin Canaine that one of the comedians
8:08
Speaker 1: I saw, Max fun was talking about his pillows and
8:11
Speaker 1: how you unsheathed his pillow, how nasty it is and
8:13
Speaker 1: it looks like an ancient map of the world. You know,
8:16
Speaker 1: it's like brown with those like lines. Yeah, what is
8:18
Speaker 1: that stuff? It's he basically is like you know, this
8:21
Speaker 1: stuff is like leaks from your head like sleep. Uh,
8:25
Speaker 1: it's funny. It's a funny bit. Okay, so the basic
8:27
Speaker 1: commonalities of maps are number one, usually land masses or
8:31
Speaker 1: bodies of water. So you're gonna have an outline of
8:34
Speaker 1: what you're talking about or what you're trying to show. Yeah, um,
8:38
Speaker 1: are you talking about like a physical map? Yeah, well,
8:41
Speaker 1: I mean any map is going to have that, but
8:43
Speaker 1: the physical map is physical maps are more like like
8:47
Speaker 1: the terrain of an area, right, that's what a physical
8:50
Speaker 1: maps concerned with. Yeah, and they use something called hipsometric
8:54
Speaker 1: tents um variations of color to obviously, you know, usually
8:59
Speaker 1: your water is blue and then the land can be
9:01
Speaker 1: green to brown or white if it's like the Swiss Alps,
9:05
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, have you ever seen a map where
9:07
Speaker 1: the water isn't blue? The one on my desk is
9:10
Speaker 1: it's tan. What Yeah, it's the whole thing is reading
9:15
Speaker 1: in background. Now there's no blue, it's all tan. Um, Yeah,
9:19
Speaker 1: it's tan. I've never seen that, you know, like the
9:22
Speaker 1: Tan globe. No, you've seen like the Tan globe where
9:26
Speaker 1: the globe isn't like blue and green. That's basically what
9:28
Speaker 1: this is. It's like, I'm still having trouble wrapping my
9:31
Speaker 1: head around it. Next time you're in my home office,
9:34
Speaker 1: I'll show it to you. Uh. You can have political
9:38
Speaker 1: maps that display like different cultural information about countries. Um.
9:43
Speaker 1: Thematic maps obviously have a theme like climate or g
9:47
Speaker 1: DP like I said, or you can get really specialized
9:50
Speaker 1: like hey, where's the internet available in the world. Let's
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Speaker 1: draw a map instead of listing a bunch of countries.
9:56
Speaker 1: Got you know? Yeah? Um yeah, thematic maps those are
10:01
Speaker 1: probably the ones you see the most, aside from using
10:05
Speaker 1: a map for street directions. Yeah, thematic maps are the
10:07
Speaker 1: ones you went across. Like it'll be all sorts of
10:10
Speaker 1: things like you just mentioned population density or oil exports,
10:14
Speaker 1: all that. All right, Josh, Let's talk about what they
10:17
Speaker 1: call cartography conventions. And this is not when a bunch
10:21
Speaker 1: of cartographers get together at you know, the the downtown
10:26
Speaker 1: Hilton in Atlanta and talk about maps, although I'm sure
10:30
Speaker 1: they do that. I'm sure there are real cartography conventions.
10:33
Speaker 1: We're talking about conventions in the sense of often used
10:37
Speaker 1: uh techniques, right. Um. One of them, which I have
10:42
Speaker 1: already broken with my map, is that, like we said,
10:45
Speaker 1: water is blue. That's so weird. I don't understand land
10:50
Speaker 1: is screen vegetation screen or brown or tan land masses
10:53
Speaker 1: that's just one of the comic conventions. So what color
10:55
Speaker 1: is the land mask? Then if the water on your
10:58
Speaker 1: map is tan, they're also uh tan and green and
11:02
Speaker 1: and brown and yeah, I don't know what you're talking about.
11:06
Speaker 1: It's really not that big of a deal, you know.
11:08
Speaker 1: I'll go look it up. I will post a photo
11:11
Speaker 1: of this of my map um online on Facebook when
11:15
Speaker 1: we do this, and everyone will go, oh, that doesn't
11:17
Speaker 1: look so weird. All right. I feel like a jerk
11:21
Speaker 1: now because my water is not blue. No, No, it's fine, Okay,
11:24
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just having trouble understand you. It's all yeah, um,
11:28
Speaker 1: all maps to pick their subject matter from above. Yeah,
11:32
Speaker 1: that's something that you just don't even really think of.
