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Questions Answered!

2008-06-25 · Hank · watch on YouTube · History & curiosities · conversation qa

After ranting that ice on Mars is not news, Hank reports the Nerdfighters' answers to his earlier questions (mono vs uni, the origin of 'trivia', TV vs real-life murders, dictators' pets) and asks for Star Trek material for a montage in his over-four-minute Star Trek song.

What is said

00:00:00 — Rant: ice on Mars isn't news; only the lander landing on ice is

  • ★★★ Hank insists there has always been ice on Mars and it has been known for about 50 years, so it is not news. — 00:00:02
  • ★★ Mars has ice caps, sometimes coated with carbon dioxide dry ice, but both are water ice at the core. — 00:00:25
  • ★★ Hank says the real news is only that the lander landed on ice, which is great for people who want to study the ice. — 00:00:34

00:00:41 — Nerdfighters' answers: mono vs uni; the origin of 'trivia'

  • ★★ Hank recalls asking Nerdfighters a couple of weeks ago to answer some questions; they did remarkably well on all but one, a hard one. — 00:00:41 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Viewers told Hank the difference between mono and uni is that uni is Latin and mono Greek; he had thought both were Latin. (hedged) — 00:00:54
  • ★ Others said uni connotes many brought into one (university) and mono one on its own (monomer), though that fails for unicycles. — 00:01:05
  • ★★ Hank was right that 'trivia' comes from tri-via, three roads: where three roads met, people gathered to gossip about unimportant things. — 00:01:24

00:01:38 — Are there more murders on TV or in real life?

  • ★★ Whether TV or real life has more murders stays unanswered; consensus says real life probably has more, but per capita TV definitely does, and TV characters live shorter lives. — 00:01:38

00:02:08 — Do evil people have pets? Hitler's Blondi and Fuchsl, Lenin's cats, Mao's pet killings

  • ★★ Lots of evil people had pets: Hitler had a German Shepherd, Blondi, who apparently died by poison pill, the same way as Hitler and his girlfriend. (hedged) — 00:02:08 · Adolf Hitler
  • ★★ Hitler also had a terrier, Fuchsl, that he found and adopted in the World War I trenches and that was later stolen from him. — 00:02:20 · Adolf Hitler
  • ★★ Lenin loved cats and had lots of them; Hank adds that Lenin sort of opened the door for Stalin to take over after he died. (hedged) — 00:02:42
  • ★★ Some evil people hated pets: Mao declared pets a symbol of bourgeois oppression and had them killed in the 1960s and 70s, tens of thousands of dogs and cats. — 00:02:53

00:03:11 — Star Trek song over four minutes: invoking the montage clause; ask for Star Trek material; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank is making a Star Trek song longer than four minutes that he can't shorten, so he invokes the longer-than-four-minutes clause, which requires a Nerdfighting montage. — 00:03:12 · Four-minute rule
  • ★★★ Hank asks viewers to email him anything to do with Star Trek, preferably The Next Generation with Captain Picard, at sparksflyup@gmail.com for the montage. — 00:03:24

Humor (significant)

  • Hank notes TV has more murders per capita, so if certain TV detectives show up at your party, just leave. — 00:01:54 > «Run away because I think your jewels are going to get stolen or you are going to get whacked!»
  • Hank tells how Hitler's beloved terrier Fuchsl was stolen from him in World War I. — 00:02:33 > «Whoever stole Fuchsl may in fact have been responsible for Hitler turning out the way he did.»
  • Mao had tens of thousands of dogs and cats killed, even ones raised for food. — 00:03:05 > «Not that they would not have died.»
  • Hank's sign-off is handed to a cat named after the Lenin of his pet answers. — 00:03:40 > «Lenin's kitty says, "Click the little yellow box and subscribe!"»

Threads in this video

Replies to

  • Adorable Puppy Injury!!!! — «couple weeks ago, I asked the Nerdfighters to use their collective brain cells and Googling-fingers to answer some question.»

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