Bob and Marcia engaged in a lively conversation, covering topics from ancient Egyptian rulers to modern social media. Bob shared interesting trivia about Cleopatra and the iPhone, while Marcia inquired about the Black Death and US presidents’ alcohol consumption. They also discussed books, leadership qualities, and the significance of Instagram. In a separate section, the speakers explored animal senses, geological wonders, and fascinating facts about Mount Everest and the Titanic. Throughout the conversation, Bob and Marcia demonstrated their curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and sharing knowledge.
Outline
Cleopatra and iPhone, Twitter followers.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss Cleopatra’s connection to the iPhone, with Bob sharing a surprising fact about their historical timelines.
- Bob and Marcia discuss Twitter followers, with Bob naming celebrities like Katy Perry and Justin Bieber, and Marcia finding it interesting despite not following politics.
US presidents, alcohol clouds in space.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the only surviving grandson of a US president born in the 18th century, and Marcia responds with a surprising answer about a different president’s young sibling.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the discovery of a massive cloud of alcohol in the Milky Way, with 400 trillion pints of beer and 10 billion billion billion liters in another cloud.
- The alcohol is formed when new stars heat up, and there are two intergalactic liquor cabinets found so far.
Space debris, kite flying, and presidential trivia.
- Bob Smith provides information about the Black Death, including its still being found in some areas and the number of people who die from it each year.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the US Marine Corps Band, including its creation in 1798 by John Adams and its role as the oldest professional music organization in the US.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the height of kites, with Marcia saying it can be as high as a mile and Bob providing information on the fastest speed of a bullet.
- Bob shares that a standard 150 grain bullet fired from a rifle travels at 2900 feet per second, three times the speed of sound.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss snakes’ ability to hear, learning that they perceive low frequency vibrations through their skulls rather than airborne sound waves.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith where the largest cemetery in the world is, and they discover it’s located in Russia from the Second World War, with 5 million people buried there.
Music, planes, and mountains.
- Marcia Smith mentions that Ed Sheeran had the highest grossing music tour ever, with $776.2 million in revenue and almost 9 million audience members.
- Bob Smith asks why airplanes are always white or light in color, and Marcia Smith explains that it’s to reflect sunlight and minimize heating and damage from solar radiation.
- Bob and Marcia discuss Mount Everest and Mauna Kea’s height, with Bob revealing that Mauna Kea is actually taller when measured from sea level.
History, books, and social media.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the history and value of salt, including a £23,000 cracker auctioned off in the UK.
- Bob and Marcia discuss various historical figures, including Thomas Jefferson and Jennifer Aniston.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the importance of books and the impact they have on connecting people across time and space, as well as the quote from Carl Sagan on the magic of books.
- James Freeman, Clark, and John Houston provide insightful quotes on politics, leadership, and the prevalence of jackasses in the world.
Bob Smith 0:00
What do Cleopatra and the iPhone have in common?
Marcia Smith 0:06
Who are the three most followed people on Twitter?
Bob Smith 0:10
And now that the elections over? Where can I find the largest supply of alcohol in the universe?
Marcia Smith 0:18
And our kitchen? answers
Bob Smith 0:20
to that and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 0:26
and Marsha Smith
Bob Smith 0:43
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to Saturday and have some fun with trivia. Well, Marsh, we’ve had quite a week here with election news and all of that and I thought let’s get away from some of that stuff and just talk about some fun stuff.
Marcia Smith 0:59
You probably got 10 President question.
Bob Smith 1:01
I do have some President questions leftover, but we’ll get to those later. Okay,
Marcia Smith 1:05
I do have one.
Bob Smith 1:06
Okay, first I want to dip into ancient history. Okay. Oh, good
Marcia Smith 1:10
segue.
Bob Smith 1:11
Okay ancient Egypt’s most important rulers were the Pharaoh Khufu, and the Queen Cleopatra. Now listen carefully to this question. What do Cleopatra and the iPhone have in common?
Marcia Smith 1:29
Don’t don’t know how this will blow your
Bob Smith 1:31
mind. Really? Yeah.