11:35
Speaker 1: It's such a common convention. North is usually at the top, yeah, um, generally,
11:40
Speaker 1: or if it's not, for some reason, they'll point you
11:42
Speaker 1: in the right direction, say this is north, this is
11:44
Speaker 1: southeast and west. They have legends a lot of times. Yeah,
11:48
Speaker 1: maps and legends. Like we talked about with r a
11:51
Speaker 1: M and UM scale is usually indicated, so like it
11:54
Speaker 1: will be like one inch equals a hundred miles, or
11:56
Speaker 1: there's like one to like there's a ratio or something
11:59
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, and this is all the the gobbity
12:01
Speaker 1: book you find on the outskirts of the map. There's
12:04
Speaker 1: usually lots of stuff written down that you may not
12:06
Speaker 1: look at. That's where you'll find this information. And this
12:08
Speaker 1: should include in the legend that like Hawaii and Alaska
12:11
Speaker 1: are not actually right next to one another in the
12:16
Speaker 1: South Pacific Ocean. Yeah, as it seems it's true. That's
12:20
Speaker 1: just odd. Well, like we said, it's tough, you know,
12:23
Speaker 1: when you got around or a pumpkin like world. Um,
12:27
Speaker 1: coordinate system A lot of times they're not a lot
12:29
Speaker 1: of times. Every time you'll see a map, there's gonna
12:31
Speaker 1: be some kind of a coordinate system. If it's a
12:34
Speaker 1: Thomas Guide, Like before the advent of online smartphone maps,
12:40
Speaker 1: when I lived in l A, the Thomas Guide was
12:42
Speaker 1: your best friend. Um. And that's just a simple grid system.
12:45
Speaker 1: Like you look up, hey, I want to go to
12:46
Speaker 1: to Panga Canyon, Go to page four hundred and look
12:50
Speaker 1: up F six and then you'll just map your way
12:53
Speaker 1: from there. Yeah. The alphabets across the top numbers run
12:56
Speaker 1: down the side and you find F six and sink
13:00
Speaker 1: someone's battleship. Um. If it's like a map of the
13:05
Speaker 1: world they're probably gonna show you, um launch student latitude,
13:09
Speaker 1: but not necessarily something you can navigate with, you know, no,
13:14
Speaker 1: but it should it should be accurate as the point,
13:16
Speaker 1: well accurate, but not like you don't want to take
13:18
Speaker 1: a map of the world into the woods if you're orienteering,
13:21
Speaker 1: you know, you want a topographical map. Tricky to read,
13:24
Speaker 1: by the way, they ever looked at a topo map
13:26
Speaker 1: like been camping and stuff, because you were talking about
13:29
Speaker 1: hip symmetric tents to indicate different changes in altitude right
13:33
Speaker 1: or elevation. Topographical maps use contour lines and yeah, you
13:38
Speaker 1: better know what you're doing because it's not necessarily intuitive.
13:41
Speaker 1: It's not intuitive at all. You just have to learn
13:43
Speaker 1: it and then once you learn it, you can wrap
13:45
Speaker 1: your head around it. Usually the closer the lines are
13:48
Speaker 1: or every time, the closer the lines are together, the
13:50
Speaker 1: more steep the change in elevation is right, and lines
13:54
Speaker 1: that are kind of spread out indicate like a very
13:56
Speaker 1: slow Yeah, I think that slope. Been a while since
14:00
Speaker 1: I'm taking basic orienteering. Is that a word orienteering? Yeah?
14:05
Speaker 1: I've not heard it really, Yeah, are you messing with
14:09
Speaker 1: me on this episode? Now? Orienteering is when, like you,
14:12
Speaker 1: they'd give you a map and a compass and send
14:14
Speaker 1: you out in the woods. Yeah. I thought that was
14:15
Speaker 1: called trailblazing. Sure you can. You're also trailblazing. Okay, well
14:21
Speaker 1: hold on before we go any further. Um, it's time
14:23
Speaker 1: for a message break. Okay. So we're back and we're
14:32
Speaker 1: talking about map drawing conventions, believe it or not. And
14:35
Speaker 1: there's a cool here's a cool experiment you can do
14:37
Speaker 1: if you want to know how difficult it is to
14:39
Speaker 1: draw a map and have it look accurate. Get a balloon,
14:42
Speaker 1: blow it up, Um, draw whatever you want, but draw,
14:48
Speaker 1: you know, the United States in Mexico and South America
14:53
Speaker 1: in Canada, Canada in there, and then deflate that balloon
14:56
Speaker 1: and see what it looks like. And that will give
14:59
Speaker 1: you a little bit of insight into how tough it
15:01
Speaker 1: is to be a cartographer. Right. I mean you mentioned
15:04
Speaker 1: um lines of longitude and latitude. Right, those are coordinates
15:09
Speaker 1: on any map, and since their coordinates on a map,
15:13
Speaker 1: um people use them to navigate by. Right. But since
15:18
Speaker 1: we're going from a sphere to a flat plane, you
15:22
Speaker 1: have to figure out how to adjust for that, and
15:25
Speaker 1: you're basically making a decision. You're gonna say, Okay, am
15:28
Speaker 1: I going to make it so that the angles if
15:30
Speaker 1: somebody draws a straight line, the angles are all going
15:33
Speaker 1: to be the same along that line, Meaning you can
15:35
Speaker 1: follow that line on a compass in the real world
15:37
Speaker 1: and get there. It's called a rum line. Or are
15:41
Speaker 1: the lines of latitude which are called parallels, Yeah, and
15:47
Speaker 1: lines of longitude are meridians. They're going to be equidistant accurately. Like,
15:55
Speaker 1: that's the conundrum. That's the big conundrum with maps typically, Yeah,
15:58
Speaker 1: like where do you want your curiousy two be right?
