The Great Shark Versus Octopus War
| The Great Shark Versus Octopus War | |
| Number | 45 |
| Broadcast Date | October 17, 2011 |
| Episode Length | 1:29:12 |
| Hosts | Andrew Mayne, Brian Brushwood, Justin Robert Young |
Andrew geeks out about the new Space X launches and proposes the first ever Weird Things meet-up. Brian descends into the jungle to find a furry, bipedal creature. Justin plays referee as the rest of the crew argue with each other on which side of the great Shark / Octopus War they are going to be on. Who will you choose?
Contents
Siri
The episode starts off with a quick discussion about one of the most interesting new features of Apple's recently announced iPhone 4S: Siri. They guys think that even though there are mixed reactions to it, once more and more people get their hands on it, everyone will realize just how revolutionary it is. One part of Siri that is truly awesome is its integration with Wolfram Alpha; as Brian mentions, for example you can ask it to multiply the mass of Ganymede by the number of people in Mexico and it will give you a numerical answer (which is 1.64×10^31 people kg).
Separate from the podcast, Andrew has put out a few videos, like this one, showing off what Siri and Wolfram Alpha can do on your iPhone.
Going Into Space for the Price of a Crappy Baseball Player
In the last episode, they talked about how SpaceX is planning to make their Falcon 9 rockets fully reuseable. After watching their concept video over and over, Andrew decided to e-mail them a few questions. The first thing he asked was whether or not they plan to make the Falcon Heavy rockets reuseable as well. They responded saying that they intend to make their entire lineup of rockets reusable including the Falcon Heavy. If things work out, they could bring the price of a launch down to something like $10 per pound.
A New Type of Ape
Most experts will tell you that there are four different types of great apes: chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans. However there is some credible evidence that points to there being a fifth great ape. It is called the Orang Pendek and it is believed to be living on the island of Sumatra.
Ferdinand and Ferdi
Two explorers, Ferdinand Steelthighs (Brian) and Ferdi LeDouche (Justin) are out in the Rocky Mountains exploring a bear cave when they find a bunch of deer skulls lined up in a row on the ground. Upon seeing this, the guys are very weirded out by the strange, almost OCD habits of this bear. The guys have a feeling that the bear may have a higher than average intelligence, however they are far more afraid of the fact that it is murdering living things and they are in its home.
Later, Ferdinand and Ferdi are sitting out on their porch when they hear a ruckus by the trash cans. They go over to investigate and there is a wild dog with a bone in its mouth; they then notice that there is a bunch of bones on the ground placed in such a manner that they draw an outline of a dog.
Then the guys are walking around an area that was once underwater and they see some fossilized vertebrae lined up in the ground. Apparently it is a known thing for octopi to take the bones of their prey and line them up on the sea floor in the shape of what appears to be tentacles.
The Mystery of the Dying Sharks
Ferdinand and Ferdi are hanging out at an aquarium when they see a dead shark just floating in the water. They come to find that this is not the first time this type of thing has happened and the cause is unknown. Ferdinand has a hypothesis that the sharks are trying to show off and swim head first straight into the windows and killed himself. Ferdi believes that they got bored and decided to make out until they died.
They decided to put a camera in the tank to see what is killing the sharks. Turns out the sharks are being murdered by an octopus. You can see the video that they are referring to right here. After seeing this frightful display, Andrew proposes that humans form an alliance with the octopi in order to stay on their good side. Brian however wants to align with the sharks to take down the octopi in order to make sure that humans remain the dominant species.
- Octopus Wrestling
While researching the octopus on wikipedia, Andrew stumbled upon octopus wrestling.
Brian came up with a hypothetical situation where aliens force Justin, Brian and Andrew to each wrestle an octopus and whoever defeats the largest octopus gets to go home free. Brian chooses to fight a rather small octopus that is about the size of a Westie Terrier. Andrew decides to fight a 57 pounder- the largest octopus ever wrestled in World Octopus Wrestling history. Justin, knowing that he has a very small chance of winning this competition wants to fight an octopus the size of a beluga whale, not because he thinks that he can defeat it, but because he wants to make it as difficult as possible for the aliens to find an octopus that big.
If you would like to see a video of whale wrestling, wait no more!
Book Club
Justin
Andrew
- Real Steel
Brian
Great Quotes
- "Sorry, talk to FIFA." -Justin
- "I had to change the punchline to avoid a red card." -Brian
- "Dogs don't make no art!" -Justin and Brian
- "Let the record show that Brian Brushwood would rather die riding a shark with a harpoon in hand than die the pet of some octopus." -Brian
- "HAHA! We're having sex!" -Brian
Fun Facts
- Brian and Andrew compared Justin to a non-human ape three times in the span of 8 minutes and 23 seconds.
Sponsors
- Diedre & Daniel
- Jonathan Janzen
- @snywalker
Links
| Preceded by: "Space X Is The New Singularity" |
The Great Shark Versus Octopus War |
Followed by: "Thrustin Justice" |