Marcia Smith 1:32
What did she have Apple for her logo or something on her on her? krypter now oh,
Bob Smith 1:38
that’s her symbol. I see. No.
Marcia Smith 1:42
Good guess though. Yes. But okay, go ahead. Okay.
Bob Smith 1:45
Ancient Egypt’s history was so long that Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than the construction of the pyramids.
Marcia Smith 1:55
Oh, wow. Isn’t that isn’t that amazing? It’s perspective.
Bob Smith 1:59
Pharaoh Khufu was the Egyptian pharaoh who built the first and biggest pyramids. And Cleopatra was the Egyptian queen who interacted with the Roman Empire. He began building Egypt’s first pyramids in 2550 BC. She lived from 69 BCE to 30 BC. That means she lived closer to the invention of the iPhone in 2007 than to the construction of the pyramids of Giza. They were ancient when she was the queen. They were already over 2000 years old. That comes from a book called 16 History Questions People Always Get Wrong by Marisa la Liberte. I just thought it was an interesting way to position it. So there’s the answer to your question. That’s how Cleopatra and the iPhone are closer and have more in common than she had with the pyramids.
Marcia Smith 2:47
Thank you so much for that.
Bob Smith 2:49
I’m so glad I could help you.
Marcia Smith 2:50
Now, can you name at least two of the three people most followed on Twitter? Well, I would say Rename.
Bob Smith 3:00
I’d say Donald Trump would be followed. He has millions of followers. But I would say Elon Musk? No to both those really? How about the founder of Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg?
Marcia Smith 3:11
Yes. No. Okay, who? Number three going backwards? Is singer songwriter Katy Perry? Really? Yep. Over 108,506,809 followers. Number two, Justin Bieber. Oh, dear real and he upset to 111,255,000. And number one, former President Barack Obama.
Bob Smith 3:38
Oh, he’s got more followers than Trump has? Yeah. Interest. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 3:41
I would have guessed Trump 216,397,276. So Obama and Bieber, Bieber, Barack and Katy Perry and Katy Perry.
Bob Smith 3:53
Well, that’s pretty good.
Marcia Smith 3:55
Isn’t that interesting? Yeah, I thought so too. And
Bob Smith 3:57
it also shows you if you don’t pay attention to Twitter, there’s this huge universe of people there that are paying attention. I
Marcia Smith 4:04
choose not to pay attention. I do follow Aaron Rodgers. Yes, you do. Yes. I
Bob Smith 4:10
know that. That’s
Marcia Smith 4:11
it. And it brings me peace. Okay, as opposed to following somebody in politics or something. Speaking
Bob Smith 4:20
of politics, Marsha. I do have a president question. Okay. What US president born in the 18th century, just had a grandson die. Well, that’s
Marcia Smith 4:32
crazy talk.
Bob Smith 4:36
This is a US president who was born in the 18th century now. That’s the 1700s Yeah, yeah. His grand son, just one of his two grandsons who are still alive just died. He’s got
Marcia Smith 4:48
one still alive.
Bob Smith 4:49
He has one still.
Marcia Smith 4:50
Okay, tell me. All right. No idea.
Bob Smith 4:52
That was John Tyler. He was the 10th US president of the United States number 10. How could the 10th president of President born in 1790, still have grandson’s living in the 21st century good
Marcia Smith 5:05
genes I
Bob Smith 5:06
take it well and people who had children at a late age so lion Gardiner, Tyler, Jr. He was 95. And he died September 26 2020. His death occurred 175 years after his grandfather left the White House in 1845. Now, here’s the reason why, John Taylor, the president, eight years after leaving office, as the age of 63, became a father to Lyon, gardener Tyler. And that was one of 15 children he had. So he had a son at the age of 63. And then the next generation had children late in age also. And then that left us with the two grandsons of the 10th. President still alive in the 21st century. So Harrison Ruffin. Tyler is now the only surviving grandson of a US president born in the 18th century.