16:01
Speaker 1: Which is pretty weird. I never really thought about it though,
16:03
Speaker 1: like that, you know, like you have to it's an
16:05
Speaker 1: interesting job, and that you have to know that I
16:08
Speaker 1: cannot you cannot draw a perfect map on a piece
16:10
Speaker 1: of paper. So where am I gonna um fludge? Essentially?
16:15
Speaker 1: And you do this. You figure this out with what
16:16
Speaker 1: they call map projections, and that is basically the method
16:20
Speaker 1: that you choose to project that severe onto a flat surface. Right, So, Josh,
16:25
Speaker 1: you've cracked the code. I have not. This is a
16:27
Speaker 1: This is a very kind of it's tough to to
16:31
Speaker 1: think of because we're talking about now how distortions occur,
16:36
Speaker 1: and um, so there's different ways to manipulate how something's distorted.
16:41
Speaker 1: First of all, let's say you are making a new projection. Okay, right,
16:45
Speaker 1: that's that's a different manipulation of distortion, right as a projection, um,
16:51
Speaker 1: and you're making a brand new one. One of the things,
16:54
Speaker 1: one of the tools you can use is called um
16:57
Speaker 1: tisso's indoka tricks T I S S O, t apostrophe
17:02
Speaker 1: s too. So those are the circles. Yeah, and what
17:05
Speaker 1: you do is you just overlay the equal distant uh
17:11
Speaker 1: exactly the same aka identical circles. It like a grid
17:15
Speaker 1: of circles right over a globe. And then when you
17:17
Speaker 1: make your projection, the circles will distort and you will
17:21
Speaker 1: be able to see where your distortions are on different areas, um,
17:26
Speaker 1: how they distort, like what direction they're going to distort it,
17:28
Speaker 1: and get an exist an idea of how your your
17:32
Speaker 1: projection is distorted. Right. Um. And the reason that maps
17:37
Speaker 1: distort again is because you're taking a three dimensional spherical
17:40
Speaker 1: representation and putting it on a two dimensional flat surface.
17:45
Speaker 1: And the projection that we're all very familiar with the
17:49
Speaker 1: one that we use almost across the board is the
17:52
Speaker 1: Mercat projection. And there is a guy named gerardist Picator
17:56
Speaker 1: who in fifteen sixty nine created a map of the world.
17:59
Speaker 1: And Mark Hater decided that I'm gonna make my maps
18:03
Speaker 1: for sailors, and he made a very important decision. He
18:07
Speaker 1: made it so that rum lines where you measure between
18:10
Speaker 1: two points on this map, and you can follow that
18:14
Speaker 1: angle with your compass in real life and you will
18:17
Speaker 1: get there. He made it so that those were precise,
18:23
Speaker 1: but he gave up lines of longitude and latitude being precise.
18:27
Speaker 1: And he figured out how to represent this very cleverly,
18:31
Speaker 1: where on lines of I'm sorry, not lines of longitude
18:34
Speaker 1: and lolatitude, just latitude since since the Earth gets narrower
18:39
Speaker 1: at the top because it's a ball, and it's widest
18:41
Speaker 1: at the middle, the anything above or below the equator,
18:46
Speaker 1: as you get further away, the lines get the lines
18:49
Speaker 1: between the latitudinal lines get bigger and bigger the spaces
18:53
Speaker 1: between them, so like you would see on the globe. Maybe, yeah,
18:56
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really clever representation of of what
19:01
Speaker 1: happens when you take a piece of paper and put
19:03
Speaker 1: it around a globe. A ball that's the Mercater projection.
19:08
Speaker 1: And the way to figure out how he did this,
19:10
Speaker 1: or to imagine how he did is to take a
19:12
Speaker 1: cylinder like a piece of paper and roll it up
19:15
Speaker 1: into the shape of the cylinder. This is a magic
19:17
Speaker 1: piece of paper cylinder, and you have a balloon, and
19:21
Speaker 1: it's a magic balloon. That's it's the same balloon we've
19:23
Speaker 1: drawn our world on. It can be, but it's a
19:26
Speaker 1: magic version of it because we needed to have our
19:29
Speaker 1: world on it, drawing on it perfectly. And you blow
19:32
Speaker 1: up this balloon until it hits um an edge of
19:37
Speaker 1: the cylinder, right, so it's just touching the inside of
19:40
Speaker 1: the cylinder on two points one on either side. What
19:43
Speaker 1: that balloon has just become is tangent to the cylinder.
