Bec is covid-free again, and filming on Makeaway Takeaway Season 2 will start next week.
Matt's show Humble Pi, which was canceled due to covid, but now he's re-booked a small number of shows to remember it and then film it. There might be lasers, courtesy of Seb Lee-Delisle.
Bec mentions Horror-Heights-related shows she's doing at a similar time, at Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People.
Why are aspect ratios all whack? [The poser rambles on for a while.]
It's almost like different people making different things make different decisions. Bec asks Tom Salinsky onto the podcast to explain why movie aspect ratios are whack. Tom explains that things used to be made of stuff. Originally, things were a mess, but when sound came along, frame rates and aspect ratios were standardized by the Academy to roughly 4:3. Once TV came along, movies became wider. Showing movies on devices with different aspect ratio comes with a whole host of issues. Thanks to Dr. Kerns H. Powers, TVs (and other devices) now have a 16:9 aspect ratio. However, nowadays 2:1 is becoming more popular. Matt complains that there are two different 4K resolutions. Some films switch between different aspect ratios, which Matt is always excited about.
A "I think this — at least from where I'm standing — you've just given us a good ol' ding." from Bec, combined with a Beardyman ding
I got a missed call from a mobile number earlier today, but when I rang it up, I was informed the number had been disconnected. This got me thinking about how many mobile phone numbers there are. How do the Australian numbers compare to the UK and the US, and would we ever run out?
Matt tells a related anecdote about his teacher days. There are 100'000'000 possible mobile phone numbers in Australia, or roughly four per person. In the UK, there's 1'000'000'000 numbers, or roughly 15 per person. In the US and Canada combined, there's 6'400'000'000 numbers, or roughly 17 per person. Matt thinks there should just be a few more digits and there should be a check digit.
Kids nowadays don't remember their parent's phone numbers, Bec doesn't know her husband's. Matt knows three phone numbers by heart: His own, his wife's, and some friend's parent's house from the 90s. Matt tells another anecdote related to recycled phone numbers and the UFC.
There was some uncertainty where the edge of the solar system is. Professor Lucie Green (Matt's wife), a solar scientist, says that the edge is the Heliopause, which sits about 18 billion km away. The answer is roughly 2 billion days, or 5.5 million years. Matt will accept anything between 3 and 10 million years. Among the correct solutions are Dexter and Ivy with a YouTube video.
A lot of people were upset at the glib answer in the previous episode. Matt and Bec have re-done their calculations and both got wheels.
Someone from within the US food testing industry said that until 2016, the government technically couldn't stop companies selling contaminated food, only fine it.
Tom shows Bec a card, but it is not her card.