Marcia Smith 5:57
Well, that was interesting. Oh, here’s my one presidential question. What 20 A century president as a young man shot his sister in the rear end with a BB gun. See, my my question is there’s so much there’s so intellectual
Bob Smith 6:15
to full and playful, playful question. Okay. I’ll say, let’s see. I don’t know for some reason that makes me think it was. Truman. Yeah. I just think of Truman. He had a sister. Okay. But obviously, that’s not the answer.
Marcia Smith 6:29
No, no. When President Jimmy Carter was 12 years old, he had an argument with his sister GLORIA And she threw a wrench at him. Whoa. And Carter grabbed his BB gun and shot her in the BB but she’s walking away. Yeah, dear. So there’s another side to Mr. Nice Guy.
Bob Smith 6:48
There is another side to Mr. Nice Guy. He’s still around so much for the nice side.
Marcia Smith 6:54
Isn’t that what the baby stands for? But Bullets?
Bob Smith 6:59
The BB gun does not stand for but bullets. Oh, you’re not supposed to use those on your sister. No. Now, Marcia with the election season over? Where would you have to go to find the largest supply of alcohol in the universe in
Marcia Smith 7:11
the universe? Yes. Okay. i Wow. Geez. You mean a physical location or
Bob Smith 7:17
physical location? Country? Somewhere?
Marcia Smith 7:20
I like Russia.
Bob Smith 7:21
There’s a place you could go.
Marcia Smith 7:24
Germany? I don’t know. The
Bob Smith 7:26
answer is deep space. Marcia. Oh, because astronomers have spotted an alcohol cloud in the Milky Way. You want to know more about it? Oh, sure.
Marcia Smith 7:35
Bring a straw. Let’s go.
Bob Smith 7:36
huge clouds of alcohol. 10,000 light years from Earth. Some have taken to calling these space booze. One was discovered in 1995 near the constellation Akela. Now, how big is this massive cloud of alcohol where the alcohol come from? It’s a natural compound. I’ll get to that. I’m asking you how big it is.
Marcia Smith 7:58
How big you mean in my Oh, where am I?
Bob Smith 8:01
However you want to measure it Marsh?
Marcia Smith 8:03
I don’t know. I’ll say it’s 62 miles long. Okay,
Bob Smith 8:07
well, that’s that’d be a big cloud.
Marcia Smith 8:09
But this is a lot bigger.
Bob Smith 8:10
This cloud is 1000 times larger than the diameter of our solar system. And it’s got enough ethyl alcohol to fill 400 trillion pints of beer. Okay, now, you asked me the question. Alcohol is a natural organic compound. And the scientists say it’s formed when new stars heat up. So yeah, so it’s no surprise this cloud is out there near the constellation Akela. And guess what? It’s not the only one out there. According to author Lucas Riley, there’s a second intergalactic liquor cabinet. It’s in the Sagittarius B to cloud. That one has 10 billion billion billion litres of alcohol.
Marcia Smith 8:50
No wonder astronauts are ripping off their helmets. Breathing deeper.
Bob Smith 8:54
But before you fire up your rocket for the interstellar pub crawl. Keep this in mind. It’ll be a long trip. Those massive alcohol clouds are 58 quadrillion miles away.
Marcia Smith 9:06
Okay. Okay, Bob, quick and easy question. Is the Black Death still around?
Bob Smith 9:11
The Black Death? Now? If you’re talking about the bubonic plague I am, the answer is yes. It’s still found every once in awhile rears its ugly head, little places here and there. Still transmitted by rats. But it’s under control. I hope I think you
Marcia Smith 9:28
think correctly. There is a cure for it. And roughly 1000 to 3000 people a year still get it? Oh my god. Really? Yeah. Yeah. In the mid 1300s, the pandemic killed 75 million people in four years
Bob Smith 9:43
75 million people died. That’s about 25%
Marcia Smith 9:47
of Europe. You
Bob Smith 9:49
know, and think of all of the rumors that have circulated with this pandemic. And we’ve got all this modern communication we can say yes, that’s true. No, that’s not true. But imagine in those days tariff. I mean, everything was word of mouth. There were 1300s there was no printed books or newspapers
Marcia Smith 10:05
was one of the early signs. You had it a cough, wasn’t it? Yes. Uh huh. Well, I
Bob Smith 10:09
do have a couple more presidential questions here. Okay. What is the oldest professional music organization in the US and what President created it? The oldest professional music organization? So these are musicians being paid to do their work still in existence? And a President created it? Oh, is
Marcia Smith 10:29
it like the Navy, the choir that big? The Navy band or the the, you know, with all the different military folks, the Army Navy, and they have all the singers up there.