19:46
Speaker 1: The sekin is where the cylinder would like intersect the balloon,
19:49
Speaker 1: but right now it's just touching. And you take a
19:52
Speaker 1: Mercader projection, and you've got a perfectly blown up balloon
19:55
Speaker 1: inside a cylinder. And that's what you imagine is the projection.
19:59
Speaker 1: You have to take it a little further. You blow
20:01
Speaker 1: up the balloon until it completely fills up the cylinder.
20:04
Speaker 1: So now all of the information on this balloon is
20:06
Speaker 1: pressed up against the inside of the cylinder, the place
20:09
Speaker 1: where it was tangent, where it touched naturally when the
20:13
Speaker 1: blue was just filled up and it was just a sphere.
20:15
Speaker 1: That's going to be undistorted. Okay, that makes sense. The
20:18
Speaker 1: stuff that you're blowing up until the balloon is no
20:20
Speaker 1: longer a spear but is filling up the cylinder, that
20:23
Speaker 1: stuff becomes distorted. And the further toward the edges you go,
20:27
Speaker 1: the more distorted. Is now we can pop our magic
20:30
Speaker 1: balloon because all that information has been transferred on the
20:33
Speaker 1: inside of this cylindrical paper. And you unroll it and
20:36
Speaker 1: there's your Mercator projection. Pretty good? Yeah, I think I
20:41
Speaker 1: get it? Do you really? I got it more than
20:43
Speaker 1: I did than when I read this like eight times. Yeah,
20:46
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, Uncle Josh coming through for me. But
20:49
Speaker 1: in the center of a Mercator projection, the distortions are
20:51
Speaker 1: going to be the least because it's tangent to the cylinder.
20:55
Speaker 1: That's where it's just naturally touching the edges. It's not
20:58
Speaker 1: distort it's not being forced into the cylindrical shape. Yeah,
21:02
Speaker 1: that makes sense. We should call this one What maps
21:06
Speaker 1: the Sun? Part two? Write. It is really hard to
21:09
Speaker 1: wrap your head around. It is, especially when you're like
21:12
Speaker 1: me and you're bad with maps. To begin with. Um,
21:15
Speaker 1: so we talked about projections. Um. You know, depending on
21:18
Speaker 1: what you want to do, different projections have. You know,
21:20
Speaker 1: they're good points and they're bad points. Um. If you
21:23
Speaker 1: want to have an equal area map, you would make
21:27
Speaker 1: an equal area map. That means you preserve the correct
21:31
Speaker 1: area and it's going to distort the shape of your
21:34
Speaker 1: land masses. It might look weird if you're looking at
21:37
Speaker 1: the entire world, but it's area wise, it's going to
21:40
Speaker 1: be accurate. Um. If you have the pseudo conical Robinson projection,
21:46
Speaker 1: it's gonna that's the map that you're probably most used
21:49
Speaker 1: to seeing that actually looks quote unquote correct. But their
21:54
Speaker 1: distances and direction aren't aren't accurate in that case, right,
21:57
Speaker 1: So it's not good for navigating, it's good for being Oh,
22:00
Speaker 1: so this is how the continents are situation. That's where
22:02
Speaker 1: Russia is Asia or is it Europe? But depending on
22:07
Speaker 1: where you begin, Um, the cartographer has a lot of
22:13
Speaker 1: leeway and deciding, like what is going to be the
22:16
Speaker 1: center of the world in this map. So Russia may
22:20
Speaker 1: not actually be over there. Depending on the map, it
22:22
Speaker 1: can be up into the left a little more in reality,
22:26
Speaker 1: and it may be a little smaller. It just depends
22:29
Speaker 1: on You remember where the balloon touched the inside of
22:32
Speaker 1: the cylinder, and that was the tangent um. Wherever you
22:37
Speaker 1: position the cylinder around the world, where it's going to touch,
22:41
Speaker 1: that's your line of least distortion, And that can be
22:44
Speaker 1: the center of your whole map, but it doesn't necessarily
22:47
Speaker 1: mean that. In reality it's the center of the world.
22:50
Speaker 1: So it's up to the cartographer what they're what choices
22:53
Speaker 1: they're going to make to make what the center, what's where,
22:57
Speaker 1: and then again what they're going to distort. If you
23:00
Speaker 1: want to be accurate with your distances, you're gonna create
23:03
Speaker 1: an equidistant map projection and uh, if you want your directions,
23:08
Speaker 1: if you want like a navigational map, you can actually
23:10
Speaker 1: use That's when you're gonna have to use those rum lines,
23:14
Speaker 1: so you know it's your compass bearings will Actually you
23:18
Speaker 1: can use this map to get around right, you can
23:20
Speaker 1: you you can make a straight line in the map
23:22
Speaker 1: and follow that same straight line, because if your rum
23:25
Speaker 1: lines aren't straight, they're gonna be curved, But if your
23:28
Speaker 1: rom lines are straight, then you're leading. Tude and longitude
23:30
Speaker 1: are curved, so you're sacrificing one for the other. But um,
23:36
Speaker 1: another thing you can do to get around this distortion
23:39
Speaker 1: is to just tear out pieces of your map. Yeah. Um,
23:44
Speaker 1: there's something called gores that they use this to make globes,
23:48
Speaker 1: because the globe can start out as like a flat
23:51
Speaker 1: piece of paper, but then they cut out angles so
23:54
Speaker 1: that when you fold it, it doesn't crumple, it just
23:57
Speaker 1: kind of lays in perfectly, right. Um. Gores usually go
24:01
Speaker 1: on lines of longitude. That's where they separate, and it's
24:05
Speaker 1: just kind of random, so like a part of a
24:06
Speaker 1: land mass will be like completely separated by this another
24:09
Speaker 1: region that doesn't really exist except in two dimensions, right right.
