Bring On The Questions

Even after two episodes about Data Centers we still don’t think they are necessary in such quantities. I guess we’re going to have to live with them somehow. If the people designing and engineering them could think more about resource efficiency then maybe coping with the festering warts that data centers are wouldn’t be so bad. We get into some ways of how the byproducts of running a data center...

Data Centers have evolved in so many different ways since they first became a necessity and nuisance. They have always taken up massive amounts of space and resources and somehow the needs to run them have ever increased as well. The sheer amount of water and electricity it takes to run these places is unimaginable. They use the amount of resources that can sustain a large town or small city. Are...

Here we go, another big corporation origin story! Born from the idea of legally listening to music on the internet, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon created Spotify. The word is actually a portmanteau of “Spot” and “Identify”. It was a struggle but those guys built something pretty important for the world, but with every Big Corporation problems would soon come. The BIG part tends to come from the c...

Happy 6-7 Day!!! Well it was 6/7 this past week. We dig into the origin of this recent meme/idiom that has inundated society so much that schools have banned students from saying it and doing the motion associated with it. We also get into origin stories of some other idioms involving numbers. We may not be going The Whole Nine Yards with idioms but we certainly had moments where we were on Cloud...

Can you believe at one point mass hysterias were blamed on roving uteruses?? Of course the males in power giving out diagnoses only blamed females for a long time. Eventually males were diagnosed as part of mass hysteria epidemics, but it was still a female dominated ailment according to the patriarchy of the time. A woman started the dancing plague, Nuns acting out in wildly radical ways for arou...

Welcome to our next cryptid origin story. The origin of the Chupacabra is really recent in the grand scheme of things. The first alleged sighting or encounter was in March of 1995 where 8 sheep were discovered dead. After that, other mysterious livestock deaths were attributed to the same creature. The coining of the term "chupacabra" is credited to the Puerto Rican comedian and radio personality...

Early observers of the world, scientists before there were really scientists, were adamant that the world was flat and then observed a little closer and decided there were too many circles or partial circles being observed on celestial bodies to continue to say it was flat. Well according to some people those scientists were feeding people lies. Those people believe only what’s right in front of t...

This week we’re exploring the hollow earth hypothesis. Many religions have believed or still believe some kind of afterlife exists under or in the earth. Is there a way to enter that space from the surface without dying first? Before there was deep polar, north or south, exploration there was some thought the speed of the spin of the earth caused the poles to flatten out and become openings into t...

Walpurgis Night or Walpurgisnacht. Another fire, fellowship, and fun-filled mid season celebration brought to you by those kookie Germanic folk. Saint Walpurga is the reason for this particular seasonal celebration, but that’s only because they moved her remains about 100 years after she died and made that the reason for an annual feast in her name. Saint Walpurga is characterized by her perceived...

Unicorns and tangents. I guess I could say more about this episode, but that’s about the gist of what happened. We talked about Unicorns, but boy did we go in wild directions while we were doing it. So apparently a story tells of Unicorns that were the size of mountains and that’s why they couldn’t fit on Noah’s Ark and that’s why we don’t see Unicorns today? Another story says they were too silly...

We learned so much in a year! It’s actually pretty mind blowing! This episode was supposed to be the entire year in review, but we’re pretty good at tangents and getting distracted too. Soooo we only talked about the trailer and first 15 episodes. Anyway we hope you enjoy our very non-structured and mostly conversational episode. #BringOnTheQuestions #Learning #History #67 #Conversation

Three guys who went to college together were tired of the bland canned coffee they were being served and set out to do something about it. They brought together the best coffee beans they could find and called their company Starbucks. Then another guy came along and said they could do so much more than just sell beans. They turned him down until his “third place” between work and home became the b...

Big Corporations have been an American staple since the beginning of America right up to this very day. Textiles, railroads, telecommunications, and petroleum were the dominating forces of the early days and in the modern day we are inundated with the overwhelming power of technology in its many forms. Big Corporations are forces of unnatural power and they are fully aware of that face. They know...

Triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) and its variant, paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th), are among the West's most enduring superstitions, costing the U.S. economy up to $900 million in lost productivity every Friday the 13th. The stigma begins with mathematics. Ancient civilizations venerated the number 12 as a symbol of "divine completeness" (12 months, 12 zodiac signs, 12 g...

Coral Castle is a physical representation of intense dedication and incredible engineering. Edward Leedskalnin spent most of his life building Coral Castle with the hope of his former love joining him and starting a full life complete with children. However, that was not to be. He brought the world this engineering marvel at the cost of his broken heart.  #BringOnTheQuestions #CoralCastle #Enginee...

Superstition is an enduring cognitive bridge between the rational pursuit of causality and the psychological need for agency in an uncertain world. Etymologically derived from the Latin superstitio ("standing over"), the term has evolved from Roman associations with excessive ritual to Medieval Christian labeling of "pagan remnants" and "erroneous belief." As society moves into the 21st century, s...

Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s that time of year where goats are sacrificed and naked priests run around spanking women with strips of goat hides to ensure fertility and ease of pain during childbirth….oh wait….no no….that’s how Lupercalia, the precursor to Valentine’s Day, is celebrated. Sometime later the church decided that kind of celebration was a little too intense to find a partner for a roman...

Here we go, we’re breaking down another cryptid creature. This time we want to know about the sad sad loose skinned teary eyed Squonk that lurks around the hemlocks of north-central Pennsylvania. It was described early on in William T. Cox’s Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts. It’s a long name, but the short book is packed full of cryptids from all over th...

Do you ever recognize or tune in to those moments where if you were just a couple minutes or even seconds later it would have meant disaster? Do you ever think of someone and suddenly you’re getting a text message or a phone call from them? Any time you feel that sense of “Right Place, Right Time”. These are coincidences that have meaning to you, “Meaningful Coincidences” or more simply Synchronic...

This is a bit of a sequel to our 6th episode! Then we asked “How did the days of the week get their names” Now we’re asking How Did The Months Get Their Names. For a long long time a long long time ago the Romans would march in March and finish the year in December totaling 304 days in the year. So what happened during those other 61 days? Nothing. It was just this void of time passing. Fun fact:...

Bibliomancy. Divining prophecy via a sacred text or eventually any literature that holds meaning for you. It was practiced regularly for sometime in history in all religions. Eventually Christianity decided it was a little too witchcraft-like.  We tried our hands at a little Bibliomancy ourselves. We miiight have confirmed there is a multiverse. I think we predicted the Philadelphia Eagles losing...

The 2008 killing of Timothy McLean on a Greyhound bus remains one of Canada's most disturbing criminal cases. Vincent Li, suffering from untreated paranoid schizophrenia, beheaded and cannibalized McLean near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Li believed he was fulfilling a divine command to destroy a "demon." In 2009, Li was found Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder (NCRMD). The...

Happy Yule! Merry Advent! Soon we'll be in the new year! First we need to celebrate the last few days of 2025 with the final days of the Yuletide season. Much like Advent Yule was formally celebrated or rather observed much longer during the colder months. Now it's nice and condensed down to just 12 days ending on the first day of the new year.  Day 1: Mother's Night (Mōdraniht (MO-dra-nikht)): Mo...

The short answer is Krampus is the anti-Santi. He’s the yang to Santa’s ying. He was cool in the early days of Germany and then he was too cool for Germany in World War II. In more modern days Krampus is the mascot for a more goth type Christmas. #BringOnTheQuestions #History #Myth #Krampus #Christmas

Formally, Advent was a time of personal sacrifice or abstinence much like Lent and it lasted 40 days as well. Essentially it was a second Lent for the year. It very slowly evolved into the 24 day countdown we have today. From personal abstinence to a miniature daily treat in a handy tandy countdown box.  #BringOnTheQuestions #BOTQs #History #Advent #Christmas #Christian #Countdown