Bob Smith 10:41
You’re on the right path. It’s the US Marine Corps Band. Okay. It was created in 1798, by who? John Adams second US president and created it. He signed a congressional act that year. So it’s the oldest professional music organization in the US and it’s played for every president since Thomas Jefferson it performed at his inauguration. Isn’t that amazing? Yeah. So there’s a direct line of people that go all the way back to 1798 that have been in this band, you know, there’s an unbroken line of people playing in the US Marine Corps Band,
Marcia Smith 11:12
I’ll be doing okay. You are asking about what they found in space, the alcohol. So how bad is space traffic? Bob? Have we had a collision yet?
Bob Smith 11:22
intergalactic. Are you talking about in our solar system? around Earth? Or in the solar system? Yeah. around Earth? Yeah. Yeah. I think there have been collisions. There’s all kinds of space junk up there. Is that what it is?
Marcia Smith 11:33
Yeah, actually, it’s not as many as you think there’s only one right here that jumps out. 2009 a commercial satellite was struck by a Russian, they called it a rogue Russian military satellite. The impact which occurred at a relative speed of 26,172 miles per hour. Whoa, as imagine hitting something, it’s scattered some 10,000 pieces of debris in low Earth orbit. So
Bob Smith 12:02
one or both of these vehicles were traveling at that speed. Apparently, we don’t know. 10,000
Marcia Smith 12:07
pieces of how did they know it was 10,000 pieces?
Bob Smith 12:10
I don’t think they actually counted it up. They
Marcia Smith 12:13
just said how would you really when you think
Bob Smith 12:15
about it, I always worry about that being on the space station and something that’s that thing. It would rip right through it, then everybody dies.
Marcia Smith 12:22
We’re not. We’re
Bob Smith 12:24
not worried about everything. That’s why we’re down here safe on Earth. Okay, we’ll be back with more safe here on Earth. In just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 12:34
and Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 12:38
We’re back. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 12:39
I’m Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 12:40
And you’re listening to the off ramp? Marcia, you just had that question about the satellite collisions in space. Yeah. Let’s talk about something not quite that high. Okay. Okay. You’re familiar with the expression as high as a kite can fly? Yes. So how high was the highest kite flown?
Marcia Smith 12:57
Well, depends on the string.
Bob Smith 13:00
This is the Guinness Book of World Records. My favorite source?
Marcia Smith 13:03
Oh, Lord. Okay. Well, I’ll say it went up a mile.
Bob Smith 13:09
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the greatest reported height achieved by a single kite was 29,000 feet. So a little over five miles. The 3000 member American caterers Association considers 1000 feet the minimum for as high as okay. So you say it’s as high as a kite. It’s at least 1000 feet, or it could be five miles high. Just so you know. Take spot all right, faster than a speeding bullet. How fast is that?
Marcia Smith 13:38
How fast is a speeding bullet? Oh, how fast
Bob Smith 13:42
will the National Rifle Association says a standard 150 grain bullet fired from a 26 rifle travels at 2900 feet per second. That’s three times the speed of sound. Really? That’s how fast a speeding bullet travels. So Superman was pretty fast. Faster than speeding faster than three times the speed of sound. So
Marcia Smith 14:03
Wow. Well, Bob, do snakes have ears? Wow,
Bob Smith 14:08
I never thought of that. Another Marcia animal question. I love those.
Marcia Smith 14:12
Can they hear you coming back?