24:15
Speaker 1: Um at the good projection, one of my favorites, and
24:19
Speaker 1: it's also the logo for the U. N Um cuts
24:22
Speaker 1: out these things called um tears, not gores. Oh is
24:26
Speaker 1: that the very famous Um? Yeah, I know which one
24:29
Speaker 1: you're talking about. And they just cut through the ocean
24:32
Speaker 1: because it looks like like a bunch of footballs. Yes,
24:37
Speaker 1: the Arctic, yeah, which itself is a little bit cut up,
24:41
Speaker 1: but um, Yeah, that's the same one. That's that's my favorite.
24:47
Speaker 1: Like it it's very land centric. Yeah, I like land
24:50
Speaker 1: centric me with my tan oceans. Um. So, like we said,
24:56
Speaker 1: maps are visual expressions of measurements. So if you go
24:59
Speaker 1: to make a map, what you're probably gonna be working
25:02
Speaker 1: on is a is all the maps that have come before. Like,
25:07
Speaker 1: it's definitely like an aggregate thing, and you can make
25:09
Speaker 1: your brand new map of course. But over in in
25:12
Speaker 1: antiquity and history, maps were made by going out and
25:15
Speaker 1: measuring things and writing that stuff down, and eventually the
25:21
Speaker 1: more we discovered, the more accurate the maps were, and
25:24
Speaker 1: they were just sort of it was a big group
25:25
Speaker 1: effort basically to land on what eventually was an accurate
25:29
Speaker 1: map took a long time. It did take a long time.
25:31
Speaker 1: The oldest maps date back to I think the Babylonians
25:36
Speaker 1: were making maps and they they're anthropologists and archaeologists disagree. Um,
25:41
Speaker 1: but there may be even earlier maps. But among the drawings. Yeah,
25:46
Speaker 1: but the anthropologists are like, well, is that a painting
25:49
Speaker 1: of an area or is it a map? Yeah, you
25:52
Speaker 1: can't really say what the intention of of I call
25:55
Speaker 1: it a map. I mean it might just be here's
25:58
Speaker 1: took Took's fortress, here is where the fire is, and
26:01
Speaker 1: here's where the dinosaurs are. But that's still a very
26:04
Speaker 1: crude map to me, So I vote for map okay. Um,
26:08
Speaker 1: surveyors are going to come in handy obviously to um
26:11
Speaker 1: take these precise measurements of both land and water. Um.
26:15
Speaker 1: These days they have GPS is gonna make things a
26:19
Speaker 1: lot easier and more accurate. Um. They have something called
26:22
Speaker 1: remote sensing or aerial and satellite photography. They use that
26:26
Speaker 1: a lot now and that actually actually was used back
26:28
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds. Um. Yeah, that was when they
26:33
Speaker 1: first used aerial photography. But it really like came into
26:36
Speaker 1: its own in World War Two when we had all
26:38
Speaker 1: these reconnaissance photos to use that sort of to map
26:42
Speaker 1: out your data. Yeah, cartographers were like, um, can we
26:44
Speaker 1: have those when you're done? Yeah, exactly, and matt Making
26:48
Speaker 1: kind of exploded after that. So chok. We talked about
26:51
Speaker 1: thematic maps, right, Yeah, like where all the trout in
26:54
Speaker 1: the United States. So it's basically like the basis is
26:57
Speaker 1: of physical map. You've got mountains, rivers, all that stuff.
27:00
Speaker 1: You can overlay political maps if you start to carve
27:03
Speaker 1: that rain up by national or state or county or
27:07
Speaker 1: city borders, um. And then on top of that you
27:11
Speaker 1: can lay a thematic map, right like a census or whatever.
