108: Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries & The Undying Game of Pinball

We all thought quicksand would be a bigger deal than it is, but what is the science behind them and all the other worries I had as a kid? And how does pinball reflect the changing cultures of our time, and could now be the best era of pinball?

ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

Things we Talk About:

Bagatelle Redgrave's Pinball Humpty Dumpty Beat Time Lambeth & Sarceni's Amazing Pinball Talk at Magfest David Barber's Magfest Pinball Panel Technology Connection's Great Pinball Breakdown PinballMap.com

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Intro

(00:06:22) Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries

(01:05:22) The Undying Game of Pinball

(01:55:32) Outro

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We also learn about: Ella’s spoon collection is much more important than our live show, the never ending story, quicksand was in 3% of in the 1960s, the problem with gen z is they’re not afraid of quicksand, quicksand is reverse oobleck (sheer-thinning), the settled sand at the bottom requires the force of lifting a car, quicksand is unfortunate physics circumstances burying you, 11th century quicksand art in the Bayeux Tapestry (also Haley’s comet), we’re less dense than quicksand so you’d float at your waist, you could listen to this podcast twice while hanging out in quicksand, Ella cried so much she couldn’t cross the piranha plank, piranha fear is President Roosevelt’s fault, you know you’re making fun of a ten year old child right now, my main takeaway was what a cogent president he was, piranhas reloading their teeth, piranhas have 10x the relative bite force to size of a crocodile, piranhas aren’t carnivores - they’re opportunistic omnivores and a skittish prey species, the cow just walking out of the piranhas, it’s like two truths and a lie but all three are true, ARE WE DOING SPIDERS GEORG, spiders have acute mechanoceptors, tarantulas aren’t just hairy for fun, debunking the Lisa Birgit Holst debunking, a 50 spiders salute for georg, Beans Britain is a statistical outlier and should not be counted, spiders georg as a stats teaching tool, spiders georg was NOT an outlier, the moment Tom and pinball fell in love, we’ve been throwing balls at pins since ancient Egypt, indoor parlor games were for the aristocracy, fixing the pins to the table with bagatelle, the depression sparked the start of pinball’s craze, evolving their legs back, truly pinball is what caused the depression, pinball was the avocado toast of the time, pinballs were literally turned into billy clubs and bullets, pinball was banned for 34 years in new york city, the historic humpty dumpty machine first gave us flippers in 1947, pinball was cooler than porn, the bootles, it’s games sex and games AGAIN - but this time it’s bad, Suzanne Ciani’s digital design for Xenon, guess the pinball cabinet from the sound, the sopranos’ profanity filter, NBA fastbreak isn’t a basketball themed pinball - you are playing basketball, Dave demonstrating a Tap Pass, pinball is the most open it’s ever been, finding cabinets is a somehow even nerdier version of birdwatching, oh nooo don’t send me pictures of pinball cabinets.

Sources: 2021 Fibromyalgia Acupuncture Review Wildland Trekking: Is Quicksand Real? EBSCO: Non Newtonian Fluid Wiki: Shear Thinning Slate: The Rise and Fall of Quicksand Getty: Bayeux Tapestry Quicksand Scene BBC Future: Can Quicksand Suck You to Your Death? Nature Comms: Liquefaction of Quicksand Under Stress Europhysics News: Quicksand! National Geographic: Quicksand Greater Cleveland Aquarium: How a President Propagated a Myth Zootaxa: Molecular Systematics of Serrasalmidae Nature Scientific Reports: Extreme Jaw Forces of Living and Extinct Piranhas University of Washington News: Piranha Fish Swap Old Teeth Evolution and Development: Heterodonty and Dental Replacement in Piranhas BBC: Piranha 'less deadly than feared' Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment: Attacks on Humans by the Piranha Serrasalmus rhombeus in Suriname The Harvard Gazette: Piranha Lab BBC: Do People Really Swallow Spiders in their Sleep Snopes: Do People Swallow Eight Spiders Per Year? Scientific American: Fact or Fiction? People Swallow 8 Spiders a Year While They Sleep | Springer Nature: The Vibrational Sense of Spiders Wiki: Fried Spider r/HelloInternet Reddit: Lisa Birgit Holst Doesn't Exist Snopes: Lisa Birgit Holst Tumblr: Spiders Georg Wiki: Spiders Georg Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics: View of How Many Spiders Would Spiders Georg Have To Eat? Medium: The Spiders Georg Problem

--- Lambeth & Sarceni's Amazing Pinball Talk at Magfest David Barber's Magfest Pinball Panel Clive Thompson for Smithsonian Mag on Pinball National Museum of American History on Pinball and Bagatelle Montague Redgrave's Pinball Patent Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on Pinball and Gambling Technology Connection's Great Pinball Breakdown Suzanne Ciani's Audio Design for Xenon

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