Bob Smith 14:14
Do snakes have? Isn’t there an animal that has like hears with its eyes or something like
Marcia Smith 14:19
that? I’m on snakes. Now Bob? Do they have ears? Well, I would assume yes. But no, they did not have ears and cannot hear airborne sound waves. But they perceive low frequency vibrations transmitted from the ground to their bones in their skulls. Wow. So that’s where they hear you come in is their heads rattling?
Bob Smith 14:41
So they’re feeling vibrations, animals and so that’s how they know how big it is how small it is. I could probably eat that. I’d probably tackle that.
Marcia Smith 14:50
They also don’t have a layer necks or vocal cords so they aren’t capable of noises except they can hiss
Bob Smith 14:58
Okay, since they can’t listen and they can’t speak. How do we know these facts? That’s what they tell us. No, apparently not.
Marcia Smith 15:05
But they can hiss. You don’t need a vocal cord for that. Well,
Bob Smith 15:09
we know they can hiss that’s for sure. Yeah. Okay, I got a couple more of these expression questions. It’s as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. That’s an old expression for a long time.
Marcia Smith 15:20
How solid is it? Yes.
Bob Smith 15:22
Is that a good thing? Is that solid is the Rock of Gibraltar solid?
Marcia Smith 15:25
Ah, yes, it is Bob. No, it’s
Bob Smith 15:28
not. According to the World Almanac, the Rock of Gibraltar which rises to a height of 1400 feet above sea level is riddled with
Marcia Smith 15:38
caves. Owl so
Bob Smith 15:39
it can very porous forests. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 15:42
Who knew? How about this one? Bob? Where is the largest cemetery in the world?
Bob Smith 15:48
Oh, the largest cemetery in the world. Now, I would think it might be a military cemetery or a battlefield cemetery and like, okay, and one of them.
Marcia Smith 15:57
It is a really big one up in Russia from the Second World War.
Bob Smith 16:01
Is that where this one is now? Okay. But it is a military cemetery. No. Oh. So it’s not like Arlington? No, it’s not one of those huge American cemeteries in Europe.
Marcia Smith 16:13
Yeah, but don’t it’s not that military doesn’t have anything to do with the majority of 5 million people buried there. Where is that? Iraq? It’s called Peace Valley in English. And it’s almost four square miles. And more than 5 million people are buried that but they are with a majority of them was Shia Muslims. And the rapidly expanding war on ISIS keeps filling it. Wow.
Bob Smith 16:38
So they’ve been they’ve been burying people there for centuries.
Marcia Smith 16:43
Four Square Miles you should see this Milly I looked at I looked at a drone going over this it just grave after grave after grave. It’s pretty amazing. So
Bob Smith 16:57
it was flying over the cemetery. Yeah, speaking of flight. Okay, here we go. I’ve got a question for you. Why are airplanes always white? Always high? They they’re almost always painted white or light colors?
Marcia Smith 17:13
Is it have something to do with reflection and sun and that’s right heat and you don’t want to absorb any heat. It’s hard to air conditioning those things. That’s
Bob Smith 17:22
exactly what it’s all about. Yeah, the reason aircraft are painted white or light colors is to reflect sunlight and minimize both the heating and the potential damage from solar radiation. So you’re right. You’re right, Marsha,
Marcia Smith 17:35
of course I am. So
Bob Smith 17:36
says John Hansmann, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. He says it’s basically the same as putting sunblock on technology lasts longer in cooler environments. So a cooler plain means the equipment will last longer, so that saves money. And finally, the color has some safety bonuses. White helps make cracks and damage more visible for technicians never thought about that. That comes from a very interesting article I found in Reader’s Digest. Why are planes white? Well,
Marcia Smith 18:04
that makes sense. What musician within the last few years had the highest grossing music tour ever combined with the highest audience attendance for this tour.
Bob Smith 18:16
You know, you mentioned the musician Drake a couple shows ago. Yeah, I would say somebody like that. Yeah. Or I would say somebody like Paul McCartney or something like yeah, you know, classic rock, but who is it?