27:15
Speaker 1: And that's when you become That's when the cartographer becomes
27:19
Speaker 1: um researcher basically and uses a lot of the same
27:22
Speaker 1: methods at a writer would. Uh. They need accurate information,
27:25
Speaker 1: they need it as up to date as possible. Most
27:28
Speaker 1: maps like that will actually have citations, just like a
27:32
Speaker 1: research paper might like, hey, we got in touch with
27:35
Speaker 1: the the World Bank for this map, or the World
27:38
Speaker 1: Health Organization is who we're siting for these numbers, right,
27:41
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're doing something like, um, smallpox outbreaks
27:45
Speaker 1: from eighteen seventy two to nineteen fifteen, then you could
27:50
Speaker 1: cite World Health Organization statistics and show that on a
27:53
Speaker 1: map just by using some colors. Yeah, that's bam, that's
27:57
Speaker 1: a thematic map right there. Yeah. And the two Frances Guthrie,
28:02
Speaker 1: he was in England and he said, you know what
28:05
Speaker 1: I have is this theorem that all you need is
28:07
Speaker 1: four colors? And everyone said shut up and he said
28:09
Speaker 1: no really, they said shut up. He said you need
28:12
Speaker 1: to blue. Well, I actually don't know the four colors
28:14
Speaker 1: I guess would be blue, brown, green, and apparently, apparently
28:18
Speaker 1: you just need tan's brown. But that became known as
28:23
Speaker 1: the four color theorem. And um, he proposed that you
28:25
Speaker 1: could map out all the counties of England just with
28:28
Speaker 1: those four colors. Why make it more complicated than that?
28:30
Speaker 1: And people say, okay, maybe you're right, and he was, Um,
28:35
Speaker 1: you need skill as an artist obviously if you want
28:37
Speaker 1: to be a cartographer. Um. With computers these days, geographic
28:42
Speaker 1: information systems g i s, they have automated a lot
28:45
Speaker 1: of these tasks. But um, as Tracy points out, the
28:49
Speaker 1: best maps still come from skilled artists. Yeah. Um, and
28:53
Speaker 1: map making is I get the impression that, like it
28:56
Speaker 1: really blew up after World War Two thanks to aerial photography. Yeah,
29:00
Speaker 1: and we had some really great maps that were created
29:03
Speaker 1: as a result. But I feel like the Internet has
29:07
Speaker 1: really ushered in a new era for maps that has
29:11
Speaker 1: not been seen since, like the age of exploration, where
29:15
Speaker 1: it's like people are making maps for everything. They're a
29:18
Speaker 1: lot easier to make. Um, although they still require a
29:22
Speaker 1: great deal of skill. I think what I mean is
29:24
Speaker 1: the tools are there to make a map easier to make.
29:28
Speaker 1: They're more accurate, the more up to date, the time
29:31
Speaker 1: between starting and releasing a map or publishing a map
29:34
Speaker 1: is a lot shorter, and people just I think, tend
29:37
Speaker 1: to use them a lot more and they're having a
29:39
Speaker 1: lot more impact thanks to things like Google Maps. People
29:43
Speaker 1: are discovering entire lost cities thanks to Google maps, like
29:47
Speaker 1: Google Earth. Um. There was a war that broke out
29:53
Speaker 1: over Google Maps, I believe between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Maybe. Yeah.
29:58
Speaker 1: And two thousand eight, two dozen nine there was a skirmish, uh,
30:02
Speaker 1: and I believe it was Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Um.
30:05
Speaker 1: There was this little disputed bit of land, and some
30:09
Speaker 1: rogue lieutenant said, you know what I found. I found
30:12
Speaker 1: a Google map that sites this is ours, and I'm
30:14
Speaker 1: gonna go colonize it. And it started an international incident
30:18
Speaker 1: between the two countries. Yeah. Um, So I mean they
30:21
Speaker 1: still have, like very maps have a huge impact on
30:26
Speaker 1: you know, world and culture, and I think also a
30:30
Speaker 1: lot of people assert that they have an impact on
30:32
Speaker 1: the way people think of a nation or a continent
30:36
Speaker 1: or a group of the people who inhabit that area.
30:39
Speaker 1: Something that's big and in the center of a map
30:42
Speaker 1: that must be an important place. Something that's small and
30:45
Speaker 1: off to the side is marginal, and I think that
30:48
Speaker 1: that has a an impact on the psychology behind maps,
30:52
Speaker 1: and I think probably a good cartographer takes that into consideration.
30:56
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, I think. Um well, something else that you
30:59
Speaker 1: have to cider is like, what what is your purpose
31:01
Speaker 1: of the map period? Like what information you're trying to
31:04
Speaker 1: get across, because that will determine what kind of data
31:06
Speaker 1: they're into. Uh. And then what's the audience, Just like
31:09
Speaker 1: if you're writing a story or a paper, you want
31:11
Speaker 1: to cater your map to who's going to be using it? Right,
31:15
Speaker 1: you know this is for a children's website or is
31:17
Speaker 1: it for getting around the big city? Um? But also
31:22
Speaker 1: I mean, are you asserting the dominate, the domination of
31:25
Speaker 1: Europe over the rest of the world. Then you're Gerardist
31:28
Speaker 1: Mercat and it's the sixteenth century, so you put Europe
31:33
Speaker 1: in the center of your world and make it way
31:36
Speaker 1: bigger than South America, which is actually twice its size. Um.
31:41
Speaker 1: I think these days cartographers fall into their different niches. Um,
31:48
Speaker 1: Like you might be into political maps and so that's
31:50
Speaker 1: what you do, or like, actually, we can just get
31:53
Speaker 1: to this now. One of my best friends, one of
31:55
Speaker 1: my oldest friends is a illustrator and cartographer and he
32:00
Speaker 1: does well. Here, let me show you what he's done.
32:02
Speaker 1: He does uh everything from like ski maps to like
32:07
Speaker 1: like of ski slopes. Oh that's a nice map, isn't it,
32:11
Speaker 1: to like the rivers of Utah or the rivers of
32:14
Speaker 1: this certain part of Africa. It's like really cool maps
32:17
Speaker 1: like that, and yeah, it's very pretty. His name is
32:21
Speaker 1: Rad Smith and we're looking at Raddington rad Key Radford.
32:27
Speaker 1: I told you mentioned him before. Um So I sent
32:31
Speaker 1: Rad a few questions actually, just to spice this thing up,
32:34
Speaker 1: because when you have a cartographer at you're, you know,
32:37
Speaker 1: Beck and call, might as well use them, right, Ben Franklin,
32:40
Speaker 1: I think said that. I think so. So I just
32:42
Speaker 1: threw a few quick questions out him earlier in the
32:44
Speaker 1: day and he was kind enough to respond. And you
32:47
Speaker 1: can see Rad's work by the way. It red Smith
32:48
Speaker 1: Illustrations dot com. If you're so inclined or illustration no
32:53
Speaker 1: as um So I asked him what kind of personality traits,
32:58
Speaker 1: because like what what kind of person becomes a cartographer?
33:02
Speaker 1: And he said, um, patients is obviously a big, big
33:06
Speaker 1: thing because you can't just like whittle off a map
33:08
Speaker 1: in a few minutes or a few days. UM. He says,
33:11
Speaker 1: especially in relation to having the ability to source and
33:14
Speaker 1: seek out existing data, because every county, state, university, federal agency, etcetera.
33:19
Speaker 1: Has our own data clearinghouse and g i S library,
33:22
Speaker 1: so finding the right data for your needs can really
33:24
Speaker 1: be a challenge. UM. It also has become a crowdsourced
33:27
Speaker 1: resource as data libraries are growing every day. I think
33:31
Speaker 1: having a strong mathematical background and understanding of scale and
33:34
Speaker 1: perspective is important too, and enjoying looking at the world
33:38
Speaker 1: from a map perspective as a plus. Um. He said
33:41
Speaker 1: he never gets tired of looking at maps, old and new.
33:43
Speaker 1: And this was a dude that we used to sit
33:44
Speaker 1: around watch the Weather Channel together in high school just
33:47
Speaker 1: for fun. That really panned off for him. Yeah, and
33:49
Speaker 1: he would be doodling and I would be like writing
33:51
Speaker 1: stories and like look at us now, you know, Um,
33:54
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting stuff. Yeah. He uses the g I
33:57
Speaker 1: S systems and GPS. UM has asked him if, like,
34:01
Speaker 1: how much is actually field work and I think generally
34:04
Speaker 1: he works in in conjunction with people out in the field. Uh,
34:09
Speaker 1: and then asked him how he got started, and he
34:10
Speaker 1: said he always loved maps, but he started painting watercolor
34:14
Speaker 1: maps for magazine. He would paint background textures to suggest terrain, water,
34:19
Speaker 1: and other geographic features. Bet he didn't paint it brown.
34:24
Speaker 1: I bet rat he's all about the blue water. He's
34:26
Speaker 1: a surfer. That may have been when we talked about it.
34:30
Speaker 1: Um oh, and finally asked him, like how long? And
34:33
Speaker 1: that's the worst question ever, like, hey, how long does
34:35
Speaker 1: it take to do a map? But that moonlight base
34:37
Speaker 1: and scheme map I did, he said, took a hundred
34:39
Speaker 1: and seventy hours to create. It looks like Yeah, he said.
34:43
Speaker 1: He worked from dozens of aerial photos, topographic maps, satellite images,
34:47
Speaker 1: building plans to piece it all together. So it's very cool.
34:51
Speaker 1: It's like kind of figuring out a puzzle, I think,
34:54
Speaker 1: and then relaying it in a way that is both
34:56
Speaker 1: accurate and interesting to the user. Yeah, and I like
35:00
Speaker 1: connect maps to um. There's a bunch of cool ones
35:03
Speaker 1: all over the internet. I think if you just search
35:06
Speaker 1: like strange maps, yeah, it'll bring up some pretty cool sites. Yeah,
35:09
Speaker 1: and it's fun to look at too. The old I'm
35:11
Speaker 1: into the what people used to think the world look
35:15
Speaker 1: like and the land masses were shaped like you know, well,
35:19
Speaker 1: if you look at certain projections now that are supposedly
35:21
Speaker 1: very accurate, it looks really weird and nothing like what
35:24
Speaker 1: we think of as well. Maps is done. Uh, you
35:32
Speaker 1: got any more way to add? Uh the cartographer then
35:36
Speaker 1: it's nice. Yeah, thanks d Thanks buddy, thanks a lot. RD.