Marcia Smith 18:27
It’s singer songwriter, Ed Sheeran, Sheeran. Okay. Yeah, he racked up $776.2 million dollars, and an audience of almost 9 million people. During the course. It was a two year marathon tour. Wow. And he performed 255 shows on six continents and he broke all the records for money and attendance. You
Bob Smith 18:50
know, think of the ordeal that must have been to all the traveling you’d see Mary Kay was? I don’t know. I don’t know. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 18:59
that is that’s that’s a lot of shows. Marcia,
Bob Smith 19:02
remember? Number of shows back we had a lot of questions on mountains.
Marcia Smith 19:06
Oh, yes. Well, I
Bob Smith 19:08
found another one here. Oh, hey, and I didn’t ask you. Oh, sure. Okay, so most people consider Mount Everest to be the world’s tallest mountain at 29,000 feet. But the world’s tallest mountain is actually in Hawaii. Why?
Marcia Smith 19:24
Why is that? Diamondhead? No, no. That’s about Kingdom.
Bob Smith 19:30
The world’s tallest mountain is actually in Hawaii. Why? Because of its enter ground? Yeah, it’s not fully above sea level. Yeah. What’s above sea level is high but it’s the whole thing is much bigger. Top to bottom. It’s taller than Mount Everest. The mountain is Mauna Kea, measured from sea level. It’s only 13,706 feet tall. It’s still a pretty tall mountain, but its base is actually at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and from there to the top. It’s 30,610 feet tall. It beats Mount Everest by approximately 1640 feet.
Marcia Smith 20:03
Somebody had to go down there and measure it from well, I don’t know. Wow. And
Bob Smith 20:08
there they are formed in two different ways. Mount Everest was formed by the collision of two tectonic plates, and it’s still growing taller. Mount Mauna Kea, I hope I’m pronouncing that right. ma una ke a, it’s a volcano part of the volcanic activity that formed the Hawaiian Islands. Okay,
Marcia Smith 20:25
can you name the oldest music video to reach 1 billion viewers on YouTube?
Bob Smith 20:32
The oldest music that Yeah, yeah, that’s the key. Yeah, oldest
Marcia Smith 20:36
one you’ve seen I’ve seen. Now
Bob Smith 20:39
does this go back? Long before the rock era? No, no. Okay. Is it Michael Jackson’s Thriller?
Marcia Smith 20:45
I would have guessed that. No. This has had 1 billion
Bob Smith 20:49
views. 1 billion. Okay.
Marcia Smith 20:51
What is it hits Queens Bohemian Rhapsody? Oh course it hit a billion last year in July, after the film came out. How bad is that? Yeah. And it was because we watched it right after the film. Because of that. It was almost 44 years old when it reached that milestone. So it had been around for 44 years. Wow.
Bob Smith 21:12
That’s pretty cool. Doesn’t seem right that Queens been 34 years ago, those songs that they don’t seem
Marcia Smith 21:18
like they were that long ago. No, it doesn’t. Wow.
Bob Smith 21:21
Okay, another question about an expression, not with a grain of salt. Okay. All right. What does a grain of salt weigh? In? It’s an actual unit of measurement. I don’t know. This is the way to look at it. There are 7000 grains of salt to a pound. So a grain of salt is 1/7000 of a pound. Okay. And the salt Institute. And there is one.
Marcia Smith 21:46
Of course what let’s go there on vacation this year, we
Bob Smith 21:49
went to the salt Institute, they said that US consumption is about 6000 tons of salt per year. That’s the whole population 84 million grains
Marcia Smith 22:00
of salt or hypertension. What’s a
Bob Smith 22:03
yes, there is a lot of hypertension. So
Marcia Smith 22:06
a grain of salt is 117 1000 pound. Okay. Very,
Bob Smith 22:11
very well. You almost had interesting, but you caught yourself.