35:39
Speaker 1: He's pretty excited about this. I think. Oh yeah, well,
35:42
Speaker 1: anytime someone's highlighting your field. He does other illustrations too.
35:45
Speaker 1: He's not just a cartographer. Oh yeah, yeah, exact, that's
35:48
Speaker 1: just what he does on the side. Uh. If you
35:51
Speaker 1: want to know more about maps and cartography, you can
35:54
Speaker 1: type maps into the search bar how stuff works dot com,
35:57
Speaker 1: which means since I said search bar, it's time for
36:00
Speaker 1: listener message, Rick, and how about some listener mail? All right,
36:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this uh fraternity and drag. Okay, all right,
36:15
Speaker 1: this is from Cameron. Hey, guys and Jerry. First off,
36:18
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the show, recently listened to
36:20
Speaker 1: the episode on Drag Queens and I thought i'd share
36:22
Speaker 1: a little bit about my organization. I'm the president of
36:25
Speaker 1: the ZI chapter. I think that's right. I think if
36:29
Speaker 1: it's to ZI of Delta Lambda Phi International social fraternity
36:33
Speaker 1: at u C. Davis in California. We're a special interest
36:36
Speaker 1: fraternity for gay, bisexual, and progressive men. For the past
36:40
Speaker 1: almost twenty five years, we put on Northern California's largest
36:44
Speaker 1: drag show called Davis Is Burning. The name inspired obviously
36:48
Speaker 1: by the documentary Harris Is Burning, which you guys mentioned.
36:51
Speaker 1: The show is a night of gender bending fund as
36:53
Speaker 1: many of our brothers dress up and perform and drag
36:57
Speaker 1: for an audience of almost one thousand students, staff and
37:00
Speaker 1: community members. So that's awesome, Like everyone's getting involved in Additionally,
37:05
Speaker 1: we have local celebrity drag performers from Sacramento. Their Sacramento
37:10
Speaker 1: celebrities uh in San Francisco. Okay, there you go. The
37:14
Speaker 1: audience gets involved too in our famous drag king and
37:17
Speaker 1: queen competitions. While the show serves mainly as a fundraiser
37:20
Speaker 1: for the chapter, we donate a large amount of money
37:23
Speaker 1: from the show to the Trevor Project, an anti suicide
37:26
Speaker 1: hotline for at risk l g ptuth Um. I think
37:31
Speaker 1: it's great and you guys that you guys featured this
37:33
Speaker 1: piece on the show about drag queens and had some
37:36
Speaker 1: fun with the lingo. Did a great job. Feel free
37:38
Speaker 1: to check out our website for the show at Davis
37:41
Speaker 1: is Burning dot com. That is from Cameron. Thanks Cameron.
37:45
Speaker 1: We got some good replies. Did you see the guy
37:47
Speaker 1: who Um he and his partner met one of the
37:51
Speaker 1: veterans of the Stone Wall, right, Yeah, done in Puerto Rico. Yeah,
37:54
Speaker 1: he's still in drag and uh just like living history
37:57
Speaker 1: right there. So very cool. So thanks to them. I'm
38:00
Speaker 1: sure she would not like you to refer to her
38:02
Speaker 1: as living history. Hopefully she doesn't listen to this. What
38:05
Speaker 1: living history? What's wrong with that? It just makes her
38:09
Speaker 1: sound old? She is whold, but she's part of history
38:12
Speaker 1: and she's alive. Anyway. I hope she's not listening. He
38:16
Speaker 1: also hit him at the end of the email and
38:18
Speaker 1: the PS oh yeah what he's saying. He's like, y, Chuck,
38:20
Speaker 1: if you ever decided to swing over our way, give me.
38:23
Speaker 1: He's like, Josh is too skinny for me, But that's hilarious. Yeah,
38:26
Speaker 1: I guess he's into the Bears. Yeah, the chubby bearded
38:29
Speaker 1: ones Bears. Yeah. Um, I didn't even notice that. Yeah.
38:34
Speaker 1: To scroll down further AMO emails from now on you
38:36
Speaker 1: should The PS is always riveting. Um, If you've got
38:40
Speaker 1: a ps that you want us to hear, you can
38:44
Speaker 1: tweet to us yeah s y s K podcast. You
38:47
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you
38:50
Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff
38:53
Speaker 1: Podcast at Discovery dot com and uh as always, you
38:57
Speaker 1: can join us at our home on the web, Stuff
38:59
Speaker 1: you Should dot com for more on this and thousands
39:07
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com