Marcia Smith 22:15
Yeah, very, very that is interesting as this course not in 2015 Bob, our cracker cracker cracker was auctioned off in the UK. And it’s sold for $23,000
Bob Smith 22:32
Oh, cracker for $23,000. Hi, Bob. Why that’s like a piece of Queen Victoria’s birthday cake or something like that. It’s one of those kinds of
Marcia Smith 22:42
Yeah, it’s yeah, it’s history history. It is. It was a cracker salvage by a passenger from the Titanic when it sank in 1912. Holy
Bob Smith 22:51
cow, they sold it for $23,000. It was
Marcia Smith 22:55
part of the survival kit in the lifeboat, which, you know, not that many people escaped in. Geez. It didn’t look like a saltine
Bob Smith 23:06
WHY would you spend that much money on? For a little bit of history? That would be a little bit and watch your dog just comes up and starve sitting. There’s $23,000 gone. Oh my God, what do you fight? Oh, damn it. Come back. Oh, God. All right, another president. Okay. All right. What former president once owned the largest collection of books in America.
Marcia Smith 23:33
I’d present it I’m just gonna say Lincoln. He could he’d love to read. I sold it to the US government. He sold it through the US government.
Bob Smith 23:43
Okay, of the founding fathers which one would be most likely Thomas Jeff Thomas Jefferson. He had more than 6000 books. When the Library of Congress was burned by the British in the War of 1812. He offered to sell most of his library to the government and he did his 6487 books became the foundation for the new Library of Congress. Excellent.
Marcia Smith 24:06
All right. My last question. Can you name the person who set the record for getting the fastest 1 million viewers on Instagram?
Bob Smith 24:17
The person who set the record for getting 1 million
Marcia Smith 24:20
viewers in a shortest amount of time, but Instagram.
Bob Smith 24:25
It was a woman.
Marcia Smith 24:26
It’s a founding father. She
Bob Smith 24:28
posed naked. I guess we’re on two different paths here. All right. It’s a founding father. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 24:33
that’s the twist. really kidding.
Bob Smith 24:36
Oh, it’s not a founding phone now. Okay, who is it?
Marcia Smith 24:39
Easier easy. Someday cut it out. I’m sorry. Be nice. It was Jennifer and see I told you to girl she hit the 1 million mark. After being on for only five hours and 16 minutes last year in October. She posted a selfie of herself with her former co stars from friends on According to TV set Chow, there’s
Bob Smith 25:01
another that’s been years since friends was Izod. And this was in 2019. She had a million she
Marcia Smith 25:08
never had an Instagram account. So she created one because she was with her old buds and said, Let’s do a selfie. And I’ll post it and she did. And within, you know, little over five hours, you had a million hits. Wow.
Bob Smith 25:20
That’s amazing. Now, Marcia, we always usually close out with some fun stuff. And I’m sure you’ve got something fun. I’ve got a thought that’s interesting. You know, we get a lot of the things that we find interesting from the web, but you also get it from books. You know, that’s, that was the technology that brought us most of our information, those paper things for centuries. And this is a great quote from the scientist, astronomer and author Carl Sagan on the magic
Marcia Smith 25:47
of books, billions and billions of stars. This
Bob Smith 25:50
is from his Cosmos party. 11, the Persistence of Memory. So it’s pretty cool. Okay, what an astonishing thing a book is, it’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted. Lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it, and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody’s dead for 1000s of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other citizens of district epochs, or epics, books break the shackles of time a book is proof humans are capable of working magic. Carl Sagan. That’s,
Marcia Smith 26:37
that’s lovely. I’m gonna wrap up with two quick quotes. James Freeman, Clark, the difference between a politician and a statesman is a politician thinks of the next election and a statesman thinks of the next generation. They think it’s true, I think very true. And John Houston member him. Great film director. Yeah. He said, it’s easier to be a jackass than a great man. That’s why there are more jackasses than great men in the world. And that is absolutely true. As we close out this week, Oh,
Bob Smith 27:10
right. All right. Thank you so much for listening. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:14
I’m Marcia Smoove. Join us again next
Bob Smith 27:16
time for the off ramp. Hey, we did that together. That was pretty good to do. We coordinate things. After doing this for 30 weeks. I guess it’s about time we did something Is it
Marcia Smith 27:25
30 or 30 weeks? That’s how long that we’ve been in quarantine.
Bob Smith 27:33
Okay, and Winter’s coming. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
